Chinascope – Page 465

World Journal: University of Michigan Shut Down Its Chinese Data Center

The Well-known U.S. Chinese language newspaper, World Journal, recently reported that the University of Michigan suddenly closed its Chinese Data Center (CDC), citing cost issues. The CDC former chief said the Center has been financially sound and that neither the U.S. government nor the Chinese government funded the operation. The University spokesperson explained that the closure was the result of an internal management decision, with no political background, that the Center needs a major technical upgrade. However, the University found that this Center may not be the best place for new capital investments. The mission of the CDC was to allow the world to understand China better. However, the data that the Center offered were all sourced from China. Some staff of the CDC just opened a new online data service, hoping to continue the service the CDC used to provide. However, some customers, such as Christoph Steinhardt from University of Vienna, refused to trust the new online service because it lacked the support of a well-recognized academic organization like the University of Michigan.

Source: World Journal, October 6, 2018
https://bit.ly/2QxWH1A

Briefings | | October 9, 2018 | US-China Relations

U.S. Oil Exports to China Dropped to Zero in August

Well-known Chinese news site Sina recently reported that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the level of U.S. oil exports to China dropped to zero in August. Also in August, U.S. oil exports dropped significantly overall. China used to be the largest U.S. oil buyer. Starting this year, China’s position dropped to number two, after Canada. In August, Canada remained the top buyer, South Korea and Taiwan ranked numbers two and three respectively. According to Reuters, global oil ship tracking systems showed no oil ships heading from the U.S. to China. The oil refiners in China are holding on to their orders in the hope of seeing more clarity on the US-China trade war. The U.S. Census Bureau usually provides oil export data a few weeks earlier than the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). EIA typically releases its official data based on the Census Bureau numbers at the end of the month.

Source: Sina, October 6, 2018
http://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/usstock/c/2018-10-06/doc-ihkvrhps6703409.shtml

Briefings | | October 9, 2018 | Economy/Resources US-China Relations

BBC Chinese: HK Refused to Renew the Financial Times Asian Editor’s Visa

BBC Chinese recently reported that the Hong Kong government officially refused to renew the work visa rpplication for Victor Mallet, who is currently the Asia News Editor for Financial Times (FT) and was the former FT Bureau Chief for South Asia. He is also the deputy Chairman of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC). Mallet chaired a talk that a Hong Kong independence activist gave in August, despite the objections that came from Beijing. The Hong Kong government refused to comment on the incident. The FCC immediately issued a statement describing the government’s decision as very unusual and demanded an explanation. The British Foreign Ministry also asked for a reason for the rejection of the visa and asked the Hong Kong government to respect freedom of the press – which is part of the core values of Hong Kong society. The latest event triggered widespread discussions and concerns about Hong Kong getting closer and closer to being “like the mainland.”

Source: BBC Chinese, October 5, 2018
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-45759836

Briefings | | October 9, 2018 | Geo-Strategic Trend Government/Politics

German Companies Exit from China

According to the German Focus weekly magazine, many German companies have exited China for a number of different reasons. One important reason is that the robot revolution has reduced the German companies’ desire for China.

China has been an ideal country for large-scale companies for many years. It has huge markets and cheap labor. However, the limitations from Chinese political institutions and the ongoing Sino-US trade war have gradually made China less attractive. The heavy debt burden of Chinese private companies has posed potential risks to the Chinese economy. In particular, a new trend has begun to change people’s minds: robots are cheaper than Chinese workers and they can stay in Germany. As a result, the number of German companies that are shifting production abroad has decreased significantly and more and more German companies have begun to withdraw from Asia or Eastern Europe. Among them, well-known German enterprises include Marklin, Adidas, Bosch, and Gigaset Communications. Enterprises that have long been actively promoting digitalization are clearly at the forefront.

The ratio of robots to employed people in Germany is 31:1000, with the density of robots ranking third in the world. Economists have found that the more robots used in industrial countries, the fewer factories move abroad, and the more likely it is to move production back to the home country. Take the United States as a comparison: the United States has a robot density of only 19:1000, ranking seventh in the world. Many fewer U.S. companies than German ones are coming back home.

Source: Radio France International, October 7, 2018
http://rfi.my/3C3G.T

Briefings | | October 8, 2018 | Economy/Resources

European Astronauts Are Learning Chinese

The BBC had published a report that European astronauts received training in China, together with Chinese astronauts.

The training was conducted at the Yellow Sea Training Center, a place close to Yantai City in China’s eastern Shandong Province. For two weeks, German astronaut Matthias Maurer and another astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, both from the European Space Agency, lived and worked with their Chinese counterparts. “We received the training together, lived in the same building with the Chinese and ate the same food. Every day, the schedule was very full,” Maurer told the BBC reporter. “You feel that you are a member of this big family. It’s not like in Houston, where you had to rent a house yourself, and only spent two or three hours of training with your peers.”

Every space agency uses special training to strengthen team spirit, but the Chinese treat the issue in more fundamental way. Maurer said, “Chinese astronauts even go on vacation together. They know each other very well, just like brothers and sisters.” “When we were there, they regarded us as members of a big Chinese space family and we were like one.” Maurer started working at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne, Germany in 2012. He had a relationship with the representatives of the once-secret China manned space program. After one year, he visited the training center in Beijing. In 2016, Chinese astronauts took part in an experiment at the European Space Agency, where astronauts conducted a two-week long underground training in the caves of Sardinia. Maurer, Cristoforetti, and a French astronaut, Thomas Pesquet, are now learning Chinese. The European Space Agency still maintains relations with the United States and Russia, but at the same time it has developed a partnership with another future space power. The BBC reported that Maurer hopes to fly to the space station by 2020. Then in about 2023 he will have the opportunity to be a member of the first group of foreign astronauts to fly to the China Space Station together with Chinese astronauts.

Source: Sputnik News, July 3, 2018
http://sputniknews.cn/foreignmedia/201807031025796249/

Briefings | | October 8, 2018 | Geo-Strategic Trend

Chinese Embassy Demands Apology from Conference Organizer following Arrest of CCTV Reporter

Beijing News reported that the Chinese Embassy in the U.K confirmed that Kong Linlin, a CCTV news reporter, who the police arrested for “suspicion of common assault” during a meeting held by the office of the London-Based NGO Hong Kong Watch and Britain’s Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, on September 30, has been released. According to a Beijing News article, the spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in the U.K. made the following statement, “The Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission used the party’s annual meeting to hold an event in which it sided with anti-China separatist forces. China has serious concerns and is experiencing strong dissatisfaction. Our Chinese reporter was obstructed when she asked questions at the side meeting. The Embassy requested that the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission stop interfering in China’s internal affairs and stop interfering with Hong Kong affairs. The Embassy in the U.K. also asked the conference organizers to apologize to the Chinese reporter.”

The article quoted another statement that the CCTV spokesperson made: “Any attempt to advocate the splitting of China is a counter-historical trend and a waste of effort. The spokesperson demanded that the U.K. take effective measures to protect the rights and interests of journalists and to ensure that such absurd incidents do not occur.”

According to a Radio Free Asia article and the embedded video, during the conference, when Benedict Rogers, Deputy Chairman of the Human Rights Commission and Founder of Hong Kong Watch, was wrapping up his speech, Kong Linlin suddenly stood up and started yelling and calling Rogers a liar who wants to separate China. She also called the rest of the people spies. The organizers asked Kong to leave the conference. During the confrontation with the conference organizers, Kong slapped one student volunteer twice and insisted that she has the right to protest. The police later took Kong away.

Sources:
1. Beijing News, October 2, 2018
http://www.bjnews.com.cn/news/2018/10/02/509028.html
2. Radio Free Asia, October 2, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/gangtai/gf1-10012018095713.html

Briefings | | October 5, 2018 | Geo-Strategic Trend

The Growth of China’s Personal Saving Rate Dropped to 7 Percent

The Central Bank has published recent statistics which show that the rate of personal savings of Chinese residents has dropped. Xinhua reported that in August of 2018, the deposit balance in financial institutions in China increased by 8.3 percent compared to the same period last year. In the past 39 years, the growth rate of the deposit balance of financial institutions has never fallen below 9 percent. Meanwhile the growth of the personal saving rate dropped from 18 percent in 2008 to 7 percent in 2018. According to the article, the reason for the drop in the saving rate was attributable to increases in consumption, to a diversion from savings to wealth investment products and to home purchases.

According to the latest statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first half of the year, the per capita disposable income was 14,063 yuan (US$2,047), a year over year increase of 6.6 percent, continuing its steady growth since the first quarter, but it is still less than 9.4 percent of the year over year growth in the consumption rate.

Since the beginning of this year, even though the interest rate of wealth investment products has fallen below 5 percent, people still chose to invest because it is nonetheless higher than the rate the bank offers. According to WIND, which provides the statistics for financial data analysis services, at the end of 2017, the size of the money fund assets was 7.1 trillion yuan (US1.03 trillion). Since the beginning of this year, the size of the money fund has been rising, reaching 8.4 trillion yuan in August (US$1.22 trillion).

Buying a home has become another important channel for the placement of resident’s saving. According to the semi-annual reports that a number of banks released this year, the scale of real estate loans from banks is still high. Among 26 listed banks, 19 banks have real estate industry loan balances higher than the same period last year; only 7 bank loan balances have declined. It is dominated by small and medium-sized banks, especially in the third and fourth-tier cities. Down payments and monthly payments quickly consume household savings.

The August financial statistics that the Central Bank released showed that, in August, RMB loans increased by 1.28 trillion yuan (US$186 billion). In terms of sectors, the household sector loans increased by 701.2 billion yuan (US$102 billion), of which short-term loans increased by 259.8 billion yuan (US$37.8 billion) and medium- and long-term loans increased by 4415 million yuan (US$642 million).

The financial expert warned that the risk of decline in the personal savings rate could increase the pressure on the whole society for debt repayment and make it more difficult for the financial system to bear the risk.

Source: Xinhua, October 1, 2018
http://www.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2018-10/01/c_1123512146.htm

Briefings | | October 5, 2018 | Economy/Resources

Beijing Tightens Control over Teachers Traveling Overseas

The Chinese government issued a notice before the October 1 National Day holiday requiring local schools to strengthen their control over elementary and middle school teachers’ travel abroad. The regulation also applied to kindergarten and retired teachers. Some provinces and municipalities have already collected the passports from the teachers and some places require teachers to go through a review and approval process by education authorities before leaving the country.

At present, at least the teachers from Fujian, Shandong, and Inner Mongolia have received notices that they require the approval from the authorities when leaving the country. Places such as Xiamen in Fujian and Tai’an in Shandong have requested teachers to submit their passports and travel permits to Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. Whoever violates the regulations will be severely punished.

Teachers in Xinjiang and Tibet were already placed under intensive control years ago.

Radio Free Asia interviewed some teachers in Xiamen City, who are very unhappy about the new measure, as many Fujian residents have a number of overseas relatives.

One local education bureau official said, “We don’t understand it. I also handed in my passport. We were told to turn in our passports and we have to hand them in. We don’t dare to do anything. Sometimes we just go out to visit some relatives, and we feel very confused. This is the way the current situation is and we do not dare to disobey the leaders and the policy.”

Ever since 2012, China has gradually tightened its control over the people’s travel abroad. The scope of the civil servants and workers in public institutions who are required to submit passports has increased from the division level and above to everyone. Approval is required before leaving the country. However, the new regulation to control elementary and middle school teachers, including retired teachers, is the very first time over the past 40 years.

Source: Radio Free Asia, October 1, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/teacher-10012018100715.html

Briefings | | October 4, 2018 | Social Stability

Wu Guoguang: Xi Jinping’s Reversal of the Course, Will China’s Transition be Peaceful or Marked with Bloodshed?

Cheng Xiaonong: U.S.-China Strategic Relations Have Crystallized

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

The CCP’s Performing Arts Troupes in the U.S.