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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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Apple Data Center in China’s Ulanqab Breaks Ground

The Apple (Ulanqab) Data Center Project held a groundbreaking ceremony on March 15 in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The data center is Apple’s first data center in northern China and will use 100 percent renewable energy. In February 2018, Ulanqab City and Apple held a ceremony for the signing of a cooperation agreement of the iCloud China North Data Center Project. The project is scheduled to be completed and put into operation in 2020.

The Chinese government believes that, in the future, Ulanqab will take advantage of the data center to promote the penetration of big data into a number of fields, and deeply integrate with various industries to form a big data and cloud computing ecology.

Source: China News Service, March 16, 2019
http://www.chinanews.com/cj/2019/03-16/8781614.shtml

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

China to Pilot Facial Recognition Payment System in Shenzhen Subway

Radio France Internationale reported that, according to an article in the South China Morning Post, the Futian Metro Station in Shenzhen plans to introduce a facial recognition payment system. The pilot version of the facial recognition payment system to be operated at the Futian Station is a system in which passengers can pay for their transportation expenses through their personal account when they scan their faces on a large screen. The launch date of the system has not been disclosed. The advantage of the facial recognition system is that people can travel on the subway efficiently during the rush commuting hours. The number of people that take the Shenzhen Metro is five million per day. The facial recognition system has been put into use in all corners of Chinese society except the subway system. Radio France Internationale also quoted Pressecitron, a French media which stated that there may be technical problems in the event of a twin or body double. In addition, people’s daily routes are being recorded which causes concerns over security issues and the breach of personal information.

Source: Radio France Internationale, March 16, 2019
http://rfi.my/3ose.T

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Epoch Times: Chengdu Middle School Staged Press Conference to Cover up School Cafeteria Scandal

Epoch Times reported on a recent disclosure that the cafeteria at the Seventh Middle School in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, served moldy and rotten food to the students, causing many students to feel sick. Some even had severe bleeding when they had a bowel movement. The school denied the allegation. The Police blocked any parents who went to the school to appeal and kept them from entering the school. On the day prior to the joint investigation team press conference the school was to hold, a photo showed that 30 buses carrying police were sitting on Phoenix North Street outside of the school. Another video showed that on the day of the press conference, the school only let those who pretended to be the parents into the conference while the real parents were blocked from entering the conference. During the conference, the school officials announced that the photos of the moldy and rotten food posted on the social media were fabricated. Three parents who were accused of “spreading rumors” were arrested. Meanwhile the board members of the middle school fired the principal of the school. The official website of Chengdu Municipal posted a number of photos on the school’s Weibo account showing the students “happily returned back to school and resumed their normal classes.” People posted comments below the picture saying the school officials staged the photos and they should feel ashamed.

The Epoch Times article also reported that a video that the parents uploaded showed that the police blocked a parent from leaving home to take her sick child to the hospital. Another parent said she was not allowed to go to the hospital of her choice and could only go to the hospital that the school had designated. Some parents contacted nearby private schools hoping to transfer their children there, but they were told no. They suspected that the authorities had already exerted pressure on those private schools.

Source: Epoch Times, March 17, 2019
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/19/3/17/n11120040.htm

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Duowei: The Strategic Path of Chinese Renminbi Internationalization behind the Planning of the Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao Great Bay Area

On February 21, the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Great Gulf District Development Planning Outline was held in Hong Kong. From the attendance of officials, the level of the meeting was quite high. Lin Nianxiu, Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission of China; Lin Zhengyue, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; Ma Xingrui, Governor of Guangdong Province; and Chui Sai, Chief Executive of the Macao Special Administrative Region, delivered speeches. On February 19, the official website of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) had published a low-profile article entitled, “Thoughts on the Internationalization of Renminbi (RMB) and the Convertibility of Capital Accounts.” The author was the International Division of the PBOC. The article explained why China wants to promote the internationalization of the RMB. According to the official website of the PBOC, the International Division is responsible for business dealings and cooperation with financial organizations in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and other central banks. Taken together with the contents of the meeting and the “Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Great Gulf District Development Plan” that the State Council of China just released on February 18, which repeatedly mentioned the opening up and cross-border use of the RMB, the Chinese monetary authorities’ strategic path for the internationalization of the RMB is becoming clear.

Liang Haiming, Dean of the Silk Road Zhigu Research Institute, said, in an interview with China’s official media, Securities Daily, that, in the context of the development of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and the Macao Great Bay Area, the financial system carries an important historical mission. The Great Bay Area has to increase its efforts in exploring financial innovation, especially in cross-border business and RMB internationalization, as the bond that connects China with the world. The high-profile attendance at the meeting also reflects the Chinese government’s emphasis on the planning for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Great Bay Area and its “frontier position” for the internationalization of RMB.

Source: Duowei News, February 21, 2019
http://economics.dwnews.com/news/2019-02-21/60119513.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Qiushi Publishes Xi Jinping’ Article on Media Integration

Qiushi, The Chinese Communist Party’s flagship publication published an article that Xi Jinping wrote, titled, “Accelerate the Development of Media Integration and Build a Communication Pattern for Omnimedia.”

The article emphasized that it is an imperative issue to promote media integration and build the Omnimedia. It asked that the products of the information revolution be used to enlarge and strengthen the CCP’s official media.

The article proposed to build a batch of “influential and competitive” new mainstream media. The mainstream media are said to give priority to a mobile platform and should firmly occupy the “commanding heights” of public opinion to give ideological guidance. The article suggested using artificial intelligence in gathering news and in production, distribution, reception, and feedback.

Source: People’s Daily, March 16, 2019
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2019-03/16/nw.D110000renmrb_20190316_7-04.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

CNA: China’s State-Run Media Attacked the Dalai Lama for Three Consecutive Days during the 60th Anniversary of Tibet’s Anti-Violence Event

The Tibet anti-violence event reached its 60th anniversary. On March 8, China’s state-run media, The Tibet Daily launched a series of articles on “Recognizing the Reactionary Essence of the 14th Dalai Lama,” directly attacking the Dalai Lama as the “head of the feudal serfdom system of the old Tibet’s joined politics and religion.” The article called him, “The head of the separatist reactionary camp” and “the head of the separatist activities.”

The article accused the Dalai Lama of selling himself out to the international anti-China forces to find a backing for Tibet’s independence and to carry out separatist activities under the banner of national religious culture and environmental protection.

The second series of commentary articles, published on March 9, pointed out that the Dalai Lama is “a loyal tool of the international anti-China forces” and declared that the international anti-China forces are doing their best to make full use of the Dalai Lama as a tool and do everything possible to support his separatist activities. They beautify his image politically, provide support financially, offer a communication platform on public opinion, and support armed rebellion militarily.

The third series of commentary articles published on the following day accused the Dalai Lama of being the ultimate source of the class, thought, and organization that has created social unrest in Tibet. The articles said that the Dalai Lama travels around the world, running around and working hard, all (for the purpose of) beautifying the feudal serf system and attempting to restore this system.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), March 10, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201903100056.aspx

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Guangdong Tops China’s “Stability Maintenance” Budget

The Hong Kong based newspaper Ming Pao published an article by Bruce Lui, a senior lecturer in the Department of Journalism at the Hong Kong Baptist University. The Chinese government’s “stability maintenance” expenditure last year was 1.37 trillion yuan (US$200 billion). It is expected that the actual cost of “stability maintenance” this year will exceed 1.4 trillion yuan.

China’s official defense budget for 2019 is 1.19 trillion yuan (US$180 billion). Lui said that the phenomenon of the stability maintenance expenditure continuously surpassing military spending shows whether the Beijing authorities purpose “is mainly to prevent people or to prevent foreign enemies.” Although most of the outsiders think that these maintenance funds are mostly used in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Sichuan, as a matter of fact, according to past years from the China Statistical Yearbook, the top seven provinces in year 2017 in terms of “stability maintenance” spending were Guangdong, Jiangsu, Xinjiang, Shandong, Zhejiang, Sichuan and Beijing, .

Guangdong spent around 121.4 billion yuan (US$18.05 billion), about 11 percent of the national total, more than twice that of Xinjiang province.

Lui’s article said that, after Chinese President Xi Jinping took office, Guangdong has always topped the stability maintenance spending, with an average annual growth rate of 13 percent. In recent years, it has increased at a rate of about 20 percent to 30 percent, much faster than the spending in Xinjiang.

He believes that Guangdong’s huge stability maintenance costs relate to Hong Kong. For years Hong Kong’s stability maintenance fund has come out of Guangdong. Intelligence, national security, military and research personnel from Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and even Zhuhai have been traveling to Hong Kong to collect all forms of intelligence and have launched operations. This has resulted in a constant increase in spending.

These personnel have exaggerated the situation in Hong Kong and the problem of Hong Kong independence so that they are able to obtain more manpower, material, and financial resources. “For those who can initiate a special project regarding Hong Kong independence, funds will be put in place.”

Lui pointed out, “Hong Kong people are deeply integrated into the Greater Bay Area. This area is not only an economic area, but also an important area for stability maintenance. Technology will keep you under surveillance without any trace.” “When Hong Kong’s people see the news of the Xinjiang Re-education Camp next time, can you think of some sort of “re-education camps” that are more expensive, invisible but more technologically advanced running around you?”

Source: Central News Agency, March 13, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201903130272.aspx

Briefings | | |   Social Stability