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China Built Another Railway in Kenya

On October 16th, a new railway was put into operation in Kenya. China built another railway at a cost of US$1.5 billion. The track connected the capital city Nairobi with Naivasha, a small town in the Great Rift Valley in East Africa. The Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta hosted the opening ceremony of the railway.

The railway is an extension of a rail line built earlier to connect Nairobi and Mombasa, the second-largest city in the country. The Nairobi-Mombasa railway, which cost US$3.2 billion, started operating in 2017. China funded and built that as well.

Kenya’s railway development has been part of China’s “Belt and Road” initiative. It includes multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects designed to enhance overland and maritime trade between China and Europe, Asia and Africa.

Kenyatta was re-elected in 2017 for anther five-year term. He pledged to develop infrastructure in Kenya, and railway construction has always been his favorite project. The Kenyan government has been borrowing in order to fund infrastructure projects. The national total public debt is currently about 55 percent of GDP. It was at 42 percent when Kenyatta took office in 2013.

Source: Voice of America, October 16, 2019
https://www.voachinese.com/a/Kenya-Opens-Chinese-Built-Railway-20191016/5126354.html

LTN: Kazakhstan President Ordered Investigation of One Belt One Road Project

Major Taiwanese news network Liberty Times Network (LTN) recently reported that Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ordered an investigation into the US$1.5 billion light rail project under China’s One Belt One Road initiative. The project was supposed to be completed in 2017. Not only is it still not completed; it is financially dead. The Tokayev administration said that the project “should never even have been established.” Also, it was financially “suspicious.” Tokayev asked for an anti-corruption investigation that would carefully examine the officials in the previous administration. The previous CEO of the light rail company has already fled overseas due to corruption charges. Kazakhstan is the first country on the west side of China to have joined the One Belt One Road initiative. Observers have widely expressed the belief that Tokayev’s public position may damage the image of China’s One Belt One Road grand plan.

Source: LTN, October 8, 2019
https://ec.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/2940775

As Subsidy Ebbs, China’s Electric Vehicle Sales Down by 34 Percent

According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China’s auto sales in September were 2.271 million. This represents the continuation of a decline stream that has lasted 15 months in a row and is down 5.2 percent from the same period last year. The sales for the first nine months of the year were 18.371 million, down 10.3 percent year-over-year. In September, the national sales volume of passenger vehicles was 1.933 million, down 6.3 percent year-over-year. As the Chinese government scaled down its car subsidies, the electric vehicle sales for September was 80,000, down 34.2 percent from the same period last year, seeing a third consecutive month of decline.

In March of this year, China announced it would reform its subsidy system and limit the scope of subsidies to a few top brands. Back in 2017, the Chinese government provided a total subsidy of 22 billion yuan (US$3.1 billion) to electric vehicle manufacturers.

Contributing to the decline is the slowdown in the overall economy and the plummet in consumer confidence amid the US-China trade war. The market once expected that large cities would relax their traffic restrictions or the government would provide new subsidies to new car buyers. However, those expectations failed to materialize and the industry suffered a blow.

Source: Central News Agency, October 15, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201910150158.aspx

DW Chinese: US Competitiveness Rank Fell to Second Place

Deutsche Welle Chinese Edition recently reported that The World Economic Forum (WEF) just released its annual Global Competitiveness Report. The United States fell from number one to number two this year. The top five globally are Singapore, the United States, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. China ranked number 28 globally and number 8 in the Asia-Pacific region. Compared to last year, Germany’s rank suffered a very big decline globally, from the third to the seventh place. This was mainly due to the low implementation rate of fiber network deployment (number 72) and mobile bandwidth (number 58). The slide in the U.S. rank was primarily the result of trade tariffs and the worry about their long-term investment impact. However, Singapore’s move to the top was largely due to the increased port benefits at the time of a trade war between the two largest economies. The WEF report is based on data in categories of infrastructure, health, the labor market, the financial system, market openness, and the ecosystem for innovation.

Source: DW Chinese, October 9, 2019
https://bit.ly/2VBqXfU

One-third of Arrested Hong Kong Democracy Activists Are under 18

According to the Hong Kong government, nearly one-third of the Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrators who  the police have arrested are young people under the age of 18.

Young people want to protect their civil liberties from the increasing erosion and suppression of the mainland Chinese government. Many high-schoolers have also participated in the movement.

A high school student told VOA, “The future belongs to us. We must fight for it because this is our own future, the future of the next generation, and the future of the people of Hong Kong. If we do not fight, there will be no one to fight for it.”

Since June, 750 young people under the age of 18 have been arrested for participating in anti-government demonstrations. Among the 2,000 plus arrested, young people account for nearly one-third.

The Hong Kong government also requires universities and schools to report any students who wear masks to participate in anti-government demonstrations.

Source: Voice of America, October 14, 2019
https://www.voachinese.com/a/a-third-of-hong-kong-democracy-activists-arrested-are-teenagers-20191014/5123507.html

HKET: Apple Removed HK Police Tracking App Again

Hong Kong Economic Times (HKET), the leading financial daily in Hong Kong, recently reported that Apple once again unlisted the popular app HKmap.live from its AppStore. The app tracks, in real-time, the police activities around Hong Kong. It’s highly valuable at a time when the police are brutally cracking down on demonstrators in the city who are demanding freedom and democracy. Apple earlier unlisted the app once already, citing legal reasons. However, critics around the globe pointed out the decision was not aligned with Apple’s image of defending the rights of freedom-loving people. Soon after that Apple put the app back into the AppStore, which caused the Mainland Chinese media such as People’s Daily to issue major warnings. The Chinese official newspaper asked Apple, in an open commentary, to think really hard on whether this was good for its business or not. Apple then removed the app for the second time from the AppStore. The explanation was that it was supporting the Hong Kong police. The app has remained unavailable since then.

Source: Hong Kong Economic Times, October 10, 2019
https://bit.ly/2VDCUSf

Police Detained Retired Female Professor for Posting Photos of Hong Kong Protesters

Huang Chun, a 65-year-old retired professor from Guizhou University for Nationalities, was sentenced to 15 days of administrative detention for “disturbing the social order.” She posted pictures of Hong Kong demonstrators and the “June 4th” event on WeChat and Twitter. The public security authorities gave her a warning for openly criticizing the government on the Internet or accepting interviews with foreign media. On the evening of the 70th National Day, the authorities restricted her movement and did not allow her students to visit her.

Huang told Radio Free Asia that the Hua Xi public security bureau arrested her. During her arrest, she was stripped naked, forced to wear a uniform, handcuffed, and forced to have her blood and urine tested. She said later they sent her to a location where the Armed Police Force was stationed to serve her sentence of 15 days of detention Over tens of thousands of people were locked inside at that location. An RFA article reported that Huang’s description of the detention location was similar to the education and training center set up in Xinjiang. There is reason to believe that China has expanded its detention facility. Since 2018, the Chinese Armed Police Force was moved and put under the Central Military Commission. This means that the armed police forces are outside the administrative organs of the State Council and are not subject to the control of the local public security.

Source: Radio Free Asia, October 11, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/gangtai/ql2-10112019070603.html

CNA: Reporter Beaten When Covering News of Wuxi Bridge Collapse

According to the Central News Agency, three people died when the bridge in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, collapsed on October 10. The police blocked reporters during the interview at the scene. At the street corner, the police beat one reporter very badly. They also shot down the drone that the media had set up. Authorities set up a road block two kilometers away from the scene. When questioned about the quality of the bridge, the company that is responsible for the bridge design insisted that the design meets all of the requirements that were specified. Local officials even concluded that the collapse was due to an overload of vehicles that happened before the data on the bridge’s weight limit was published. People are concerned that the collapse may have been due to the poor quality of the bridge as well as flaws in the structural design.

Source: Central News Agency, October 12, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/201910120102.aspx