Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Dumal »

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/worl ... cific.html

The Chinese caravan keeps on moving! A CCP-controlled entity leases a strategic foot-hold in the South Pacific. Part of Solomon Islands.
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Philip »

Bharat Karnad in his latest piece advocates a pro-active foreign policy backed with military power for India in the Asia-Pacific to counter China.He sees a great opportunity for the Modi regime, not shackled by UPA pseudo- socialist peacenik policies, espdcially where the Phillippines is concerned.Commenting upon the visit of our Pres. and for the first time sending a defence attache to Manila, the great opportunities for both nations.Real time intel on the PLAN's operations from the huge island
territories of that country, use of the superb Subic Bay naval base for the IN, providing the Phillippines navy with warships and subs, and in his idea of containing China through the " rim" nations of the so- called first island chain which encircles the Indo- China Sea. This idea is attracting attention in other Asian littoral nations too.

Engaging with Taiwan is another essential and the Modi regime must play hardball with China.Straight after meeting our PM in Mahabalipuram, XI Gins headed off to Nepal "to guarantee its sovereignty"! If ever there was a snub to Modiji, this was one. The second insult was bailing out Pak on the blacklisting for terror, where China, Turkey, Malaysia were on the same side.At least we now kbow who our enemies are.

Karnad envisages a pivotal role for the IN in the wake of the massive PLAN build up, where China will possess a navy between 2 to 3 times that of India.He comments- and with good reason too, that the IAF is fixated upon Pak ignoring the wider geo- strategic picture. For years we on BRF have been bemoaning the absence of a strategic bomber in either the IAF or IN's inventory. Armed with dozens of stand-off air-launched missiles with ranges to over 1000km, a few of these aircraft with their large bomb bays could wreak far more havoc upon either principal enemy that an entire sqd. of Brahmos- equipped MKIs, or Brahmos minus Rafales could!

Nevertheless, the writing is on the wall.Either India and Chinese threatened Asian states " hang together", they will " hang" separately.
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Will prepare blueprint for companies looking beyond China: Sitharaman - PTI

- Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said she will prepare a blueprint for international companies that are looking beyond China to make India as their preferred investment destination

- However, Sitharaman said the government's decision is not just going to be purely on the basis of what is happening presently between the United States and China

WASHINGTON: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said she will prepare a blueprint for international companies that are looking beyond China to make India as their preferred investment destination.

She said industry leaders who are contemplating getting their businesses out of China are "definitely considering India as the pitch ".

Therefore, she said, it might be important for the government to now see and meet up with a lot of industry leaders and invite them to India.

"I'd certainly be doing that...I go back and design in some way whereby I will identify those multinational corporations, all American businesses or any other country European or a British origin who are moving out of China or who probably are even contemplating. I will make a blueprint with which I will approach them and put forward to them as to why India is a far more preferable destination," Sitharaman told a group of Indian reporters at the conclusion of her interactions at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank here.

That could also be in specific areas in which India has common capacity ecosystem building, whether it's electronics, lithium ion battery or any other semiconductors, she added.

However, Sitharaman said the government's decision is not just going to be purely on the basis of what is happening presently between the United States and China.

"That could either aggravate the situation or probably just influence at some level. But the fact remains that there are companies which are looking at relocating for various other reasons also," she said.

"That is why I gave that little fine line that I'm drawing about companies which would want to locate elsewhere outside of China. Even as I said that, I said that not every company wants to lock, stock and barrel get out of China, there are companies which will remain there to service the Chinese market.

After all little China as a very big domestic market and the their purchasing power, consumption style may be very different from what it is in India, but I'm making that margin already that companies will probably be there to service the Chinese market tension or not tension," the Union minister said.

She said India wants to create an ecosystem to invite the companies to tap the country's market.

"I'm allowing that margin already. Over in about that for those companies, even if they continue to be in China but still would want to produce from elsewhere either to export or to capture a new hub, domestic market like India," Sitharaman said.

"There was one thing very clear that India is still for them (companies), one of the biggest options to consider," she added.

The minister said it is perceived that the opportunities in Vietnam are not that much attractive.

"In fact, today, one of the conversations that I was having with some of the bank and the government representatives was that even Vietnam now probably is getting saturated. They don't have enough manpower to address expansionary programmes of investment," she said.

"So, given the fact that we've given concessional taxation approach to corporate incomes, corporate tax having been brought down and the problems that I've just mentioned about Vietnam, there's a higher chance that those companies which are moving out those investments which want to get out to China will certainly look at India," Sitharaman said.

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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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X Posted on the Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis Thread

Cutting the line

To suppress news of Xinjiang’s gulag, China threatens Uighurs abroad

A government-funded radio station in America has played a vital role in exposing Xinjiang’s horrors

On a single day in January 2018 in the far-western region of Xinjiang, 25 members of Gulchehra Hoja’s family, including her parents in their 70s, received calls summoning them to police stations in Urumqi, the provincial capital, and in Ili, 500km away near China’s western border. When they arrived they were told they were being detained because of their kinship with Ms Hoja, a reporter for Radio Free Asia (RFA), a broadcaster funded by the American government. RFA had recently reported on the mass internment of Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic group that makes up nearly half of Xinjiang’s 22m people. Ms Hoja’s father could not answer the summons because he was in hospital. Instead, police sent guards to stop him escaping.

The message to RFA was clear, and it was not the first one. A year earlier—just before China began rounding up hundreds of thousands of Uighurs, often for no other reason than their devotion to Islam—Ms Hoja’s colleague, Kurban Niyaz, another Uighur exile in America, received a photo from his younger sister on WeChat, a Chinese social-media app. It showed two Chinese police officers sitting on her sofa (one of them smiled for the camera). They had ordered her to send him the photo, Mr Kurban says, to remind him that “the people’s cops are just next to my family members”.

The Communist Party’s efforts to suppress Uighurs have extended far beyond China’s borders. Uighur exiles and former detainees in Europe, America and elsewhere have been warned, sometimes through relatives, not to speak about Xinjiang’s new gulag. Those who have done so have faced repercussions. On October 13th state media in China circulated a video of a Uighur man rejecting as “an outright lie” an account by Mike Pompeo, America’s secretary of state, that the man’s sister, Zumrat Dawut, had been detained, beaten and forcibly sterilised. In the video Ms Dawut’s brother appears to be reading a statement. “I’m making this video clip just to tell the truth to the world,” he says to the camera.

Few exiles have felt intimidation more acutely than the 12 Uighurs in America who produce RFA’s Uighur-language news. That is because the station is the only one outside China that broadcasts in this Turkic tongue, and it pulls no punches. RFA reports relentlessly on Xinjiang’s human-rights horrors. Uighur staff say their relatives have been interrogated or detained just for having a family member who works for RFA. At least six of them have a combined total of more than 40 relatives who are in the new detention facilities (officially known as vocational-training centres—one is pictured) or in prison, or have gone missing. That includes more than 20 of Ms Hoja’s relatives, who are still being held 21 months after they were taken. The police have asked them what they told RFA, which China calls an “enemy radio station”. Her relatives were not sources for her stories, she says.

It is easy to see why Chinese officials would view RFA so darkly, even if it were not funded by America. Its staff doggedly pursue sources in Xinjiang, sometimes making hundreds of calls daily, to glean titbits of information about the regime’s treatment of Uighurs. The service beams its Uighur-language reports for two hours each day via shortwave radio and satellite. China jams RFA’s transmissions and blocks its website, but in a survey of Uighurs in Turkey who had recently left their homeland, about one-fifth had listened to or read RFA news at least once a week while in Xinjiang. RFA’s stories have helped bring global attention to the new detention centres, details of which have been difficult for journalists to uncover because of an intense security clampdown in Xinjiang. The publicity has aggravated tensions between China and America. The Trump administration this month declared sanctions against Chinese officials and businesses implicated in repressing Uighurs.

Mapping the Gulag

It was more than a year after RFA first reported on the facilities that the government finally acknowledged their existence in October 2018. It continued to deny that Uighurs were being forced into them to undergo weeks, months or even longer periods of indoctrination in the party’s virtues and the dangers of “extremism” (a term applied even to the wearing of Islamic dress). Since then officials have arranged Potemkin tours for some foreign media and diplomats. The visits have fooled few. In August Olsi Jazexhi, an Albanian scholar who had previously been sceptical of reports such as RFA’s, emerged from a detention-camp tour to attest (to RFA) that, from what he saw, people were being imprisoned for the crime of being Muslim and Uighur. Adrian Zenz, a German scholar, notes that even the government’s own literature says the centres are meant to “wash clean the brains” of the people they house.

It is not only China’s government that criticises RFA’s reporting on Xinjiang. Some people who sympathise with the Uighur cause say its stories are sometimes thinly sourced and melodramatic. Others say the station’s support from the American government, to the tune of $44m a year, including $2m for the Uighur-language service, suggests that RFA is a propaganda tool. The broadcaster, founded in the 1990s, says it has editorial independence. But it belongs to a constellation of government-sponsored stations, other members of which had their heyday in the cold war, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

There is certainly a cold-war feel to working for RFA’s Uighur service. Many of the people the journalists try to speak to in Xinjiang are too afraid to answer. Staff suspect the Chinese authorities use voice-recognition technology to identify them and block their phone conversations—lines to Xinjiang often drop after a minute of conversation. “The intimidation, the incarceration of our loved ones is very constant,” says Mamatjan Juma, the service’s deputy director. His three brothers are all in custody, two of them since May 2017. Sometimes the pressure is too much—just hearing a song that he used to listen to with his brothers can cause floods of tears. “It affects you, but you have to get up every day and come to work, because if you don’t write, if you don’t report on these issues, nobody would. We don’t have a choice.”

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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Prem »

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/ted- ... 21946.html

Ted Cruz: China is 'most significant' geopolitical threat to US
In a wide-ranging conversation with Yahoo Finance's editor-in-chief Andy Serwer, the Texas Republican and 2016 GOP presidential contender described his tour through Asia with stops in Japan, Taiwan, India, and Hong Kong.He explained that his recent trip was designed to be a "friends and allies tour" with neighbors of China — with an emphasis on "dealing with China's enhanced military aggression."Cruz told Yahoo Finance that "You know, China is modernizing its military, they're doing so in large part with technology, intellectual property they've stolen from the United States because they employ the theft of [intellectual property] as a policy agenda item. And that threat is very real.”
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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President Xi Jinping uses China's biggest annual meeting for politics, not economy - Straits Times
China's economic challenges have proliferated in the almost two years since President Xi Jinping last convened a full meeting of the Communist Party. But politics remain at the top of his agenda.

The party's Central Committee gathered behind closed doors on Monday (Oct 28) for the first time since February 2018 - the longest stretch the 200-plus-member body has gone without meeting since China began its reform era four decades ago. And Mr Xi looks poised to pick up where he left off: solidifying control over the ruling party and the country of almost 1.4 billion people.

While such "plenums" are closely guarded affairs, state media have said party leaders would make "greater efforts in sticking to and improving the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, as well as strengthening China's system and capacity for governance".

That arcane language suggests a sweeping agenda focused on further centralising power around the president that may include reshuffling some key leadership roles when it ends on Thursday.

"Xi has defined China's governing system as really incredibly broad, encompassing everything from how the party manages politics to the economy to society to culture to itself to the environment," said Trey McArver, co-founder of Beijing-based research firm Trivium China. "It could end up being a relatively comprehensive or broad-based approach to everything."

Mr Xi has repeatedly warned against complacency in recent months, complaining in a speech last month that some cadres were "weak-kneed and unwilling to fight" against the party's growing and long-term challenges. China is projected to see the slowest growth in gross domestic product in almost three decades this year - a concern made worse by the trade war with US President Donald Trump.

Some observers had expected this plenum to focus more on economic policies, since the one last year also dealt with politics. While a rash of negative economic data have raised speculation that the party leadership might take more decisive action to boost domestic demand, Mr Xi also needs to make sure the party's - and thus his - rule can endure the coming downturn.

"We'd like to see how the big topics such as growth, stability and reforms are being prioritised," said Peiqian Liu, China economist at Natwest Markets Plc. in Singapore. "For instance, the pledge for better party building might lead to higher confidence and greater acceptance of slower growth among the top leaders, and that local officials can be more focused on reforms."

'LOW EXPECTATIONS'


The last time the Central Committee met 20 months ago, Mr Xi secured the body's blessing to repeal constitutional term limits keeping him from serving as president past 2023. The move represented one of the party's sharpest departures from the model of collective leadership embraced after Mao Zedong's tumultuous and personality-driven rule.

Still, plenums are rarely that dramatic and the results often take months or even years to come into focus. The outcome will probably first be detailed in a jargon-laden communique released after the meeting.

Although the communique may provide important signals about where China's political system and its economy are headed, it's unlikely to answer key questions such as how the leadership will manage slowing growth, mounting debt and a rapidly aging population.

China's list of economic headaches includes the downdraft from the trade war with the US, factory-price deflation, a fragile financial system and spiraling food costs in the wake of a catastrophic disease epidemic among the nation's pig herd. Even so, policy makers are wary of embarking on large-scale stimulus measures for fear of resurgent debt levels or bursting the bubble in the property market.

"We have pretty low expectations of this plenum producing a decision that will be meaningful for markets and investors," said Tom Rafferty, principle China economist for the Economist Intelligence Unit.

"What they are looking for is a clearer economic road map for the 2020s, but this plenum is not going to provide that."
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by UlanBatori »

(Yawn!!!) Chinese team banned for "extensive cheating"
kicked out of its own Military World Games after other countries alerted judges to "extensive cheating" by the hosts.
Originally the Chinese athletes had taken the first, second and fourth places in the women's middle-distance orienteering competition, as well as second place in the men's, during the race on Sunday, according to a statement by the International Orienteering Federation (IOF).
But after a complaint by six European countries, including Russia and France, judges discovered that Chinese runners had been assisted by local spectators. This included onlookers placing markings and preparing special paths in the terrain for Chinese athletes, which only those competitors were aware of.
The Chinese team was banned from taking part in the long-distance orienteering competition, according to the IOF.

"The IOF takes the actions of the Chinese team very seriously," IOF Secretary General Tom Hollowell said in a statement, adding that the organization was "investigating if any further actions need to be taken to guarantee the fairness of competition at the upcoming World Cup final in Guangzhou, China from October 25."
Like the Olympics, the Military World Games are held every four years. The inaugural competition was held in Rome in 1995 and this is China's first time hosting the event, which will continue until October 30.

More than 9,000 athletes from 109 countries are expected to take part in the Wuhan games, according to local organizers.
Among the events are swimming, parachuting, orienteering and wrestling. So far, China is substantially leading on the medal tally, with twice as many gold medals as nearest competitor Russia.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SSridhar »

^ That reinforces a certain perception of the Chinese.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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RCEP deal: Japan tries to convince China to relax demands on India - Amiti Sen, Business Line
To make the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) deal between 16 nations more acceptable to Indian negotiators, Japan is trying to convince China to lower demands put forward to New Delhi seeking a reduction or elimination of import duties on goods, a person close to the negotiations has said.

Trade Ministers from RCEP countries are scheduled to meet again on November 2-3 in Bangkok to see if an announcement on concluding the deal could be made at the RCEP Leaders Summit on November 4 as planned, or whether a partial conclusion is all that that can be managed at the moment, the official added.

The RCEP deal is being negotiated by 16 countries, including the 10-member ASEAN, China, India, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. It is one of the largest free trade deals being negotiated globally, accounting for about half the world’s population and a third of its GDP.
Last-minute objections

India had raised strong last-minute objections to the proposed RCEP pact at the meeting of Trade Ministers in Bangkok earlier this month when all members were supposed to settle their niggling differences and reach an agreement on all issues.

“It was deeply surprising to see Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal suddenly adopt a harsh position on a number of issues and demand more safeguards than other members were ready to give. Many of these issues were seen as settled earlier with mutual consent of all members, including India, but these were being freshly raised,” the official said.

Many of the demands raised by India were in the area of enhanced coverage of items under the auto trigger mechanism and relatively tougher rules of origin.

While the auto trigger mechanism will lead to an increase in import duties as soon as inflows of a particular product rise beyond a certain threshold, tough rules of origin aim to ensure that there is substantial value addition to a product before it is exported to another country where it is eligible for preferential duties.

The apprehension being felt by many industrial sectors and farmers on a possible flooding of the market with cheap imports once import duties on goods from China are pared is one of the reasons behind India’s hard posture at the negotiations.


“Japan has probably realised that India will not have the political appetite to say yes to the RCEP pact unless China’s demands go down a bit. That is why Japan seems to have taken up cudgels on behalf of Indian negotiators. But Japan would also want to ensure that India does not not backtrack further if it manages to convince China to compromise,” the official said.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by sanjaykumar »

Indians a known to be tough negotiators on trade se the GATT negotiations.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Rony »

Fifteen rules for politicians whenever talking of China from Australian perspective
Scott Morrison, fresh from meeting Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan, said he would not be trapped into a “binary assessment” of Australia’s relations with China and the US. “Australia as an independent, sovereign nation has a unique perspective,” the Prime Minister said.

Frances Adamson, the head of the Department of Foreign ­Affairs and Trade, gave a sobering assessment, and quietly ominous warning, at Senate estimates, when she remarked: “It (relations with China) will be a relationship where we will need on both sides to work quite hard to manage what I really think will be enduring differences.

“Some points of difference may come and go but other points of difference, which go more deeply to differences between our systems and our values, are likely to endure.”

Though she didn’t like the term, these difficulties would be “the new normal” in Australia China relations, she said.

Both sides of politics have been a bit at sea on China just lately. Labor’s normally reliable and sensible deputy leader, Richard Marles, had a disastrous visit to Beijing during which he blamed the Morrison government for the troubles between Canberra and Beijing. He also ­repudiated Morrison’s view, ­expressed in speeches in Australia and the US, that China was a “newly developed economy”.

And though, like other MPs, he had been required to leave his iPhone behind because otherwise it would be tampered with by the Chinese intelligence agencies, he called for newly intensified military co-operation between China and Australia, without limiting or defining what he meant at all.

Worst of all, he said 1.2 million Australians of Chinese ethnic background wanted better relations with China. By this he apparently meant they’d like easy visas, pension arrangements and the like. But given the geo-strategic context of everything he said, it sounded like he meant these Australians all shared a similar positive geo-strategic view of China.

This is not only wrong, divisive and insulting to Chinese-Australians, it’s illogical and silly, because most Australians of Chinese ­background don’t come from mainland China. Anthony Albanese enthusi­astically embraced everything Marles said but offered no glimmer of a sense that he ­understood anything substantial about China policy.

Here is an urgent challenge for Albanese. He needs to deliver a big foreign policy speech, with a big section on the US and a big section on China. Everyone knew what Bill Shorten’s Labor Party thought about these issues. Nobody knows what Albanese’s Labor thinks. ­

Indeed Albanese and his gang — with the exception of foreign ­affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong — are all over the place like a dog’s breakfast. Labor is incoherent on China at the moment.

Albanese has been leader for six months. It’s time he told us what Labor’s terms of engagement and policy limits are on China.

The government has at times been quite messy too. Trade ministers are generally hopeless when asked about security issues but Simon Birmingham refused even to endorse or repeat Morrison’s formulation that China is a newly developed economy. Albanese as Opposition Leader didn’t seem to know what Australian policy was, but Birmingham as trade minister refused to endorse his own government’s policy.

The government’s most egregious offence, however, was racialising its defence of Liberal politician Gladys Liu from perfectly reasonable scrutiny of her connections with Chinese government-affili­ated bodies.

The left of politics is much more prone to racialising non-racial issues because of its dreadful embrace of identity politics, but it is just as rotten a tactic when conservatives use it. What’s clear is that dealing with China’s complexities ties Australian politicians into knots.

So, in the spirit of benevolent helpfulness for which this column is justly renowned (irony alert), here are 15 rules for Australian politicians to observe whenever they talk of China.

RULE ONE: Never, ever, when commenting on relations with Beijing, use the words “1.2 million Australians of Chinese ethnicity” or any words like them. Leave the ethnicity of proud Australian citizens out of your wretched second-rate rhetoric. Surely our politicians can work out that the word China has several meanings. One is the government of the Communist Party of China that rules the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. Another is the ethnic and cultural inheritance of the Chinese civilisation. If you equate the latter with the former you are doing the propaganda work of the Chinese Communist Party, you are defaming Australian citizens by conflating a foreign government with their Australian civic identity, and you risk polarising the Australian community if anyone is silly enough to take your comments ­seriously. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

RULE TWO: Don’t ever, a la Paul Keating, attack security agency chiefs, or the heads of bodies like the Foreign Investment Review Board, because they make decisions you disagree with. By all means scrutinise and evaluate those decisions, though be aware that without exception these folks know infinitely more about the subject than you do. And they are not allowed to defend themselves publicly. Further, public trust in the integrity and competence of these agencies is a profound ­national resource. Don’t trash it for a momentary political high that in any event only makes you look foolish.

During the past election campaign, Keating said Australia’s “nutter” intelligence chiefs had “gone berko” on China and an ­incoming Labor government would “clean them out”. These comments were stupid and disgraceful. Uncharacteristically, Keating withdrew them a few days later and even said he supported the decision to ban the Chinese telco Huawei from the 5G project in Australia.

But Labor senator Kim Carr, echoing Keating and showing that Labor remains weird on these issues, claimed “Sinophobes” and “hawks within the ­national security establishment” and “Cold War warriors” had whipped up baseless concerns about China. Carr, a former cabinet minister, either doesn’t know what the security agencies are saying or has some grounds for believing that all their assessments are root-and-branch wrong. Albanese must tell us what official Labor’s view actually is or we will be entitled to believe it is some version of the Keating-Carr continuum.

RULE THREE: Strive for balance. Popular, digital and political culture today is a conspiracy against balance. Yet most things in international relations are not as good as we hope nor as bad as we fear. Most things have good and bad ­elements. On China, agencies that are concerned only with trade have an overwhelmingly positive view of Beijing. Agencies concerned only with security have an overwhelmingly worried view. Both views are correct. But they are seldom acknowledged simultaneously. Agencies concerned with both trade and security, such as DFAT or even the Prime Minister and Cabinet department, suffer cognitive dissonance, chronic compartmentalisation and functional schizophrenia. Political leaders need to comprehend, and lead on, all our main national interests.

We should rehabilitate a metaphor from a previously troubled relationship. The legendary Dick Woolcott used often to say our ­relationship with Indonesia was a thick rope with many strands — one is human rights, one is trade, one is security. Press that splendid metaphor into service again.

RULE FOUR: Tone down your language anyway. Politicians often need to shout to be heard. Don’t shout about China. There’s no need to sound like a shock jock, a left or right-wing populist or even an opinion page columnist. This is ­advice against every instinct in your body — but if you speak a little more soberly you will be doing the nation a service.

RULE FIVE: A related imperative, avoid the simplistic binary, embrace the elegant duality. The US and China are not in a “cold war”, a term that has a specific historic meaning including extremely limited trade that is nothing like the situation of today. Neither is it sufficient to say they are strategic competitors. Nor are they comprehensive partners. Their relationship involves both compet­ition and co-operation. Simul­taneously. Got it? Competition and co-operation at the same time. We journalists tend to take trends to their illogical conclusions. Academics are even worse at this. Policymakers should cultivate a natural affinity for paradox, fluidity, ambiguity, variation over time and between different planes of a relationship.

RULE SIX: Avoid classic Beijing formulations that put you at a disadvantage, especially the idea that “the relationship” or “a good relationship” is the supreme object of diplomacy. If you accept that formulation your Beijing counterpart can unilaterally declare the relationship damaged and assign blame to you. The other side of Australian politics will most often faithfully accept this canard.

RULE SEVEN: Avoid emotional terms like “trust”. Australians will be confused if you say we have a relationship of trust, or we must build trust, with Beijing and then tell them, as you must, that Beijing has launched cyber attacks on our institutions or stolen intellectual property or illegally occupied and militarised islands in the South China Sea, which it promised never to militarise.

RULE EIGHT: I’m OK, You’re OK, or He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother. Australians of either party are not responsible for the problems in the Canberra-Beijing relationship. Ideological conflict with nefarious foreign sources is built into the Communist Party’s contemporary ideology. Australians will not have more than a tiny, marginal effect on China’s political ­development. Opposing politicians abuse each other, that’s their job. But remember, if you blame fellow Australians for problems they have not caused you are ­assisting Beijing in achieving its strategic objectives against Australia’s national interests, and you are not dealing with reality.

RULE NINE: Equally, don’t misuse the China relationship for ­unrelated policy goals you might have. If you want to bring Australian troops home from the Middle East, that’s fine. Don’t insult our intelligence and promote paranoia by saying you want to do this ­because of the need to cope with regional security concerns caused by Beijing’s behaviour. Those concerns won’t be affected by our few troops in the Middle East.

RULE 10: Don’t accept Beijing’s claims to be the embodiment of virtue on global common issues, such as climate change. This is a version of rule nine.

Australians who argue for maximum global warming action at home pretend China is taking such action. I cannot remember how often I have heard the announcement of China’s national carbon market. It was being used as a rhetorical tool in our climate debate in the Gillard years. Yet this is utter nonsense.

The scheme never actually begins and, in any event, as designed will have no impact. It is in fact ­designed as a carbon-intensity scheme, so power plants will trade intensity reductions, not actual carbon emissions, and there will be no emissions cap. It is smoke and mirrors. China produces nearly 30 per cent of global emissions and has no firm commitment to reducing them. Yet it has Australian campaigners fooled, silent or uninterested.

RULE 11: Nonetheless, be positive where you can. The relationship between Australia and China is immensely beneficial to Australians and to Chinese. Culturally, every alert human being on the planet values the Chinese cultural inheritance. Celebrate all that.

RULE 12: Nonetheless, ­always tell the truth. The security issues are unavoidable and fundamental.

RULE 13: Maintain your self-respect. If you think human rights are universal and of some importance, then occasionally say so. It’s good to speak up for the Muslim Uighurs. But why does no Australian politician ever mention the persecution of Christians in China?

RULE 14: Listen to business executives on the specifics of their industry but don’t ever let them set the tone politically for the relationship. Their political judgment is rotten and they generally have no very deep institutional commitment to liberal democratic values while their understanding of security, beyond their own firm, is extremely thin. Many businesses active in China understand their best chance of prospering is to maintain an ­extremely low profile and, as far as possible, not come to the attention of the Chinese authorities. Others think they do well by sucking up publicly and especially by having a shot at their own government. The Chinese are good at convincing businesses that everything would be fine except for the foolishness of Canberra. Former trade minister Andrew Robb was pathetic in ­describing a failed deal of his own in these terms.

RULE 15: Don’t ever use the words “by some measures” when describing the size of the Chinese economy. The Chinese economy is huge, the world’s second largest, about 65 per cent as big as the US. It is the world’s second largest source and host of foreign investment. At $US227bn in 2017, its defence budget is second only to the US. All of which makes describing it as a developing economy in need of special concessions ridiculous. But it is not, as propagandists claim, the biggest economy in the world. Market ex­change rate dollars are real dollars. You use them to buy things like iron ore, coal, submarines. Parity purchasing power dollars are a fictional construct, like theoretical alchemy. Under PPP you pretend that a haircut in Sichuan has the same monetary value as a session in a stylist’s studio in Beverly Hills.

People use the PPP voodoo to pretend China’s economy is bigger than the US economy and to make straight line forecasts to frighten the children. There’s no need for this nonsense and very little use for long-term forecasts at all. No analyst predicted the ­author­itarian turn Xi Jinping would take. The only prediction you can make with confidence is no one will predict the next big change. Don’t ­extrapolate straight-line forecasts that show either Beijing dominance or US decline. ­Execrate straight-line forecasts ­altogether. They are the work of the devil.

If our politicians would only follow these generously provided 15 simple rules — and above all cool down, stay calm, avoid the hysterics — the China debate could possibly right itself.

Of course, none of that solves our China problem.
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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China a threat to nations in Indo-Pacific region, warns top US Navy commander Rajat Pandit – TNN

HIGHLIGHTS

- I would expect to see a Chinese aircraft carrier deployment in the IOR with time. None of that should surprise anyone: US Pacific Fleet commander Admiral John Christopher Aquilino

- Pointing to China’s rapid modernization of its war-fighting capabilities, Admiral Aquilino said it was clearly a “threat to all free and like-minded nations” in the South China Sea

NEW DELHI: An aggressive and expansionist China poses a clear and present danger to other countries in the Indo-Pacific region, warned a top American military officer on Tuesday, even as he said the US would welcome any move by India to conduct joint naval patrolling or expand the Malabar combat exercise to include Australia as well. India is wary of China’s growing naval footprint in the IOR, which has witnessed regular forays by Chinese war.

“It is clear the Chinese Navy’s intent is to operate in a much broader area, which includes the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). I would expect to see a Chinese aircraft carrier deployment in the IOR with time. None of that should surprise anyone, ” said visiting US Pacific Fleet commander Admiral John Christopher Aquilino, after meeting Navy chief Admiral Karambir Singh and other top Indian defence officials here.

“The US and India both agree on a free, open and rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific. Admiral Singh and I discussed mechanisms and ways in which we can better integrate maritime operations to ensure the sea space is not prohibited by imaginary lines drawn (by someone like China),” he added.

Pointing to China’s rapid modernization of its war-fighting capabilities and “increased weaponization”, which range from long-range nuclear ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles to submarines and aircraft carriers, Admiral Aquilino said it was clearly a “threat to all free and like-minded nations” in the South China Sea (SCS) as well as the larger Indo-Pacific. “There is no doubt these weapons are designed to threaten nations that it may have disputes with,” he said.

India, of course, is also wary of China’s growing naval footprint in the IOR, which has witnessed regular forays by Chinese warships and submarines. China is now also looking to establish additional logistics facilities in the IOR after setting up its first overseas military base at Djibouti on the Horn of Africa in August 2017.

But India so far remains opposed to the any militarization of the “Quad” with the US, Japan and Australia, even though it agreed to upgrade it to the foreign minister-level, with the first meeting taking place in New York last month. Similarly, it has not agreed to include Australia in the tri-lateral Malabar war games with the US and Japan.

Admiral Aquilino, on his part, said the US would be “supportive” if India decided to invite Australia or “any other like-minded nation” to the Malabar in the quest for ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific. “Similarly, we are always interested in executing joint patrols with any of our partners,” he added.

In the SCS, the US remains strongly opposed to China’s ongoing land reclamation and muscle-flexing that has led to tensions with countries like Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and others.

“What I have seen is the continued bullying of nations by China in the region. I have seen rocks being turned into man-made islands in the SCS and their militarization, which challenges and threatens all the nations in the region,” said Admiral Aquilino.

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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Prem »

https://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-seizes-4 ... 16393.html
Vietnam Seizes $4.3B in Falsely Labeled Chinese Aluminum
Vietnamese customs discovered and seized about $4.3 billion of Chinese aluminum falsely labeled “Made-in-Vietnam” before being shipped mostly to the U.S., the Dan Tri news website reported, citing Nguyen Van Can, head of the General Department of Vietnam Customs.The aluminum was imported from China by a company based in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau that tried to sidestep U.S. tariffs, according to the report that didn’t give the company’s name. Vietnamese customs worked with American authorities during the investigation.Vietnam has become a top destination for suppliers looking to avoid U.S. and Chinese tariffs amid the ongong trade war between the great powers, which also makes it a potential magnet for fraudsters.Vietnamese authorities are increasing scrutiny on product origins and tightening issuance of certificate of origins for exports, in an attempt to stop trade fraud, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Tran Quoc Khanh told reporters in Hanoi in July. The government has stepped up its efforts “to prevent the Vietnamese territory from being taken advantage of, and not being used to avoid tariff with any markets,” Khanh said.Vietnamese shipments to the U.S. increased 26.6% from January through October compared to the same period last year, the Hanoi-based General Statistics Office said in an estimate released earlier today.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Reorganisation of J&K internal affair: India slams China over Kashmir statement - PTI
India on Thursday hit back at China over its objection to the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories, saying the reorganisation is entirely its internal affair and it does not expect other countries to comment on such matters.

India also said that China continues to be in occupation of a large tract of area in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
"It has also illegally acquired Indian territories from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) under the so-called China-Pakistan Boundary Agreement of 1963," a statement quoted Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar as saying.


Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated on Thursday into two union territories — Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh — in accordance with the government's August 5 announcement revoking the state's special status under Article 370.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told the media in Beijing on Thursday that "India unilaterally changed its domestic laws and administrative division challenging China's sovereignty."

"This is unlawful and void and this is not effective in any way and will not change the fact that the area is under Chinese actual control," he said.

Reacting to China's statement, Kumar said China is well aware of India's consistent and clear position on this issue.

"The matter of reorganisation of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir into the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh is entirely an internal affair of India," he said.

"We do not expect other countries, including China, to comment on the matters which are internal to India, just as India refrains from commenting on internal issues of other countries," Kumar said.

Asserting that the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh are integral part of India, he said India expects other countries to respect its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by sanjaykumar »

Chinese soft power, or is it hard power?
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by nam »

The vietnam seizure is exactly what I mentioned in the economic thread.

For all the claims about companies moving out of China in to vietnam, the stuff is still produced in China, but labelled as make in vietnam.
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Old, not yet rich

China’s median age will soon overtake America’s

Demography may be the Chinese economy’s biggest challenge

Shortly after 9am the neighbourhood care centre for the elderly shuffles to life. One man belts out a folk song. A centenarian sits by his Chinese chessboard, awaiting an opponent. A virtual-reality machine, which lets users experience such exotic adventures as grocery shopping and taking the subway, sits unused in the corner. A bigger attraction is the morning exercise routine—a couple of dozen people limbering up their creaky joints. They are the leading edge of China’s rapid ageing, a trend that is already starting to constrain its economic potential.

Since the care centre opened half a year ago in Changning, in central Shanghai, more than 12,000 elderly people from the area have passed through its doors. The city launched these centres in 2014, combining health clinics, drop-in facilities and old-people’s homes. It plans to have 400 by 2022. “We can’t wait. We’ve got to do everything in our ability to build these now,” says Peng Yanli, a community organiser.

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The pressure on China is mounting. The coming year will see an inauspicious milestone. The median age of Chinese citizens will overtake that of Americans in 2020, according to UN projections (see chart). Yet China is still far poorer, its median income barely a quarter of America’s. A much-discussed fear—that China will get old before it gets rich—is no longer a theoretical possibility but fast becoming reality.

According to UN projections, during the next 25 years the percentage of China’s population over the age of 65 will more than double, from 12% to 25%. By contrast America is on track to take nearly a century, and Europe to take more than 60 years, to make the same shift. China’s pace is similar to Japan’s and a touch slower than South Korea’s, but both those countries began ageing rapidly when they were roughly three times as wealthy per person.

Seen in one light, the greying of China is successful development. A Chinese person born in 1960 could expect to live 44 years, a shorter span than a Ghanaian born the same year. Life expectancy for Chinese babies born today is 76 years, just short of that in America. But it is also a consequence of China’s notorious population-control strategy. In 1973, when the government started limiting births, Chinese women averaged 4.6 children each. Today they have only 1.6, and some scholars say even that estimate is too high.

Fertility was bound to decline as China got wealthier, but the one-child policy made the fall steeper. Even though the country shifted to a two-child policy in 2016 and may soon scrap limits altogether, the relaxation came too late. The working-age population, which began to shrink in 2012, will decline for decades to come. By the middle of the century it will be nearly a fifth smaller than it is now. China will have gone from nine working-age adults per retired person in 2000 to just two by 2050.

The economic impact is being felt in two main ways. The most obvious is the need to look after all the old people. Pension payouts to retired people overtook contributions by workers in 2014. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the national pension fund could run out of money by 2035. The finance ministry is taking small steps to shore the system up: in September it transferred 10% of its stakes in four giant state-owned financial firms to the fund. But far more is needed. Government spending on pensions and health care is about a tenth of gdp, just over half the level usual in older, wealthier countries, which themselves will have to spend more as they get even older.

The second impact is on growth. Some Chinese economists—notably Justin Lin of Peking University—maintain that ageing need not slow the country down, in part thanks to technological advances. But another camp, led by Cai Fang of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has been winning the argument so far. A shrinking labour pool is pushing up wages and, as firms spend more on technology to replace workers, pushing down returns on capital investment. The upshot, Mr Cai calculates, is that China’s potential growth rate has fallen to about 6.2%—almost exactly where it is today. The labour shortage is hitting not just companies but entire cities. From Xi’an in the north to Shenzhen in the south, municipalities have made it easier for university graduates to move in, hoping thereby to attract skilled young workers.

China could, in theory, mitigate the downside from its ageing by boosting both labour-force participation and productivity—that is, getting more people into work and more out of them. Neither is easy. Retirement ages are very low in China (in many jobs, 60 for men and 50 for women), but the government has resisted raising them for fear of a backlash. And a return to state-led growth under Xi Jinping appears to be hurting productivity. As George Magnus, an economist, writes in “Red Flags: Why Xi’s China is in Jeopardy”, demography is not destiny, and China has time to change course. “The bad news, though, is that the time that is available is passing by rapidly,” he says.

One piece of good news is that China is thinking creatively about how to look after the swelling ranks of pensioners. Traditionally, children have been expected to care for their elderly parents, which helps explain why public investment in old-age homes has been minimal. But most families now have just one child, and that child is working. Suzhou, a wealthy city near Shanghai, shows how China can take advantage of its scale. In 2007 Lu Zhong, an entrepreneur, founded Jujiale as a “virtual retirement home”, dispatching helpers to private homes on demand. It now has 1,800 employees serving 130,000 retired people. Mr Lu says that it needs to grow by about 15% a year to keep up with demand.

Yet that is a silver lining in a grey-haired cloud. On October 1st China celebrated the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic. By the centenary in 2049, Mr Xi has vowed, China will have developed to the point that its strength is plain for the world to see. But as Ren Zeping, a prominent economist, tartly noted in a recent report, the median age in China in 2050 will be nearly 50, compared with 42 in America and just 38 in India. That, he wrote, raised a question: “Can we rely on this kind of demographic structure to achieve national rejuvenation?”

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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Rony »

China is weaponizing water and worsening droughts in Asia
Last summer, water levels in continental Southeast Asia's lifeline, the 4,880-kilometer Mekong River, fell to their lowest in more than 100 years, even though the annual monsoon season stretches from late May to late September. Yet, after completing 11 mega-dams, China is building more upstream dams on the Mekong, which originates on the Tibetan Plateau. Indeed, Beijing is also damming other transnational rivers.

China is central to Asia's water map. Thanks to its annexation of the water-rich Tibetan Plateau and the sprawling Xinjiang province, China is the starting point of rivers that flow to 18 downstream countries. No other country in the world serves as the riverhead for so many countries.

By erecting dams, barrages and other water diversion structures in its borderlands, China is creating an extensive upstream infrastructure that arms it with the capacity to weaponize water.
In the West, the building of large dams has largely petered out. The construction of large dams is also slowing in Asia's major democracies, such as Japan, South Korea and India, because of increasing grassroots opposition.

It is the construction in non-democracies that has made Asia the global nucleus of dam-building. China remains the world's top dam-builder at home and abroad. In keeping with its obsession to build the tallest, largest, deepest, longest and highest projects, China completed ahead of schedule the world's biggest dam, Three Gorges, touting it as the greatest architectural feat in history since the building of the Great Wall.

It is currently implementing the most ambitious interbasin and inter-river water transfer program ever conceived in human history.

Among its planned new dams is a massive project at Metog, or Motuo in Chinese, on the world's highest-altitude major river, the Brahmaputra. The proposed dam, close to the disputed, heavily militarized border with India, will have a power-generating capacity nearly twice that of the Three Gorges Dam, whose reservoir is longer than the largest of North America's Great Lakes.

Several of the Southeast Asian dam projects financed and undertaken by Chinese companies, like in Laos and Myanmar, are intended to generate electricity for export to China's own market.

Indeed, China has demonstrated that it has no qualms about building dams in disputed territories, such as Pakistan-administered Kashmir, or in areas torn by ethnic separatism, like northern Myanmar.

Ever since China erected a cascade of giant dams on the Mekong, droughts have become more frequent and intense in the downriver countries. This has created a serious public-relations headache for Beijing, which denies that its upriver dams are to blame.

Indeed, seeking to play savior, it has promised to release more dam water for the drought-stricken countries. But this offer only highlights the newfound reliance of downriver countries on Chinese goodwill -- a dependence that is set to deepen as China builds more giant dams on the Mekong.
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Asean backs India's rising role in Indo-Pacific region – PTI

HIGHLIGHTS

- In his address at the annual India-Asean summit, PM Modi talked about the mutual coordination between India's vision of the Indo-Pacific and Asean Outlook for the strategically key region which has been witnessing growing Chinese assertiveness

- Modi also talked about cross border terrorism, spread of violent extremism and the situation in the South China Sea


BANGKOK: In a significant indication of India's rising profile, the 10-nation Asean on Sunday clearly appreciated New Delhi's growing role in the Indo-Pacific region as the two sides, with a combined GDP of $5 trillion, vowed to further broad-base strategic ties and deal with major challenges like of terrorism collectively.

In his address at the annual India-Asean summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about the mutual coordination between India's PM Modi addresses at the 16th Asean-India Summit vision of the Indo-Pacific and Asean Outlook for the strategically key region which has been witnessing growing Chinese assertiveness.

Modi also talked about cross border terrorism, spread of violent extremism and the situation in the South China Sea, and underlined the need for greater cooperation between India and the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) to unitedly confront major challenges facing the region.

"I welcome the mutual coordination of the Indo-Pacific Outlook between India and the Asean. India's Act East Policy is an important part of our Indo-Pacific vision. The Asean is and always will be the heart of our Act East Policy. Integrated, organised and economically developing Asean is in India's basic interest," Modi said.

Officials said the biggest takeaway from the 16th India-Asean summit was acknowledgement of the Asean leaders about India's growing role in the Indo-Pacific for the first time after the bloc came out with an "Outlook" for the region.

The endorsement of India's role assumes significance as it came in the midst of geo-political power play in the Indo-Pacific region and escalating territorial disputes between between China and a number of Asean countries.

"All the Asean countries appreciated India's growing role (in the Indo-Pacific) region and that India's growing role is a factor of peace and stability in the region. That is the broad approach of the Asean," said Vijay Thakur Singh, Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs.

Earlier, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said his country was ready to work with Asean countries to ensure peace, security and stability in the South China Sea.

Singh said the issue of South China Sea was discussed at the summit and it was noted by both sides the importance of promoting a rules-based order in the region including through upholding adherence to international law.

In his address, the prime minister said India is committed to further strengthen partnership with the Asean through stronger surface, maritime and air connectivity and digital-link.

"$1 billion line of credit will be useful for physical and digital connectivity. Our intention is to greatly increase the traffic of people for study, research, trade and tourism. To achieve this goal, India is ready to increase partnership with the Asean in the area of mutual interests," he said.

The 10-nation Asean is considered one of the most influential groupings in the region. India and several other countries including the US, China, Japan and Australia are its dialogue partners.

The Asean region along with India together comprises combined population of 1.85 billion people, which is one fourth of the global population and their combined GDP has been estimated at over USD 5 trillion.

Modi said India is also ready to further increase capacity building and partnerships in areas of agriculture, science, research, ICT and engineering.

"I welcome the recent decision to review the Asean-India FTA. This will not only make our economic relations more stronger, but our trade will also be balanced.

We also want to strengthen our partnership in the areas of maritime security and blue economy," he said.

The prime minister also announced that India would be looking at creating an endowment of Rs 50 million for promoting exchanges between faculty as well as students under India-Asean network

Singh said the Asean leaders spoke of India as a long-term friend and a dynamic partner and complimented India's contribution in the peace and stability of the region. The leaders also welcomed India's support to the centrality of the Asean and India's programmes and projects which support Asean master plan for connectivity.

"They expressed keen interest in enhancing partnership maritime and cyber domains," said Singh.

In Video : ASEAN-India leaders come together for group picture in Bangkok

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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Peregrine »

China's countryside returning to poverty, finds report

The report by Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant says rural income has been in decline since 2014 and has fallen by another 20% in the first half of this year. The report comes in the backdrop of Chinese President's pledge to eliminate poverty

Beijing: China's countryside is "returning to poverty" as it is affected by the economic slowdown, ongoing trade war with America and the widening rural and urban divide, according to a report compiled by a think tank associated with the country's Agriculture Ministry.

The report by the Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant says the rural income has been in decline since 2014 and has fallen by another 20 per cent in the first half of this year.

"The current situation is not optimistic, the countryside is returning to poverty," warned Ma Wenfeng, an analyst from Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant, which includes the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs as a client, the Hong-Kong based South China Morning Post reported on Sunday.

The report comes in the backdrop of Chinese President Xi Jinping's pledge to eliminate poverty completely by the next year.

Over the six years till the end of 2018, China lifted 82.39 million rural residents out of poverty, state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

Over the past 40 years, more than 700 million Chinese people have cast off poverty, representing over 70 per cent of the world's total during that period, it said.

The welfare of the agricultural economy has become ever more crucial as China's relatively untapped rural consumer market is now seen as a resource to help offset the slowest growth in more than 28 years, clouded by continuing trade tensions with the United States, the Post report said.

Rural China, after all, accounts for more than 40 per cent of the country's total population.

But the government's good intentions could once again be thwarted by structural obstacles that stand in the way of needed economic reforms. With each year, the gap widens between China's rural villages and its cities, the report said.

According to the government data, rural per capita income excluding the proportion from migrant workers fell to 809 yuan (USD 114) at the end of June this year, compared with the 1,023 yuan (USD 145) at the end of 2018.

One major impediment to improving farm income is that farmers do not own the land they till. All land in China is state-owned and farmers have the right to use it under a renewable 30-year lease.

But outright ownership is non-negotiable, meaning farmers do not have the right to sell what would be their most important asset and significantly diminishing their financial security, the report said.

The current government policies focus on how to grow and sell more agricultural products but do not directly address farmers' long-term welfare, Ma said.

"We [society] look down on the agriculture sector and farmers are seen as in the lowest class in our society. Only when we provide these workers with the same rights - in terms of pensions, education and so on - can the agriculture [sector] problem be resolved," he said.

The Post report quoted an unnamed farmer in China's agricultural heartland of central Henan province as saying he could earn about 5,000 yuan (USD 707) per year from the peanuts he harvests on his 10 mu (0.67 hectare) of land, an amount that leaves his family next to nothing after basic expenses. They live in constant fear of falling ill or having to shoulder unexpected costs, he said.

"We don't have money and when this generation's young farmers have kids, they won't be able to afford to pay for [their children's] education," Ma, 70, said in a video on Chinese social media.

"Even though North Korea is backward, people there don't need to pay for education or to see a doctor. But here, can we afford to see a doctor, and pay that 300,000 yuan (USD 42,000)?" he said.

As such, commercialisation has not addressed structural issues that stand in the way of improving the lives of most Chinese farmers, Ma argued.

Many academics and economists blame China's land policy, which dates back to the early years of the Communist Party rule in the 1950s, as the cause of rural problems.

After redistributing land from rich to poor farmers, the party quickly moved to nationalise farm plots, which have remained government-owned ever since, he said.

But analysts said decentralised control and privatising land were unlikely as the party's rise was built on land reforms, the bedrock of China's socialist development, according to the Post's report

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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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India won’t join RCEP till concerns addressed Sidhartha – TNN

- India has pointed out that its concerns ranging from the base year for tariff reduction to protection against Chinese imports and opening up services sector by the other 15 countries have not been addressed ye

- For India, the big concern is goods trade as domestic industry fears that lower customs duty will see a flood of imports, especially from China, with which India has a massive trade deficit

- Negotiators are scrambling to put together a deal amid statements from Thailand and the Philippines that it may be delayed until February


NEW DELHI: The government is acting tough on signing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement to be part of the mega trade bloc and has pointed out that its concerns — ranging from the base year for tariff reduction to protection against Chinese imports and opening up services sector by the other 15 countries — have not been addressed yet.

With talks entering the final lap ahead of a joint statement on Monday evening, negotiators are scrambling to put together a deal amid statements from Thailand and the Philippines that it may be delayed until February.

Indian officials have made it clear that the Modi administration is unwilling to accept any deadline and wants the country’s interests to be fully protected before it inks the pact.

Leaders from 16 countries are in Thailand for what was expected to be the final meeting.

A preliminary RCEP deal is expected today, setting the stage for countries to finalise the legal text that would cover a third of the global economy, making RCEP the largest trading bloc.

While some countries indicated that India had raised issues at the last minute, sources told TOI that the government had been demanding for several months that its concerns be taken on board and a solution found.

During the last ministerial meeting, Piyush Goyal commerce and industry minister had flagged several issues, which led the trade ministers to provide a special 10-day window for negotiations. “The issues are yet to be resolved,” an Indian official said on Sunday evening.

Indian negotiators are questioning the design of the trade agreement, which will see elimination of import duties on 80-90% of goods, along with easier services and investment rules. For India, the big concern is goods trade as domestic industry fears that lower customs duty will see a flood of imports, especially from China, with which India has a massive trade deficit.

India has raised a red flag over the move to use 2014 as the base year for tariff reduction. While RCEP negotiators are seeking to sign the deal in 2020, the new tariff regime will kick in from 2022 and will see duties go back to 2014 levels.

This will mean that for several products, such as mobile phones and electronic goods, tariffs may have to be eliminated over time, which runs contrary to the government’s recent moves to increase import duty as part of a strategy to boost domestic manufacturing. “This is a fundamental design issue,” said a source.

Similarly, the government has asked for more protection through what is called tariff differential. Unlike the past, the other 15 countries want a common list of products on which protection is provided by insisting on value-addition. This is seen to be crucial to ensure that Chinese goods are not repackaged and routed to India via, say, Vietnam. So, 30-35% value addition in case of a mobile phone, for instance, is being sought instead of a situation where only tempered glass is put on a Chinese phone in Vietnam and then exported to India at zero or lower duty.

“The principle that is being used is very weak, which can lead to misuse,” an official said.

Besides, India has been seeking a special safeguard mechanism for several goods imported from China, Australia and New Zealand to immediately impose higher duties in case of a surge.

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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by chola »

This could be a HUGE development. Taiwan had always been a big conduit of Western or peer-Western tech to Cheen.

They (and the South Koreans and Japan) had been happily supplying the chinis the US trade and tech with the PRC.

Trump is putting a stop to it.

Cheen's access to its racial brethren in the Far East is really the big reason why they are now five times larger larger than we are as an economy when their per capita GDP was actually lower than ours in the 1970s.

The US cuts them off from Taiwan, Korea and Japan and they are another turd world nation.

https://www.ft.com/content/6ab43e94-fca ... acbbb0d9b6


US urges Taiwan to curb chip exports to China

Washington seeks to plug loopholes in its blacklisting of Huawei

Kathrin Hille in Taipei

The US government is pushing Taiwan to restrict its biggest chipmaker from producing semiconductors for Huawei, the Chinese telecoms group, and to institute stricter controls on technology exports to China.

Washington has over the past year repeatedly asked the government of president Tsai Ing-wen to restrain Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, from selling chips to Huawei, according to Taiwanese and US government officials.

Last month, a US official told Taiwanese diplomats in Washington that chips made by TSMC for Huawei were going straight into Chinese missiles pointing at Taiwan — a statement intended as a “metaphor” illustrating the risks of supplying China. 

Prasad
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Prasad »

Fat chance. TSMC was in a tough space until Q2 this year and is on a gently upswing right now. They're pouring in $15billion odd investment and banking on their 7nm to drive products for the near future. 5g is a big hope.
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Peregrine »

India's decision on RCEP reflects its assessment on current global situation and fairness of agreement : MEA

HIGHLIGHTS

- PM highlighted that he was guided by the impact it would have on the lives and livelihood of all Indians: MEA

- India had significant issues of core interest that remain unresolved: MEA

- The Prime Minister had said earlier that India remains committed to a comprehensive and
balanced outcome of RCEP negotiations

BANGKOK: India's decision to not join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement reflects its assessment on the current global situation as well as the fairness and balance of the agreement, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Monday, adding that the country had "significant issues of core interest that remained unresolved".

Briefing media persons shortly after the major development on the RCEP, Secretary (East) in the MEA Vijay Thakur Singh said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while speaking on India's decision, highlighted that he was guided by the impact it would have on the lives and livelihood of all Indians, especially the vulnerable sections of the society.

"India conveyed its decision at the summit to not join the RCEP agreement. This reflects both our assessment of the current global situation, as well as the fairness and balance of the agreement," said Singh.

"India had significant issues of core interest that remain unresolved," she added.

Singh noted that India has participated in good faith in the RCEP discussion and has negotiated hard with "a clear-eyed view of our interests."

"In the given circumstances, we believe that not joining the agreement is the right decision for India. We would continue to persevere in strengthening our trade, investment, and people to people relations with this region."

To the repeated queries from the journalists as to whether India would ever join the RCEP, Singh reiterated, "India has conveyed its decision to not join the RCEP agreement."

The Prime Minister had said earlier that India remains committed to a comprehensive and balanced outcome of RCEP negotiations and seeks balance across goods, services and investments and also within each pillar.

Industry, traders & farmers welcome India's decision

Industry, traders and farmers appreciated the government's decision not to join the China-backed mega agreement.

The country's leading milk supplier Amul described the move as "landmark".

"CII appreciates Government of India's stance on addressing all outstanding issues before joining RCEP," said Vikram Kirloskar, President, Confederation of Indian Industry.

He said the CII will continue to support and work with government in its endeavour to ntegrate with the global economy through mutually beneficial trade agreements.

The long term interest of industry in India is to get well integrated in global value chains and beneficial trade agreements could play important roles in realizing this interest, said Kirloskar.

FICCI President Sandip Somany said the chamber fully supports the Prime Minister

RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the ten member states of ASEAN and six FTA partners.

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Philip
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Philip »

Keep the crafty cheatin' Chinämen out of India.Impose huge tariff barriers all Chin goods and/or ban items.$60B going on $70B as trade deficit must face a swift closure.Secondly, send a high- powered trade delegation to Taiwan and get from Taiwan ( and Japan and SoKo) what they can replace from China along with desi products.

Hail Modiji for saying a huge NO to the RCEP, a sinister attempt by the Chinese to turn the whole of Asia into a dumping ground for Chinese garbage! That was real leadership shown to the leaders of Asia and the upturned finger to XI Gins and his yellow- faced slimeballs.

The next step is to calculate the total trade deficit with China over the last 5 years ( of NDA rule) , which will amount to around approx. $250 billion and ban import of all Chin goods forthwith until the Chins buy Indian products to the tune of that amount!
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by chola »

Modi rightly declined that burden. Even without Cheen, we would be nothing but an end market for those countries.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by hanumadu »

Prasad wrote:Fat chance. TSMC was in a tough space until Q2 this year and is on a gently upswing right now. They're pouring in $15billion odd investment and banking on their 7nm to drive products for the near future. 5g is a big hope.
Can the US stop any company from doing with business with TSMC if they do business with China, especially of high tech products? I wonder if TSMC directly uses any American technology. I know the leading provider of Deep Ultra Violet light sources for most lithographic machines is cymer, an american subsidiary of ASML.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by ritesh »

From the article:
Yes, they all sleep on the same platform,” the committee chief said, adding that it is considered acceptable for “relatives” and hosts to keep a distance of one meter (three feet) between them at night.

No women have complained about the situation of co-sleeping, he said, and local officials have promoted the practice as a means by which to “promote ethnic unity.
In July RFA spoke with a township and a village secretary in Hotan (Hetian) prefecture who both said that when “relatives” stay with their families to teach them the Chinese language and extol the virtues of Beijing’s policies in the region—often for around one week—they bring alcohol and meat that includes pork, and expect family members to consume them, against the principles of “halal” that govern what Muslims can eat and drink.

“We are not so insane as to tell them that we are Muslim, so we cannot eat the things they eat,” the secretary said at the time
.
How momeems use taqiya, above are fine examples of it.
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Peregrine »

RCEP: India open for business, but on its terms - Sidhartha – TNN

- By walking out of RCEP, India has signalled to its trade allies that it is unwilling to do business on their terms but remains open for business

- The idea is to be selective, especially with countries with which India has a massive trade deficit, such as China

NEW DELHI: The government may have opted out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RECP) agreement but is expected to pursue separate trade agreements with some of the countries that will be part of the bloc, such as Australia and New Zealand as well as those with which negotiations have not made substantial progress in recent years, such as the European Union.

First off the block may be an agreement with Mauritius, India’s close ally, signalling New Delhi’s intent to move ahead with trade pacts and also get a toehold into the African market, where China has gained considerable muscle. While the plan was to kick off work on the long-pending trade and investment pact with EU towards the end of the year, it may have to be postponed till there is greater clarity on Brexit for which an extension has been provided.

The idea is to seek easier market access through lower import duties on products such as textiles and garments, and market access for Indian bananas and some other products. Brexit is also expected to pave the way for a trade pact with the UK. In the run-up to the RCEP talks, government officials had indicated that India could quickly move ahead with a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation

Agreement with Australia where a joint study group was set up in 2010.

But RCEP had put the bilateral trade deal on hold, which is expected to get a fillip now, especially if Australia is willing to allow easier visa access to Indian professionals. By walking out of RCEP, India has signalled to its trade allies that it is unwilling to do business on their terms but remains open for business. The idea is to be selective, especially with countries with which India has a massive trade deficit, such as China.

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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Peregrine »

China says it has agreed with US to cancel tariffs in phases – Reuters

HIGHLIGHTS

- An interim US-China trade deal is widely expected to include a US pledge to scrap tariffs scheduled for December 15 on about $156 billion worth of Chinese imports

- The proportion of tariffs cancelled for both sides to reach a “phase one” deal must be the same, but the number to be cancelled can be negotiated, chinese ministry spokesman Gao Feng said

BEIJING: China and the United States have agreed to cancel in phases the tariffs imposed during their months-long trade war, the Chinese commerce ministry said on Thursday, without specifying a timetable.

An interim US-China trade deal is widely expected to include a US pledge to scrap tariffs scheduled for December 15 on about $156 billion (£121 billion) worth of Chinese imports, including cell phones, laptop computers and toys.

Tariff cancellation was an important condition for any agreement, ministry spokesman Gao Feng said, adding that both must simultaneously cancel some tariffs on each other’s goods to reach a “phase one” trade deal.

“The trade war started with tariffs, and should end with the cancellation of tariffs,” Gao told a regular news briefing.

The proportion of tariffs cancelled for both sides to reach a “phase one” deal must be the same, but the number to be cancelled can be negotiated, he added, without elaborating.

“In the past two weeks, the lead negotiators from both sides have had serious and constructive discussions on resolving various core concerns appropriately,” Gao said.

“Both sides have agreed to cancel additional tariffs in different phases, as both sides make progress in their negotiations.”

He did not give a timeline.

In what could be another gesture to boost optimism, China’s state news agency Xinhua reported late on Thursday that the Chinese customs and the ministry of agriculture are considering removing restrictions on US poultry imports.

China has banned all US poultry and eggs since January 2015 due to an avian influenza outbreak.

Beijing’s signal that a ‘phase 1’ trade deal with the United States was close to being sealed helped Europe’s share markets hit a more than 4-year peak on Thursday and bond yields shuffled higher.

Trump-Xi meeting

A source previously told Reuters that Chinese negotiators wanted the United States to drop 15% tariffs on about $125 billion worth of Chinese goods that took effect on September 1.

They also sought relief from earlier 25% tariffs on about $250 billion of imports, ranging from machinery and semi-conductors to furniture.

A person familiar with China’s negotiating position said it was pressing Washington to “remove all tariffs as soon as possible”.

A deal may be signed this month by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a yet-to-be determined location.

Dozens of venues have been suggested for a meeting, which had originally been set to take place on the sidelines of a now-cancelled mid-November summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in Chile, a senior Trump administration official told Reuters on Wednesday.

One possible location was London, where the leaders could meet after a NATO summit that Trump is due to attend from December 3-4, the official said.

Gao declined to say when and where such a meeting could be.

Since Trump took office in 2017, his administration has been pressing China to curb massive subsidies to state-owned firms and end the forced transfer of American technology to Chinese firms as a price of doing business in China.

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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SRajesh »

ritesh wrote:
From the article:
Yes, they all sleep on the same platform,” the committee chief said, adding that it is considered acceptable for “relatives” and hosts to keep a distance of one meter (three feet) between them at night.

No women have complained about the situation of co-sleeping, he said, and local officials have promoted the practice as a means by which to “promote ethnic unity.
In July RFA spoke with a township and a village secretary in Hotan (Hetian) prefecture who both said that when “relatives” stay with their families to teach them the Chinese language and extol the virtues of Beijing’s policies in the region—often for around one week—they bring alcohol and meat that includes pork, and expect family members to consume them, against the principles of “halal” that govern what Muslims can eat and drink.

“We are not so insane as to tell them that we are Muslim, so we cannot eat the things they eat,” the secretary said at the time
.
How momeems use taqiya, above are fine examples of it.
So is this the Chinese version of 'Prima Nocta' :lol: :lol:
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by vishvak »

when “relatives” stay with their families to teach them the Chinese language and extol the virtues of Beijing’s policies in the region..
Wonder why muslim countries don't even comment on it. The paki PM was asked (in usa or UNGA prolly) and he said no comments.

On the other hand India kills terrorist s on either sides of border and gets bad propaganda, while pakis (and their backers like China) spread terrorism across borders and yet get to speak like messiah at UNGA.
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Peregrine »

X Posted on the Terroristan & Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad Threads

‘Absolutely no mercy’: Leaked files show China’s mass detention of Muslims in officials’ own words

- Leaked documents reveal that President Xi laid the groundwork for the crackdown in a series of speeches

- Beijing has sought for decades to suppress Uighur resistance to Chinese rule in Xinjiang

- Inmates undergo months or years of indoctrination and interrogation aimed at transforming them into secular and loyal supporters of China’s ruling Communist Party

HONG KONG: The students booked their tickets home at the end of the semester, hoping for a relaxing break after exams and a summer of happy reunions in China’s far west.

Instead, they would be told that their relatives and neighbors were missing — all of them locked up in an expanding network of detention camps built to hold Muslim ethnic minorities.

Authorities in the Xinjiang region were worried that the situation was a powder keg. And so they prepared.

Leadership distributed a classified directive advising local officials to corner returning students as soon as they arrived and keep them quiet. It included a guide for how to handle their questions, beginning with the most obvious: Where is my family?

“They’re in a training school set up by the government,” the prescribed answer began. If pressed, officials were to tell students that their relatives were not criminals — yet could not leave these “schools.”

The question-and-answer script also included a barely concealed threat: Students were to be told that their behavior could either shorten or extend the detention of their relatives.

The directive was among 403 pages of internal documents that have been shared with The New York Times in one of the most significant leaks of government papers from inside China’s ruling Communist Party in decades. They provide an unprecedented inside view of the continuing clampdown in Xinjiang, in which authorities have corralled as many as 1 million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others into internment camps and prisons over the past three years.

The party has rejected international criticism of the camps and described them as job-training centers that use mild methods to fight Islamic extremism. But the documents confirm the coercive nature of the crackdown.

Key disclosures in the documents include:

- President Xi Jinping, the party chief, laid the groundwork for the crackdown in a series of speeches delivered in private to officials during and after a visit to Xinjiang in April 2014, just weeks after Uighur militants stabbed more than 150 people at a train station, killing 31.

— Terrorist attacks abroad and the drawdown of US troops in Afghanistan heightened leadership’s fears and helped shape the crackdown.

— The internment camps in Xinjiang expanded rapidly after the appointment in August 2016 of Chen Quanguo, a zealous new party boss for the region.

— The crackdown encountered doubts and resistance from local officials who feared it would exacerbate ethnic tensions and stifle economic growth. Chen responded by purging officials suspected of standing in his way.

— The leaked papers consist of 24 documents. They include nearly 200 pages of internal speeches by Xi and other leaders and more than 150 pages of directives and reports on the surveillance and control of the Uighur population in Xinjiang. There are also references to plans to extend restrictions on Islam to other parts of China.

Although it is unclear how the documents were gathered and selected, the leak suggests greater discontent inside the party than previously known. The papers were brought to light by a member of the Chinese political establishment who requested anonymity and expressed hope that their disclosure would prevent party leaders, including Xi, from escaping culpability for the mass detentions.

Chinese leadership wraps policymaking in secrecy, especially when it comes to Xinjiang, a resource-rich territory located on the sensitive frontier with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia. Predominantly Muslim ethnic minority groups make up more than half the region’s population of 25 million. The largest of these groups are the Uighurs, who have long faced discrimination and restrictions on cultural and religious activities.

Beijing has sought for decades to suppress Uighur resistance to Chinese rule in Xinjiang. The current crackdown began after a surge of anti-government and anti-Chinese violence, including ethnic riots in 2009 in Urumqi, the regional capital, and a May 2014 attack on an outdoor market that killed 39 people just days before Xi convened a leadership conference in Beijing to set a new policy course for Xinjiang.

Since 2017, authorities in Xinjiang have detained many hundreds of thousands of Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslims in internment camps. Inmates undergo months or years of indoctrination and interrogation aimed at transforming them into secular and loyal supporters of the party.

The government sends Xinjiang’s brightest young Uighurs to universities across China, with the goal of training a new generation of Uighur civil servants and teachers loyal to the party.

The crackdown in Xinjiang has been so extensive that it affected even these elite students, the directive shows. And that made authorities nervous.

“Returning students from other parts of China have widespread social ties across the entire country,” the directive noted. “The moment they issue incorrect opinions on WeChat, Weibo and other social media platforms, the impact is widespread and difficult to eradicate.”

The document warned that there was a “serious possibility” students might sink into “turmoil” after learning what had happened to their relatives. It recommended that police officers in plainclothes and experienced local officials meet them as soon as they returned.

The directive’s question-and-answer guide begins gently, with officials advised to tell students that they have “absolutely no need to worry” about relatives who have disappeared.

“Tuition for their period of study is free and so are food and living costs,” officials were told to say.

“If you want to see them,” one answer concluded, “we can arrange for you to have a video meeting.”

Authorities anticipated, however, that this was unlikely to mollify students and provided replies to other questions: When will my relatives be released? If this is for training, why can’t they come home? Can they request a leave? How will I afford school if my parents are studying and there is no one to work on the farm?

The guide recommended increasingly firm replies telling the students that their relatives had been “infected” by the “virus” of Islamic radicalism and must be quarantined and cured.

Students should be grateful that authorities had taken their relatives away, the document said.

Authorities appear to be using a scoring system to determine who can be released from the camps: The document instructed officials to tell the students that their behavior could hurt their relatives’ scores and to assess the behavior of students and record their attendance at training sessions, meetings and other activities.

“Family members, including you, must abide by the state’s laws and rules and not believe or spread rumors,” officials were told to say. “Only then can you add points for your family member, and after a period of assessment they can leave the school if they meet course completion standards.”

If asked about the impact of the detentions on family finances, officials were advised to assure students that “the party and the government will do everything possible to ease your hardships.”

The line that stands out most in the script, however, may be the model answer for how to respond to students who ask of their detained relatives, “Did they commit a crime?”

The document instructed officials to acknowledge that they had not. “It is just that their thinking has been infected by unhealthy thoughts,” the script said. “Freedom is only possible when this ‘virus’ in their thinking is eradicated and they are in good health.”

Secret speeches

The ideas driving the mass detentions can be traced back to Xi Jinping’s first and only visit to Xinjiang as China’s leader, a tour shadowed by violence.

In 2014, little more than a year after becoming president, he spent four days in the region, and on the last day of the trip, two Uighur militants staged a suicide bombing outside a train station in Urumqi that injured nearly 80 people, one fatally.

Weeks earlier, militants with knives had gone on a rampage at another railway station, in southwest China, killing 31 people and injuring more than 140. And less than a month after Xi’s visit, assailants tossed explosives into a vegetable market in Urumqi, wounding 94 people and killing at least 39.

Against this backdrop of bloodshed, Xi delivered a series of secret speeches setting the hard-line course that culminated in the security offensive now underway in Xinjiang. While state media have alluded to these speeches, none were made public.

The text of four of them, though, were among the leaked documents.

“The methods that our comrades have at hand are too primitive,” Xi said in one talk, after inspecting a counterterrorism police squad in Urumqi. “None of these weapons is any answer for their big machete blades, ax heads and cold steel weapons.

“We must be as harsh as them,” he added, “and show absolutely no mercy.”

In several surprising passages, Xi also told officials to not discriminate against Uighurs and to respect their right to worship, and he rejected proposals to try to eliminate Islam entirely in China.

But Xi’s main point was unmistakable: He was leading the party in a sharp turn toward greater repression in Xinjiang.

Before Xi, the party had often described attacks in Xinjiang as the work of a few fanatics. But Xi argued that Islamic extremism had taken root across swaths of Uighur society.

Violence by Uighur militants has never threatened Communist control of the region. Although attacks grew deadlier after 2009, when nearly 200 people died in ethnic riots in Urumqi, they remained relatively small, scattered and unsophisticated.

Even so, Xi warned that the violence was spilling from Xinjiang into other parts of China and could taint the party’s image of strength.

Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, responded to the 2009 riots in Urumqi with a clampdown, but he also stressed economic development as a cure for ethnic discontent. But Xi signaled a break with Hu’s approach.

“In recent years, Xinjiang has grown very quickly and the standard of living has consistently risen, but even so, ethnic separatism and terrorist violence have still been on the rise,” he said. “This goes to show that economic development does not automatically bring lasting order and security.”

Ensuring stability in Xinjiang would require a sweeping campaign of surveillance and intelligence gathering to root out resistance in Uighur society, Xi argued.

He said new technology must be part of the solution, foreshadowing the party’s deployment of facial recognition, genetic testing and big data in Xinjiang.

Within months, indoctrination sites began opening across Xinjiang — mostly small facilities at first, which held dozens or hundreds of Uighurs at a time for sessions intended to pressure them into disavowing devotion to Islam and professing gratitude for the party.

Then in August 2016, a hard-liner named Chen was transferred from Tibet to govern Xinjiang. New security controls and a drastic expansion of the indoctrination camps followed.

‘I broke the rules’

In February 2017, Chen told thousands of police officers and troops in Urumqi to prepare for a “smashing, obliterating offensive.” In the following weeks, the documents indicate, leadership settled on plans to detain Uighurs in large numbers.

Chen issued a sweeping order: “Round up everyone who should be rounded up.” The vague phrase appears repeatedly in internal documents from 2017 and was being applied to humans in directives that ordered, with no mention of judicial procedures, the detention of anyone who displayed “symptoms” of religious radicalism or anti-government views.

Authorities laid out dozens of such signs, including common behavior among devout Uighurs such as wearing long beards, giving up smoking or drinking, studying Arabic and praying outside mosques.

The number of people swept into the camps remains a closely guarded secret. But one of the leaked documents offers a hint of the scale of the campaign: It instructed officials to prevent the spread of infectious diseases in crowded facilities.

The orders were especially urgent and contentious in Yarkand County, a collection of rural towns and villages in southern Xinjiang where nearly all of the 900,000 residents are Uighur.

In the 2014 speeches, Xi had singled out southern Xinjiang as the front line in his fight against religious extremism. Uighurs make up close to 90% of the population in the south, compared to just under half in Xinjiang overall.

A few months later, more than 100 Uighur militants armed with axes and knives attacked a government office and police station in Yarkand, killing 37 people, according to government reports. In the battle, security forces shot dead 59 assailants.

An official named Wang Yongzhi was appointed to run Yarkand soon afterward. But among the most revealing documents in the leaked papers are two that describe Wang’s downfall — an 11-page report summarizing the party’s internal investigation into his actions and the text of a 15-page confession that he may have given under duress. Both were distributed inside the party as a warning to officials to fall in line behind the crackdown.

Wang set about beefing up security in Yarkand, but he also pushed economic development to address ethnic discontent. And he sought to soften the party’s religious policies, declaring that there was nothing wrong with having a Quran at home and encouraging party officials to read it to better understand Uighur traditions.

When the mass detentions began, Wang did as he was told at first. He built two sprawling new detention facilities and herded 20,000 people into them.

But privately, Wang had misgivings, according to the confession that he later signed, which would have been carefully vetted by the party.

He was under intense pressure to prevent an outburst of violence in Yarkand and worried the crackdown would provoke a backlash.

Leadership had set goals to reduce poverty in Xinjiang. But with so many working age residents being sent to the camps, Wang was afraid the targets would be out of reach.

Secret teams of investigators traveled across the region identifying those who were not doing enough. In 2017, the party opened more than 12,000 investigations into party members in Xinjiang for infractions in the “fight against separatism.”

Wang may have gone further than any other official. Quietly, he ordered the release of more than 7,000 camp inmates — an act of defiance for which he would be detained, stripped of power and prosecuted.

“Without approval and on my own initiative,” he added, “I broke the rules.”

Wang quietly disappeared from public view after September 2017. About six months later, the party made an example of him.

Both the report and Wang’s confession were read aloud to officials across Xinjiang. But Wang’s greatest political sin was not revealed to the public. Instead, authorities hid it in the
internal report.

“He refused,” it said, “to round up everyone who should be rounded up.”

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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SSridhar »

India must keep RCEP option open - G.Parthasarathy, Business Line
The remarkable rise of China’s power and influence was evident in the Bangkok East Asia Summit, despite the fact that, as in the past, the Chinese delegation was led not by the country’s supreme leader President Xi Jinping, but by its low key Prime Minister, Li Keqiang.

While Prime Minister Li’s presence symbolised Chinese commitment to larger causes in East and South-East Asia and the Indo-Pacific region, the Trump Administration showed its disdain for the ASEAN, through the absence of its President, Vice-President, or Secretary of State, leaving the door open for an unchallenged assertion of Chinese power.


There are, no doubt, loud American statements, purporting to show the determination to contain Chinese power. The withdrawal of the Trump Administration from participation in the Trans-Pacific (Economic) Partnership, however, has manifested the reality that despite Trump’s tough actions of economic sanctions on China, there is no clear American strategy to respond appropriately, to assertive Chinese power. This objective can be achieved only if the US works closely in regional and global forums with partners like Australia, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia and India.

It was inevitable that in this background, China has become the de facto leader in a huge free trade area, extending across the eastern boundaries of the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific, from India to the Philippines.

One cannot blame India for declining to join this partnership, given the serious challenges India’s economy faces at present.

Already facing a deficit of $57 billion in its trade with China, India needed to protect its economy against a certain surge in Chinese exports, if its current duties were reduced. New Delhi also has concerns of cheap goods of Chinese origin being diverted to India, through ASEAN countries, which enjoy free trade access in India.

Moreover, the grant of duty-free entry to dairy and agricultural products from New Zealand would constitute a challenge across rural India.

More importantly, the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) would only continue the denial of access to India by ASEAN, for services, including IT. While India already has free trade access in the exchange of goods to the economies of all ASEAN members, Japan and South Korea, it could compete on a level-playing field only if it separately signs FTAs with Australia and New Zealand. Negotiations on this issue should continue.

Must look ahead

It would, however, be fatal if we sat on our haunches, after saying “no,” to joining the RCEP. The reality is that countries like Japan and China fashion their economic policies to ensure the development of export-oriented industries. India is now heading towards a situation of continuing and eventually unsustainable trade deficits.

It should not be forgotten that the booming economies of today in East and South-East Asia, progressed rapidly and in a sustainable manner, by ensuring a suitable balance between export promotion and import substitution.

It makes little sense, for example, to keep exporting raw shrimps and aluminium, instead of packaged shrimps and value added aluminium products. This would require suitable incentives and disincentives for producing value-added products and joining global and regional value-added chains. The past belief that merely ending policies of import substitution and a “Licence, Permit, Quota Raj”, without a focus on developing a comprehensive policy for export promotion, would lead us into an era of sustained and accelerated economic growth, was misplaced. It would be useful if, in the light of the foregoing, we kept the option of joining the RCEP open, for at least the next five years. In the meantime, it would be necessary to move ahead in negotiating mutually beneficial FTAs with New Zealand and Australia, and working out arrangements with China for promoting Chinese investments in India, while ending their restrictions on our exports in key areas like IT and pharmaceuticals.

It may well be argued that with the advent of Trump’s America, the era of free and open markets is coming to an end. The reality, however, is that the Trump administration has focussed essentially on ending an era, when China sustained its economic growth was substantially based on American naiveté about Beijing’s aims and objectives, in the initial years of the China-US honeymoon, during the Nixon and Carter administrations. Unfortunately, the ASEAN is hopelessly divided when it comes to its strategic relations with China. While the ASEAN claims to stick by principles on issues pertaining to the Law of the Seas, most its members look on helplessly as China enforces its maritime boundary claims, using force.

Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore and others, who do not have to face up to any significant claims by China on their maritime boundaries, remain silent.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad, who remains vociferous in echoing Pakistan views on Jammu and Kashmir, remains silent when China uses force to coerce his ASEAN partners to accept its maritime boundary claims.

Chinese arrogance about India is manifested in an recent article in Beijing’s official mouthpiece, Global Times, which notes: “If India joins the RCEP, it would have to play second fiddle to China and Japan, given the size of their economies. This would put India in a tight spot. Hence, India’s vacillation is a way of highlighting its importance in the region.”


Backing ASEAN

Despite their differences, the members of ASEAN do maintain a façade of unity, when it comes to issues of regional economic cooperation. India has clearly and consistently backed its ASEAN friends like Indonesia and Vietnam by declaring that issues pertaining to maritime boundaries have to be resolved peacefully, according to the principles of international law.

It has set an example for others, by handing over a disputed Island to Bangladesh in accordance with the ruling of an International Tribunal. ASEAN members, therefore, know the imperatives driving India’s policies. But, given the concerns of most ASEAN countries about China’s growing arrogance and assertiveness, the presence of countries like India and Japan does help them to ensure that no single power can exclusively dominate the Indo-Pacific region.

The writer is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan
SSridhar
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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A political shift is imminent in Sri Lanka - Edit, Business Line
Is it back to the past for Sri Lanka after voters elected as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, once the much-feared defence minister who brutally crushed the Tamil Tigers? The eyes of the world, and especially India, China and the US, will be watching the first moves of Gotabaya, who made national security his campaign’s central theme after the Easter terrorist attacks. Domestically, Tamils and Muslims will be nervously watching the man, who was the favourite of militant Buddhist groups. Almost all the Tamils and Muslims, who comprise 25 per cent of the population, are thought to have voted for Rajapaksa’s rival, Sajith Premadasa. Gotabaya, who belongs to the Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalist SLPP, has moved quickly to say he aims to “serve all Sri Lankans,” not just the ones voted for him. India’s had differences in the past with the Rajapaksa family because of its perceived closeness to China, but it’s thought both sides have attempted to bridge the gaps. Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted on Sunday saying he looks forward to deepening bilateral ties with the new government.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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No truck with Dalai Lama please, China to India - Sachin Parashar, ToI
Behind the facade of a 'successful' informal summit, India and China may be passing through the worst phase in bilateral ties since the Doklam standoff. While a lot of it has to do with Beijing’s unequivocal denunciation of India’s reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), the Dalai Lama or Tibet issue has added another layer of complexity to the troubled relations.

China officially reminded India yet again this month that any interaction which senior Indian leaders or government functionaries might have with the Dalai Lama was going to be detrimental to the bilateral relationship, ToI has learnt. This was conveyed to Indian officials days before the November 8-9 Rising Himachal global investors summit in Dharamshala, the seat of Tibetan government-in-exile, which was addressed by PM Narendra Modi.
China was apparently spooked by the possibility of Indian leaders and officials from both central and state governments engaging the spiritual leader, who met some of the delegates, in public. India responded by reiterating that Dalai Lama was not allowed to carry out any political activity and that the summit too was a non-political event. That the US ambassador at large for religious freedom Sam Brownback had met the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala just a week earlier also seemed to be playing on Chinese minds.


The issue was resolved in the end to the satisfaction of both countries allowing them to work for the bilateral meeting which Modi had with President Xi Jinping in Brasilia last week. This was a particularly sensitive time though as the issue of Dalai Lama reincarnation has dominated headlines internationally in the past few weeks. The 14th Dalai Lama is now 84-year-old and the US is actively working to ensure Beijing is not allowed to handpick his successor. It has even called for the UN to intervene in the succession issue.

It was foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale’s letter early last year calling for government functionaries to avoid sharing public space with Tibetans that helped pave the way for the first informal summit in Wuhan. While the first summit prevented any LAC flare up, the Chennai Connect, or the second edition of the informal summit, is not yet visible on the ground. It has been widely reported in the past few weeks that India has delayed visas to Chinese dignitaries and the 2 countries have even failed to finalise dates for boundary talks between the special representatives, which should have been the natural and early outcome of the summit. Official sources said though that a 6-member Chinese defence delegation will be visiting India on Tuesday for a military exchange. The delegation is headed by Lieutenant General Zhou Aimin, Vice President of the PLA National Defense University.

China strongly opposes any contact between Dalai Lama and leaders and officials of India or any other country. The government has so far shown no inclination to wade into the Dalai Lama succession controversy, or play the so-called Tibet card, even though Dalai Lama has suggested that his successor could come from his followers in India. China wants the next Dalai Lama to be chosen through the ``traditional’’ process, namely drawing of lots from a golden urn and recognition of the central government. And while it doesn’t want India to publicly endorse its choice of the spiritual leader, it expects India to not do anything to undermine it either.
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