{Editor’s Note: China’s Deputy Foreign Minister Xie Feng held talks with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in Tianjin on July 26, 2021. Continue reading
Controversies around Chinese Gymnast’s Pick of “Anti-Japanese Music” at Tokyo Olympics
On Sunday July 25, in a qualifying match, Chinese women’s gymnastics player Tang Xijing, chose Jiu Er, the end credits song of the Chinese TV series Red Sorghum as the background music for the competition.
The TV series Red Sorghum, starring the Chinese actress Zhou Xun, is adapted from the novel by Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan. Set in Shandong Province during China’s war against Japan between 1937 and 1945, it tells the story of a man and a woman who ended up being killed by the Japanese for participating in the resistance movement.
For many Chinese people, Jiu Er is a familiar melody that reminds them of the TV series and stories of flighting against the Japanese invasion. In addition, Tang also chose a Chinese patriotic song Me and My Motherland for the competition.
Chinese netizens overwhelmingly expressed support for Tang’s pick of this anti-Japanese song for the Tokyo Olympics.
Some posted, “I want to cry when I hear this song; we are strong.”
“The main business is to win. The side business is to take revenge.”
“Not only will the national anthem be played on Japanese soil, but also anti-Japanese songs will be on the game field.”
“(The pick of Jiu Er) is to protest Japan’s provocations in its history of invasion and on its meddling in the Taiwan Strait.”
“When the motherland is strong, you can go to the home of the people who bullied you and hit them in the face.”
“Win win win, we’ve won in spirit.”
However, a few netizens pointed out that it is unethical and against the spirit of the Olympics to play an anti-host song on the host’s home turf. On Twitter, some Japanese netizens expressed their “discomfort” and said that Tang’s action was “deliberately insulting to Japan” and “disrespectful to Japan”.
Source: Lianhe Zaobao, July 27, 2021
http://www.czaobao.com/shiju/20210727/97286.html
People’s Daily: Chinese Central Bank Supports Shanghai to Lead the Free Use of RMB
People’s Daily reported that, at a recent State Council Information Office press conference, China’s central bank, The People’s Bank of China, stated that the Bank supports Shanghai in taking the lead on exploring a way to the free use of the Chinese Currency RMB, under the condition that the use should comply with regulations on anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing, and anti-tax evasion. This is to facilitate the flow of funds supporting trade investments. It is also to explore the free currency exchange mechanism for capital moving in and out of the Lingang New Area of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone. The new policy also helps Shanghai become an important hub and bridge the connection between the international and domestic markets under Shanghai’s new development framework. Not long ago, China’s State Council released a Guidance on supporting “Shanghai Pudong’s high-level reform and opening-up to create a leading area for socialist modernization.” The Guidance allows the expansion of financial openness, aimed at establishing an offshore financial system that matches Shanghai’s international financial center status, and at improving offshore RMB transaction volume with risk management.
Source: People’s Daily, July 20, 2021
http://finance.people.com.cn/n1/2021/0720/c1004-32163882.html
Potential Loopholes in Health Code Management in Nanjing
The city of Nanjing in eastern China has virtually been sealed off and residents advised to stay indoors after 31 new Covid-19 cases were reported on Tuesday, pushing the total number of coronavirus infections up to a claimed total of 112 in the ongoing outbreak. The Local government has used a color-based health code systems to control people’s movements and curb the spread of the coronavirus.
People with yellow health code are required to be isolated for 14 days and do three Covid-19 tests within a week. If the test results are negative, the health code will be switched to a green color and restrictive measures will be lifted.
On July 24, a pregnant woman accidentally discovered that her health code had turned yellow for no apparent reason. As a result, she was unable to have a maternity checkup or visit a doctor. The topic was then widely discussed on social media platforms.
Many people in Nanjing expressed on social media that they had never approached the vicinity of Nanjing Lukou International Airport, where the outbreak occurred, but their health codes changed from green to yellow overnight. The codes of students at Southeast University in downtown Nanjing also turned yellow, although many of them had not stepped outside the campus for quite some time. At the same time, some people reported that within a few days, their health code changed from green to yellow and then from yellow to green.
In addition to the unexplained color changes, the personnel management of those with the yellow code also has problems. Many yellow-coded personnel said they were not notified of isolation or Covid-19 testing.
Source: Central News Agency, July 28, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202107280247.aspx
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Announced Sanctions against U.S. Entities for HK
Well-known Chinese news site Sina (NASDAQ: SINA) recently reported that, on July 23, the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs commented in a press conference, due to the “new legal landscape,” on the U.S. Biden Administration’s latest official risk advisory for businesses, investors, individuals and academic institutions operating in Hong Kong. The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of the Treasury has included seven deputy directors of the Chinese Liaison Office in Hong Kong on the “Specially Designated Nationals List” and imposed financial sanctions. China firmly opposes this and strongly condemns it. Based on China’s Anti-Foreign Sanctions Act, China decided to adopt a reciprocal countermeasure and sanction the following: former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) Chairman Caroline Bartholomew, former office director of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Jonathan Stilworth, DoYun Kim from the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), Adam King, Authorized representative of the American International Republican Institute (IRI) in Hong Kong, Director of the China Department of Human Rights Watch Sophie Richardson, and the Hong Kong Democracy Committee (HKDC).
Radio France International (RFI) Chinese Edition later reported that the White House responded on the same day that the U.S. will not be afraid of this and will still strive to use all relevant sanction tools going forward.
Sources:
Sina, July 23, 2021
https://news.sina.com.cn/c/2021-07-23/doc-ikqcfnca8659876.shtml
RFI Chinese, July 23, 2021
https://bit.ly/3eQrlSy
Leadership: The CCP’s State Advisors
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a few political and ideological advisors. They are called the “state advisors.” The Epoch Times reported on four of them. All four came from Fudan University.
Wang Huning (王沪宁), a Standing Committee Member of the Politburo, is the top advisor to Xi Jinping. He also advised the previous two CCP top leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Thus he is called the “Three Dynasties State Advisor.”
Wang was affiliated with Fudan University for 17 years, from 1978 to 1995. First he was a graduate student then a professor, followed by department chair and dean of the School of Law. He is deeply connected to Fudan University and brought a few other Fudan scholars as “state advisors” to the CCP leadership.
Zhang Weiwei (张维为), Dean of the School of China Studies, Fudan University, was invited to lecture to the Standing Committee Members of the Politburo on May 31 on the topic of “Strengthening China’s International Communication Capabilities.” The details of Zhang’s talk were not available, but he said in an interview the next day that his diplomatic stand was that the CCP is right, but the world has a “malicious misinterpretation.”
Zhang’s advice to the Standing Committee Members was clear, “When it is time to punch, then punch; when it is time to mock then mock; and when it is the time to give out a loud shouting warning then give out a loud shouting warning.”
Zhang is known for talking down about the U.S. His infamous quotes include, “China has fully reached moderate prosperity for the entire nation, but the U.S. still has 40 million people living below the poverty line.” His book “China Is Fighting the Pandemic,” claimed the COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst for the world to tilt rapidly to the East while sending the West tumbling.
Another advisor is Zheng Ruolin (郑若麟), Researcher at the School of China Studies of Fudan University. Zheng frequently writes for the Shanghai Wen Hui Bao, the newspaper owned by the Shanghai Party Committee.
Zheng published articles that stated, “It is far from enough just to rely on the diplomat wolf warriors to fight the public opinion war.” Instead, media and scholars should all participate in that war. He suggested that China’s media “should assume the role of the main force” in the war of public opinion against the West. The most important thing to do is to “repeat, repeat, repeat;” and “a lie repeated a thousand times will really become the ‘truth’!”
Zheng also suggested supporting the “international friends” who speak for the CCP. “Some examples are: to purchase copyrights of their books to publish them to the world; give them China’s book awards or news awards; invite them to visit China; and hire them as professors at our universities. …”
Another advisor is Shen Yi (沈逸), Associate Professor at the Department of International Politics, Fudan University. He is known for his outlandish statements on nationalism and is popular among the people with extreme nationalist views.
On May 1, the CCP Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC) published a picture titled, “China Lit Fire vs. India Lit Fire.” The picture showed on one side China’ launching a rocket and on the other side India’s burning the bodies of people who died due to the COVID-19 virus (India was at its peak of suffering from COVID at that time). Many people, including Huanqiu’s Chief Editor Hu Xijin, criticized the picture for lack of empathy. The PLAC then removed the picture. However, Shen praised the picture on the social media, calling it the normal response to India’s “sultry slutty style.” He even blamed Hu Xijin for not being tough on this point and for issuing a surrender.
Source: The Epoch Times, July 19, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/7/19/n13099514.htm
A Quarter of Japanese Companies Consider Reducing or Withdrawing Investments from Hong Kong
Between July 2 and 9, the Consulate General of Japan in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong office of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and the Hong Kong Japanese Chamber of Commerce conducted a survey on the business environment in Hong Kong among more than 600 Japanese-owned companies and local catering companies operated by Japanese. The results showed that 56.5 percent of the respondents were “very worried” or “worried” about the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law. This represented an increase of 5.7 percentage points up from the previous survey in April.
When asked about the reasons for worrying about the national security law, most companies, (as high as 79.4 percent of them), expressed their worries about the “restricted information flow,” a surge of 13.8 percentage points from the last survey. 60 percent worried about “Hong Kong losing its ‘rule of law’ and ‘judicial independence,'” and 58.1 percent worried about “brain drain.” The rest of the reasons include “increased intervention from the Chinese government and a weakening of Hong Kong’s autonomy,” the “instability of Hong Kong society,” and the “ambiguous enforcement of the National Security Law.”
Although more than 60 percent of Japanese companies in Hong Kong believe “no change” in the current business environment compared to a year ago, many companies said that one year after the implementation of the national security law, some employees left Hong Kong with their children, some local distributors moved overseas, and 25.5 percent of the companies are considering reducing or withdrawing their investments from Hong Kong.
The survey also asked about the views of the those from the headquarters of Japanese companies in Hong Kong. 31.8 percent of the respondents gave a “pessimistic” answer. Many of them blamed the Japanese news reporting on Hong Kong. 46 percent of the companies said that the headquarters “urged them to reduce the size of their Hong Kong operations.”
Source: Radio Free Asia, July 267, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/jingmao/ac-07272021044949.html
13.7 million Chinese Sign Petition to Investigate U.S. Lab
The Chinese official media Global Times recently launched an online petition urging the international community to investigate whether the U.S. military’s Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory was the origin of the new coronavirus.
As of July 26, the petition was alive and the number of signatures has been growing over time. The signatories below the signature counter did not post any name, but simply stated that a “netizen” from somewhere in China had participated. The increase in the number of signatures is considerable. According to Global Times, the signatures began on July 17 and by July 22 more than 5 million people had signed. Just one day later, by midnight Beijing time on July 23, the number of signatures jumped to more than 9.4 million. By July 26, the number was over 13.7 million.
The petition is in response to an open letter allegedly signed by Chinese netizens in early June of this year calling for a WHO investigation into the U.S. Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory.
The letter claimed that the U.S. military’s Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory had a leak in the fall of 2019 on the eve of the Covid-19 outbreak, and that the U.S. side covered up the details in the interest of national security. This has led to concerns about whether the event was related to the coronavirus and to calls for a WHO investigation.
In fact, Fort Detrick has been a thorn in the side of Chinese officials since March of last year. Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai said last March that the notion that the virus came from a U.S. lab was crazy. However, according to the website of Foreign Policy magazine, from early March last year until now, Chinese officials and state media have mentioned the Fort Detrick lab more than four hundred times in articles, videos, tweets and press conferences and have repeatedly asked the lab to open up for China to send its staff to investigate.
The narrative linking Fort Detrick to the coronavirus in these conversations is that U.S. Army soldier Maatje Benassi brought the virus from the Fort Detrick to Wuhan in October 2019 while he was there for the World Military Games.
Richard H. Ebright, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, denounced this claim as utter nonsense, telling Radio Free Asia that the analysis of the genome sequence of the coronavirus extracted from humans indicates that this virus infected human bodies in or near Wuhan sometime around September to November 2019.
According to public information, the Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory, which is part of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), did receive a directive from the Centers for Disease Control to close in 2019. The New York Times reported that a USAMRIID spokesperson said at the time that the closure was primarily due to a lack of proper disinfection of the lab, but that there was no threat that would endanger public safety, nor was there any leakage of hazardous materials that would cause injury to anyone.
Source: Radio Free Asia, July 22, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/huanjing/wy-07222021111401.html