Chinascope – Page 519

Chinese Professional Test Taker Caught in New Zealand

Weibo reported that a Chinese woman was caught at the Auckland airport in New Zealand for carrying three different passports. She planned to take the SAT test and the test for Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) for other people (hence the need for the different passports).

China has a “flourishing” underground market for test takers. This woman charged nearly US $100,000 for taking just one test.

Earlier this year, the FBI arrested four Chinese citizens for hiring other people to take the TOEFL {the most widely respected English-language test} for them. They are facing the charge of “conspiracy to cheat the U.S.” and could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.

Source: Weibo, November 4, 2017
https://weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404170487788924371&ssl_rnd=1510093760.2751

Briefings | | November 8, 2017 | Economy/Resources

Lianhe Zaobao: 27 Countries on “The Belt and Road” Have “Garbage” Level Sovereign Credit Ratings

Singapore’s primary Chinese language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao recently reported that a number of international studies have shown that most of the projects under China’s grand “The Belt and Road” plan do not show sound financial returns. When the top three international rating agencies ranked the 68 partner countries China included in “The Belt and Road” plan, 27 showed they suffered from “Garbage” level sovereign credit. Among the rest of the countries, 14 (including Afghanistan, Iran and Syria) either were not rated, or the respective governments withdrew their rating requests. “The Belt and Road” plan estimates that, over a ten year period, it will achieve a spending level of US$1.2 trillion on such infrastructure projects as railways, roads, ports, and power grids. Financial and banking experts suggested that it would be a better idea to classify the plan as a geopolitical investment rather than a profitable financial program. China has so far spent or committed to spend over US$500 billion, which does not include large commercial bank loans. The source for most of this spending is China-backed investment funds.

Source: Lianhe Zaobao, October 28, 2017
http://www.zaobao.com.sg/finance/china/story20171028-806533

Briefings | | November 6, 2017 | Economy/Resources Geo-Strategic Trend

RFI Chinese: Chinese Drug Lords Replace South Americans as Primary U.S. Drug Suppliers

Radio France Internationale (RFI) recently reported that U.S. President Trump declared national public health emergencies twice this year because of the opioid epidemic. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, China is the supplier of almost the entire source of opioid type drugs, the main one being Fentanyl. Fentanyl is around ten times stronger than Heroin. Proven records show that at least 12 Chinese drug companies have had online commercials claiming they could export Fentanyl to the United States and Canada for US$2,750 per kilogram. Most of the Chinese Fentanyl was first shipped to Mexico and then smuggled into the United States. The Chinese supplied all of the opioid drugs that a recently captured New York 34-person drug dealership retailed. In fact, all of the drug cartels that were cracked down on this year sourced their opioid drugs from China. The latest illegal marijuana-planting group arrested in California after the state’s legalization of marijuana was Chinese and Chinese sources funded the group.

Source: RFI Chinese, October 31, 2017
http://bit.ly/2A85LSA

Briefings | | November 6, 2017 | US-China Relations

North Korean Nuclear Test Site Collapses Causing 200 Deaths

Major Taiwanese news group Eastern Media International recently reported, based on sources from North Korea, South Korea, and Japan that North Korea’s Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site suffered a major mountain structural change. This resulted in large-scale collapses of the underground tunnels for nuclear tests. North Korea completed its sixth nuclear test on September 3. A collapse occurred around September 10 burying around 100 workers. During the rescue mission, a second collapse took the lives of roughly another 100, mainly rescue staff. South Korean officials thought that, after the last test, the nuclear site had a big hole, the size of around 100 meters. If North Korea conducts more nuclear tests under the current conditions, serious radioactive leaks may occur. Three small scale earthquakes occurred after the last nuclear test. Scientists expressed the belief that structural collapses caused those quakes.

Sources: Eastern Media International, October 31, 2017
https://www.ettoday.net/news/20171031/1042620.htm

Briefings | | November 6, 2017 | Geo-Strategic Trend

Epoch Times: Chinese Authorities Draw Blood from Uyghurs in Xinjiang to Build Secret Organ Matching Database

Epoch Times published an article on a seminar that Dr. Enver Tohti, former surgeon from Xinjiang and head of the Uyghur Association in England, held in Taiwan on using the Uyghurs in Xinjiang for Organ Harvesting. Dr. Tohti disclosed that starting in June of 2016 the Chinese authorities launched a so called “physical exam” project to conduct large scale blood testing of 15-20 million Uyghurs living in Xinjiang. The real purpose, however, was to build a database for the purpose of matching organs {of donors to recipients}. The authorities also sent 25 percent of the Uyghurs to “reeducation sessions” in order to “crack down on extremists.” It seems that many of them never returned home. A photo that Dr. Tohti displayed on his cell phone showed an express tunnel inside an airport in Xinjiang with “human organ transport access” marked on the floor. Dr. Tohti said that after he exposed this evidence in Japan in April of 2017, the Chinese authorities changed the name of the project from “Physical Exam” to “DNA test,” but continued to collect blood samples during the test. According to Dr. Tohti, Transplanting Organs has become a mature and extremely profitable industry in China. Some hospitals widely promote the transplant business with guarantees that they will have a matching organ within a four hour wait time, an indication that there are a large number of organ {donors} readily available behind the scenes. The Chinese authorities started to conduct live harvesting of human organs in 1990 mostly on minority residents in Xinjiang. In 1999, they then started to target Falun Gong adherents. He said that, in 1995, he was personally involved in a surgical operation on a prisoner and has felt guilty about it even through today. He asked the people who plan to receive organ transplants in China to think about it twice because they could become a killer who indirectly killed an innocent life.

Source: Epoch Times, October 17, 2017
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/17/10/27/n9777310.htm

Briefings | | November 6, 2017 | Government/Politics

China News: Three Reasons Why Xi Jinping Regained Exclusive Control of the Armed Police Force

China News published an article on the three reasons why Xi Jinping regained exclusive control of the Armed Police less than one week after the 19th National Congress. According to the article, an announcement was issued that the State Council and the Military Commission will no longer co-manage the armed police. The Military Commission will manage the armed police directly. The local municipal government does not have the authority to mobilize the armed police either. The article listed three reasons why Xi Jinping decided to gain the sole authoritative power over the armed police:

First, Xi Jinping wants to prevent any future “usurpation of party or state power.” When Zhou Yongkang was in power, the armed police expanded rapidly. The millions of armed police enabled the Political and Legal Affairs Commission to be the second power center in the central administration. On the second day of the 19th National Congress, the official news media disclosed for the first time that Bo Xilai, Zhou Yongkang, Ling Jihua, Guo Boxiong and Sun Bocan allegedly planned to “usurp the power of the party and the state.” The news became the focus of the media overseas because the armed police force was used and directly involved in that unsuccessful coup. The old structure became a major threat to Xi Jinping. Therefore Xi decided to eliminate it.

Second, Xi disabled the power of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission over the armed police force and placed it directly under the control of the Military Commission. His real intent was to diminish the power of Political and Legal Affairs Commission. During the power struggle at the National Congress, Xi won in most of the areas but not in all. One of the areas he failed to win was the Political and Legal Affairs Commission which Zhou Yongkang and Meng Jianzhu controlled and which Guo Shengkun currently leads. All of them belong to Jiang Zemin’s faction and Jiang did not want to let go. Detaching the armed police from the Political and Legal Affairs Commission is the first step in that direction and more may follow.

Third, during the era when Jiang Zemin and Zhou Yongkang were in power, they established a system to “use violence to achieve stability” in which the armed police played a critical role. Now the armed police force is directly under the Military Commission. The local municipal government no longer has the authority to direct it when there are large scale rights protests or mass incidents. They must let the central administration decide whether the armed police force can be used. This represents a change in the old model Jiang and Zhou developed: to “use violence to achieve stability.”

Source: China News, November 2, 2017
http://news.creaders.net/china/2017/11/02/1885331.html

Briefings | | November 6, 2017 | Social Stability

Springer Nature Asked to Block Part of Its Contents inside China

BBC Chinese published an article which reported that Springer Nature, a scientific publishing company, {whose publications include Nature and Scientific American}, confirmed that it was asked to block part of the contents on its website inside China. This is a second incident following the same fate that the Cambridge University Press, “The China Quarterly” suffered. According to Financial Times, over 1,000 papers that Springer Nature published in two of its political research journals are “politically sensitive papers.” They are no longer accessible in China. Springer Nature called the decision deeply regretful while stressing that it was trying to meet the requirements of the Chinese authorities and follow the local legal requirements. It stated that the blocked contents only account for less than one percent of the total contents and their customers in China can still access 99 percent of the contents. It emphasized that if they did not take any action, they would face the risk of being completely blocked in China. A Hong Kong scholar told the BBC that this is part of China’s propaganda policy. Chinese authorities did an investigation ahead of time and compiled a list of contents that “incorrectly portray China” or were “unfriendly to China.” According to the Hong Kong scholar, “China has the market. It is so attractive that these publishers want to penetrate the market to win a share of the market.”

Source: BBC Chinese, November 2, 2017
http://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-41841836

Briefings | | November 6, 2017 | Information/Technology

Global Times: Russia Delivered S-400 Missiles to China

Global Times recently reported that Russia’s latest air defense missile system, the S-400 “Growler” (NATO name: SA-21) was a huge success and has been threatening the U.S. Patriot air defense missile’s market share even among U.S allies, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia. According to the U.S. magazine The National Interest, the efficiency of the Russian S-400 has been “a game changer in the Middle East.” The S-400 can destroy any missiles within a range of 40 to 400 kilometers. It is designed to shoot down long-range reconnaissance aircraft. With the help of special radar, an S-400 can detect stealth fighter jets as well. There is no Patriot model that can match S-400’s capabilities. China was the first country that reached a deal with Russia for a supply of the S-400 supply; not long-ago Russia delivered the first shipment of that deal. This recent delivery was enough of a supply to equip several regiments.

Sources:
1. Global Times, October 28, 2017
http://mil.huanqiu.com/observation/2017-10/11340625.html
2. The National Interest, “Russia’s S-400 Is a Game Changer in the Middle East, October 17, 2017
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russias-s-400-game-changer-the-middle-east-america-should-22760

Briefings | | October 30, 2017 | Defense/Military

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.