Chinascope – Page 518

Stock Price of RYB Education Plunged; Could Face Class Action Lawsuit

VOA published an article following the reports of alleged child abuse at RYB Education, Inc. After the parent’s claims of abuse, the stock price of RYB Education, Inc. plunged 38 percent to US$16.46 on the New York Stock Exchange on Black Friday. This is below its IPO price of US$18.50. Board members of RYB Education have also declared they will buy back US$50 million of its stock in the next 12 months. RYB Education is an early child kindergartner education center. Reports were made that, after a number of parents noticed that their children had received injections with needles, were forced to ingest unknown pills or were stripped naked, news first broke out on social media. The official media, including CCTV and Xinhua then reported the news. The police department has, currently, launched an investigation into the case. During an interview with VOA, one early child educator who chose to remain anonymous said that the parents of RYB kindergartners were very afraid after they saw that a large number of posted videos on social media had been deleted. They believed that, as more and more videos were deleted, it was more likely that the officials wanted to take control of the situation. The parents were concerned that, since the police had not drawn any conclusions on the case, the parents might never get back the videos they turned over to the police. The end result could just be the arrest of a few scapegoats to close the case. Some parents were even considering filing a class action lawsuit in the U.S. because they thought that the Wall Street legal firm that represents the IPO of this company should also take legal responsibility.

Source: VOA Chinese, November 24, 2017
https://www.voachinese.com/a/red-yellow-bluw-kindergarten-beijing-stock-20171124/4136190.html

Briefings | | November 27, 2017 | Social Stability

Party Branch Office to Be Formed in Joint Venture Universities

According to an article that theinitium.com, a news website from Hong Kong, published, Financial Times from England reported that China’s Ministry of Education has requested that a party branch office be formed in the joint-venture universities in China and that the party secretary must be the Vice President of the University, a member of the board, and have decision making power on hiring and on the budget. The Ministry of the Central Organization was said to have drafted the proposal. It will be in effect following the 19th National Congress. Since 2003, over 2,000 educational joint venture cooperation projects have been established. According to the existing law in China, a joint-venture university is considered an independent legal entity where the owner in China has 51 percent of the stock while a foreign investor holds 49 percent of the stock.

Source: theinitium.com, November 20, 2017
https://theinitium.com/article/20171120-evening-brief/

Briefings | | November 27, 2017 | Government/Politics

Duowei News: Why Kim Jong-un Refused to Meet Xi’s Delegate

According to an analytical article that Duowei News published, the delegate who Xi Jinping sent to North Korea returned back to Beijing on November 20. There are four possible reasons for Kim Jong-un not meeting with Xi’s delegate.

1) Japanese Nikkei reported that, according to an anonymous source, the first reason that Kim Jong-un took a stance against meeting the delegate was because the level of the delegate was too low; the second was because China cooperates with the U.S. and the United Nations to exercise economic sanctions against North Korea.

2) Another analysis suggested that Kim Jong-un was extremely upset that Xi’s delegate visited Vietnam and Laos first before coming to North Korea. In the past, the Chinese delegate would always visit North Korea before visiting other countries. Kim Jong-un was also unable to accept the fact that Xi Jinping extended warm hospitality toward Trump during his visit while Kim only received a letter from Xi. As of that time, the leaders of these two countries had never officially met.

3) The media from China and North Korea had different coverage about the visit. North Korean media reported that Xi’s delegate offered a gift to Kim Jong-un but Kim Jong-un did not accept it. Also, the delegate had a dinner banquet with high ranking officials from North Korea during the visit. China’s official media did not report any of this.

4) An article that China’s mouthpiece, Huanqiu, published on November 18 suggested that people shouldn’t have high expectations for this visit. According to the article, “The delegate is not a magician. … He simply helped by knocking on the door so it would open, but it could close at any time.”

Source: Duowei News, November 21, 2017
http://news.dwnews.com/global/big5/news/2017-11-21/60024970.html

Briefings | | November 27, 2017 | Geo-Strategic Trend

BBC Chinese: China’s “Internet Czar” Lu Wei under Investigation

BBC Chinese recently reported that the Central Discipline Inspection Commission of the Communist Party detained Lu Wei, the former Deputy Minister of the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party and Director of the Office of the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs. Lu was detained for a corruption investigation. He was widely known as the Chinese “Internet Czar” and was in charge of China’s online censorship management. He initiated many critical actions to tighten up control of the Internet, such as blocking commercial websites from news editing rights, promoting self-regulation among well-known online public figures, bringing criminal charges against people who re-posted content that the government had banned, and strengthening the blockage of international websites such as Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia. Publicly Lu even refused to admit “bringing down” these international sites in China. However, while celebrating the fall of Lu, Chinese netizens remain widely concerned about China’s online censorship. Many said that this positive event may not fundamentally change China’s long-lasting censorship policies.

Source: BBC Chinese, November 22, 2017
http://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-42077473

Briefings | | November 22, 2017 | Information/Technology

LTN: China’s “The Belt and Road” Plan Faces Many Real-World Challenges

Major Taiwanese news network Liberty Times Network (LTN) recently reported that China’s grand plan of “The Belt and Road,” which started in 2013, is now facing difficulties across the board. The US$1 trillion investment plan in 65 countries is being challenged in its implementation phase. Many processes have been disrupted by rebels, autocracy, political stability issues and legal challenges such as land ownership disputes. For example, The Jakarta section of the Indonesian high-speed railway hasn’t started construction since 2015 {when Indonesia awarded the rail project to China}. The construction of the railway from China to Singapore got stuck in Thailand due to labor movements. Debates over the high cost have slowed down the Laos section of the same railroad. The construction of the Cooperation Center at the border between China and Kazakhstan received complaints from the locals for benefiting only the Chinese. The new political leader of Kyrgyzstan has now stopped the railway from China to Uzbekistan. Even the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project is being disrupted as rebels along the way have blown up natural gas pipelines and trains. Chinese engineers were also attacked.

Source: LTN, November 14, 2017
http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/breakingnews/2253376

Briefings | | November 20, 2017 | Geo-Strategic Trend

Sinchew: China Ranked at the Bottom in an Internet Freedom Study

Singapore Chinese newspaper Sinchew recently reported that the well-known American human rights group Freedom House just released its annual global Internet freedom report. The report showed that the global degree of freedom on the internet had shown a decline for seven consecutive years. For three years in a row China was found to be the worst country in the world in terms of online information control. The Freedom House study included 65 countries, covering 87 percent of the global online population. The report pointed out that Internet information played an important role in the elections in many countries and that political messages were heavily manipulated around the world. In 2017, (this control) impacted elections in at least 18 countries. The governments of more and more countries are following China and Russia to hire online “commentators” to use the Internet to manipulate public opinion. More and more governments are quietly influencing and suppressing different opinions via social media and social discussion groups. The Freedom House study found that, among the 65 countries in the scope of its research, 30 governments implemented online information manipulation and monitoring. Some governments expanded their operations beyond their own borders.

Source: Sinchew, November 15, 2017
http://www.sinchew.com.my/node/1701486

Briefings | | November 20, 2017 | Government/Politics Information/Technology

Chinese Visiting Scholars Establish CCP Party Branch at UC Davis

According to an article Duowei News published, on November 4, seven Chinese visiting scholars at the University of California Davis campus formed a Chinese Communist Party branch office on campus. The Dalian University of Technology news website published the news first but then deleted the news from its website. The Duowei article reported that these seven visiting scholars are teachers from seven different universities in China who are either existing party members or probationary party members. The party secretary is one of the teachers from Dalian University of Technology School of Power and Energy. The other six teachers came from Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Dalian University of Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Jiangsu University, Nanjing Agricultural University, and Hohai University. The branch office vows to “continue to recruit new members; organize the group to study the latest party theory and ideology from China; resist the corrosive influence from the west; and enable the members of the branch office and other Chinese patriotic people to experience warm caring from the party office.” The branch office will recruit new members starting with the existing members to target their colleagues or neighbors. They will also have one group activity every two weeks. The branch office is currently under the management of the Dalian University of Technology in China, which recommended that the branch get in touch with other party organizations in the U.S. that the Chinese communist Party has set up in order to seek leadership in the U.S.

The article reported that one of the organizers told Voice of America (VOA) during an interview that they disbanded the organization after they found out that it had violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act passed in 1938, which the U.S. Department of Justice administers. U.S. law requires that an organization must “disclose its relationship with the foreign government and any information about related activities and finances.” The organizer asked the media not to have too much news coverage of this topic because he does not want the lives of the existing members to be disrupted. Based on this news, there is no indication that the organization is still in operation.

Source: Duowei News, November 19, 2017
http://news.dwnews.com/china/news/2017-11-19/60024426.html

Briefings | | November 20, 2017 | Government/Politics

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.