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China’s Reaction to Trump’s Election Win

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Xinhua Commentary Series: Spotlight on the U.S. Presidential Election

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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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Former CDC Director: Virus Originated in the Wuhan Virus Lab

While the WHO expert mission’s conclusions on the origin of the new coronavirus are still waiting for the Chinese side’s endorsement, Robert Redfield, the recently departed director of the CDC, told CNN on Friday that he believes the new coronavirus was “leaked” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), Chinese Academy of Sciences and began spreading in September through October 2019. There is no clear evidence that the new coronavirus was leaked from the WIV. Redfield emphasized that this is his “personal opinion.”

“I still think the most likely ideology of this pathogen in Wuhan was that it escaped from a laboratory. Other people don’t believe that. That’s fine,” Redfield told CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta. “Science will eventually figure it out.

“It’s not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in a laboratory to infect a laboratory worker,” Redfield said. He did not think it makes “biological sense” that the virus would be able to spread so well between humans if it had just made the jump from animals to humans. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been a focus of the theory that the virus escaped from a lab. “I do not believe this somehow came from a bat to a human.”

The WIV has a P4 virus research laboratory, which is the only scientific institution owned by China that can study the most virulent infectious disease viruses with the highest safety requirements. It is about 14 km from Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market.

Some scientists have long said that the new coronavirus could have come from an incident at the WIV, but a joint WHO-China expert panel came to the preliminary conclusion a few weeks ago that the hypothesis that the new coronavirus came from an incident at the WIV was “highly unlikely.” The panel proposed that the most likely scenario was that it was transmitted to humans through an unknown animal as an intermediate host to humans.

However, the WHO’s preliminary conclusions were highly controversial. According to later statements that the WHO experts involved in the mission made, the most critical issue was that China refused to provide the WHO experts with original data on the first patients who appeared in Wuhan, . In response, the Biden administration said it had “deep concerns” about the circumstances of the WHO expert mission and demanded that Beijing be transparent and release all information. The U.S. also called for a truly independent international investigation.

A year after the Wuhan outbreak, China finally agreed to a joint investigation that Chinese and international experts would conduct.   The final investigation report has been postponed several times, except for a highly controversial press conference on February 9. On March 5, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced that the joint investigation report should be released on March 15. Then on March 16, a WHO spokesperson announced that “It is highly likely that the report will be published next week.” Three days later, China responded via Western social networks that Chinese experts received the report in English on March 17 and that its release next week would depend on discussions between Chinese and international experts.

It has been pointed out that the report of the WHO Joint Expert Group on New Coronary Traceability Research, which is about 300 pages long, must be approved by more than 10 experts from China and the international community before it can be made public. After the publication, WHO will study the report and propose the next step to member states.

On March 4, more than 30 scientists wrote in the Wall Street Journal and the French newspaper Le Monde requesting an independent scientific mission to visit China and trace the origin. WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic responded that the WHO could neither get China to accept a fully independent investigation nor a report that would not be in its interest.

When the outbreak of the new corona virus occurred in Hubei, China, Le Monde reported that the current dispute between international scientists involved in the investigation and the Chinese side may be over. Although Chinese authorities tried to get the outside world to accept that the outbreak occurred in December, additional information suggests that it was much earlier. The March 18 issue of the Science journal cites the latest research that points to human-to-human transmission of the new corona outbreak in Hubei in October 2019.

Source: Radio France International, March 26, 2021
https://rfi.my/7FlN.T

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Think Tank’s New Academic Freedom Index: China in the Bottom Tier; Hong Kong Lower than Russia

The Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI), an independent non-profit think tank based in Berlin, recently published an update of the Academic Freedom Index (AFI), a measure that compares the state of academic freedom in countries worldwide.

The index is composed of five expert-coded indicators that capture key elements in the de facto realization of academic freedom: (1) freedom to research and teach; (2) freedom of academic exchange and dissemination; (3) institutional autonomy; (4) campus integrity; and (5) freedom of academic and cultural expression. A given issue is assessed by multiple, independent experts for each country in each year based on a pre-defined scale. Some 2,000 experts – typically academicians in the respective country – have so far contributed such assessments. The ratings of individual coders are aggregated into country-year scores for each indicator. In the dataset, the index is complemented by some additional, factual indicators, assessing states’ de jure commitments to academic freedom at (6) constitutional and (7) international levels, as well as (8) whether universities have ever existed in a given country.

The index for each country is a score between 0 and 1. For a global comparison of AFI scores, GPPI grouped 170 plus countries into five groups, assigning “A” status to all countries with an AFI score of between 1.0 and 0.8, “B” status between 0.8 and 0.6, “C” status between 0.6 and 0.4, “D” status between 0.4 and 0.2, and “E” status
between 0.2 and 0.0.

China, with a score of 0.082, remains one of the least academically free countries, along with North Korea, Cuba, and Syria, in the lowest rated E category.

Most of the countries with an A grade are European and North American countries. Belgium and Latvia, at 0.97 each, tied for the championship, followed by Italy with 0.969. The United States and the United Kingdom scored 0.901 and 0.915 respectively, also an A status.

Taiwan is ranked with an A grade with a score of 0.874, joined by South Korea, Nepal and Mongolia, making it one of the few Asian countries in the top tier. Japan was rated with a B grade this year with a score of 0.711, while Singapore fell into C with a score of 0.466.

It is interesting to note that Hong Kong is rated D with an index of 0.348, in the same level as Uganda, with a score even lower than Russia (0.374), Cambodia (0.381) and Vietnam (0.377).

Hong Kong’s Academic Freedom Index has dropped significantly by more than 0.15 points over the past five years. Other countries whose scores have fallen by more than 0.15 points in recent years include Brazil, Nicaragua, Zambia, Turkey and Colombia.

Source: Global Public Policy Institute, March 11, 2021
https://www.gppi.net/2021/03/11/free-universities

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

CCP Think Tanker on China’s Strategy to Win Global Hegemony and Put the U.S. under CCP Control

On July 23, 2016, Jin Canrong, Professor and Associate Dean at the School of International Studies of Renmin University and a senior fellow at the Institute of American Studies (IAS) at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), gave a two day talk at the Southern Club Hotel in Guangzhou. Jin is a well-known expert in China on the U.S.-China relationship. He is famous for his speech made in 2018 when defining the U.S.-China relationship as “Win-win, which, in China, means China wins twice.”

During the two-day conference, Jin touched on many issues including the South China Sea, Taiwan, and the U.S.-China political trend. The original text has over 105,000 words. Even though the talk was given four years ago, it is shocking to see that, one by one, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has actually carried out these U.S. strategies that he had talked about.

Below is a partial summary of his talk on the U.S.-China relationship and on strategies.

China’s goal is to win global hegemony and put the U.S. under China’s control

A country will grow through three stages to become a superpower: ensure its own survival, sustain growth, and gain respect. For China and the US, however, there is a fourth stage which is to win global hegemony. In China, Mao Zedong solved the survival issue. Deng Xiaoping enabled China to grow. Xi Jinping is trying to gain respect in the world. Once China gains equal power with the U.S., it will be the CCP’s next generation leader’s responsibility to put the U.S. under China’s control.

China can compete with the U.S. because it has powerful resources, a long history, and an industrial capability. Unlike the former leaders in China, Xi Jinping has the courage to define China as a global power. China’s rising power has disrupted the world’s order. Xi’s global strategy includes the Belt and Road Initiative and the Asia-Pacific Free Trade Zone. The goal of the Belt and Road Initiative is to integrate the two industry bases – China and Germany – together, and then there is nothing left for the U.S. This has posed a fundamental challenge to the U.S. China has also set up the New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, established the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone, and built islands in the South China Sea.

China has been Stealing Technology from the U.S.

China and the U.S. are closely tied economically, but they treat each other as their number one enemy when it comes to military power. Americans think that we use the Internet to steal technology from them. This may also be true. We have a large industrial power, but we lag behind in technology. … In the past 30 years, we have been importing technology. Germany helped us the most. Germany accounts for 46 percent of China’s technology imports. The U.S. has the best technology in the world, but they won’t sell it to us. If you don’t sell, we won’t be shy either. There was no Internet before, but now we have the Internet. Of course, we use it. The U.S. believes that China is the country that steals everything over the Internet, even the personal files of its federal employees. Of course, technology is the most important. They think that many key technologies like our J-20 and Dongfeng 41 were stolen from them.

There are eight conflicts that China has with the U.S.
1. China is challenging the U.S. in the regional leadership position in the Asia Pacific region;
2. China’s rising military power poses a threat;
3. China is becoming more competitive in space, the Internet, electronics and other areas;                                                                                   4. China is upgrading its industrial capability and internationalizing its renminbi;
5. China declared the goal of starting ocean development and becoming a superpower in the ocean;
6. China’s inner circle has started to have different opinions and it is becoming harder to reach consensus on various policies;
7. China’s political model is a challenge to the U.S.;
8. The U.S. is getting hard to deal with and unpredictable.

China’s Long-Term Strategies in Dealing with the U.S.

China is trying different ways to deal with the U.S. For example, it is creating conditions for the U.S. to make mistakes; keeping the U.S. so occupied to the point that it wants to give up fighting China; and building a close relationship with the U.S. so it can’t fight back.

So what are China’s U.S. strategies?

1. Maintain our growth. As we continue to grow, we will reach a point where the U.S. must accept us.

2. Actively expand ourselves without directly confronting the U.S. For example, when the U.S. was in the war in Syria and busy dealing with the Ukraine, we started to build islands in the South China Sea. In June 2015, after the U.S. found out that we were building the islands, we immediately told them that we would stop the project. The real reason that we stopped was because it was the hurricane season and was too dangerous for the project to continue. Also, we needed the time to solve a technical issue of turning the sand from the sea into the land, but we kept the U.S. happy for a few months.

3. Expand cooperation with the U.S. When we increase collaboration with the U.S., it will make the competing/confronting areas smaller in the total scale of things and will make it easier to for us to resolve issues.

4. Strategically take on more international responsibilities. We have taken on more international roles than before and also we are willing to cooperate with the U.S. on those things – this is actually a tactic.

Another strategy is called “Go Deep into the U.S.” Our goal is to make business investments in every congressional district, so that we can hold a thousand or several thousands of votes in each congressional district. This will affect the representative’s position. In fact, we can control U.S. House of Representatives. The U.S. has 312 million people and 435 in the House of Representatives. The average congressional electoral district has a population of 750,000. If the voting rate is only 30 percent, about 200,000 people will vote and determine a Congress person. Generally, in a tight race, the difference between two candidates is not that big. I estimate that a close race will be determined by 10,000 or a few thousand votes. So if you have a few thousand votes in your hand, you are calling the shots. If we do well, we can buy (invest in) the U.S. and turn the U.S. Congress into the second (CCP-controlled) People’s Congress Standing Committee.

Of course, we can also have other evil tricks, such as make the world more chaotic, so the U.S. had to deal with more than one enemy. Our strategic goal is to ensure there are four enemies for the U.S. The terrorists are one, Russia can be one, and we need to get more. Brazil is possible and China put a lot of effort into preparing it, but it has not seemed to work out. Another trick is we can have the U.S. trapped in debt crisis.

Source: Jin Can Rong Fan.com, August 29, 2016
http://www.jcrfans.com/html/2016-08-29-1024.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

S.E.C. Issues Amendments to Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act

On March 24, 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission adopted interim final amendments to implement the congressionally mandated submission and disclosure requirements of the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCA Act).

On December 18, 2020, the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act became public law. Most significantly, the Act requires the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to prohibit the securities of foreign companies from being listed or traded on U.S. securities markets if the company retains a foreign accounting firm where the books cannot be inspected by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) for three consecutive years, beginning in 2021, because the accounting firm is located in a foreign jurisdiction that does not permit PCAOB inspection.

As required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the auditor of financial statements of companies whose securities are listed on a U.S. securities exchange— whether a U.S. auditor or a non-U.S. auditor — must be registered with, and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of, the PCAOB.

China’s state security laws, including governing the protection of state secrets and national security, have been invoked in recent years to limit the ability of the PCAOB to oversee PCAOB-registered audit firms in mainland China and Hong Kong. As a result, for certain China-based companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges, the SEC and PCAOB have not had access to the books and records and audit work papers of PCAOB-registered firms in China and, to the extent their audit clients have operations in China, Hong Kong. Due to these obstacles, investors or potential investors in U.S. capital markets who rely on the audit reports of PCAOB-registered firms in China and Hong Kong are deprived of the potential benefits of PCAOB inspections of these auditors.

The Act directs the SEC to prohibit securities of any registrant from being listed on any of the U.S. securities exchanges if the auditor of the registrant’s financial statements was not subject to PCAOB inspection for three consecutive years, beginning in 2021. As an example, a registrant whose financial statements are not subject to PCAOB inspection would be prohibited from being listed on any U.S. securities exchange starting with the registrant’s filing of its 2023 annual report filed in early 2024. The Act further directs the SEC to prohibit the trading in such securities in the U.S. over-the-counter market.

The Act requires additional disclosures. Specifically, each foreign registrant that files an audit report not subject to PCAOB inspection should disclose:

The percentage of shares of the registrant owned by governmental entities in the foreign jurisdiction where the registrant is incorporated or organized;
Whether governmental entities in the applicable foreign jurisdiction have a controlling financial interest with respect to the registrant;
The name of each official of the Chinese Communist Party who is a member of the board of directors of (i) the registrant or (ii) the operating entity with respect to the registrant; and
Whether the articles of incorporation of the registrant (or equivalent organizing document) contains any charter of the Chinese Communist Party, including the text of any such charter.

The HFCA Act requires the SEC to issue rules within 90 days of the date of enactment to establish the manner and form in which registrants must comply with the documentation submission requirement. SEC is issuing the interim final amendments to comply with this 90-day deadline.

Source: Securities and Exchange Commission, March 24, 2021
https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2021-53

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Switzerland’s First China Strategy Report

For the first time, on Friday, March 19, 2021, the Federal Council of the government of Switzerland adopted a public strategy for China. The Strategy sets out the objectives and measures for Swiss policy on China for the period from 2021 through 2024.

“The new China Strategy represents the Federal Council’s response to current geopolitical developments. Neither growing competition between major powers nor polarisation around China and the US is in Switzerland’s interests.”

The report says that its China policy is based on three principles: pursuing an independent policy on China, advocating the inclusion of China in the liberal international order, and a balanced, coherent and coordinated approach to China. It lists four thematic focus areas: peace and security including a human rights dialogue; prosperity such as trade, investment, education, and tourism; sustainability with a concentration on climate and the environment, health, a sustainable financial sector; digitalization, or “intact digital space that is governed by the principles of international law.”

According to Deutsche Welle, the Chinese Embassy in Switzerland responded to the Swiss “China Strategy” document on March 22, saying that although the document recognizes China’s great achievements in economic development and makes a positive assessment of Sino-Swiss relations, Beijing criticizes Switzerland for making unfounded accusations and attacks on China’s political system, minority policies and human rights development.

The Chinese embassy wrote in a statement: “Switzerland has attached some malicious labels on China and sent wrong signals to the outside world. These statements deviate from basic facts and are not conducive to the healthy development of Sino-Swiss relations. China expresses its firm opposition to this.”

Source: the official website of the Swiss Government
https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start/documentation/media-releases.msg-id-82757.html
Deutsche Welle, March 22, 2021
https://p.dw.com/p/3qwPc

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

China’s Wanda Gave up Control over AMC

Well-known Chinese news site Sina (NASDAQ: SINA) recently reported that AMC, the largest movie theater chain in the United States, just revealed that China’s Wanda Group has given up its control of the company after AMC’s record loss of US$4.6 billion in 2020. The Wanda Group acquired AMC in 2012 with US$3.1 billion. Now Wanda’s holds only 9.8 percent AMC’s shares with voting power. However, Wanda still keeps two seats on the AMC board and remains the largest shareholder. Currently AMC has no controlling shareholder. Last year due to the deep impact of Covid-19, AMC attendance dropped by 90 percent. Since last December, AMC has raised more than $1 billion to sustain its operations. With the AMC acquisition, Wanda once planned to grab 20 percent of the global movie theater market. Later it also acquired Odeon & UCI, Nordic and Carmike. However, the situation has gone downhill since 2017. Citing high operating costs. Wanda has been losing money across all of its businesses and started selling off all its assets outside of China.

Source: Sina, March 16, 2021
https://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2021-03-16/doc-ikkntiam2977248.shtml

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources US-China Relations

RFA Chinese: Vietnam Bought Large Quantity of Vaccines from the West and Russia

Radio Free Asia (RFA) Chinese Edition recently reported that Vietnam has placed orders to acquire a large quantity of Covid-19 vaccines from the United States, Great Britain and Russia. The only missing source of supply is China. The Health Bureau of Ho Chi Minh City recently submitted a proposal to import five million doses of Moderna’s new Covid-19 vaccine from the United States. The Ministry of Health of Vietnam is also negotiating with other American manufacturers to obtain more vaccines. In February, Vietnam received 117,000 doses of the vaccine from the United Kingdom. At the end of February, Vietnam also approved Russia’s Satellite-V vaccine, possibly ordering a total of 150 million doses. However, Vietnam has never bought a single dose of vaccine from neighboring China. This is in sharp contrast with other ASEAN countries. Analysts have said that Vietnam remains very cautious about the Chinese vaccine since China never played any importance in international vaccine developments before. In the meantime, Vietnam’s attitude towards China is also more complicated. It doesn’t want to follow China too closely.

Source: RFA Chinese, March 14, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/5-03142021125113.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Xinhua: The U.S. Considers Rebuilding First Fleet

Xinhua recently reported, based on various U.S. media sources, that the United States Navy is considering rebuilding the Naval First Fleet, in order to counter China’s growing maritime power. General Philip Davidson, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said that General Aquilino, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, is studying the pros and cons of rebuilding the U.S. First Fleet. In November last year, Kenneth Braithwaite, then U.S. Secretary of the Navy, stated at a Senate hearing that he would rebuild the First Fleet and deploy it to the Indo-Pacific region. Currently the Seventh Fleet, headquartered in Japan, is largest frontline fleet of the U.S. and is the only one stationed in the Asia-Pacific region. The First Fleet was founded in 1947 and discontinued in 1973. American military experts expressed the belief that, if the First Fleet is rebuilt, Singapore or Australia would both be good choices for its home base. The Spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Defense commented that the U.S. is once again playing the old game of establishing a fake enemy in order to get more funding. China firmly opposes this Cold War mentality. He also called for US-China military cooperation and proper management of differences.

Source: Xinhua, March 16, 2021
http://www.xinhuanet.com/mil/2021-03/16/c_1211069110.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations