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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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Beijing Issues Notice to Speed up Development of New Media

On September 26, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the State Council issued the “Opinions on Accelerating the Media’s In-depth Development.” They then issued a notice requesting that all authorities conscientiously implement it.

The “Opinions” asked, with all speed, to develop new mainstream media that is highly competitive and exerts a strong influence.

It also pointed out that “high-quality content, advanced technology, professional talent, and funding should be geared toward the Internet media and mobile platforms, effectively becoming the basis for emerging communication.”

The “Opinions” considers that it is necessary to “drive the development with advanced technology, make good use of the achievements of information technology such as 5G, big data, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, strengthen research on new technologies in the news communication, and promote the innovation of key technologies.”

The “Opinions” also mandates to make efforts to “tell Chinese stories well, and to spread Chinese culture.”

Source: People’s Daily, September 27, 2020
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2020-09/27/nw.D110000renmrb_20200927_2-01.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

LTN: U.S. Sanctions China’s Chip Maker SMIC

Major Taiwanese news network Liberty Times Network (LTN) recently reported that, according to an official document that the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued, the U.S. government has decided to apply export controls on goods sold to SMIC based on the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR) Section 744.21. The restriction is based on the fact that SMIC products are ultimately used for military purposes. The U.S. Department of Commerce has informed U.S. export companies about this decision. The document listed SMIC and its branches as well as directly related companies inside and outside of China. SMIC is China’s largest chip maker and Huawei’s only hope for a domestic supply of chips. However, SMIC depends heavily on U.S. technology for manufacturing equipment and software. Also, SMIC technology is generations behind leading chip-making vendors like TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company). This new U.S. sanction will place huge pressure on Huawei as well as the entire Chinese chip-making industry.

Source: LTN, September 26, 2020
https://ec.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/3304204

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology US-China Relations

RFA Chinese: Swedish Company MSAB Withdrew from Hong Kong

Radio Free Asia (RFA) Chinese Edition recently reported that Swedish technology company Micro Systemation AB (MSAB) announced its plan to leave the Hong Kong market and will no longer provide technical solutions to the Hong Kong Police and other Hong Kong government agencies. MSAB made its name in Hong Kong by assisting the police department in unlocking phones. MSAB also intends to leave the entire Chinese market. The company explained that the decision was made based on the fact that the U.S. dropped Hong Kong’s special status. It would rather not risk the possibility of suffering a U.S. sanction. MSAB’s technology resulted in some recent arrests of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, so the company is facing heavy criticism. At the same time, Canadian financial asset management company BMO and the Denmark retirement fund management company Akademiker Pension also announced plans to leave the Chinese investment market, including Hong Kong.

Source: RFA Chinese, September 24, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/htm/hk-evacuate-09242020072640.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

President of the Philippines: South China Sea Arbitration Ruling Cannot Be Challenged

Singapore’s primary Chinese language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao recently reported that President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte said in his UN speech that The Hague International Arbitration Tribunal’s 2016 South China Sea award cannot be challenged or downplayed. The Philippines is strongly against any attempt to destroy the Tribunal’s Ruling. Duterte did not name China in his speech. China did not honor the Tribunal’s award. However, the Duterte government took a pro-China approach when it came to power in 2016 with the hope of building a better relationship with China. The Philippines largely put The Hague’s South China Sea award on hold since then. In the past several months with the Covid pandemic, the Duterte government has started to lean towards the United States. Experts expressed the belief that the foreign policies of the Philippines are apparently changing.

Source: Lianhe Zaobao, September 23, 2020
http://www.uzaobao.com/cngov/2020-09/2378336.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Director of Religious Affairs: Christianity in China Is Completely Free from Foreign Influence

On September 23, Wang Zuoan, Director of China’s State Religious Affairs, who is also the Deputy Minister of the United Front Work Department, spoke at the 70th Anniversary of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement conference. He stated that, through the “Three-Self” patriotic movement, Chinese Christianity has completely gotten rid of the control and influence of foreign forces. He also emphasized that the “Sinification of Christianity” should be the main focus of religious work.

Wang said that he hopes that “the Chinese Christian community will focus on the following: the major changes unfolding in the world, something unseen in a century, the overall strategy of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and its earnest study, and the implementation of the important talks that Xi Jinping gave on religious issues and religious work.” Wang also stated that religious work should continuously enhance the “five identities.” This refers to the people of all ethnic groups recognizing the great motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the Chinese Communist Party, and socialism with Chinese characteristics.

In a separate speech, Rev. Xu Xiaohong, Chairman of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee, said that the committee “must always adhere to the direction of the Sinicization of Christianity in our country, and make a contribution to the realization of the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

The “Three-Self” movement is a movement that Chinese Christianity created after the CCP established its power. It is against foreign interference. It means “autonomy” (independence from foreign religious organizations), “self-support” (economic independence from foreign governments or foreign religious organizations) and “self-propagation” (preached and interpreted by Chinese missionaries) of the Chinese church. The Christian church that China officially recognizes is often called the “Three-Self Church.”

Since 2016, Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized the “Sinicization of religion” in his speeches. In addition to “Sinicization,” Xi Jinping also emphasized guiding “religion to adapt to the socialist society” and “using socialist core values to guide and educate religious people and believers.”

Sources:
1. Xinhua, September 24, 2020
http://www.xinhuanet.com/2020-09/24/c_1126537213.htm
2. Central News Agency. September 25, 2020
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202009250238.aspx

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Chinese Netizens Challenge China’s Spokesperson’s Comments on US COVID-19 Death Count

On September 25, Hua Chunying, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, once again tweeted and criticized the U.S. In the tweet, Hua wrote “200,000. This is not cold statistics but real lives. Without the right to survival, #HumanRights is only an illusion and nonsense.” At the same time, she attached a picture of a poster from the #COVIDMemorialProject with the following words, “In memory of the 200,000+ Americans who have needlessly lost their lives to COVID-19.”

After Hua’s remarks were posted on Sina Weibo, many people criticized them and made sarcastic remarks. By September 27, all the negative comments had been deleted. Below is the translation of some of those comments that were in the screenshot:

“Not sure how many deaths you (the CCP) have concealed! Have Americans been denied their human rights? Remember those people from Hubei (who died). Their names were not even reported.”

“You only care about fighting with foreign countries and don’t even care about the massive flooding in China!”

“Those who died in Wuhan do not mean anything! I prefer human rights rather than the right to survive. I own the right to survive and it has nothing to do with others.”

“The pigs in a pigpen are limited in their rights to survive. Do they have human rights?”

“The U.S. has compared human rights and freedom in the U.S. with what is going on in China (in the CCP), and China (the CCP) is now comparing its death toll with the death toll in the United States. China has taken the comparison and called its lower death toll a so-called victory. The CCP uses it as evidence that the Chinese people enjoy better human rights. Thus they deluded themselves that they have won a mental victory.”

“Auntie Hua, you are an Idiot. You will become a schizophrenic sooner or later.”

Comments were also left on twitter:

AbhiSpeaksStrait: “They have died because of the China Vi-Rus.”

Phantom： “What’s the real Chinese number?”

Jeri Carroll: “These numbers are not accurate. Most were in nursing homes. Most died from other medical conditions and it was then listed as COVID. It was fraud to the extreme in order to get federal money.”

Source:
1. Epoch Times, September 27, 2020
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/20/9/27/n12433654.htm
2. Twitter

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

CCP Created a Drinking Training Base in Xinjiang to Destroy Muslims’ Customs

A drinking training base was established in Korla City, Xinjiang, to change the customs of local Uyghur Muslims. It was used to have the Uyghurs drink in order to determine whether have given up their faith. Drinking alcohol is not allowed in Islamic law, but in Xinjiang, not drinking alcohol is regarded as a symbol of extremism.

The government also built the Wusu Brewery in Wusu City, in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang in order to lure Muslims to drink. The Brewery holds a beer drinking contest every year, bringing together all Xinjiang Kazakhs and Uighurs in every city to hold a beer drinking contest, focusing on women.

It was previously reported that during the Lunar Chinese New Year, the Xinjiang government would distribute pork to Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslims in the name of “helping impoverished ethnic minorities.” Muslims are also prohibited from eating pork. They were then asked to drink alcohol and perform Han dances. The authorities threatened Muslims that if they refused to celebrate the Chinese New year in accordance with the Han tradition, they would be sent to “re-education camps.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 24, 2020
http://https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/drink-09242020063227.html?encoding=simplified

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Chinese People Required to Report their Taiwan-related Family Relations

Recently, as the situation across the Taiwan Strait has intensified, Chinese authorities have strengthened control over people related to Taiwan. Those with immediate family members who have worked or resided in Taiwan for a long time are required to register.

A community notice that spread in the coastal city of Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province, showed that the Chinese government recently launched an investigation and requires the registration of those with immediate family members who have long-term working or residence status in Taiwan. The notice requires that, between September 22 and October 20, people with Taiwan-related relatives must go to the community Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee office to register. The notice did not mention the purpose of the registration.

An official from the Taiwan Affairs Office in Zhejiang province confirmed with Radio Free Asia (RFA) that it was the government that required such registration. The Taiwan Affairs Office did not issue the order. He denied that the matter is a routine practice instead of a response to the recent tension across the Taiwan Strait. “If you are immediate family members of people in Taiwan, you must first tell the community.”

Mr. Wu, a legal professional, told RFA that the control of overseas relations actually became the normal state after the CCP took over China. The difference is that when the bilateral relationship is relaxed, this kind of control is loose; when the relationship is tense, the government exerts stricter control. The CCP attempts to make use of these family relations to blackmail people overseas.

Often, since 1949, the Chinese people who have immediate family members overseas have  been subjected to brutal suppression in the name of “illicit (traitorous) relations with a foreign country.” After 1979, overseas family relations were, at times, the focus and target of the CCP’s united front work. Since Xi Jinping took office, overseas relations have again become sensitive.

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 24, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/htm/china-taiwan-09242020073820.html

Briefings | | |   Social Stability