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

[ArjunPandit]

China is planning to invest $280 billion in Iran’s oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors that are being affected by US sanctions, according to Petroleum Economist magazine.

how reliable is the link..havent heard much on this news..

[ArjunPandit]

Last night was Part II of BBC two china series: about HK demostrations, Chinese billionaires and fronts trying to buy influence
Repeatedly spoke about United Front a Chini commie organisation ( a la Amensty International) trying to peddle Chinese line and buying influence.
Some spine by Pee Pee See given so much Chini influence in the UK.
Is this something like Cash-moor = Chini so to be secular in their own way.

i also watched not sure if it was the first part or second part..but i think they were quite polite of the chinese influence buying..i wonder if bbc would have been that kind if fellow muslims or earlier british subjects were involved. I had many discussions with chinese to guage their thoughts on this..they're of the viewpoint that hong kongers were not appreciative of the economic and other benefits extended to HK and they wont be treated as favored baby all the time...chinese govt can plan for other alternatives to hk..
hearing them it struck me that there may be chinese game of letting hk fritter away and let business/industries move away to mainland china over years..

[SRajesh]

Part I & II all about XI rise and problems in HK and Xijiang and concentration camps(which pee pee see has not guts to call a spade a spade) interviews from people who have escaped and watching their kids being brain washed.!! But no big reaction from Lizard. Why??
Ignoring pee pee see.
Seems to be sending lot of their youths for higher studies to UK.
Maybe a long term plan to peddle influence and set up call centres/back offices in Chini to compete with India.
So for the time being not to take panga with the Britshits given that HK is daily on the news

[Peregrine]

India-China spat delays deal covering a third of global trade

- The main source of tension is between India and China over the amount of goods with preferential tariffs, according to a person familiar with the negotiations who asked not to be identified

- The person said India was also unhappy with the position of Southeast Asian countries on the free movement of professionals and is weighing whether to be part of the deal at all

NEW DELHI: A spat between the world’s most populous countries is holding up a pan-Asian trade agreement encompassing nearly a third of all global trade.

Trade ministers from 16 Asia-Pacific countries this week hailed a “critical milestone” after seven years of talks and vowed to wind them up before a regional summit in November. But officials involved in the process say major sticking points remain around market access and the ability of workers to find employment in other countries.

The main source of tension is between India and China over the amount of goods with preferential tariffs, according to a person familiar with the negotiations who asked not to be identified. The person said India was also unhappy with the position of Southeast Asian countries on the free movement of professionals, particularly in the IT sector, and is
weighing whether to be part of the deal at all.

Covering nearly half of the globe’s population, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership was proclaimed “the world’s biggest regional free trade deal” when talks started in 2012. Shortly after President Donald Trump took office in 2016 and pulled the US out of an Asia-Pacific trade deal, President Xi Jinping sought to accelerate talks on the Asia-wide pact to cement bolster China’s influence.

Sticking points

But negotiators have repeatedly blown through deadlines, mostly because Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is worried about exacerbating a trade deficit with China and the rest of Asia isn’t willing to accept large amounts of Indian workers in return for greater market access. The talks include the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations,
Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, India and China.

“I’m not too optimistic because of the differences among the member countries, especially towards how they see RCEP benefiting the economy versus the challenges it creates,” said Yeah Kim Leng, an economics professor at Sunway University in Malaysia who is an external member of the Malaysian central bank’s monetary policy committee.

“The big question now is if they would like to proceed without India, which could cause some big push back from New Zealand and Australia,” he said. “Which would in turn make the process take a longer time.”

Officially, the group is sticking together. Thai commerce minister Jurin Laksanawisit on Tuesday evening said each of the 16 nations negotiating the trade pact, including India, supports the conclusion of the talks by November.

“Everything is on track,” Jurin told reporters. “We made progress in every meeting over the past week.”

Monideepa Mukherjee, a spokesperson for trade ministry, wasn’t immediately available for comment. On Monday, external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar openly blamed China for what he described as “unfair” trade policies that created “an enormous trade deficit.”

‘No return’

China hasn’t commented officially on the latest round of talks. On August 29, China's commerce ministry spokesman Gao Feng said Beijing would play a constructive role and “push for the conclusion of the negotiations as scheduled.”

“The Chinese side is still optimistic,” said Wang Huiyao, an adviser to China’s cabinet and founder of Center for China and Globalization. “China wants it because of the Sino-US trade war,” he added, saying the deal would be a “way for the region to show that it opposes unilateralism.”

Many member countries insist the advantages of a regional pact outweigh any lingering doubts, particularly as they cope with the fallout of slowing global economic growth and enduring US-China trade war. The next round of negotiations are expected to be held later this month in Danang, Vietnam.

Indonesian minister of trade Enggartiasto Lukita warned in a statement on Monday that the talks had reached a “point of no return.” He acknowledged negotiations remained far apart in some areas, and some solutions proposed by individual countries didn’t work for the “outlying majority.”

“A settlement this year is very urgent,” Lukita said. “If not, the RCEP negotiations will lose important momentum that can drive changes and progress in the world economy.”

Ray of hope

Still, not everyone is despairing at the agreement’s progress.

Striking a tone of cautious optimism, Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria, executive director of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Secretariat, noted talks around the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership took eight years from start to ratification.

“I only worry when people stop talking -- not when they are still coming to the table for discussions,” Sta Maria, former secretary-general of Malaysia’s trade ministry, said in an email. “In my experience, trade negotiations can be unpredictable and we may frustrate ourselves if we try to pin down a magic formula, other than patience and an open mind.”

Sta Maria said she looks forward to more good news in November. She’d said in May that lack of progress this year on RCEP would be “embarrassing,” especially for Southeast Asia economies that have pushed for the deal.

Cheers

[SSridhar]

Indian, Chinese soldiers get into scuffle in Ladakh - Rajat Pandit, ToI

Border tensions between India and China flared up yet again on Wednesday with a prolonged confrontation between the rival troops in eastern Ladakh, even as the Indian Army gets all set to hold a major war game to test its new integrated battle groups (IBGs) in Arunachal Pradesh next month.

Sources said the face-off between Indian and Chinese soldiers began on the northern bank of the 134-km-long Pangong Tso (Tso means lake), two-thirds of which is controlled by China as it extends from Tibet to Ladakh, soon after dawn on Wednesday.

“Indian soldiers were on a patrol when they were confronted by People’s Liberation Army soldiers, who strongly objected to their presence in the area. This led to a scuffle between the rival soldiers, with both sides sending some reinforcements to the area… the face-off was in progress at the site till the evening,” said a source.

The Army, on being contacted by TOI, only said that delegation-level talks led by brigadier-rank officers “had been sought and agreed to by the two sides” as per the established bilateral mechanism to defuse tensions. “Such incidents often take place due to differing perceptions of where the Line of Actual Control (LAC) actually lies … they are usually resolved through border personnel meetings, flag meetings and the like,” said an officer.

The disputed “Finger-5 to Finger-8” (mountainous spurs) area on the north bank of Pangong Tso, incidentally, had witnessed a violent clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers, with stones and iron rods being used to injure each other, on August 15, 2017.

The incident had coincided with the then much more serious troop face-off at the Bhutanese territory of Doklam near the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction that year. Though the two armies had disengaged from the face-off site at Doklam after a 73-day confrontation, the fallout has been that the PLA has constructed military infrastructure and helipads as well as permanently stationed troops in north Doklam, as was earlier reported by TOI.
Interestingly, the Indian Army will be holding its “Him Vijay” exercise in Arunachal Pradesh at a time when Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit India for the second informal summit with PM Narendra Modi. The first summit at Wuhan in April 2018, in the aftermath of the Doklam face-off, had led to “strategic guidance” to the two militaries to manage and defuse troop confrontations during patrolling in accordance with existing protocols and mechanisms.

Sources said China has not been informed of the “Him Vijay” exercise because it will not be held close to the border in Arunachal Pradesh. It will witness around 15,000 soldiers in three IBGs, carved out of the 17 Mountain Strike Corps, being tested for mountain warfare in terms of operational viability and logistics. The IAF, in turn, will deploy C-17s, C-130Js and AN-32 aircraft as well as helicopters for airlift of soldiers and equipment as well as inter-valley transfer.

The Army is raising the new IBGs, with a potent mix of infantry, tanks, artillery, air defence, signals and engineers, to ensure they can mobilise fast and strike hard across the borders with Pakistan and China. The IBGs for the western front have already been “test-bedded and exercised” in war games in April-May in the plains of Jammu, Punjab and Rajasthan as part of the Army’s overall plan to reformat its entire war-fighting machinery and sharpen the “cold start” doctrine, as was reported by TOI earlier.

The IBGs bring together all fighting arms and support units into self-contained units even during peacetime to ensure much faster mobilisation for cross-border strikes. “The existing structures, under which the different elements largely marry up only during actual combat, are outdated. The IBGs are being fine-tuned through such exercises,” said an officer.

[g.sarkar]

https://www.rediff.com/news/report/indi ... 190912.htm
Indian, Chinese soldiers face-off near Pangong lake in eastern Ladakh, tensions ease after talks
Soldiers of the Indian and People’s Liberation Army of China were engaged in a face-off near Pangong lake in Ladakh on Wednesday. Tensions were eased after delegation-level talks.
India Today Web Desk, New Delhi, September 12, 2019
HIGHLIGHTS
India, China troops engage in heated exchange in eastern Ladakh
Face-off after Chinese objected to patrol by Indian soldiers in the area
Issue resolved during delegation-level talks between the two sides
Tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) flared up on Wednesday following a face-off between Indian and Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh. The standoff that lasted a day, however, ended after delegation-level talks were held.
The Indian and Chinese troops were reportedly engaged in a confrontation near the northern bank of the Pangong lake in Ladakh, two-thirds of which is controlled by China.
Army sources said tensions escalated when Indian troops on patrol were confronted by the soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army of China. This resulted in a scuffle with the two sides sending more soldiers to the area, sources added.
"There was a face-off between the two armies but it got over after the delegation-level talks between two sides. The face-off is over now and it had de-escalated and disengaged fully after delegation-level talks yesterday [Wednesday]," the Indian Army said.
.....
Gautam
Lizard showing Dimran that they are on his side.

[vishvak]

Sta Maria said she looks forward to more good news in November. She’d said in May that lack of progress this year on RCEP would be “embarrassing,” especially for Southeast Asia economies that have pushed for the deal.

Wonder why southeast Asian economies are waiting for 'good' news etc etc against clear opposition views.

Just reminds of Chinese setting up courts within China and calling them 'international' to resolve OBOR/BRI disputes. Hope all sides remember that right from the start.

[ramana]

Gautam, It could be related to upcoming Xi JinPing visit to India.

Here is Pangong Tso or Lake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangong_Tso

Please watch embedded video in this link:

https://www.ibtimes.com/indian-chinese- ... kh-2825958


Also Pangong Tso was the site of 1962 war.

[SSridhar]

Gautam, It could be related to upcoming Xi JinPing visit to India.

Precisely my thoughts too.

The China border has been quiet after the Wuhan meet last year.

The Chinesee have always behaved like this ahead of an important visit.

During the Chinese President, Xi Jinping’s state visit in September 2014, there were two incidents in Depsang and Chumar. In fact, the Chumar incident rapidly spun out of control.

In April 2013, in a deep incursion, Chinese troops entered the Indian Territory in the Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) sector setting the stage for a face-to-face situation with Indian troops which continued for 21 days. This put the visit of Li Keqiang (who had been specially accommodated by Man Mohan Singh at very short notice upon a direct request from Xi Jinping) in jeopardy. Somehow, this was resolved by the visit of our Foreign Minister, Salman Kurshid to Beijing and Li’s visit took place. This was soon followed by the Chumar incident which occurred in June 2013 just two weeks before the first ever visit by an Indian defence minister in seven years. Much earlier, during the then Indian Foreign Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s path-breaking trip to Beijing, in c. 1979, China launched a war against Vietnam to “teach it a lesson” and this unsettling phrase of 1962 made Vajpayee cut short his Beijing visit. During the first ever Head of State visit to China by the Indian President R.Venkatraman in c. 1992, China conducted its first megaton nuclear test.

This is imperial and dismissive behaviour by China to show that they do not take us seriously at all.

[sanjaykumar]

This is imperial and dismissive behaviour by China to show that they do not take us seriously at all.


Ipso facto they do.

[pandyan]

This was the situation in 2012 (if you recall):
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 634214.cms

Now, at least on one particular stretch along the unresolved 4,057-km Line of Actual Control (LAC), Indian soldiers can finally cock a snook at Chinese troops after years of being aggressively needled.
Indian soldiers are armed with spanking new high-tech QRT (quick-reaction team) boats to patrol the highly-picturesque but equally-contentious Pangong Tso (Tso means lake in Ladakhi) in eastern Ladakh, which has emerged as a major flashpoint between the world’s largest and second-largest armies over the last decade
...
Equipped with over 20 well-armed boats, People’s Liberation Army troops have been virtually running circles around Indian troops handicapped by slow, outdated vessels. In the past, Chinese boats have even disabled Indian boats by ramming into them.
"Now, we have received 11 of the 17 QRT boats, each of which can carry 16 to 18 soldiers, ordered from the US. With these high-speed interceptor boats, fitted with radars, infra-red and GPS systems, we can do robust reconnaissance and area domination patrols,’’ said an officer.
"If the Chinese come one km into our territory, we can go three km into theirs. Earlier, apart from some smaller vessels, we had only a couple of large speed boats, mounted with machine guns and capable of carrying 10 soldiers,’’ he added.

[chola]

For the US to win, it must convince its allies to not take advantage of the China market while Amreeka is fighting a goddam trade and technology war with Cheen.

The pressure is on Israel now (Japan, Korea and Germany are already in the doghouse over Cheen.)

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/11/75729050 ... ions-china

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... from-china

Israel's involvement with the J-10 and its Lavi/F-16 technology has always been a sore spot.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ ... hter-80136

[SSridhar]

India, since its independence, has recognized only the Johnson-Ardagh Line in Ladakh which gives the entire Aksai Chin to India with Shaidullah (Xiadulla now) at the north end and Pongong Tso at the southern end. After constructing the G219 Tibet-Xinjiang Hwy, the Chinese want a greater depth to protect it. Also, the gap between Pangong Tso and the Spanggur Tso leads to Chushul.

Those QRT boats changed the scenario for our Army. In June 2014, the PLA, who were on board four of their interceptor boats, had crossed over into the Indian side of the lake, even as they were moving from the Northern areas of the lake to the Southern side. Within 20 minutes of the Chinese soldiers and their boats being spotted, the Indian troopers boarded four of their boats to intercept them and chased them away.

[SRajesh]

Quite hard hitting part 3 of the China series on pee pee see two last night.
concluding section on industrial espionage and chini military directly involved in industrial hacking.
Also how the Bristshits got shafted by chini military implants and loosing techs to chini.
As I had posted earlier large number of chini students in UK and now they are realising that a fair number of them are military implants sent to steal technology.
Britshits are still ready to call a spade a spade.
'I want more GUBO' syndrome maybe.

[hanumadu]

Are they stealing or are they learning from the west and taking it back to their country? IMO, that's technically not stealing if they are not doing anything illegal - that is stealing blue prints or formulas or code without the knowledge of the establishments they work for. I doubt foreign citizens are allowed to work on strategic technology projects.

Anyway, the Chinese are fools to be so aggressive and high profile about 'stealing' the technology from the west. They even gave it a name - 'Thousand Talents'. Can't understand the chinese hurry to be number one.

[williams]

Gautam, It could be related to upcoming Xi JinPing visit to India.

Precisely my thoughts too.

The China border has been quiet after the Wuhan meet last year.

The Chinesee have always behaved like this ahead of an important visit.

During the Chinese President, Xi Jinping’s state visit in September 2014, there were two incidents in Depsang and Chumar. In fact, the Chumar incident rapidly spun out of control.

In April 2013, in a deep incursion, Chinese troops entered the Indian Territory in the Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) sector setting the stage for a face-to-face situation with Indian troops which continued for 21 days. This put the visit of Li Keqiang (who had been specially accommodated by Man Mohan Singh at very short notice upon a direct request from Xi Jinping) in jeopardy. Somehow, this was resolved by the visit of our Foreign Minister, Salman Kurshid to Beijing and Li’s visit took place. This was soon followed by the Chumar incident which occurred in June 2013 just two weeks before the first ever visit by an Indian defence minister in seven years. Much earlier, during the then Indian Foreign Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s path-breaking trip to Beijing, in c. 1979, China launched a war against Vietnam to “teach it a lesson” and this unsettling phrase of 1962 made Vajpayee cut short his Beijing visit. During the first ever Head of State visit to China by the Indian President R.Venkatraman in c. 1992, China conducted its first megaton nuclear test.

This is imperial and dismissive behaviour by China to show that they do not take us seriously at all.

It could also be a reaction to India asking their foreign minister to reschedule his visit.

[darshan]

If US was serious, then shipping and receiving teams of all US based companies would be as annoyed to ship to China as they are when shipping to India. So far I haven't noticed that. Shipments are still heading out of US to China without any hassle.

The same with Chinese students and faculty. ITAR and export laws are clear. US can certainly start enforcing them when it comes to Chinese. So far the enforcement and vigilance is not up to the level. By now all US universities should have been put on notice and violators taken to courts to set new bar but hasn't happened yet. So far only students and faculty have been affected but no university's leadership.

May be there's a lag in the system, there's swamp to drain, it's a charade for election, etc. Still too hard to say if US is serious or just the election ploy to swing votes. At the three year mark of current US govt, I was hoping to see suppliers annoyed to the same level when shipping to India and/or drop off of chinese in academia. Neither has been observed.

[SRajesh]

Are they stealing or are they learning from the west and taking it back to their country? IMO, that's technically not stealing if they are not doing anything illegal - that is stealing blue prints or formulas or code without the knowledge of the establishments they work for. I doubt foreign citizens are allowed to work on strategic technology projects.

Anyway, the Chinese are fools to be so aggressive and high profile about 'stealing' the technology from the west. They even gave it a name - 'Thousand Talents'. Can't understand the chinese hurry to be number one.

Not just studying there to improve knowledge but actively conniving to steal research done in the field so as to jump start in chin.
Also hiding facts that they are active serving officers in the army while enrolling in tech fields dealing in sensitive technology. Some of the Britshit Unis are in dire straits and hence allow foreign students on paying hefty fees(like our donation system in private colleges )
Also masquerading as sales executive etc and stealing genetic techs and getting in touch with Chini officials.
Interesting story of a guy who stole genetically modified corn seeds planted in experimental fields in Iowa and then attending official dinner in honour of visiting the then VP XI gin.
Five serviing Chini military men indicted in US for cyber attacks and stealing techs. XI gin promised Om Baba that he will honour intellectual property rights and then said thenga!!
German/European solar company went bust after chini stole not only their tech(Chini government gave massive subsidy to undercut goras) but also all the papers relating to Chini company being sued in US It was game over.

[Peregrine]

Piece offering

Ren Zhengfei may sell Huawei’s 5G technology to a Western buyer

The Chinese telecoms giant’s boss considers creating a competitor for his company

In an atrium designed to evoke ancient Greece—ringed by stone columns and six towering approximations of the Caryatids—it was fitting that Ren Zhengfei, chief executive of Huawei, should extend an olive branch to the West: a piece of his company. The palatial edifice on Huawei’s sprawling campus in Shenzhen houses an exhibition hall proudly displaying the Chinese telecommunications giant’s “fifth-generation” (5g) technology. The ultra-swift, and ultra-coveted, mobile-phone networks will soon connect everything from cars to industrial robots.

It is this 5g technology—central to Huawei’s future revenue growth—that Mr Ren said he was ready to share, in a two-hour interview with The Economist on September 10th. For a one-time fee, a transaction would give the buyer perpetual access to Huawei’s existing 5g patents, licences, code, technical blueprints and production know-how. The acquirer could modify the source code, meaning that neither Huawei nor the Chinese government would have even hypothetical control of any telecoms infrastructure built using equipment produced by the new company. Huawei would likewise be free to develop its technology in whatever direction it pleases.

Huawei has been on a charm offensive this year. It has wheeled Mr Ren out once a month since January for interview bonanzas with international media outlets. But the idea of transferring its 5g “stack” to a competitor is by far the boldest offering to have surfaced. “It’s hard to come up with similar precedents in the history of technology,” says Dan Wang of Gavekal Dragonomics, a research firm.

Mr Ren’s stated aim is to create a rival that could compete in 5g with Huawei (which would keep its existing contracts and continue to sell its own 5g kit). To his mind, this would help level the playing field at a time when many in the West have grown alarmed at the prospect of a Chinese company supplying the gear for most of the world’s new mobile-phone networks. “A balanced distribution of interests is conducive to Huawei’s survival,” Mr Ren says.

No kidding. A months-long assault by America has pummelled the firm, whose global networks it suspects of allowing China to spy on others. America has also attempted to press allies not to use Huawei’s equipment as they begin to build their own 5g networks. In May American companies were barred from selling components and software to Huawei on the ground that it posed a national-security risk. Last month America restricted government agencies from doing business with it (the firm is challenging this ban in court).

At first glance, Mr Ren’s gesture has much going for it. If the sale eventually gave rise to a thriving competitor, countries such as Australia (which has banned Huawei’s gear) would no longer have to choose between, on the one hand, technology in their networks that is both cutting-edge and cheap, as Huawei’s is, and, on the other, fears of Chinese eavesdropping. They could have the best technology from an ally instead. Decisions on the purchase of telecoms equipment could then return from politicians to pragmatic boardrooms.

The gesture may also convince those suspicious of Huawei’s tech that the firm’s business intentions are hard-nosed. Mr Ren says money from the deal would allow Huawei to “make greater strides forward”. The value of the firm’s entire 5g technology portfolio, if it were sold, could run to tens of billions of dollars. In the past decade the company has spent at least $2bn on research and development for the new generation of mobile connectivity.

In saying he wants to create a fairer technological race, Mr Ren is also attempting to dissociate American security fears from those of Huawei’s market dominance. His offer is “essentially calling their bluff”, says Samm Sacks of New America, a think-tank in Washington. As she points out, America’s government is working out how to create a rival to Huawei, whether by fostering American firms or helping bolster its two main global competitors, Ericsson, a Swedish firm, and Nokia, a Finnish one. Moves are also afoot to make certain components of mobile networks interchangeable with each other, to let carriers mix and match suppliers more easily. Openran, a standards body, wants infrastructure manufacturers like Huawei to agree on standards for the technology in their networks that shuttles data around to make joint operation easier. Huawei has so far declined to join.

Yet questions over the feasibility of the deal abound. Would China accept hiving off a core part of one of its few globally powerful corporations? For better or worse, 5g has become a proxy for superpowerdom. As Mr Ren told The Economist, “5g represents speed” and “countries that have speed will move forward rapidly. On the contrary, countries that give up speed and excellent connectivity technology may see economic slowdown.”

Even if the Chinese state gave its blessing, who might be the buyer? Mr Ren says he has “no idea”. Analysts suspect that giants such as Ericsson and Nokia would balk at an offer out of pride, and would question the value of Huawei’s tech. (Having posted losses last year, they are also short of cash.) The technology may not help a smaller firm compete on an equal footing with Huawei. The Chinese company is so well entrenched with big operators, say consultants, that it would not make financial sense for most of them to take on a new supplier. Samsung, a South Korean electronics giant, has deep pockets and a smallish but growing networking-gear business—and without rival bidders, it could drive a hard bargain. A consortium of buyers is possible; who would make one up is unclear, however.

Suitors may be put off by other considerations. If Huawei really is ready to transfer all its technology to another company, then, as Mr Wang points out, “it has to accept the risk of a major competitor in the future”. But Huawei’s dominance owes as much to technology as to its low prices and the speed at which it can roll products out, says Ms Sacks. Its willingness to serve places Western firms steer clear of is also a factor: who else besides Huawei would wade through malarial swamps in Africa and haul base stations up the flanks of Colombian mountains? Mr Ren knows this. Asked whether he thought that an American firm, with Huawei’s precious know-how in hand, would be able to pull it off, he said, with swagger, “I don’t think so.” But potential buyers know it, too.

Lastly, few believe that a sale would placate America’s national-security apparatus, at least in the short run. A new competitor would almost certainly still need to make equipment in China, which produces half of America’s telecoms kit. Concerns about Chinese meddling would not go away. And Huawei’s latest offensive is not all charm. Last week it accused American officials of committing infractions while posing as Huawei workers, in order to “bring unsubstantiated accusations against the company”. It also accused America’s government of targeting it with cyber-attacks. That may sour relations.

Could Mr Ren’s proposal, then, be a sign of desperation? Not a bit of it, he says. He claims that Huawei has found alternative suppliers for its network-infrastructure business that are unaffected by its blacklisting by America. He denies that the company will make a loss in the coming year.



Nonetheless, the consumer business is under pressure. Half of the company’s $105bn in sales last year came from the 208m smartphones it sold around the world. So did an outsize share of profits. This business is in deep trouble. Phones that Huawei sells outside China are desirable communication devices largely thanks to proprietary software available exclusively from Google. Android, Google’s mobile operating system, which Huawei uses, is open-source and freely available. But the American tech giant’s own apps are not. Because Google is American and its apps are compiled in America, the Commerce Department’s ban on sales of American technology to Huawei applies to them.

Mr Ren says that Google has been lobbying the Trump administration to allow it to resume supplying Huawei with proprietary Android software, but so far to no avail. Unless American policy changes, Huawei will remain stuck with the open-source version of Android, without any of the apps that consumers have come to expect. The Chinese firm is in the process of developing its own operating system, Harmony os, but it will be no rival to the mature Android ecosystem for years to come.

Sandboxed



This means that all new Huawei phones will ship without Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube or, crucially, Google Play Store. The Play Store is what allows Android users to download apps like WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook easily. WhatsApp in particular has become a standard mode of communication in much of the world outside America. Unless its government lets up, Huawei’s new smartphones will be little more than decent cameras that make phone calls. The firm will launch the Mate 30, the first top-end phone since its blacklisting, on September 19th in Munich. Huawei claims its hardware features will buoy sales. But a phone which lacks basic functions is unlikely to be a hit. A weakened consumer business would dent profits.

Huawei’s share of the Chinese smartphone market, where it has never relied on Google’s apps, is growing fast. But two-fifths of its annual phone sales, or roughly $20bn, come from outside the country. Though the firm’s executives repeatedly declined to share any projections, firm-wide revenue growth in the eight months to August slowed to 20%, year on year, from 23% in the first half of 2019. If the Mate 30 and its successors flop, Huawei stands to lose billions of dollars in annual revenue.

Similar supply-chain challenges affect other parts of its business. Its coders are busily writing software tools known as compilers and libraries, themselves used to create the software that powers all manner of electronic devices, not just smartphones but also networking gear. As with Android, Huawei would have to create its own version of these, and a technological ecosystem around them. Such ecosystems take years to evolve, and there is only so much one company can do to stimulate this evolution, which relies on third-party developers, with their own goals and incentives. Huawei’s expertise in high, hard technology is of little use here.

And, Mr Ren’s assurances notwithstanding, Huawei’s finances are being squeezed. Even he concedes that its relations with large Western banks such as hsbc and Standard Chartered have been disrupted. Still, the firm has plenty of cash and he says that smaller banks remain willing to lend to it. The Chinese Development Bank, which has reportedly extended credit lines to Huawei and zte, a Chinese competitor, in the past, may stump up if needed. Mr Ren and his underlings repeatedly claim that cashflow is “healthy”, pointing to the firm’s furious building work. It has just finished a 120-hectare, $1.4bn research campus.

Huawei is being forced to transform itself from a company that makes and sells hardware into one that also makes many components that it used to buy from others. This kind of shift strains a firm. Its cash cow is under threat even as it has to invest heavily to replace the suppliers and software it can no longer get from America. Mr Ren may hope that his mooted sale of Huawei’s 5g technology will give him sufficient fuel for the company to fly ever higher. But peer behind the showy frescoes in Shenzhen, and his showier gesture, and Huawei’s future looks decidedly hazy.

Cheers

[A_Gupta]

China is planning to invest $280 billion in Iran’s oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors that are being affected by US sanctions, according to Petroleum Economist magazine.

how reliable is the link..havent heard much on this news..

This link points to Iranian reporting ( translate.google.com helps).
https://www.tasnimnews.com/fa/news/1398 ... 9%86%D8%AF

Here's some more (but not original reporting)
https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/the-pr ... cold-29686

[A_Gupta]

FYI, the last part of that Iranian reporting above says:

"Chinese customs data show that the country imported more than 925,000 barrels of crude from Iran in July, up 4.7 percent on a monthly basis. According to Iranian sources, China's actual oil imports are higher than China's, with additional barrels being kept in floating reserves around China and not passing through customs to be recorded in official statistics."

[A_Gupta]

https://www.arabnews.com/node/1553431
US sanctions bringing China and Iran together

Trump’s policies have energized Iranian interest in China. While, following the striking of the nuclear deal, Iran was focusing on Europe to build commercial ties and boost its industrial infrastructure, today all eyes are on China. CITIC Group, a state-owned investment firm, has given a $10 billion credit line to Chinese companies to finance water, energy and transport projects in Iran. The China Development Bank has also committed to deals worth $15 billion. And China has signed several deals with Iran to invest in its oil and gas infrastructure, including a project in the giant South Pars gas field.
China can also use its relations with Iran as a way to weaken the prestige of the US around the world and as retaliation against Trump’s trade war. Beijing is reluctant to abide by the US sanctions as it is committed to many projects in Iran, which the latter is supposed to pay for with oil. There is a synergy between the two countries: Both are confronted by the US, and China is a consumer of oil while Iran is a supplier of the precious commodity. Iran can resort to the infrastructure projects presented in the BRI to boost its economy and compensate for the losses incurred as a result of the US sanctions. Development projects tend to have a multiplier effect, i.e., the money spent on them cascades through several layers of the economy and has a larger effect than the original sum spent.

[Kati]

RCMP Intelligence Director Charged Under National Secrets Act

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/vb5e ... ide-report

He was allegedly selling state secret to Panda....

[Kati]

Chinese-born Australian lawmaker under fire over past links

https://news.yahoo.com/chinese-born-aus ... 11428.html

She was allegedly furthering Panda's agenda in Australia from inside.....(a deep cover agent?)

[Kati]

China Investment - Risky Business?

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/chine ... -business/

[Peregrine]

Pentagon steps up efforts to counter China's rising power – AFP

WASHINGTON: Maritime operations, missile tests, landing exercises: the Pentagon has been sharply stepping up its efforts to counter China's growing military power, seen increasingly as a threat.

On Friday an American warship approached the Paracel Islands, an island chain claimed by Beijing in the South China Sea, to affirm international "freedom of navigation" in the region.

The USS Wayne E Meyer, a guided-missile destroyer, passed near the islands to contest Beijing's sweeping claims to the seas around the archipelago, which is also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.

The Chinese claim would block "innocent passage" by other countries' ships and is "not permitted by international law, " a US Seventh Fleet spokeswoman, Commander Reann Mommsen, said.

Friday's was the sixth "freedom of navigation operation" — or FONOPS in naval jargon — this year, a clear acceleration in pace.

There were a total of eight in 2017 and 2018, and only six during the entire Obama presidency.

On Wednesday, the US Marine Corps announced it had conducted exercises on the Japanese islet of Tori Shima, hundreds of miles south of Tokyo, to practice landings on "hostile" shores and the seizure of landing strips.

The exercises were clearly designed to highlight the ability of the American military to invade a disputed island and establish a supply base for aerial operations.

"This type of raid gives the commanders in the Indo-Pacific region the ability to project power and conduct expeditionary operations in a potentially contested littoral environment, " one of the officers in charge, Commander Anthony Cesaro, said in a statement.

Such a forthright description, coming from a Pentagon hardly known for unguarded talk, reflects the fresh impetus Defence Secretary Mark Esper has given to the US policy of "strategic rivalry" with China and Russia.

Esper, who chose Asia for his first overseas trip only weeks after being sworn in as Pentagon chief, has made clear that the US wants to rapidly deploy new missiles in Asia — possibly within months — to counter China's rising military power.

On Thursday, acting US army secretary Ryan McCarthy, speaking in a Senate confirmation hearing, defended the development of such new missiles.

He said the new medium-range conventional missiles Washington wants to develop — now that the US is no longer constrained by the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which the Trump administration abandoned last year — would "change the geometry within Southeast Asia."

"If we can get the appropriate partnerships, expeditionary basing rights with partners within the region, " McCarthy said, "we can change the geometry and basically reverse anti-access, area-denial capabilities that have been invested by near-peer competitors" — jargon for pushing back against sovereignty claims by China and Russia.

Last month the Pentagon chose the Pacific Ocean for its first test of a conventional medium-range missile since the end of the Cold War — effectively driving a nail into the coffin of the INF treaty, which banned the use of land based missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,400 miles).

And in late August, Washington formally established its Space Command, or Spacecom, a new unified command charged with ensuring US domination in space, where China has been increasingly active.

Beijing rattled US military officials in 2007 when it launched a missile that located and then destroyed a Chinese satellite, in a dramatic demonstration of China's growing ability to militarize space.

Cheers

[chetak]

Why China fears India’s move on Article 370

Why China fears India’s move on Article 370

Arvind Kumar
September 14, 2019,

India’s action of making Article 370 toothless has set the alarm bells ringing in the corridors of power in China and has elicited strong reactions from them. It is wrong to interpret their reaction merely as a friendly gesture towards Pakistan. Rather, it is the result of the Chinese leadership feeling threatened about their stranglehold over power. In their view, India’s move is a step towards a war against them by a coalition consisting of India, the United States, and other countries.

The Chinese government views the world as a stage for its exclusive use and every other country except Pakistan as an adversary. Even in the case of Pakistan, it is not treated as an ally or a friend but as a pawn that will advance the Chinese government’s interests. Pakistan has willingly become part of this abusive relationship as it is driven by the singular goal of opposing India. It is very likely that China has even forced Pakistan to share the F-16s in its possession and has replicated them. Thus, Pakistan may actually be telling the truth when it claims that it did not use any F-16 aircraft against India in February 2019 when it brought down an Indian plane in a dogfight. That aircraft used by Pakistan was probably a copy of an F-16 made by China.

In recent years, China has pursued a policy of making its presence and influence felt all around the world and it has done this in an aggressive and deceptive manner. For example, it financed and built Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port, and Sri Lanka rapidly found itself in debt that could not be redeemed and was forced to cede control of the port to China. This method of engineering a debt trap by both financing and building infrastructure projects around the world has become the standard operating procedure for China in its Belt and Road Initiative (earlier, One-Belt-One-Road, OBOR). Such an aggressive and expansionist program to control and monopolise world trade is viewed dimly by America. In 2017, James Mattis, the then American Defense Secretary, stated that US did not agree with the idea of one country putting itself in a position of dictating one belt and one road as the world had many belts and many roads. He also opposed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that would connect the belt to Gwadar port, and highlighted the fact that the corridor passed through the disputed territory of Gilgit-Baltistan.

China’s presence in Gilgit-Baltistan has turned Jammu and Kashmir into an extremely important place from the geopolitical perspective. Stability in Kashmir valley makes China nervous as it is right next to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. On the other side of CPEC is Afghanistan where an American-led effort to strike a deal with the warring groups and install a government is underway. That effort could result in China being completely shut out of Afghanistan. A government in Afghanistan that does not kowtow to Beijing’s line combined with a stable Jammu and Kashmir would impede China’s hegemonic ambitions as the corridor would be in an extremely vulnerable position in case of a conflict involving India and other powers.

Mattis did not restrict his opposition to just BRI. He also targeted China in general when he stated, “[W]e should be under no illusions. There are areas where, also, strategically, we need to confront China where we think it’s unproductive—the direction they’re going in.” Apart from Mattis, American President Donald Trump too has expressed his displeasure with China. In particular, he has attacked China for manipulating its currency and is now engaged in a trade war against them. No one knows the details of China’s currency manipulation schemes as their policies are kept secret and they have created multiple currency systems without much transparency.

China’s goal of controlling the world’s trade has also manifested itself in other ways, chiefly in the form of their confrontational actions in the international waters of the South China Sea. Ships passing through the shipping lanes of the South China Sea account for more than one-third of the global maritime commerce and China seeks to hold this region hostage and dictate its terms to the world. It routinely intimidates ships belonging to other countries and has taken over and built illegal military bases on islands and reefs that do not belong to it. Steve Bannon, who worked on Donald Trump’s election campaign in 2016 and then worked in the White House, has advocated going in and dismantling these bases. Bannon has cited a ruling against China by an international tribunal to justify such an action.

The US is not alone in its concern over China’s attempt to take over the international waters of the South China Sea. Russia, Japan, South Korea and India share this concern along with other countries in the region such as Vietnam and Philippines. Russia has another reason for its unhappiness against China. Russia’s far east has been flooded with Chinese nationals and China is attempting to take over this region by altering its demographics.

China’s hostility towards other countries and its general lack of ability to realise that it is in the wrong can create conditions for a conflict. A single incident could trigger such a conflict with other powers, and China will be isolated in any such conflict with only Pakistan on its side.

Such a conflict will not occur and China’s expansionist ambitions will even be encouraged if the old guard in the US consisting of the proteges of pro-China leaders such as Henry Kissinger, George H.W. Bush, Zbignew Brzezinski, John McCain and John Kerry return to power in 2020. It is never easy to predict how the future will unfold, but there is an old Chinese curse wishing interesting times upon one’s opponents, and that curse may now be casting its spell on China, which should fear interesting times.

Arvind Kumar can be reached at arvindk@uchicago.edu

[SSridhar]

IAF to operationalise air field in Arunachal Pradesh near China border - ANI

SHILLONG: In a bid to bolster military infrastructure along the China border, the Indian Air Force is set to operationalise its Vijaynagar Advanced Landing Ground (ALG) in Arunachal Pradesh on Wednesday.

Eastern Air Commander Air Marshal R D Mathur and Eastern Army Commander Lieutenant General Anil Chauhan will jointly inaugurate resurfaced Vijaynagar ALG on September 18, Defence Spokesperson (Shillong) Wing commander Ratnakar Singh said today.

The officials will land at Vijayanagar ALG in AN-32, a turboprop twin-engined military transport aircraft.

Vijaynagar is situated in a remote corner of the state and is not connected with any motorable road. The area is important as it is close to the borders with China and Myanmar.

A total of eight ALGs have been revived for operations by the Indian Air Force as part of steps to strengthen military infrastructure along the China border.

Other seven ALG which have been made operational by EAC are Pasighat, Mechuka, Walong, Tuting , Ziro , Along and Tawang .

Vijaynagar ALG has been non-operational for fixed-wing operations since 2016 due to want of repair and upgradation its facilities there.

[ChandraV]

^^^^^^^

what if the IA and GoI actually want to handle things quietly and away from the public glare.

It doesn't work that way. When we are kicking ass, our government is happy to shout about it from the peaks of Himalayas to everybody who will listen.

So the opposite of that-- stone-cold silence in the face of the government's own MP alleging Chinese road building and intrusions much into the Indian side of the LAC-- does not give me any comforting feeling.

I understand Army/ITBP are in a tough spot because of lack of roads and other basic facilities. But to lie to Indian public is not a good look. And dare I say, Indian military is lying or covering up... they don't have the firepower or the willpower to turn up the heat against the Chinese at this particular time and location, or are being pulled back by the government... as a democracy, we must hold everyone's feet to the fire.

Turns out, satellite images come in real handy to either support or refute government's claims. And the sat images aren't showing what we want to see...

[ChandraV]

No Chinese incursion, says Army - The Hindu

The Army on Wednesday denied any Chinese incursion in Arunachal Pradesh, rejecting claims made by MP and State BJP president Tapir Gao that Chinese troops had constructed a temporary wooden bridge over a stream in Anjaw district last month.

Army spokesperson Col. Aman Anand said the area being referred to is the area of Fish Tail where there are “differing perceptions” on the alignment of the Line of Actual Control. “Being an area of differing claims, troops routinely from either side patrol the area... There is no permanent presence of either Chinese soldiers or civilians in the area,” Col. Anand said.

He stated that the terrain is thickly vegetated and all movements are undertaken on foot along Nalas and streams and during monsoons whenever the Nalas are in spate, “temporary bridges are constructed by the patrols for their movement”.

Col. Anand further said that India and China have well-established diplomatic and military mechanisms to address all border-related issues and both countries have also “agreed to work towards a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement” of the boundary question on the basis of the 2005 Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles.

Separately, Army sources said that after the Wuhan summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping last year, the Armies were told to avoid face-offs during patrols which each side conducts to enforce their claims. In this particular case the claims would also be verified by a patrol team, a source added.

One thing that we should be wary of is that the Chinese never stick to agreements while we always do.

This got proven to be false. And it's alarming that more of the press is not willing or allowed to ask tough questions and follow-up from the government... Army is under civilian govt, so in the end, it is the govt's fault.

https://theprint.in/opinion/indian-army ... ct/289769/

"These images raise the following questions:

a) Is the wall marked in image 2 indeed the location of the border wall?

b) How and when did this wall disappear?

c) If the road is now out of use by the Chinese, how does it remain so clearly marked (and therefore used), given the precipitation and rapid rate of flora regrowth should have covered the tracks in two years’ time?

d) Moreover, if heavy equipment has been used by India, how exactly did the equipment arrive there given the absence of any access road to this point?

The Army: “Inadvertently constructed by PLA in 2017” and “PLA fell back immediately on realising their mistake”.

The 6 September article in ThePrint showed that the incursion by the Chinese was deliberate based on following reasons:

a) It showed a careful and planned multi-year construction spanning at least three years, with support infrastructure for such construction at regular intervals on the Chinese side.

b) There have been reports of not one but two such incursions (Tuting and Upper Siang) in the region as has been previously reported.

c) The direction of the road clearly indicates a deliberate attempt to cut off the Bishing salient as noted in my article, and has formed part of repeated attempts to cut off this salient.

d) The Army’s claim that the entire construction of the road was “inadvertent” and a “mistake” would mean that the Chinese commanders built an expensive road to nowhere with no purpose; installed exceptional infrastructure for no apparent reason; and that the navigation equipment, the commanders of the Chinese army, and the road workers all collectively failed for a period of three years – from 2017 to 2019.

My question to the Army is: What exactly led the Army to conclude that the Chinese had built this road “inadvertently” and by “mistake”?

Also, I did not make these allegations. The claims about the Chinese incursion were made by a Member of Parliament of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Tapir Gao, as can be seen in this video dated 4 September 2019. In the video, he clearly states (starting at 2:30 minutes) that in Bishing, there was a 2-km deep intrusion last year (2018). All I have done is provided visual proof to the BJP MP’s claims.

ThePrint stands by the article."

[SSridhar]

Quad’s significance rises as Ministers meet - Sriram Lakshman, The Hindu

In a significant development for the region, the Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue (“the Quad”) between India, Australia, Japan and the U.S. held its first Minister-level meeting since it was revived in 2017. The group, which met in New York on Thursday, is seen as a regional counter-weight to China and has only met at the Joint or Assistant Secretary level since 2017.

The Ministers “met to discuss collective efforts in our shared commitments and close cooperation on counter terrorism, mentoring, assistance in disaster relief, airtime security, cooperation, development, finance and cybersecurity efforts,” a senior State Department official told reporters in New York.

The high-level meeting “demonstrates a shared commitment of our respective leadership to institutionalise this gathering of like-minded Indo-Pacific partners” , a second official present at the briefing said. The official then suggested that “formalise” was a more apt description than “institutionalise”.

India has been hesitant about the Quad, in part because it does not want to isolate China and because it has had a history of staying clear of security alliances.

At the briefing, the State Department official went on to emphasise India’s role.

“If I could single out India’s role in the quad, I think it highlights India’s leadership in the end of the Pacific region. It’s one of the many ways that the U.S. and India are now cooperating closely on shared strategic objectives.”

Asked by The Hindu what had changed this year with regard to India’s participation, the official said, “There’s recognition that, you know, in the past we didn’t have that similar like-mindedness necessarily among the four partners and over the past two years, you know, we’ve been able to demonstrate what’s changed.”

“We have a shared evaluation of those security threats and the threats facing the region when countries don’t have options to develop in a sustainable and free manner. And that’s really brought our four nations together,” the official said, adding, “ Again, I would emphasise as, one mechanism, one architecture that complements and supplements, you know, other formats that we are all engaged in to promote the free and open Indo-Pacific.”

The official also emphasised that the U.S., India and other Quad countries were “resolute” in their view of the centrality of ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) in South East Asia. The notion of ASEAN centrality broadly refers to the group of countries being at the centre of security and strategic frameworks for the Asia-Pacific region.

Members of the Quad, barring Australia, are currently engaged in the annual Malabar exercises – military exercises that started between India and the U.S. in 1994 and became trilateral (with Japan) in 2015. India has not permitted Australia to participate in these exercises, concerned about what message it would send to China, which is wary of the exercise.

An official at Thursday’s briefing said the exercises did not come up during the Foreign Ministers’ discussions.

“There wasn’t a direct conversation on Malabar…we welcomed the opportunity to work with India and Japan in this setting and I leave open the question of any future modifications.”

The Indian government had not released a press statement on Thursday’s meeting as of writing.

Senior officials of the group will meet on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Bangkok in November.

[mmasand]

THE RISE, FALL, AND REBIRTH OF THE ‘QUAD’

Interesting analysis by Tanvi Madan.

[Peregrine]

X Posted on the Terroristan Thread

Pakistan called out by US for staying mum over China's treatment of Muslims – Agencies

HIGHLIGHTS

- US has asked Pakistan to express "same level" of concern about Muslims' detentions in China as they do for Kashmir.

- Why was Imran Khan not speaking out about China, which has detained an estimated one million Uighur Muslims, US asked.

- Imran Khan, when asked about the Uighurs, declined to comment on Monday.

NEW YORK: Exposing the double standards of Pakistan, the United States has asked Pakistan to express the "same level" of concern about Muslims' detentions in China as they do for Kashmir.

Alice Wells, US acting assistant secretary for South and Central Asia, on Thursday questioned why Pakistan PM Imran Khan was not also speaking out about China, which has detained an estimated one million Uighurs and other Turkic speaking Muslims.

"...I would like to see the same level of concern expressed also about Muslims who are being detained in Western China, literally in concentration-like conditions. And so being concerned about the human rights of Muslims does extend more broadly than Kashmir, and you've seen the administration very involved here during the UN General Assembly and trying to shine a light on the horrific conditions that continue to exist for Muslims throughout China," Alice Wells said on Thursday while replying to a question about Pakistan PM's alleged concerns about Kashmir.

Wells reaction came as Pakistan has ramped up its rhetoric against India over the abrogation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and expressed concern over the situation of Muslims in the region. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had even called himself an ambassador of Kashmiri people.

However, when it comes to China's treatment of Muslims, Pakistan has been mum and when asked to comment on it, the Pakistan PM has tried to brush it aside saying that there is a lot going on in its own country.

Imran Khan, when asked about the Uighurs at a think-tank on Monday, declined to comment, saying that Pakistan had a "special relationship" with China and would only raise issues in private.

China has been condemned internationally for cracking down on the minorities living in the
country. The United Nations says at least 1 million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims have
been detained in what China describes as "vocational training centres" to stamp out extremism and give people new skills.

US leads condemnation of China for “horrific” repression of Muslims

US leads condemnation Burqa or 'illegal' Islamic videos could land Uighurs in China's de-radicalisation centres of China for 'horrific' repression of Muslims The United States led more than 30 countries in condemning what it called China's "horrific campaign of repression" against Muslims in Xinjiang at an event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly that was
denounced by China.

In highlighting abuses against ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims in China, deputy secretary of state John Sullivan said on Tuesday the United Nations and its member states had "a singular responsibility to speak up when survivor after survivor recounts the horrors of state expression."

Sullivan said it was incumbent on UN member states to ensure it was able to closely monitor human rights abuses by China and added that it must seek "immediate, unhindered, and un-monitored" access to the western region of Xinjiang for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Sullivan said Tuesday's event was co-sponsored by Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain, and was joined by more than 30 UN states, representatives of the European Union and more than 20 nongovernmental organisations, as well as Uighur victims.

"We invite others to join the international effort to demand and compel an immediate end to China’s horrific campaign of repression," he said. "History will judge the international community for how we respond to this attack on human rights and fundamental freedoms."

China's foreign ministry denounced the US move.

Cheers

[Peregrine]

Out with the Arab-style

China’s repression of Islam is spreading beyond Xinjiang

Millions more Muslims are being targeted by the Communist Party

As darkness begins to settle on Duanjiaping village, a few men in white skullcaps head towards a large mosque. It is time for the Maghrib, the fourth of the five daily prayers of devout Muslims. It is clear even before they reach the building’s high yellow walls that all is not right. The prayer-hall’s four minarets, topped by golden crescent moons, are still a towering landmark. But they are covered in scaffolding and green netting and they are not due for repair.

It is less than six years since hundreds of Muslim men gathered in the mosque’s courtyard to celebrate the completion of its new Arab-style prayer hall. It had cost 9.8m yuan ($1.37m)—a tidy sum in a county that is officially classified as impoverished. The festivities had official blessing. The imam of one of the most important mosques in Lanzhou, the provincial capital, was there. So, too, was a senior leader of the government-backed Islamic Association of China.

Much has changed. A chill political wind has been blowing over Duanjiaping and hundreds of other villages and towns in Linxia, a majority-Muslim prefecture in Gansu province, which borders on the Tibetan plateau and the far-western region of Xinjiang. Many villages in Linxia have at least one mosque, with minarets visible far and wide. The one with the scaffolding in Duanjiaping can accommodate 3,000 worshippers. Its grandeur is not unusual. In recent decades rural communities in Linxia—China’s “little Mecca”, as it is often called—have vied to outdo each other in mosque-building. Now the government is not only reining them in, it is tightening controls on their faith as well.

The horrors of China’s campaign against Islam in Xinjiang are well known. About two years ago reports began to emerge of the building of a vast gulag there. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Uighurs have been thrown into it—many simply for seeming too pious. There are about 10m Uighurs in China. But they form only about half of the country’s Muslim population. Linxia is home to more than 1.1m Muslims, mainly belonging to two ethnic groups: the Hui and the Dongxiang. There are Muslim communities scattered widely across the rest of China (see map). Most are made up of Huis. Because of Xinjiang’s history of separatism and terrorism, Uighurs are suffering by far the harshest clampdown experienced by any of these Muslim groups. Outside Xinjiang, however, other believers are starting to feel the effects, too.

The government’s attitude towards Muslims in the interior began to change in 2016 after China’s leader, Xi Jinping, set out plans for the “sinicisation” of the country’s religions. Christianity and Islam, having strong overseas connections, became the main targets. Officials set out to purge them of foreign influences deemed threatening to the Communist Party. In the case of Islam the aim was partly to prevent the spread of radicalism and with it, terrorism.

Among Muslims elsewhere in China, however, there have been no reports of terrorist links. The Huis were once China’s model Muslims, quite unlike the Uighurs in Xinjiang who have chafed at Chinese rule for decades. A few Uighurs have occasionally used violence to vent their grievances. The Huis have no separatist ambitions. They claim descendancy from Arab and Persian traders who settled more than a millennium ago. After centuries of intermarriage they have become ethnically assimilated with Han Chinese, who make up more than 90% of the population. Huis in Linxia have historically played an important role as middlemen in trade between Tibetan and Han communities. Many have grown rich by trading a Chinese medicine that is often used as an aphrodisiac, known as caterpillar fungus. It is harvested from the Tibetan hills. Linxia is home to one of the country’s biggest caterpillar-fungus wholesale markets; its traders are mostly Muslims.

But as the scaffolding in Duanjiaping shows, the government worries that Muslims in Linxia are absorbing the same influences from Islam abroad that it says have fuelled strife in Xinjiang. “Right now, work related to Islam is even more complicated than it has ever been before,” Gansu’s party chief, Lin Duo, told a meeting of senior officials in July last year.

Off with their domes

One aim of the sinicisation campaign is to reduce visible links between Islam in China and that in the Arab world. China fears that Saudi Arabia in particular—as much a draw to Muslim pilgrims in China as to those elsewhere—will poison Chinese Islam with Wahhabism, a puritanical strain that is often linked with extremism. But its efforts to prevent this are affecting many Muslims who have no truck with militancy. In March officials in the southern city of Guangzhou announced rewards of up to 10,000 yuan ($1,405) for reporting on “illegal religious activities”, including organising private trips to Mecca. China’s Muslims can join only officially arranged ones.

The mosque in Duanjiaping is a casualty. Officials have ordered it to remove its Arab-style minarets and replace them with Chinese-looking ones. A picture of what the mosque will eventually look like is displayed in the entrance. The minarets will have green-tiled upturned eaves in Chinese style. The central bulbous dome will be replaced by a pavilion-like structure, also classically Chinese.

“The government says we have to do it, so we’re doing it,” says a caretaker. The work will not offend religious sensibilities and will be done at the government’s expense, he claims. That contrasts with reports from other places where similar work is being carried out. In a nearby town, Kangle, a nervous Hui surveys another mosque with scaffolding on its minarets. He says “trouble” broke out there a few days earlier when local religious-affairs officials ordered their demolition. They were erected in 2014. The following year the mosque was named a “model religious site” by Linxia’s government. No longer, it seems.

In August last year there was trouble on a much bigger scale in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, a province bordering on Gansu that is home to about one-fifth of China’s Hui people. For three days thousands of Muslims in the town of Weizhou staged protests at a massive mosque—initially over a government order that the entire building be knocked down because it had not received planning permission, and subsequently over a revised proposal that only the domes be removed. Remarkably, the local government backed down. But it was clearly worried about the turmoil. In November the party chief of Ningxia visited Xinjiang, where he signed counter-terrorism “co-operation agreements”. He noted religious similarities between the two provinces and said, ominously: “That’s why Ningxia went to learn from Xinjiang.”

In Gansu the official Islamic Association has circulated 20 recommended designs for mosque roofs “with Chinese characteristics”. Officials say they want no more “Saudi-isation” or “Arab-isation” of buildings. The association has instructed Muslims to forsake the common practice of building or expanding mosques without government permission and to make them less “vast and extravagant”. It has also tried to tighten its control over the religion itself. It has ordered Gansu’s teachers of Islam to reject any new doctrine from outsiders. “Anything that does not already exist at home should not be accepted from abroad,” said the association’s annual report, published in March. “If something does not exist locally then it should not be approved if it is introduced from elsewhere.”

Part of the sinicisation effort is called the “four-enter” campaign. This means ensuring that four things are introduced into every mosque: the Chinese flag, propaganda concerning China’s laws on religion, “core socialist values” and the country’s “outstanding traditional culture”. In Linxia, the impact is clear. The flag flies over many mosques. Billboards proclaiming socialism’s importance to Islam fill their courtyards. Preachers have been told to incorporate these values in their scriptural teachings. And they must undergo regular testing on such matters to retain their permits to teach. Linxia’s party chief, Guo Heli, tried to put a positive spin on the clampdown during a visit to local mosques in June. “We must reduce the frequency, duration and scale of religious activities,” he said, suggesting this would “lessen the burden” on the faithful.

The authorities are also trying to reduce Islam’s influence in society. In Linxia this involves curbing the “proliferation” of the use of the term “halal”. Provincial officials have accused Linxia’s main city of “giving too much prominence to religious aspects” in its plans to expand the local halal-products industry. As part of the de-Arabisation campaign, officials have ordered restaurants to stop using the word “halal” in Arabic on their signs, as many once did. Only traces now remain. On many Muslim restaurants across China, including recently in Beijing, such lettering has been painted over or prised out.

By changing the design of Duanjiaping’s mosque officials may hope to reduce Islam’s profile, just as officials on the coast have been trying to make Christianity less visible by removing hundreds of large crosses from the tops of churches. In line with regulations issued last year forbidding the building of mosques that are “overly tall”, the new minarets in Duanjiaping will be much lower. Mosques have also been ordered to install less-powerful loudspeakers. Officials have stepped up efforts to keep children out of them and bar minors from religious instruction.

The government’s controls over Islam are still relatively relaxed in Linxia compared with those in Xinjiang, where Muslims, if they are not thrown into “vocational training centres” (ie, prison camps), are subject to intense digital surveillance, a heavy police presence and intrusions into their homes by prying officials. Many of Linxia’s mosques retain their Arab-style minarets (locals say they are cheaper to build than Chinese-style ones, which require skilled carpenters and expensive wood). Only a handful of mosques have so far been told to rebuild theirs, says a local Hui-culture expert. Extremism, he says, “has not become a trend” locally.

But the authorities insist it is spreading. In July the leader of a central-government inspection team said that in some parts of Gansu “religious extremist forces” were already “dominating and corroding” grassroots political bodies. This was, she said, “a problem worth attention”. Extremist is a word that trips lightly off officials’ tongues. It is often used to describe behaviour that in many other countries would be regarded simply as devout. Muslims in the rest of China may not suffer the Uighurs’ terrible fate, but they have reason to be nervous.

Cheers

[SSridhar]

China trying to turn non-disputed waters into disputed waters: Vietnam - Indrani Bagchi, ToI

Hidden in the shadow of India’s Kashmir gambit and Pakistan’s nuclear rhetoric, China’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea off Vietnam’s coast has largely gone unnoticed. But it has raised red flags within the Indian system and found mention in the first meeting of the Quad foreign ministers in New York this week. Speaking to journalists in his first press conference, foreign minister S Jaishankar said India was working with Vietnam, while the MEA has twice signaled India’s support of Vietnam’s position.

Speaking exclusively to TOI, Vietnam’s ambassador, Pham Sanh Chau said China is trying to “transform non-disputed waters into disputed waters.” Promising to protect Vietnam’s interests, the envoy said, “we will use all peaceful means defined by international law to protect our legitimate interests. We do it in a very resolute and resilient manner. We do not exclude any measures in order to protect our legitimate interests.”

Pham Sanh Chau said, “We’re facing one of the most serious crises in the South China Sea for the past eight years. In 2011, China came into our waters and cut our cable. Then in 2014, China placed a huge drilling platform in our waters. In 2019, China sent their survey ship (Haiyang Dizhi into our waters. This time, however, Chinese ships came in, got out, came in again, got out and came in again — as if these are their waters for them to come and go as they please.”

Pham Sanh Chau added that the situation has been aggravated by the fact that “this time they sent a huge fleet of accompanying ships including Chinese Coast Guard, militia and fishing boats, some using water cannons.”

The Chinese ships came “too close to the ongoing oil exploration by ONGC, Rosneft and Petrovietnam. Since July 3, Chinese ships have conducted 129 surveys.” The gas block has been in operation since 1988 and “giving dividends” since 2002.

Vietnam forces, he said, regularly push the Chinese boats back beyond their waters but they keep returning. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) reported that Chinese Coast Guard have been maintaining a continued presence “around several symbolically important features in the South China Sea: Luconia Shoals, Second Thomas Shoal, and Scarborough Shoal.”

“The dangerous thing is, they have been able to have one militarised built up an artificial island close by. So they don’t need to go back to mainland China or Hainan Island. It’s very convenient for them

"In the past five years, many countries have raised their voice against the militarisation of the islands in the South China Sea, artificial build-up. They had predicted this kind of thing would happen. And it is happening.”

The Vietnamese envoy pointed out that China’s actions not only come on their 70th anniversary, but they also coincide with the third anniversary of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruling on the South China Sea. “They rejected the legitimacy of the 9-dash line. They also said these islands are too small to have an EEZ or continental shelf, they’re just uninhabited rock. Then you claim it’s a livable island. Those islands are disputed between six parties. We follow the principle of ‘land dominates sea’. China has no land there. The closest is 860 miles away. It’s a huge challenge to international law.”

[SSridhar]

Two Asian powers and an island - T.Ramakrishnan, The Hindu

The imposing Lotus Tower in Colombo, which was opened to the public recently, is considered to be the latest symbol of Sri Lanka-China ties. An agreement to build this structure, which is to serve as a multi-functional telecommunication tower, was signed by the two countries in 2012.

It may look ironical that much of the project’s execution took place under a regime which came into office at a time when there was a “strong anti-China mood”. In the run-up to the 2015 presidential election, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was backing Maithripala Sirisena, had assured people that another Chinese project, the $1.4 billion Colombo Port City, would be scrapped. Soon after Mr. Sirisena became the President, work on the Port City came to a grinding halt. Then, there was also uncertainty over the fate of the Hambantota port, the development of which was originally offered to India by Mahinda Rajapaksa on becoming Sri Lankan President in November 2005. (India was said to have examined Hambantota purely from the point of view of economics, overlooking the strategic angle.)

Two different records

However, all of this is now history, as Colombo-Beijing ties have stood the test of time. China has been able to resolve all the controversies over these projects. The Port City’s execution is underway without any major hitch. When it becomes a reality, it will stand beside the Colombo port, which serves as a major transshipment hub for India. A Chinese company has got Hambantota on lease for 99 years along with associated land of 15,000 acres. More importantly, Sri Lanka is a member-country of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Notwithstanding an argument by some international experts that economic ties with China are driving Sri Lanka into a “debt trap”, the bilateral relationship on the economic front is only becoming stronger. According to the 2018 annual report of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, imports from China accounted for 18.5%, just a little less than the 19% from India.

On the other hand, India cannot claim to have accomplished much in the Sirisena years, despite its “neighbourhood first” policy since May 2014. Apart from clinching a joint venture deal in May with Japan and Sri Lanka to develop the East Container Terminal at the Colombo Port, India cannot boast of having taken up any major infrastructure project in Sri Lanka. Not much is known about the status of a project to renovate the Kankesanthurai harbour in the Northern Province, for which India provided over $45 million in early 2018. There seems to be little progress in India’s proposals to develop the Palaly airport in the North, (where commercial flight services in a limited way are expected to be launched shortly) and acquire a controlling stake in the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport. And for all practical purposes, the Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement, an improved version of the existing bilateral Free Trade Agreement, has been shelved.

In recent years, only a couple of social sector projects of the Indian government — building 60,000 homes for Tamils of the civil war-torn Northern and Eastern Provinces as well as those in the hill country region, and the provision of ambulance services all over the island — gathered momentum. Both these are being carried out using grants of the Indian government. In July, an agreement was signed to upgrade a key railway segment, connecting the north and the south, at $91 million.

However, given its potential and willingness to do more in development cooperation, India cannot remain satisfied with such a modest track record. When Mr. Wickremesinghe visited New Delhi about a year ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed concern over delays in projects proposed by India. The joint development of an oil storage facility in Trincomalee is one such project which has been discussed for years. What can be a matter of consolation for New Delhi is that Colombo, about a year ago, reversed a decision to award a $300-million housing project, meant for the North, to Beijing.

Deeper ties

China-funded infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka may look great, but India-Sri Lanka ties are deeper and more complex. As Mr. Modi said, “In good times and bad, India has been and will always be the first responder for Sri Lanka.” India’s assistance during the 2004 tsunami and Mr. Modi’s visit to Colombo in June (the first foreign dignitary to do so) in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks show India’s sincerity of approach.

Despite these deep ties, it is true that India and Sri Lanka have seen some unpleasantness in bilateral relations in contemporary times. The anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983 dragged India into the Sri Lankan Tamil question. Events such as the withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in March 1990 and the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991 made New Delhi adopt a “hands-off approach” towards Colombo till the final phase of the civil war. In the last five months of the war that ended in May 2009, India repeatedly conveyed to Sri Lanka that the rights and welfare of the civilian population should not get enmeshed in hostilities against the LTTE. But this was not considered sufficient by protagonists of the proscribed organisation and some others who have been accusing the Indian government of having played a role in the LTTE’s defeat.

However, with all their shortcomings, the Rajiv Gandhi-Jayawardene Accord of 1987 and the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, envisaging devolution of powers for provinces, still provide a solid framework to address the ethnic question. Apart from a political settlement, the Northern and Eastern provinces, which account for less than 10% of Sri Lanka’s GDP, require economic development as there are signs of the youth there getting distracted from the pursuit of greener pastures. The Indian government is willing to walk the extra mile in this area, but what is wanting is a proper response from the Tamil political leadership.

When Sri Lanka gets a new President in two months, India must sit with that leader not just to get expeditious approvals for all the pending infrastructure projects but also contribute to a holistic development of Sri Lanka’s youth. Also, New Delhi should sustain its interest on developmental issues concerning the hill country Tamils, regarded as the most backward in Sri Lanka. It will also be worth making one more attempt to encourage the voluntary repatriation of nearly 95,000 refugees who live in Tamil Nadu back to Sri Lanka. As a step towards this direction, the authorities should resume ferry services between Talaimannar and Rameswaram at the earliest.

As once stated by the High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, “Our aid is not to raid or invade”. A benign and comprehensive approach, backed by the sincerity of purpose, will not only earn India greater respect of Sri Lankans, but also send a message to other international players about the strength of its ties with Sri Lanka.

[Kati]

Another fish caught in the net....

U.S.
US citizen accused of spying on behalf of Chinese government
Associated Press JANIE HAR and JOCELYN GECKER,Associated Press 11 hours ago
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US attorney David Anderson announces criminal spy charges against a San Francisco Bay Area tour operator Xuehua Edward Peng Monday, Sept. 30, 2019, in San Francisco. Xuehua Edward Peng, who operates tours for Chinese students and visitors, was charged with being an illegal foreign agent and delivering classified U.S. national security information to officials in China, U.S. government officials announced Monday. (AP Photo/Janie Har)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A California tour operator charged by U.S. officials with illegally ferrying information to China was a quiet and friendly man with a taste for luxury cars, a neighbor said.

Xuehua Edward Peng, 56, of Hayward was charged in documents unsealed Monday with being an illegal foreign agent and delivering classified U.S. national security information to officials in China, U.S. Attorney David L. Anderson said in San Francisco.

Anderson accused Peng, whom he described as a tour operator for Chinese students and visitors, of a "combination of age-old spycraft and modern technology."

"The charges announced today provide a rare glimpse into the secret efforts of the People's Republic of China to obtain classified national security information from the United States," Anderson said.

Danilo Serrano said Peng moved in across the street from him about five years ago and kept a Lexus and Porsche parked outside. About a year ago, he bought "an expensive Tesla SUV, the nice one where the doors go up," Serrano said.

Serrano recalled thinking, "Man, he must have a lot of money."

The U.S. is engaged in a trade war with China. But John Bennett, the FBI agent in charge of San Francisco, said international politics had nothing to do with the arrest and charges against Peng.

"We have criminal spies that are running around in our area of responsibility and it's the FBI's mission to stop this, so what's going on in the rest of the world, it doesn't matter to us," he said.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has said China poses a more serious counterintelligence threat to the United States than any other country, including Russia.

In July, he testified before a Senate panel that the FBI had more than 1,000 investigations involving economic espionage and attempted intellectual property theft, nearly all of which lead back to China.

The Justice Department has brought multiple cases in the past year involving Chinese espionage and has also brought charges against operatives working with the Ministry of State Security as law enforcement officials grapple with how to deal with an increasing threat of China trying to steal information from American companies.

Last October, prosecutors charged a Chinese spy with attempting to steal trade secrets from several American aviation and aerospace companies, the first time an MSS operative was extradited to the U.S.

Anderson did not say how long Peng had been operating as an unregistered spy for China's Ministry of State Security, only that the FBI employed a double agent in 2015 who conducted exchanges with Peng in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Columbus, Georgia.

Over six occasions between 2015 and 2018, Peng would secure a hotel room and leave up to $20,000 there, authorities said in the criminal complaint. The double agent would then get a key to the room, take the cash and leave a digital card containing information, it said.

Peng would then take the card and travel to Beijing to meet Chinese intelligence officers, authorities said.

Authorities say the unnamed double agent went to the FBI in 2015 after China's intelligence department tried to recruit the person as a spy. The unnamed agent was told by Chinese intelligence officials at a meeting in 2015 that "Ed" was reliable and had family in China, according to the complaint.

The criminal complaint says Peng is a naturalized U.S. citizen who entered the country on a temporary business visitor visa and became a permanent resident in 2006. Peng was naturalized in September 2012.

He holds an acupuncturist license from the state.

Peng was arrested at his home Friday and ordered held without bond at a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero. He is scheduled to return to court Wednesday.

Qian Peng, the suspect's daughter, said she could not comment because she had not seen the charges.

Serrano said he sometimes wondered what Peng did for a living but didn't inquire.

"He seemed to travel a lot," Serrano said, recalling he would sometimes see cars come to pick up Peng, who would get in with suitcases.

Serrano and Peng chatted about domestic things, he said, with Peng admiring the fencing and succulents in front of Serrano's home. Peng installed a similar fence and planted succulents that Serrano gave him.

Serrano was shocked when told about the spy charges.

"I can't believe Ed was a Chinese spy!" he said.

Court records indicate Peng will be represented by the federal public defender's office. The office did not respond to requests seeking comment.

Anderson did not elaborate on Peng's tour operations. Public records list Peng as president of U.S. Tour and Travel in San Francisco, but no website for the company was found in an online search.

He could face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of working as an unregistered agent of a foreign government,

[Kati]

^^^
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/us-citizen ... 39385.html

[A_Gupta]

https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... an/597853/
China’s World-Building Foreign Policy, As Seen From the Middle of Nowhere

The Khorgos Gateway was once touted as one of the most ambitious projects in the Belt and Road Initiative, but it has come to represent the limits of Beijing's global push.

[SSridhar]

No force can stop China from marching forward: President Xi - AFP

No force can ever stop China from marching forward, President Xi Jinping asserted on Tuesday as he presided over the country's largest parade, showcasing its military might and unity among top leaders, to celebrate the Communist Party's hold on power for 70 years.

As China held its largest parade, Hong Kong witnessed one of its violent protests with thousands of pro-democracy activists, who burnt Chinese flags, demanding autonomy, universal franchise, and freedom for all the people to contest the elections for the territory's legislature.

"No force can ever shake the status of China, or stop the Chinese people and nation from marching forward," an assertive Xi said in his speech ahead of the parade, as the two-million strong world's largest army flexed its muscles displaying some of its most sophisticated weapons, including long range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs).

Regarded as the most powerful leader since the Communist Party of China (CPC) founder Mao Zedong, Xi, 66, who heads the party, the military and the presidency, said that the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) under the leadership of the CPC has completely changed "China's miserable fate" of being poor and weak and being bullied and humiliated for over 100 years since the advent of modern times.

Flanked by his predecessors, Jiang Zemin, 93 and Hu Jintao, 76, as a show of unity and solidarity of the CPC leadership in face of intensifying strategic competition with the US and emergence of China, Xi called on the people to uphold the CPC's leadership.

The parade included decorated floats with huge photos of Mao, his successor Deng Xiaoping, Hu and Xi outlining their political and ideological contribution to the development of CPC and China.

"Seventy years ago, on this day Comrade Mao Zedong solemnly declared here to the world that the PRC was founded and the Chinese people had stood up," Xi said.

For the world, he assured that China would stay on the peaceful development path, allaying global concerns over China's rise.

"We will continue to work with people from all countries to push for jointly building a community with a shared future for humanity," Xi said.

Besides the bruising trade war, China and the US are locked in strategic competition amid efforts by Beijing to expand its global influence with multi-billion dollar projects like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

In his speech, Xi stressed that the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the People's Armed Police Force should always preserve their nature, purpose and character as the forces of the people, resolutely safeguard China's sovereignty, security and development interests, and firmly uphold world peace.

Xi's hard-hitting speech and the lavish display of arsenal by the Chinese military would be watched with interest in New Delhi too as India, along with Bhutan, is the only country Beijing is yet to seal a border deal with. Also, China remains an all-weather ally of Pakistan.

President Xi will visit Mamallapuram near Chennai in the second week this month for 2nd informal summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to work out a road map for the bilateral ties for the next five years.

About Hong Kong, Xi said "on our journey forward, we must uphold the principles of 'peaceful reunification' and 'one country, two systems', maintain lasting prosperity and stability in Hong Kong and Macao."

Xi urged concerted efforts to achieve its centenary goals.

"China's yesterday had been inscribed in human history while China's today is being created in the hands of hundreds of millions of Chinese people," Xi said, adding that "Beijing will surely have an even brighter future".

Later, he oversaw China's biggest parade till date in which the military displayed about 300 new weapons, according to the state broadcaster CGTN.

The new weapons systems displayed included the Dongfeng-17 conventional missiles which were unveiled for the first time for public.

The missile has the capability of precision strikes against short-and medium-range targets, with strong penetration capacity in all-weather conditions.

The formation is comprised of two conventional missile brigades from a base of the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force.

Five J-15 fighter jets, China's domestically-produced first-generation multi-purpose fixed-wing fighter jet, were also on display, and the core strike force of China's aircraft carrier formation.

The J-15 planes operates from the deck of China's first aircraft carrier Liaoning.

China's H-6N home-made strategic bomber capable of air refuelling and long-range strike also made the debut. It flew along with H-6K, a domestically-developed medium and long-range bomber.

China's supersonic CJ-100 cruise missiles were also on display. The missiles carried by 16 vehicles formed part of a long range, high precision and quick responsive weapons, the report said.

The weaponry displayed included reconnaissance drones in multi-range and multi-altitude.

Among them, a high-altitude high-speed reconnaissance drone including all black-coating UAV in the parade, made public appearance for the first time.

China also unveiled anti-ship cruise missiles in the parade. The long-range submarine-launched and ship-based missiles are domestically designed and built ship deterrence force.

The PLA also displayed China's new-generation main battlefield 99A tanks.