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Wu Guoguang: Xi Jinping’s Reversal of the Course, Will China’s Transition be Peaceful or Marked with Bloodshed?

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Cheng Xiaonong: U.S.-China Strategic Relations Have Crystallized

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Xinhua Commentaries: “Exposing the Three Major Political Deficits of the U.S.”

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The CCP’s Performing Arts Troupes in the U.S.

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Xinhua: Wang Yi Attended the First Meeting of Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan’s Neighbors

Xinhua recently reported that, on September 8, Chinese State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi attended the first meeting of Afghanistan’s neighboring foreign ministers. Wang said Afghanistan today stands at the crossroads of history. China, as a neighbor, should seize the critical time window of the transition and exert a positive influence on the changes in the situation. China agreed to institutionalize the Afghan Neighboring Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. The first meeting was chaired by the foreign minister of Pakistan. The foreign ministers or deputies of Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan also attended the meeting. Right before the meeting, Dai Bing, Chargé d’affaires of the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations, said at the UN Security Council that the evolution of the Afghanistan issue shows that foreign military intervention will eventually end in failure. The hastily and disorderly withdrawal of a certain country’s troops from Afghanistan has caused Kabul to fall into chaos and turmoil, leading to a major humanitarian disaster.

Source: Xinhua, September 8, 2021
http://www.news.cn/mrdx/2021-09/09/c_1310177719.htm

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

State-owned Enterprises Ordered to Migrate to State-owned Cloud Services

China’s national data security law went into effect on September 1, 2021. Just days before it became effective, the China State Council’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) for Tianjin issued a directive mandating state-owned enterprises in Tianjin to accelerate data migration from cloud services of tech companies like Alibaba and Tencent to the state-owned infrastructure. Currently, Alibaba, Huawei, and Tencent dominate the cloud computing market in China.

In a directive dated August 12, 2021, Tianjin’s SASAC directed state-owned enterprises in Tianjin not to build new data centers, or purchase servers and other storage hardware. State-owned enterprises cannot renew or sign new contracts with cloud platforms owned by Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, China Unicom, China Mobile, and China Telecom. Data stored in these platforms must be migrated to cloud platforms controlled by SASAC within two months of the expiration of existing contracts, with the final deadline being at the end of September 2021.

Section 3(3)(1) on page 7 of the SASAC directive reads, “The data of state-owned enterprises are state assets and must be put under state-owned assets supervision and administration…”

Since early 2021, local SASACs have started local state-owned cloud platform projects. The essence of “state-owned cloud” is to shift from a cloud platform hosted by a third party to a state-owned cloud built and operated by local state-owned enterprises. In March 2021, Tianjin state-owned cloud started operation, with three state-owned enterprises, including Tianjin Communications Group and Tianjin State-owned Capital Investment and Operation Co., Ltd. In March, the SASAC of Zhejiang Province also initiated a project that included a state-owned cloud platform. In April, SASAC of Sichuan Province officially kicked off its state-owned cloud platform.

Sources:

Lianhe Zaobao, September 4, 2021
http://www.haozaobao.com/shiju/20210904/99713.html

State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Tianjin, August 12, 2021
http://www.d1net.com/uploadfile/2021/0827/20210827062000825.pdf

Yicai, September 7, 2021
https://www.yicai.com/news/101166263.html

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

China Has 149 “Aged” Cities

According to the internationally accepted standard, a region in which the percentage of the population aged 65 and over has reached 7 percent is called an aging society. When the population that is age 65 and over reaches 14 percent, It is called an “aged” society.  When those over 65 exceeds 20 percent, it is called a “hyper-aged” society.

According to China’s 7th National Census data, in 2020, 149 cities had a population in which those over 65 years of age exceeded 14 percent, thus becoming “aged” cities. In terms of regional distribution, 41 of them are from the eastern coastal region, 36 are from the northeast region, and 72 are from the central and western regions. Overall, the “aged” cities are concentrated in the northeast and the central region, the Yangtze River Delta, the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, and the Chengdu-Chongqing city clusters.

A major reason is the exodus of young adults and the low percentage of working age population. The eastern cities of Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang have many “aged” cities. In these more economically developed regions, the fertility rates tend to stay low.

Source: www.yicai.com, September 5, 2021
https://www.yicai.com/news/101164016.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

The Taliban Asked the U.S. to Release Afghanistan’s Frozen $10 Billion

Well-known Chinese news site Sohu (NASDAQ: SOHU) recently reported that the Afghan media quoted the Acting Minister of the Interior of the Taliban Provisional Government, Haqqani, as saying that the Taliban asked the United States to release Afghanistan’s frozen US$10 billion. Earlier, some news sources reported that the United States had frozen nearly $10 billion in reserve assets in the U.S. bank account of the Central Bank of Afghanistan. In addition, the Taliban also called on the United States to continue to supply Afghanistan with billions of dollars previously promised in aid. In the meantime, the Taliban asked the United States and the United Nations to remove the names of Taliban leaders from the sanctions list. The currently known assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan include foreign exchange cash reserves, which are largely in U.S. dollars. The amount is around US$362 million. Afghanistan’s gold reserves are valued at about US$1.3 billion. Most of the reserves are stored in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Afghanistan government has other investments worth US$6.1 billion, which are mostly in U.S. long-term Treasury bonds and short-term Treasury bonds.

Source: Sohu, September 9, 2021
https://www.sohu.com/a/488684475_162758

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Global Times: Chinese Warships Must Speed Up their Appearance at Guam and Hawaii

Global Times recently posted an article with the author’s name Hu Xijin, the newspaper’s Editor in Chief. Hu offered a response to the recent U.S. Navy’s freedom of navigation mission in the South China Sea. The Southern China Military Theater announced its navy and its air force responded with a warning and a “drive-away.” Hu said there are disputes between China and the United States. However, international law does not give any country the power to use warships to forcibly break into and challenge the sovereignty claimed by other countries. The reason the U.S. dares to do this is that only it has the power to do so. However, “China is getting stronger.” Just telling this truth to the U.S. is not enough. China needs to take active actions. In the not-too-distant future, the U.S. will definitely see the People’s Liberation Army appear at its doorstep, like Guam and Hawaii. Hu expressed the belief that, sooner or later, there will be an accident in the South China Sea and it will happen between China and the United States. The United States is the greatest threat to peace in the South China Sea, and it may eventually ruin the peace there.

Source: Global Times, September 8, 2021
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/-g6chvkpY_kg2IKhV2BwUw

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military US-China Relations

Diplomacy: CCP’s Domestic Report on “Xi Jinping’s Talk with Biden”

China Central Television (CCTV) reported that Xi Jinping talked to Biden on September 10. It reported that Xi Jinping criticized the U.S. for bringing difficulties to the U.S.-China relationship  and that Biden expressed that the U.S. is willing to bring the relationship back so it is on the ‘right track.’

“Xi pointed out that for a period of time, the U.S. policy towards China has brought serious difficulties to the Sino-U.S. relationship and that this does not meet the fundamental interests of the peoples of the two countries nor the common interests of the world. China and the United States are the largest developing country and the largest developed country, respectively. Whether China and the United States can handle their relations is critical to the future of the world, (and thus it) is the question of the century that both sides must answer well. If China and the U.S. cooperate, the two countries and the whole world will benefit; if China and the U.S. confront each other, then the two countries and the whole world will suffer. The relationship between China and the U.S. is not a multiple-choice question of whether it should be good, but rather a must-answer question on how to make it good.

“Biden said there is no reason for the two countries to get into conflict due to competition. He added that the U.S. has no intention of changing its ‘one-China’ policy. The U.S. is willing to engage in more frank exchanges and constructive dialogue with China, identify key and priority areas where the two sides can cooperate, avoid misunderstandings and miscalculations and accidental conflicts, and push the U.S.-China relations back to the right track.”

Source: CCTV, September 10, 2021
http://m.news.cctv.com/2021/09/10/ARTITj2vcOtfhgl4kNyB7T7d210910.shtml?prefer_safari=1&prefer_reader_view=1

Hot Topics | | |   US-China Relations

Housing Market in 66 Cities Plunged in August

In August, 21 cities including Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, and Shenyang issued over 30 real estate policies to curb the overheated market. A report from the Shell Research Institute suggested that the new housing sales in August in 66 cities across the country continued to decline. According to the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Housing and Urban-rural Development, existing housing sales in July fell by more than 80 percent compared to July 2020. In August, it reached a 10-year low with only 2,043 existing home sales, a plunge of 77.28 percent year over year.

The National Daily Business News reported that land sales in 300 cities was 226.4 billion yuan (US$35 billion) in August, a decrease of 17 percent from July and a year over year decrease of 49 percent.

Real estate financing does not look rosy either. There were 62 foreign bonds issued in August, a decrease of 27 from the previous month. The total financing was 57.1 billion yuan (US$8.86 billion), a decrease of 39.8 percent from the previous month and a decrease of 54.2 percent from the same period last year.

Real estate developers are also facing mounting pressure on debt payment. According to the Shell Research Institute, debt maturity of domestic and foreign bonds in August was approximately 119.6 billion yuan (US$18.56 billion), an increase of 3.3 percent from the previous month and 21.2 percent year-on-year. There were 16 bond defaults in August. Seven of those were in real estate when companies failed to pay principal and interest on time.

Source: Epoch Times, September 11, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/9/11/n13226905.htm

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

In 2020, China Signed $255.54 Billion in New Foreign Contracts

On September 9, the Ministry of Commerce published a report which stated that, in 2020, China signed US$255.54 billion in new foreign contracts with 184 countries and regions around the world. It made US$155.94 billion in contract revenue mainly in Asian and African markets.

The report also highlighted that 1) over 80 percent of the contracts were in Asia and Africa where new contracts accounted for 56 percent and 26.6 percent of the total revenue respectively. 2) Over half of the total contract revenue came from belt and road countries. In 2020, new contracts signed by Chinese companies in 61 countries along the “Belt and Road” amounted to US$141.46 billion which accounted for 55.4 percent of the total. The completed contract revenue was US$91.12 billion,  which was 58.4 percent of the total. 3) Over 75 percent of the foreign contracts are in infrastructure, architecture, electrical engineering and petrochemical. 4) The number of newly signed major foreign contracted projects increased. There were 904 major contracts worth over US$50 million, up by ten compared with 2019. Among those, 514 were contracts over US$100 million, an increase of eight compared with 2019.

Source: Central News Agency, September 9, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202109090393.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources