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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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Xinhua Commentaries: “Exposing the Three Major Political Deficits of the U.S.”

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Radio Free Asia: Chinese Universities Tightened Security on “May 4th”

Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that on the100th anniversary of the “May 4th Movement,” Beijing’s major universities stepped up their alerts. The police also took away five left-wing students who supported the labor movement activities. They currently have no contact with the outside world.

This Saturday, May 4th, was the 100th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement in China. Recently, most colleges and universities in Beijing increased inspections on campus. Every day, plainclothes police cars have been stationed at the entrance to Peking University. A local resident who did not want to be named told reporters on Friday that the university campus in Zhongguancun had recently stepped up its alerts. School personnel and students have had to present their credentials when entering the campus. Foreigners have been required to register personal identification cards and other information. The guard at the receptionist area would then further verify the details.

The “May 4th Movement” took place on May 4, 1919. Young students called on citizens and business people to participate in demonstrations, petitions, and strikes to protest against the then Chinese Beiyang government’s disregard of public opinion and they shouted to fight against the infringement of foreign countries’ powers and for the punishment of those officials who were pro-Japan while they advocated saving the country with science and democracy.

An RFA article stated that, 70 years later, in 1989, when college students in Beijing commemorated the passing of Hu Yaobang, general secretary of the Communist Party of China, they also called out the slogan of the May Fourth Movement. The government finally used force to suppress them. Since the 100th anniversary of the “May 4th Movement” is in this year, Beijing is extremely sensitive about this date.

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 3, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/ql1-05032019092522.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

VOA: Report Indicates Huawei Will Build a Chip Factory in Cambridge

The British Financial Times reported that Huawei plans to build a 400-person chip research and development plant in a suburb of Cambridge, England, and plans to start production in 2021.

According to the report, the plant will be located in the heart of the UK’s silicon chip industry, only 15 minutes from the headquarters of Arm Holdings, the UK’s largest chip design company. Huawei plans to use its plant to develop chips for broadband networks.

The U.S. has repeatedly warned that the Chinese government can use Huawei’s equipment for espionage and has urged allies not to use Huawei products in the construction of 5G networks.

The report said that, in order to win the support of local people, when Huawei announced the plan at a local junior high school last week, Huawei executives urged local residents to raise their concerns. They also claimed that Huawei could fund new medical centers or build bus stations locally.

A local resident told the Financial Times that the site that Huawei chose is an ideal location to monitor the British government. However, most locals have a positive attitude toward Huawei’s construction.

According to a report in the Financial Times, Huawei has thousands of employees in the UK, including about 120 in Cambridge. Also Huawei didn’t deny that it selected Cambridge as the chip factory site with the intention to gain access to Cambridge graduates.

Source: Voice of America, May 6, 2019
https://www.voachinese.com/a/huawei-to-build-chip-plant-in-cambridge/4903659.html

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Beijing Asks the Public to Look for “Spies”

Beijing made April 15 the “State Security Education Day for All People.” On that day, the CCTV had a high-profile promotion asking the general public to look for or report “spy” activities. People can report those activities via phone, online submission, mail, or directly going to corresponding government offices. The corresponding office will give out rewards, on three levels, based on the effect of the tips. The highest reward is 500,000 yuan (US $ 74,000).

An observer of Beijing’s affairs has commented that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been looking for spies in the name of “state security” and the result has been that students have reported their teachers and friends have reported on each other. “The CCP faces three big conflicts: the conflicts between the officials and the general public; the conflicts among the ruling group, and the conflicts between the CCP and Western countries. These conflicts have led the CCP to a feeling of great insecurity. To secure its power, the CCP has been looking for ‘spies.’ First, it wants to identify the insiders in the CCP system who are not loyal to the CCP. Second, it wants to arrest members of the general public who are against the CCP. Third, (it wants to identify) the ‘infiltration forces’ from countries overseas.”

Source: Epoch Times, April 18, 2019
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/19/4/18/n11195737.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Netherlands Telecom Giant KPN Decided Not to Use Huawei 5G Equipment

Well-known Chinese news site Sina recently reported that the Netherlands’ largest telecommunications company, Royal KPN NV, announced recently that it will select a European supplier for its core 5G mobile network. KPN is one of the first set of companies that officially stated it would exclude Huawei for 5G. The United States is the one pushing for banning Huawei among its allies, citing national security concerns. Huawei denied any possibility of spying on customers because of Chinese government pressure. KPN explained that the decision of not choosing Huawei was based on the need to protect critical national infrastructure and the potential future impact it might have on the Netherlands policies. The government of the Netherlands has not made an official decision yet. However, the government formed a working group with KPN and other telecommunications companies to coordinate the risk management aspects of building the nation’s 5G infrastructure. In the past decade, Huawei has been one of KPN’s primary suppliers.

Source: Sina, April 26, 2019
https://t.cj.sina.com.cn/articles/view/2101850115/7d47b00302000fpb3

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend Information/Technology

LTN: China’s Economic Rebound Questionable Due to High Unemployment Rate

Major Taiwanese news network Liberty Times Network (LTN) recently reported that Mainland media have given heavy coverage to the news of the first quarter GDP growth rate of 6.4 percent, which was better than expected. However, the unemployment rate for the same period of time was reported at a half-decade low. Thus the economic rebound appears to be an illusion. In the past years, after the Chinese New Year, China’s unemployment rate typically went down since many workers returned to work and a large number of college graduates joined the workforce. However, according to the latest study by the China Institute for Employment Research (CIER), the national unemployment situation is getting worse and the market is seeing a lot more job applicants (with a year-over-year increase of 31 percent) with substantially fewer job offerings (with a year-over-year decline of 11 percent. The gap is the widest since 2014, and it has been on the decline for six consecutive quarters. Even with a decent stock market rebound in the first quarter, the financial sector jobs still saw a year-over-year decline of 39.7 percent.

Source: LTN, April 22, 2019
https://ec.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/2766439

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

VOA: Income of the Top Groups in China Grew Rapidly; Gap between Rich and Poor Continued to Widen

The latest research shows that the gap between the rich and the poor in Chinese society continues to widen. In the past few decades, the fiscal income of the top groups has grown at an alarming rate and their proportion of the national income has almost doubled, making them the biggest beneficiary of China’s income growth.

The London School of Economics and Political Science issued a report on April 12. According to the report, it studied China’s recent public and non-public statistics, analyzed the income of Chinese society from 1978 to 2015, and drew the above conclusions. The report said that the ordinary Chinese people benefited from economic development and their incomes have greatly improved, but the gap between the rich and the poor has expanded significantly. It is worth noting that the proportion of the top income group, that is, those whose incomes are in the top one percent in China, accounted for only six percent of the income of the the entire population in 1978, but rose to about 14 percent in 2015, higher than the 10 percent in France, and second only to the 20 percent in the U.S. The distribution growth rate of China’s top one percent income group is the highest in the world for the 35 years of this period, reaching an alarming 8.6 percent, much higher than the US’s four percent and France’s 1.4 percent. The report found that China’s private wealth is also growing rapidly. By 2015, the growth rate of China’s private income had increased from 115 percent in 1978 to 487 percent, which has pushed China’s overall wealth income growth rate from 350 percent in 1978 to 700 percent in 2015.

Source: Voice of America, April 12, 2019
https://www.voachinese.com/a/china-inequality-more-like-us-12042019/4873853.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

National Bureau of Statistics: First Quarter Profit Declined by 3.3 Percent

China’s National Bureau of Statistics recently released its official numbers for the first quarter. The national level profit of industrial Enterprises Above a Designated Size (EADS, that is, companies whose primary business income is above RMB 20 million or around US$2.97 million) recorded a year-over-year 3.3 percent decline. State-owned enterprises suffered a profit decline of 13.4 percent; joint-stock companies declined by one percent; and foreign investment companies saw a profit decline of 7.9 percent, while privately-owned companies had a profit increase of seven percent. In the first quarter profit category, the mining industry declined year-over-year by 3.4 percent and the manufacturing industry declined by 4.2 percent. At the same time, at the national level, corporate debts and inventory both increased.

Source: Official Site of the National Bureau of Statistics, April 27, 2019
http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/zxfb/201904/t20190426_1661900.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

RFA: Hong Kong Protest Escalated, Shouting for Chief Executive to Step Down

On Sunday April 28, tens of thousands of Hong Kong citizens took to the streets to protest the Hong Kong court’s verdict on the leaders of the Chinese occupation movement and the Hong Kong government’s amendment of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance. Numbers of groups, including the Civil Human Rights Front in Hong Kong, organized the protest. According to news from the Hong Kong police, during the peak time, 20,000 participated in the protest. The protesters came from a wide background, including Hong Kong’s famous singers Anthony Wong, Yiu-ming, and Denise Ho.

The slogan of the protest was mainly to ask the government to withdraw the revised plan for the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance and safeguard the rule of law and freedom of speech in Hong Kong. Since March, the Hong Kong Government has been promoting the revision of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, which has caused widespread concern. If the proposal of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance becomes law, for the first time, there will be an extradition arrangement between Hong Kong and the mainland. A large number of politicians in Hong Kong believe that the Chinese government may use this bill to extradite political prisoners from Hong Kong to the Mainland. However, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said at the beginning of April that the revision of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance will be promoted. The Hong Kong government established a special committee and held its first meeting last week. The tough stance of the Hong Kong Government has left the people of Hong Kong worried. According to Radio France Internationale, in the parade held this Sunday, some people kept shouting “Carrie Lam should step down!” A spokesman for the Hong Kong Government said, in response to the demonstration, that the amendment of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance is in line with the spirit of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary in Hong Kong.

This protest is the second demonstration within one month and the scale was even larger than the previous one.

Source: Radio Free Asia, April 28, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/9-04282019163051.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics