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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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Yiyang County Policing Model: Frequent Village Visits and Small Grids for Control

People’s Daily highlighted the policing model used by the Yiyang County Public Security Bureau in Jiangxi Province, praising it as “a model for the new era” adhering to the communist party’s “Fengqiao Experience” (using the populace to monitor and control the populace).

The policing model used in Yiyang County is called “Big Visits + Small Grids.” Police officers perform frequent visits to the villages assigned to them. They organize large-scale visits called “Meeting Police in Every Village,” where police officers from police stations patrol and visit their assigned villages at least once a day, officers from the bureau hold discussion sessions at their assigned villages at least once a month, and all police officers return to their hometown villages during holidays.

The county police utilize the Internet to implement “grid control.” They have established over 1,100 WeChat groups covering more than 180,000 residents. In addition, they have established a “Police-Community Integration” system, dividing the entire county into 19 large “policing grids” and 51 small “policing grids.” All these “policing grids” are integrated into 123 smaller “Internet grids.” The Internet grid controllers, who are familiar with the “people, land, events, and relationships” in their grids, can respond in a timely manner to public demand and report major incidents immediately. According to People’s Daily, this new grassroots governance model ensures that “people move within the net, events are taken care of within the grid, and both major and minor issues are managed within the grid.”

Source: People’s Daily, May 7, 2024
http://society.people.com.cn/n1/2024/0507/c1008-40230351.html

Briefings | | |   @CS Government/Politics Social Stability

Trade Volume of 2024 Canton Fair Beats 2023 but is Lower Than 2019 Volume

The 135th Canton Fair (2024 Spring Canton Fair) was held in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, from April 15th to May 5th. The onsite (i.e. non-online) export transactions amounted to $24.7 billion, while online export transactions reached $3.03 billion, totaling $27.7 billion. A total of 246,000 overseas buyers from 215 countries and regions visited the site.

The total export transactions in 2023, including online and on-site, were $25.11 billion. In 2019 (before the COVID pandemic) the total reached $29.73 billion.

Sources:
1. Xinhua, May 5, 2024
http://www.xinhuanet.com/fortune/20240505/5ccabf0fa93840109af17873b9a75eb8/c.html
2. Radio Free Asia, May 8, 2023
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/jingmao/hcm-05082023090035.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

X Platform Suspends Many Chinese Accounts That Criticize CCP

Recently, many social media users found their X platform accounts critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) suddenly suspended without warning or explanation, and they were unable to appeal.

For example, Yang Caiying, who lives in Japan, said that her account was suspended because she shared information (found on the Internet) about CCP officials who persecuted her family members. Her friend’s X account was also suspended for mentioning some corrupt Chinese officials. Her repeated appeals to X yielded no results. “These days, I appeal twice every day. The first response always comes quickly, citing repeated violations of the rules leading to permanent suspension. My second appeal hardly got any response. I asked X to provide me the tweets supposedly violating their rules, but they didn’t provide the tweets nor did they offer any explanation. Their actions are just like those of the Chinese government.”

A social media user collected information from more than a hundred netizens who reported their accounts being suspended on May 3rd.

People suspect that X has a list of accounts targeted for suspension. The account “Nike in Australia” (Nike在澳洲) said, “R.I.P. I really didn’t expect my account to die on World Press Freedom Day, May 3rd. Perhaps, this platform will become more and more like Weibo. Maybe we’ll have to use puns in our tweets in the future. We all know that he [Elon Musk] went to China for one day, and the ban on use of his car’s [Tesla’s] Full-Self Driving capabilities in China was removed. But when he came back, before sitting for long enough to warm his seat, he started suspending accounts (that the CCP does not like). Apparently, dictatorship can be contagious; for money, so-called ‘values of freedom’ can also be sold.”

Source: Epoch Times, May 7, 2024
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/24/5/7/n14242524.htm

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

VOA on CCP’s Anti-US Propaganda Campaigns

Voice of America has summarized how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has obstructed public awareness of certain international events over the past year by exaggerating, distorting, and confusing the facts.

U.S. college students protest to show the ineffective governance of the United States

Chinese media have extensively covered protests on American campuses. Videos of the protests were shared on major Chinese social media platforms. Some state-level media outlets characterized these protests as expressions of public dissatisfaction with the U.S. government. “Can suppressing students with violence really silence the discontent of the domestic population toward the government?” asked a People’s Liberation Army commentary article on April 26th. On April 29th, the CCP-owned newspaper People’s Daily claimed in a video that American students protested because they “couldn’t stand the double standards of the United States.”

Wang Yaqiu, director of the Freedom House, said that this “ineffective governance” rhetoric has been effective in some developing countries since those countries suffered under Western colonialism and are relatively more receptive to Chinese propaganda.

The Hawaii wildfires as another example of ineffective governance in the United States

In August 2023, wildfires swept through Maui, Hawaii. Chinese “information warriors” promoted a conspiracy theory suggesting that the fires were not natural disasters but rather the result of weather weapon experiments by the U.S. military. A report by NewsGuard found that, from August to September, at least 85 social media and blog accounts spread similar posts and videos claiming that the British Secret Service (MI6) had exposed the U.S. military for deliberate arson on its own territory. NewsGuard believes there is “strong evidence” that Chinese users were behind the dissemination of the false information. Some Weibo users remarked, “A country that claims to be the most developed on Earth can’t even handle a wildfire?”

Israel-Hamas conflict to advance anti-American and anti-Israeli narratives

Ever since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th last year, the Chinese authorities have appeared to maintain a neutral stance on the conflict. On the heavily censored Weibo social media platform, however, commentators and netizens have clearly sided with Hamas and condemned Israel for committing genocide.

“In the Palestinian-Israeli war, it is clear that Israel is the aggressor, but the United States openly supports Israel, providing massive military assistance and not even recognizing Palestine as an independent country… In the Russia-Ukraine war, the United States is playing a completely different role: it is the self-proclaimed savior of Ukraine, demanding guns for guns and cannons for cannons. Why does the United States have such double standards… and how does it switch between the sword of evil and justice so freely?”

Ahmed Aboudouh from the Chatham House believes that China’s narrative “successfully enhances Beijing’s image in non-Western societies and supports its efforts to be seen as a global power.”

Interference in the Taiwanese presidential election via false information

Taiwan held a presidential election earlier this year. During the period before the election, China launched a large-scale hybrid warfare campaign. This included the strengthening of military activities, imposing trade sanctions, and conducting large-scale disinformation campaigns online.

One central theme of the information war narrative was skepticism towards the United States, propagating the ideas that the U.S. would eventually abandon Taiwan, that the U.S. lacks the strength to protect Taiwan, and that the U.S. is the root cause of global conflicts. These narratives were intended to drive a wedge into U.S.-Taiwan relations.

A report by the Taiwan Information Environment Research Center showed that, between 2021 and 2023, 84 different narratives of “skepticism towards the United States” circulated in the Taiwanese media environment. “The CCP is the largest foreign influence source of skepticism towards the United States,” the report stated.

According to a November 2023 opinion poll, these information warfare activities have yielded some results. The trust that Taiwanese people have in the United States decreased by about 10 percentage points from 2021 to 2022. In 2023, this figure reached 33.9 percent.

Source: VOA, May 3, 2024
https://www.voachinese.com/a/7594059.html

Briefings | | |   @CS Government/Politics US-China Relations

China Expands Identification and Monitoring of Low-Income Population to Promote Stability

There are at least 66 million low-income people living in China. Concerned about social stability, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs recently ordered local governments to strengthen the identification and monitoring of low-income populations. The order’s aim is to better play the role of social assistance in “ensuring basics, preventing risks, and promoting development”, weaving a tighter safety net for people’s livelihoods and helping them out of poverty.

Chinese authorities are calling for poverty alleviation to stabilize society. In October 2023, the Ministry of Civil Affairs stated that the national dynamic monitoring information platform for low-income populations had collected basic information on over 66 million low-income people, about 4.7% of the total population. This includes nearly 40 million people receiving minimum living allowances, over 4.6 million living in extreme poverty, and over 6 million members of households that are just above the poverty line.

According to Chinese media reports, the Ministry of Civil Affairs recently issued a notice identifying low-income groups. Households with per capita incomes below 1.5 times the local minimum living standard and assets meeting local regulations are classified as being at the minimum living standard boundary. Households with per capita incomes below the previous year’s local disposable income level, assets meeting regulations, and necessary expenditures like medical and education exceeding a certain proportion of total income are classified as having difficulty with rigid expenditures.

The new order from the Ministry of Civil Affairs requires localities to comprehensively identify minimum living standard boundary households and rigid expenditure difficulty households, in addition to identifying recipients of minimum living allowances and those living in extremely poverty.

On strengthening the monitoring of low-income populations, the goal of “risk prevention” requires gradually expanding the scope of monitoring efforts to include other “difficult people” identified by local governments and other potential low-income groups, incorporating them, too, into the dynamic monitoring platform with stratified management.

The government stressed the importance of making the public aware of how monitoring helps prevent risks and alleviate difficulties. “It aims to leverage grassroots party organizations to guide employable low-income people towards self-reliance, employment assistance, and industrial aid to escape poverty.”

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), May 5, 2024
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202405050193.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Sluggish Consumption During China’s May Day Holiday

During the 5-day May Day holiday in China, consumption appeared to be sluggish. While the number of domestic tourists increased by 7.6% compared to the same period last year, the average spending per tourist was relatively low, at 113 yuan ($16.5) per day, lower than the 151 yuan in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

A report by economist Zhong Zhengsheng analyzed consumption during the holiday in three areas: domestic tourism, outbound tourism, and movie box office receipts. The report stated that the long holiday provides an important window into domestic demand in China.

Domestic tourism saw 295 million tourist trips and a total spending of 166.89 billion yuan, up 12.7% year-on-year. Adjusting for the shorter 4-day May Day holiday in 2019, however, tourist trips recovered to 128% of 2019 levels, but average spending per tourist was only 88.5% of 2019.

For outbound tourism, Chinese tourists going to Singapore, Japan, Thailand, the U.S., South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Australia, Myanmar and Indonesia accounted for 60.7% of all outbound travelers.

China’s movie box office revenue was 1.5267 billion yuan during the holiday, up 0.4% from last year but only 91.4% of the 2019 daily average when adjusted for the shorter holiday that year.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), May 7, 2024
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202405070308.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Warrantless Phone Searches Allowed Under New Chinese National Security Regulations

On April 26th, China’s Ministry of State Security announced two law enforcement regulations which state that local law enforcement officers will be granted the power to inspect electronic devices. This means that, beginning on the implementation date of July 1st, tourists visiting China may have their phones or laptops checked by local officers. Customs officers in Shenzhen and Shanghai have already started randomly checking phones and laptops of incoming travelers.

The new “Administrative Law Enforcement Procedures” and “Criminal Case Procedures” regulations allow state security officers, with approval from superiors at the municipal level or above, to legally inspect individuals’ and organizations’ electronic devices, facilities, applications and tools. In emergencies, officers only need approval from municipal-level superiors to inspect someone’s devices on the spot after showing their police or investigator credentials.

A Ms. Jiang returning from Shenzhen told Radio Free Asia that she saw customs officers checking a female tourist’s phone at the border, asking if she had any other phones. Mr. Shao from Shanghai said he witnessed customs officers searching a man’s phone after returning from Japan recently.

A Chinese legal scholar Lu Chengyuan said the regulations aim to create an atmosphere of self-censorship and fear of contacting foreigners or using encrypted messaging apps like Signal, violating constitutional free speech rights. He criticized the decision to allow administrative law enforcement officers to search phones without first obtaining a judicial warrant, calling it a blatant violation of privacy rights.

Another scholar, Mr. Liu, said that extending the justification of national security into people’s everyday lives has created an omnipresent atmosphere of state security terror. The regulations lack clarity on what qualifies as an “emergency” allowing officers to search phones.

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 7, 2024
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/ql2-05072024015832.html

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

U.S. FCC Takes Multiple Actions against Chinese Service Providers

Radio France Internationale (RFI) Chinese Edition recently reported that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is moving to prevent certification of wireless equipment by Huawei, ZTE, and other foreign companies deemed to pose a threat to U.S. national security. The new proposal would permanently ban all entities on the national security risk list (e.g. Huawei) from playing any role in equipment authorization. U.S. officials worry these companies could spy and steal data from the U.S., a charge that Chinese officials denied. The move is part of sweeping restrictions on Chinese technology companies implemented by the current and the previous U.S. administrations.

Well-known Chinese news site NetEase (NASDAQ: NTES) reported that the FCC is requiring U.S. subsidiaries of China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile to stop their fixed or mobile broadband internet services in the United States. The order also applies to Pacific Networks and its wholly-owned subsidiary ComNet. The FCC previously banned these companies from providing telecommunications services. That decision has been upheld by U.S. courts. FCC Chairman Jessica Rosenworcel said that the commission has evidence that the Chinese telecom operators are now providing broadband services in the United States.

Sources:
(1) RFI Chinese, May 2, 2024
https://tinyurl.com/23fav8cy
(2) NetEase, April 26, 2024
https://c.m.163.com/news/a/J0NAUUVT05566G1I.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations