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

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

Post by SSridhar »

Xi Jinping offers $60 bn Africa aid, says ‘no strings attached’
President Xi Jinping told African leaders Monday that China's investments on the continent have "no political strings attached", pledging $60 billion in new development financing, even as Beijing is increasingly criticised over its debt-heavy projects abroad.

Mr. Xi offered the funding at the start of a two-day China-Africa summit that focused on his cherished Belt and Road initiative. The money — to be spent over the next three years — comes on top of $60 billion Beijing offered in 2015.

The massive scheme is aimed at improving Chinese access to foreign markets and resources, and boosting Beijing's influence abroad.

It has already seen China loan billions of dollars to countries in Asia and Africa for roads, railways, ports and other major infrastructure projects.

But critics warn that the Chinese leader's pet project is burying some countries under massive debt.

“China's investment in Africa comes with no political strings attached,” Mr. Xi told a high-level dialogue with African leaders and business representatives ahead of the summit.

“China's cooperation with Africa is clearly targeted at the major bottlenecks to development. Resources for our cooperation are not to be spent on any vanity projects, but in places where they count the most.”


But Mr. Xi admitted there was a need to look at the commercial viability of projects and make sure preparations are made to lower investment risks and make cooperation “more sustainable”.

Belt and Road, Mr. Xi said, “is not a scheme to form an exclusive club or bloc against others. Rather it is about greater openness, sharing and mutual benefit.”

Later, at the start of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Mr. Xi announced $60 billion in funds for eight initiatives over the next three years, in areas ranging from industrial promotion, infrastructure construction and scholarships for young Africans.

He added that Africa's least developed, heavily indebted and poor countries will be exempt from debt they have incurred in the form of interest-free Chinese loans due to mature by the end of 2018. {So, what is China seeking in return for this waiver. The fine print has to be read}

A study by the Centre for Global Development, a US think-tank, found “serious concerns” about the sustainability of sovereign debt in eight Asian, European and African countries receiving Belt and Road funds.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa defended China's involvement on the continent, saying FOCAC “refutes the view that a new colonialism is taking hold in Africa as our detractors would have us believe.”

During a visit to China last month, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed warned against "a new version of colonialism," as he cancelled a series of Chinese-backed infrastructure projects worth $22 billion.

Ahead of FOCAC, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, currently the chair of the African Union, also dismissed the concerns, telling the official Xinhua news agency talk of "debt traps" were attempts to discourage African-Chinese interactions.

'Fractured world'

At the last three-yearly gathering in Johannesburg in 2015, Mr. Xi announced $60 billion of assistance and loans for Africa.

Nations across Africa are hoping that China's enthusiasm for infrastructure investment will help promote industrialisation on the continent.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari will oversee the signing of a telecommunication infrastructure deal backed by a $328-million loan facility from China's Exim bank during his visit, his office said.

Mr. Xi said Belt and Road complies with international norms, and China “welcomes the participation of other capable and willing countries for mutually beneficial third-party cooperation”.

China has provided aid to Africa since the Cold War, but Beijing's presence in the region has grown exponentially with its emergence as a global trading power.

Chinese state-owned companies have aggressively pursued large investments in Africa, whose vast resources have helped fuel China's transformation into an economic powerhouse.

Debt fears

While relations between China and African nations are broadly positive, concerns have intensified about the impact of some of China's deals in the region.

Djibouti has become heavily dependent on Chinese financing after China opened its first overseas military base in the Horn of Africa country last year, a powerful signal of the continent's strategic importance to Beijing.

Locals in other countries have complained about the practice of using Chinese labour for building projects and what are perceived as sweetheart deals for Chinese companies.

The concerns are likely to grow as countries in other parts of the world — especially Southeast Asia — begin to question whether Chinese aid comes at too high a price.

"Time has come for African leaders to critically interrogate their relationship with China," an editorial in Kenya's Daily Nation said Monday.

African leaders, "should use the summit to ask tough questions. What are the benefits in this relationship? Is China unfairly exploiting Africa like the others before it?"
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Suraj »

Here's a small sample of how Chinese society is run. Most images from the 80s to 2000s when the one child policy was in force:
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"If you don’t have an abortion,we’re going to demolish your house and take your cattle."
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"Better to bleed like stream than to have one more child."
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"Escaping the family planning policy today,you will lose all of your property tomorrow."
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"You have more than one child illegally,I demolish your house legally."
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"If one has more than one child,all the women in the village will be ligated."
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Peregrine »

X Posted on OBOR, Chinese Strategy and Implications & Analyzing CPEC

‘Debt colonialism’ fears as China puts $60bn into Africa – Didi Tang

Image
President Xi claimed that there were no strings attached to the money

China has pledged $60 billion in loans and investments in Africa, strengthening its grip on the continent in a show of financial firepower and strategic intent.

The package, announced by President Xi at a gathering of African leaders, includes loans, credit lines and direct investment as well as a commitment to write off some debt owed by the poorest nations.

China has been criticised for debt colonialism, making loans that it knows states cannot repay then using the debt as leverage to secure land or strategic infrastructure.

China’s investment in Africa in the past decade has been prodigious and financing has more recently been accompanied by more troops; last year it opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti, east Africa.

The financial package includes $20 billion in credit, $15 billion in aid, interest-free loans and concessional loans, a $10 billion fund for China-Africa development, $10 billion in investments by Chinese companies and a $5 billion fund for African imports. Mr Xi also pledged to set up a security fund to provide military aid and support for intelligence and anti-terrorist efforts.

Chinese investments in Africa this century involve mining concessions and the building of ports, railways and roads. They have opened up natural resources including oil, diamonds and metals to power China’s industrial sector. They have also created markets for cheap Chinese-made goods, increased China’s global reach and cemented its position as a superpower.

Mr Xi announced the money at the opening of the third Forum on China-Africa Co-operation in Beijing, attended by all 54 nations on the continent except Swaziland, the last still to recognise Taiwan and with which China has no diplomatic relations.

In 2015 Mr Xi also pledged $60 billion, which he says has been honoured. It has been spent on projects such as a $4 billion railway line from Nairobi to Mombasa on the Kenyan coast, a hydroelectric project in Ethiopia, cobalt and copper mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, uranium from Namibia, diamonds from Zimbabwe, a port in Cameroon and the construction of a new administrative capital for Egypt. The forum is Beijing’s most public wooing of African leaders. When it began 18 years ago trade between Africa and China was worth $10 billion a year. It is now more than $220 billion. About a million Chinese citizens live and work in Africa.

Since 2000 China has extended $136 billion in loans to African governments and it now does three times more trade on the continent than the US. It may soon overtake the US as Africa’s primary aid donor after President Trump called for donations to be cut by 35 per cent to about $5.4 billion.

Beijing says that it is working to a different model from western powers and dismisses criticism that its spending amounts to colonialism or a debt trap. “China’s co-operation with Africa is clearly targeted at the major bottlenecks to development,” Mr Xi said. “Resources for our co-operation are not to be spent on any vanity projects but in places where they count the most.”

He touted China’s no-strings approach to investment, which western nations have sometimes linked to human rights or democracy. “We will not interfere in Africa’s internal affairs and do not impose our will on Africa,” Mr Xi said. “China will always be Africa’s good friend, good partner, good brother. No one can sabotage the unity between Chinese and African people.”

President Xi opened the meeting by welcoming the forum’s three newest members — the Gambia, Burkina Faso and Sao Tome and Principe — which have cut diplomatic ties to Taiwan.

China’s involvement is not wholly appreciated in Africa, where some leaders say they are being lured into debt or giving too much away. There are also fears that it could fuel nationalism. To assuage these concerns Mr Xi announced social initiatives including food development, public health schemes, training, education and student exchanges and environmental projects to halt desertification.

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

Post by pankajs »

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7033&p=2292697&sid= ... a#p2292694
Suraj wrote:US economy to grow faster than China, but India will take bigger slice; 2030 GDP forecasts throw up a surprise
Original OECD paper
Summary:
* Around 2025-2030, India's annual growth in GDP - not percentage rate but raw economic output in $ value - exceeds that of entire OECD.
* Around 2035, India's annual growth in GDP exceeds that of China.
Meaning India will start to close the relative andthe absolute gap with China starting around 2035.

Strategic patience as a strategy is the most logical option for India if the above forecast is to be believed. Hell, I was for all for strategic patience even when my forward projections was slightly better for China.

Focus of growing India economically while avoiding conflict unless pushed to the wall. The politico-military capability will automatically flow out of that economics heft till Indian power fills up the every nook of the IOR and starts spilling beyond by 2050.

No matter what China does/achieves in the interim, it won't be able to defy India in the IOR beyond 2050. Neither our immediate neighbour be able to use China against India and that Includes Maldives. Let them have their bit of spotlight in trying to needle India. Will not matter in the long run.

Now this was just based on Suraj's summary. Let me quote from the FE/Bloomberg summary.
The forecast for the U.S. to outstrip China is not a prediction of any economic miracle in America — just an acknowledgment that China has set itself up for a brutal demographic collapse.
Note the words used ... Brutal and collapse .. very strong words in the context.
China’s share of global output peaks in the 2030s and then declines while India’s slice keeps rising. Indonesia’s economy catches up to its population.

<snip>

Between 2030 and 2060, this paper projects, gross domestic product in the U.S. will grow at an average of just under 2 percent a year. Not too different from the past decade. China will expand an average of 1.8 percent a year, a smidge behind the U.S., but a vast change from the low double digits we’ve seen in recent decades.
IIRC, My last post on the Chinese growth projection, I has assumed a 3.0 % "average" Nominal growth between 2020 to 2050. This projection of 1.8% seems to be real.
China’s economy is ascendant and will replace the U.S. as the largest around 2030. We’ve all heard that bandied around, so much that’s not seriously questioned. Then the story tends to stop. We don’t hear much about the next chapter. Kudos to the OECD duo for taking a crack at it.
This is exactly what I have been trying to force folks on this board to think about i.e beyond China becoming the No 1 economy, its multiple bases in IOR, its capture of the African continent. Right now it looks inevitable and final and ominous from the Indian pov.

It is at this point that most Indian start loosing their mind and start dhoti shivering. It is precisely at this point that one needs to ask "and then what? What is the next chapter?" No one asks what happens 10/20/50 years after Chinese economy becomes the biggest dollar denominated economy in the world. The answer is always in history and a little common sense analysis. The world did not freeze for the British nor the Americans at the height of their respective power. Therefore, the world will not freeze in 2030 for the Chinese if history is any guide. Some are too ideologically committed but most are too awed by China to think.

I had quoted Isaac Asimov to make my point "In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate". There is no FINAL "final solution" in the world of geopolitics/geoeconomics. This is the one stark lesson of history.

Edit: For Clarity and some correction.
Last edited by pankajs on 06 Sep 2018 00:08, edited 1 time in total.
pankajs
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by pankajs »

Now quoting from the original report

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver ... 090060869B

Page-9
China’s share of world output peaks during the 2030s at about 27% and declines slowly thereafter, while India’s share keeps rising. Each accounts for a fifth to a quarter of the world economy in 2060.
Note the last bit. "Each {i.e China and India} accounts for a fifth to a quarter of the world economy in 2060"

eye eye ooo ... :shock: .. bhell ... I am beyond shocked

India == China? .. economically by 2060? :(( :(( :((
Now how will Yuan become the soul preserve curry of the world.

How can fate be so cruel as to deprive our gentle rakshaks the opportunity to dhoti shiver, the only bright spot for some.

BTW, just because there is a projection does not automatically mean it will happen. India has its work cut out but this is the path of least resistance. India and Indians will have to enact a monumental duck up to muck this up.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by chola »

This is where they have a BIG advantage over us:

https://twitter.com/prasannavishy/statu ... 4119523328
China Is Treating Islam Like a Mental Illness. Over one million Muslims are being held right now across Chinese internment camps, according to estimates cited by the UN and U.S. officials.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Trikaal »

^Might seem like an advantage right now but this will only cause resentment to build up among Uyghurs. Also, this provides Pakistan an avenue to retaliate the moment China stops writing blank cheques. US can flame up these unrests using CIA and other underhanded techniques. Not to mention China getting slammed at various Human Rights commissions. No matter how u look at it, these camps makes China more vulnerable not less.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by chola »

Trikaal wrote:^Might seem like an advantage right now but this will only cause resentment to build up among Uyghurs. Also, this provides Pakistan an avenue to retaliate the moment China stops writing blank cheques. US can flame up these unrests using CIA and other underhanded techniques. Not to mention China getting slammed at various Human Rights commissions. No matter how u look at it, these camps makes China more vulnerable not less.
The chinis wouldn’t do this if muzzie resentment was not building irregardless.

Look at the West. Muzzies are given freedom and pampered. So what do we have today? Terrorist attacks in Paris, London, Belgium, Berlin. Bombs at airports. Mass shootings. Vehicles crushing people. Whole neighborhoods and regions that are off limits to the native kaffir population.

The difference is cheen see a problem but is not bound by political correctness to tolerate it. Just like their espionage and copying of western technology. If a certain tech is too expensive or simply off limits then the chinis will steal while other non-white nations wait.

Now they are dealing with their muslim problem just like they did with their technology one.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by ArjunPandit »

^^+1 chola, same as myanmar. That said, US is an old player in fuelling insurgencies. China knows it too,esp with their old dalliance with Pakistan. Probably this is why China is trying to nip the evil in bud, before it becomes unmanagable for them.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by chola »

ArjunPandit wrote:^^+1 chola, same as myanmar. That said, US is an old player in fuelling insurgencies. China knows it too,esp with their old dalliance with Pakistan. Probably this is why China is trying to nip the evil in bud, before it becomes unmanagable for them.
Yellows have little time for Western suicidal tendencies.

Myanmar kicks them out. We accept them with our babus and celebrities embracing them like we were Westerners.

Insurgencies will come irregardless. Kindness does not temper their intolerance only encourages it to greater and greater heights.

Insurgency and terrorism will be far easier to deal with in a society where the threat is openly identified than in a society where the obvious dangers must not be pointed out for political correctness’ sake.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Trikaal »

I am not talking about kindness or advocating opening of borders to accept Rohingyas. But there's a hell of a difference between accepting refugees and needlessly persecuting a portion of a population.

I don't particularly care about muslims over any other population group, but I do know that you can only push someone so far. Backed against a wall, even a dog can be dangerous. If the choice available to people is die, or fight and die, you can very well guess what they would choose. A persecuted group is ripe for recruitment. China persecuting uyghurs will only intensify its problems in the near future.

The Western society aren't a paragon of virtues. Most of the muslims that carry out terrorist attacks are vulnerable to recruitment because of a lifetime of abuse and discrimmination they have faced at the hands of these so called liberal societies. I am not making excuses for those scumbags who think that the solution to west's problems is to blow people up but the west's hands aren't exactly clean either.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Kashi »

Trikaal wrote:Most of the muslims that carry out terrorist attacks are vulnerable to recruitment because of a lifetime of abuse and discrimmination they have faced at the hands of these so called liberal societies.
That makes sense...Now that would would explain why Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Bahais, Yazidis et al. in the West carry out....Oh wait....
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Trikaal »

I already said muslims are more vulnerable and less level-headed than the rest. It doesn't help that there are also a lot more muslims in the west than all other religions combined. Again, I am not defending these scumbags, but nothing good will ever come out of intentionally marginalizing and persecuting a group. It never has, it never will. History is replete with such examples.

Anyway, the discussion is becoming OT. I have said what I wanted to on this topic. No more from me unless someone brings up a new point to this discussion.
Last edited by Trikaal on 06 Sep 2018 17:41, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by souravB »

If I may butt in with my two paisas.
In every society there will always be a class or group of people who are more successful than the other. That then present as resentment or even hatred for the better off. Now depending on whether that resentment materialize as policy or militancy depend on the ratio of the worse off populace.
Indian Muslims are poor because the well off of them went to form other countries and only the poor remained. And as Indians we do discriminate in one form or other against everybody whether you are of different fiscal condition, caste, language, state and religion. We do not discriminate while discriminating. This will go away as level of education, fiscal and interaction increases.
Muslims should understand that they are not special on being discriminated in India. We discriminate towards them because as an Indian it is an unwritten right of people to get discriminated one way or the other. So if we think of them as Indian what is the point of them picking up arms. hain ji?
If discrimination is the sole reason behind picking up arms then why the Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Sri Lankan populace blow up a building or two in KSA or Qatar? Nobody is more deprived than those people, not by even a very long shot.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by ArjunPandit »

^^may I request brfiters to return to china, there are other threads for taking this flight to WTC
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by pankajs »

https://supchina.com/2018/09/04/we-are- ... -to-china/
‘We are not puppets’ — Namibian president to China
The Namibian reports that last week President Hage Geingob told the Chinese ambassador to Namibia last month not to tell him what to do regarding the forthcoming Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit, which is now ongoing in Beijing.

[*] Ambassador Zhang Yiming 张益明 met Geingob to brief him on FOCAC, and give advice for a speech he will deliver a speech on behalf of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as the current chair of the regional bloc.
[*] “During the meeting and in the presence of the media, Zhang suggested to Geingob that he should speak highly of China-Africa economic relations, specifically involving Namibia… Zhang further proposed that Geingob should affirm Africa’s political support for China and that of Namibia since he was ‘a statesman,’” reports the Namibian.
[*] “I have my speech writers. They will handle it. You should not tell us what we should do. We are not puppets. Let’s talk about the programme of the summit,” the President is reported to have answered. He also “further emphasised that people with business proposals should deal with line ministries, and not directly with him, because he wants to promote the culture of transparency.”
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by pankajs »

No Kamments ... absolutely none from my side!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... nt-demands
China must apologise for 'arrogance', Nauru president demands
Nauru's president has demanded China apologise for a senior envoy’s "crazy" behaviour at the Pacific Islands Forum, and lashed out at Beijing's "arrogant" presence in the region.

"They're not our friends. They just need us for their own purposes," President Baron Waqa said. "Sorry, but I have to be strong on this because no one is to come and dictate things to us."

"We're seeing a lot of big countries coming in and sometimes buying their way through the Pacific, some are extremely aggressive, even to the point that they tread all over us," Waqa said. "From this forum, all leaders [now] know how arrogant some of these people are."

Waqa said such behaviour merited an apology from Beijing. “We won't just seek an apology, we'll even take it up to the UN,” he said. “Not only that, I will mention it at the UN and every international meeting.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by pankajs »

No kamments again!

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/ ... ded-kenyan
African headquarters of state-owned Chinese TV network raided by Kenyan police
Gun-wielding Kenyan police on Wednesday raided the African headquarters of the China Global Television Network (CGTN), briefly detaining several journalists as part of an ongoing crackdown against illegal immigrants, an employee said.

Cellphone footage of the raid showed armed plain-clothed police bundling Chinese staff into vehicles while demanding that reporters of other nationalities produce their passports or accompany them to the police station.

“They had automatic rifles, it was scary,” said one foreign reporter at the state-owned television station on condition of anonymity.
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Peregrine »

China warns of retaliation if US slaps new tariffs-Reuters

BEIJING: China will be forced to retaliate if the United States implements any new tariff measures, China’s commerce ministry warned on Thursday, as the world’s two biggest economies remain locked in an intensifying trade war.

Global markets were on edge after US President Donald Trump threatened fresh tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese imports. “If the United States, regardless of opposition, adopts any new tariff measures, China will be forced to roll out necessary retaliatory measures,” ministry spokesman Gao Feng told a regular news conference.

China will closely monitor the impact from any fresh tariffs and adopt strong measures to help Chinese or foreign firms operating in China to overcome difficulties, said Gao.

Predicting Trump: Chinese turn to fortune tellers to divine trade war

The Trump administration is ready to move ahead with a next round of tariffs after a public comment period ends at midnight in Washington on Thursday, but the timing is uncertain, people familiar with the administration’s plans told Reuters.

The new duties will start to hit consumer products directly, including furniture, lighting products, tires, bicycles and car seats for babies. China and the United States have already slapped tit-for-tat tariffs on $50 billion of each other’s goods, spooking financial markets in recent months as investors and policymakers worried the bitter trade war could derail global growth.

Business council seeks direct access to US markets

Trump is demanding Beijing improve market access and intellectual property protections for US companies, cut industrial subsidies and slash a $375 billion trade gap. Markets fear any fresh US duties on Chinese imports will mark a major escalation in the trade dispute between the world’s two economic giants, potentially causing significant drag on global business investment, trade and growth.

In August, China unveiled a proposed list of retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods ranging from liquefied natural gas to certain types of aircraft, in response to the US measures. Trump said on Wednesday that the United States was not yet ready to come to an agreement over trade disputes with China but he said talks would continue.

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

Post by SSridhar »

China plays down 2+2 dialogue - Atul Aneja, The Hindu
India’s inaugural 2+2 ministerial dialogue with the United States on Thursday has “symbolic” significance, but is unlikely to yield a structural change in regional security, says a posting on a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) website.

“From a long-term perspective,...it’s unlikely to have any significant impact on the regional security layout and strategic balance,”
says an article in China Military Online, underplaying the talks.

‘Regular exercise’

The Chinese Foreign Ministry in its regular media briefing described the 2+2 dialogue as an exercise of “normal bilateral relations between the two sides.”

“We also hope that in this process they will do more to regional peace and regional stability,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying observed.

The online article spotlights United States’ “wariness and distrust with India” by insisting that the two countries “should sign a Communications Compatibility and Security agreement (COMCASA) first and military communications security measures can be transferred only when equipment such as attack drones are sold.”
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SSridhar »

Three tips for becoming a better China-watcher - Eric Hundman, SupChina
China plays prominent and expanding roles in many areas of U.S. policy, from trade to North Korea to climate change. As this expansion continues, more people in the news and policy worlds may be interested in becoming savvier China-watchers.

However, this country presents unique obstacles over which prospective sinologists often stumble. Here I offer some simple guidelines to help anyone interested in learning about China, whether as an informed observer, a generalist policymaker, or an aspiring specialist.

1a. Learn Chinese

The best way to understand China is to read Chinese sources and talk to Chinese people. But if you haven’t quite mastered the language yet…

1b. Learn from those who know Chinese

Draw on Chinese sources via translation or others’ reportage. SupChina and the sources listed in its directory of China websites offer invaluable places to start. Many Chinese outlets and individuals publish in English as well. Some of the most important are the English-language versions of official state media outlets such as Xinhua and the People’s Daily. These publications are not intended to represent the full range of discussion and debate in China, nor can they be assumed to be identical to their Chinese-language editions. Nonetheless, they are invaluable windows into the terminology, perspectives, policies, and personalities on which the Chinese Communist Party wants readers to focus. They should therefore be read as such, by focusing not just on the explicit claims they make and where they are directing your attention, but also on which topics and perspectives they omit and, crucially, why they might do so.

Also, pay attention to how any authors writing about China draw on Chinese sources. If an article relies on no Chinese sources to make sweeping claims about China, for instance, it’s best to be skeptical. Relying solely on second- or thirdhand accounts of Chinese sources can be just as problematic, especially given that conventional wisdom about China, as Bill Bishop has pointed out, can, unfortunately, become quickly entrenched.

For instance, in June, Popular Science ran a story headlined, “China’s new submarine engine is poised to revolutionize underwater warfare.” It was republished by the likes of the South China Morning Post and the National Interest, the latter of which used the words holy grail in its headline — essentially quoting itself, because no one else was saying it. In fact, the entire story turned out to have been based on comments supposedly drawn from an interview with a Chinese scientist — comments that the scientist never made, as the blog PLA RealTalk cogently argued:

It appears that a combination of poor translation, and/or a lack of anyone actually tracking down the original video source, sprinkled with an intriguing display in the video, was a cause for this debacle.

Had the authors of these pieces consulted the original Chinese source, a misleading (and worrisome) narrative about China’s naval prowess would have been far less likely to develop.

2. Understand how good information about China is produced


Good information about China is relatively hard to obtain, doubly so because it is channeled through a limited set of journalists, researchers, analysts, and propaganda outlets with the expertise needed to bridge the gaps between China and the outside world.

Smart China-watchers thus also carefully assess their sources by asking two questions. One, how credible is the source itself? Two, what does the information provided actually mean? Both of these assessments must be rooted in an understanding of China’s historical, societal, and political context.


There is no simple formula for gauging the credibility of information about China. Given the scarcity of quality information, smart China-watchers always ask the degree of a source’s familiarity with China. Proficiency in Chinese is a good indicator — it means the source is likely to have engaged with an informative number of Chinese people. Time spent in China is also a good indicator, given that the country’s media landscape, business culture, and norms of interpersonal interaction differ from most Western contexts.

For example, personal, face-to-face interaction is even more crucial to developing reliable sources in China than it is elsewhere. Furthermore, Chinese norms for prose mean core claims often appear buried or bafflingly idiomatic (such that knowing what they say is not at all the same as understanding what they mean). Censorship pressures on individuals can exacerbate these challenges, in addition to creating a highly restricted media environment that is entirely alien to many Americans. Norms of public debate also differ in China; in the case of the Chinese military, for example, policy discussions in military publications generally indicate the bounds of internal government debates, rather than broader public sentiment.

One example in which deep familiarity with China was crucial to dispelling an influential myth is the story of the U.S. military’s “AirSea Battle” doctrine. In part a response to China’s purported adoption of a military strategy of “counter-intervention” or “anti-access/area denial (A2D2),” AirSea Battle generated fierce internecine fights in the U.S. military and increased concerns in China about U.S. intentions. The thing is, while China was developing some capabilities along these lines, it made no such overall change to its military strategy. As demonstrated by two professors with extensive experience studying China, misidentifying the focus of China’s military strategy like this “sustain[ed] a flawed assessment of China’s military modernization”; it also “overstate[d] the role of the United States in Chinese military planning and contribute[d] to…growing security competition in the region.” Notably, these professors punctured this myth using a close reading of Chinese-language publications, which itself was informed by their deep knowledge of how military strategy in China is developed and reported.

While assessing the actual meaning of Chinese sources can be extremely difficult without extensive experience, China experts are, fortunately, usually willing to help. Many China experts have produced detailed guides to understanding various aspects of modern China, including Analyzing the Chinese Military, The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History, Decoding the Chinese Internet, “Guide on Researching Chinese Mass Media Law,” “Researching the History of the People’s Republic of China,” and “Who Speaks for the Chinese Government?” Email newsletters from experienced China hands have also become invaluable for helping to separate the wheat from the chaff of China analysis and reporting, and they often provide informed commentary in addition to useful sources — the best include Changpian, China Politics Weekly, Chinafornia, The Month in U.S.-China Relations, Sinocism, SupChina, Trivium Daily, and U.S.-China Week.

3. Beware of easy but inappropriate comparisons

Comparison can be one of the best ways to make sense of an unknown, but some of China’s peculiarities make finding appropriate comparisons challenging. For example, Chinese organizations tend to emphasize ambitious proposals and anticipated successes, without furnishing the information that outside observers would need to assess the progress or outcomes of these plans. As veteran China-watcher Ian Johnson puts it, “China is the land of soft openings: Projects are first announced to big fanfare… and only then filled with content,” whereas “Westerners like to see projects…envisioned and planned thoroughly, then completed according to that design.” Differences of approach like this can lay traps for unwary China-watchers who assume projects everywhere follow the same basic progression.

With regard to Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative proposing investments across Asia, many, such as Harvard professor Joseph S. Nye, have openly pondered whether it is “more public relations smoke than investment fire.” While the initiative is relatively new and hard to assess, it is clear that some components are already faltering due to controversy or poorly planned investments. When organizations outside China are open about the implementation of similar investment plans — which inevitably face setbacks — analysts can be tempted to compare imperfect foreign outcomes with promising but unproven Chinese plans, problematically treating the latter as if they were fully and smoothly implemented. Many of China’s ballyhooed eco-cities, for instance, have “largely been scrapped” despite initially ambitious announcements.

A less well known example occurred in early 2015, when China’s largest state-owned agricultural development enterprise announced plans to massively increase its annual haul of Antarctic krill, from roughly 30,000 metric tons per year to as much as 2 million tons. This plan was first reported in the state-run China Daily, and it rapidly spread through foreign news outlets. Notably, however, China’s annual krill catch actually fell from 2013–14 to the 2014–15 season, though it recovered the next year. China’s trajectory for krill fishing therefore does not square with the 2015 announcement, and practical considerations make any sudden increase unlikely — China only registered seven krill fishing vessels for 2017, for instance, and increases of such size must be approved by the 25 members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. Skepticism of this announcement was therefore justified, but it didn’t stop a wide range of observers from greeting this announcement with fanfare. China still wants an increase in its krill fishing quota, but even several years later, the content of its plan to do so remains unclear.

The general problem of finding appropriate comparisons in the study of China also arose in a recent comparison in The National Interest of the U.S. and Chinese militaries. The author examined ways in which China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) plans to respond to the changing global security environment, ultimately concluding that the PLA’s plans will be effective. The author then went on to argue that the U.S. should take a page from China in this area, claiming the U.S. military’s “entrenched bureaucracy” has made it unable to effectively adapt to the changing security environment and prepare for the “future of warfare.” However, this piece erred in comparing the allegedly poor outcomes of actual U.S. attempts to adapt with China’s as yet unrealized plans to adapt. By doing so, it waved away the substantial challenges involved in actually implementing policy, as well as the particular obstacles that China’s own famously entrenched bureaucracies will pose to implementing the PLA’s plans. This kind of easy but inappropriate comparison, therefore, tells us little about how successful either China or the U.S. has actually been in preparing for the future of warfare.

The recent flurry of articles calling attention to China’s focus on artificial intelligence research, too, suffers from inappropriate comparisons. For example, one Washington Post headline last year blared that “China has now eclipsed us in AI research,” basing this warning in part on a comparison: “China has effectively eclipsed [the U.S.] in terms of the number of papers published annually on the subject.” But let’s remember that China has “an industry of plagiarism, invented research and fake journals that Wuhan University estimated in 2009 was worth $150m, a fivefold increase on just two years earlier.” (The U.S. is no stranger to such problems itself.) While this situation appears to be improving, simply comparing the number of articles published in each country without an appreciation for context does not tell us much about how much good research either country is doing. Choosing effective, illuminating points of comparison that effectively take local context into account is difficult but crucial.
Conclusion

China watching


In many ways, China is a country like any other, to which all the usual rules of good analysis apply — as the China-watcher Howard French has said, “to exoticize China and to see it as some kind of outlier…would be to misunderstand China.” However, paradoxically, one of the ways it is like every other country is that observers must take its idiosyncrasies seriously. Above, I have laid out a few of the unique challenges to observing China, in hopes of helping those interested in becoming more effective China-watchers.

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

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CChinese govt's top diplomat says Beijing not saddling Pakistan with debt - Reuters
ISLAMABAD: The Chinese government's top diplomat defended Beijing's Belt and Road infrastructure initiative during a visit to Pakistan on Saturday, rejecting criticism the project has saddled Pakistan with expensive debt.

State councillor and foreign minister Wang Yi was in Pakistan for a three-day visit in the first high-level meetings between the neighbours since new Prime Minister Imran Khan took office.


Beijing has pledged $57 billion in loans for Pakistan as part of its vast Belt and Road initiative, deepening ties at a time when Islamabad's relations with Washington are fraying over how to deal with Islamist terrorists waging war in Afghanistan.

Whether China was overburdening Pakistan with debt has become a sore point for both nations, who both say the loans are sustainable, after US secretary of state Mike Pompeo in July warned any potential International Monetary Fund bailout for Pakistan's troubled economy should not provide funds to pay off Chinese lenders.

Wang said the Pakistani portion of the Belt and Road initiative, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), has helped increase economic growth by 1-2 per cent and has contributed 70,000 jobs.

"CPEC has not inflicted a debt burden on Pakistan, rather when these projects get completed and enter into operation, they will unleash huge economic benefits ... and these will create considerable returns to the Pakistani economy," Wang said during a news conference in the capital Islamabad.


Standing next to Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Wang said 47 per cent of Pakistan's debt comes from the IMF and the Asian Development Bank.

Wang said 22 operational CPEC projects, of which nine have been completed, have triggered investment worth $19 billion so far. He also rejected concerns about transparency of CPEC by saying those worries were "false" as all the projects had undergone necessary approvals.

Qureshi said CPEC remains the "top priority" of the new government, adding that the two governments would focus on projects with socio-economic development.

"They will be considering projects that have a livelihood connection to them, that means job creation. He has spoken about initiatives in health and education, vocational training, how do we want to make our people more productive if they want to export," Qureshi said.

The two men did not mention whether China would give more loans to help Pakistan's current account crisis. Pakistan is battling a worsening balance of payments crisis that may push it to seek a fresh bailout from the IMF, though officials have not ruled out other options such as a bailout from China.

Wang will also call on Prime Minister Khan and Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the foreign office said.

Wang's visit comes days after Pompeo's trip to Pakistan last week along with the US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the first high-level US visit to the new government, with the secretary of state saying he was hopeful for "a reset of relations" between the two countries.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Maldives hits out at U.S. over sanctions threats - AP

Of course, nations are sovereign and little Maldives = mighty USA on the sovereignty scale. But, where does Abdullah Yameen derive his arrogance & strength from? Of course, China.
The Maldives has hit out at the United States after it warned of possible sanctions against key officials of the island nation if the upcoming election is not free and fair.

President Donald Trump’s administration warned the Maldives on Thursday of possible sanctions if it doesn’t reverse democratic backsliding and ensure free presidential election on September 23.

In a statement posted late on Friday on the Foreign Ministry website, the Maldives said it views the U.S. statement as “as an act of intimidation, imposing undue influence on the democratic processes of a sovereign state.” It urged the U.S. and others “to allow the people of the Maldives to freely decide on 23 September on who should lead them for the next five years.”

The U.S. remarks came amid accusations from the Maldivian Opposition that the election will not be free and fair. Opposition presidential candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has expressed fears that the government would rig the election. The government rejected Mr. Solih’s claims, saying it would not unduly influence the election.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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https://twitter.com/ChuBailiang/status/ ... 5741491200
Chris Buckley 储百亮 @ChuBailiang

A picture of the Hotan County "Concentrated Transformation-through-Education Center" (和田县集中教育转化培训中心) that features in our story. Notice the bars on all the windows. https://nyti.ms/2O0wPuq @austinramzypic.twitter.com/qd594tOjS8
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/worl ... -camp.html
China Is Detaining Muslims in Vast Numbers. The Goal: ‘Transformation.’
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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https://twitter.com/ChuBailiang/status/ ... 0836422657
Chris Buckley 储百亮 @ChuBailiang

Here is a picture of Uighur women attending a village meeting where, according to the report, village officials explained why their husbands and other family members had been detained. https://goo.gl/3psiLz https://nyti.ms/2O0wPuq pic.twitter.com/ieFuf1yHD2
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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China to regulate online religious activity amid crackdown - AP

China is rolling out new rules on religious activity on the internet amid an ongoing crackdown on churches, mosques and other institutions by the officially atheist Communist Party.

Anyone wishing to provide religious instruction or similar services online, must apply by name and be judged morally fit and politically reliable, according to draft regulations posted online late on Monday by China's State Administration for Religious Affairs.

Organisations and schools that receive licenses can operate only on their internal networks that require users to be registered and are barred from seeking converts or distributing texts or other religious materials, the rules said.

They also impose tight limits on what can be said or posted, including a ban on criticism of the party's leadership and official religious policies, promoting religious participation by minors, and "using religion to... overthrow the socialist system."

Live streaming of religious activities, including praying, preaching or even burning incense, is also forbidden.

Authorities in recent months have ratcheted up pressure on religious groups, destroying crosses, burning Bibles, shutting churches and ordering followers to renounce their faith.

The campaign is part of a drive to "Sinicise" religion by demanding loyalty to the Communist Party and leader Xi Jinping.

Observers call it the most severe crackdown since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982.

Chinese law requires religious believers to worship only in congregations registered with the authorities and bans most religious observance in private homes.

All of China's officially recognized religions appear to have been affected by the crackdown.

In the northwestern region of Xinjiang, an estimated 1 million Uighurs and other members of Muslim minority groups have been arbitrarily detained in indoctrination camps where they are forced to denounce Islam and profess loyalty to the party.

The government denies setting up the camps but says it is taking necessary measures to eliminate extremism.

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

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/worl ... e=Homepage

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering sanctions against Chinese senior officials and companies to punish Beijing’s detention of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Uighurs and other minority Muslims in large internment camps, according to current and former American officials.

The economic penalties would be one of the first times the Trump administration has taken action against China because of human rights violations. United States officials are also seeking to limit American sales of surveillance technology that Chinese security agencies and companies are using to monitor Uighurs throughout northwest China.

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

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As one esteemed member put it on this very forum, the Chinese thought they had de-coded/deconstructed Modi mentally and knew what makes him tick. As this member theorized, they thought massaging his ego by giving his a one on one with Xi they will be able to sew him up for good.

End result, India not only signed the LEMOA but also went on to sign up for COMCASA. Now the Chinese are confused.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diploma ... ill-deepen
Shinzo Abe and Xi Jinping ‘pledge Japan and China will deepen cooperation’
The leaders of China and Japan have pledged to accelerate cooperation in the latest sign that the two Asian rivals are mending ties that have been marred by territorial and historical disputes.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on the sidelines of a regional forum in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed in their meeting on Wednesday that the two countries bore responsibility for world peace and prosperity as well as the goal of achieving North Korea’s denuclearisation.

Xi and Abe were in Vladivostok to participate the Eastern Economic Forum, a three-day summit hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin to promote investment in Russia’s far east.

Abe said before his meeting with Xi that the two neighbours had engaged in broad cooperation “in all areas, with active communication and dialogue”, Japanese news agency Kyodo reported.

“The horizon of cooperation is extending,” Abe was quoted as saying.

Beijing and Tokyo are taking steps to strengthen ties that have been strained by territorial disputes and historical grievances. Relations have stabilised in recent months during intensifying US trade pressure on both China and Japan.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by manju »

chola wrote:This is where they have a BIG advantage over us:

https://twitter.com/prasannavishy/statu ... 4119523328
China Is Treating Islam Like a Mental Illness. Over one million Muslims are being held right now across Chinese internment camps, according to estimates cited by the UN and U.S. officials.
Will china be model and teach the world how to treat this illness?
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Trikaal wrote:^Might seem like an advantage right now but this will only cause resentment to build up among Uyghurs. Also, this provides Pakistan an avenue to retaliate the moment China stops writing blank cheques. US can flame up these unrests using CIA and other underhanded techniques. Not to mention China getting slammed at various Human Rights commissions. No matter how u look at it, these camps makes China more vulnerable not less.
Was in Tibet in August for Kailash Yatra. The Tibetans feels overwhelmed and helpless with Han domination in in Tibet. In cities, towns and across country side you can see chinese flags on houses-even in remote hills. We traveled by bus for 3 days from Lhasa (JUST north of Arunachal Pradesh) to Kailash/MANASAsarovar (just north of Badrinath in Uttarkhand). I was starring at the country side for those 3 days trying to take in as much as possible and recalling the discussion we have had BRF about this terrain in CPEC, Doklam threads.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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pankajs wrote:As one esteemed member put it on this very forum, the Chinese thought they had de-coded/deconstructed Modi mentally and knew what makes him tick. As this member theorized, they thought massaging his ego by giving his a one on one with Xi they will be able to sew him up for good.

End result, India not only signed the LEMOA but also went on to sign up for COMCASA. Now the Chinese are confused.
This comes after the "Wuhan reset" mind.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Lingling Wei @Lingling_Wei

President Xi pledged to "punch back" at U.S. on trade two months ago. Now his economic envoy is telling U.S. cos Beijing "won't allow retribution." What's changed? Beijing is worried about losing foreign cos key to China's future. W/@yoko_kubota https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-woos ... 1536672693 … via @WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-woos ... 1536672693
China Woos U.S. Companies Again, Curbs Trade Threats
Change reflects Beijing’s fears that trade battle could batter economy and curb critical investment, officials say
Xina and fear? :shock:
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Neshant »

a vision of the future (more like the present!) from your friendly neighborhood cinis.

--------------------------

China's 'Digital' Totalitarian Experiment
[*] China's "social credit" system, which will assign every person a constantly updated score based on observed behaviors, is designed to control conduct by giving the ruling Communist Party the ability to administer punishments and hand out rewards. The former deputy director of the State Council's development research center says the system should be administered so that "discredited people become bankrupt".

[*]
Officials prevented Liu Hu, a journalist, from taking a flight because he had a low score. According to the Communist Party-controlled Global Times, as of the end of April 2018, authorities had blocked individuals from taking 11.14 million flights and 4.25 million high-speed rail trips.

[*]
Chinese officials are using the lists for determining more than just access to planes and trains. "I can't buy property. My child can't go to a private school," Liu said. "You feel you're being controlled by the list all the time."

Chinese leaders have long been obsessed with what Jiang Zemin in 1995 called "informatization, automation, and intelligentization," and they are only getting started Given the capabilities they are amassing, they could, the argument goes, make defiance virtually impossible. The question now is whether the increasingly defiant Chinese people will accept President Xi's all-encompassing vision.

By 2020, Chinese officials plan to have about 626 million surveillance cameras operating throughout the country. Those cameras will, among other things, feed information into a national "social credit system."

That system, when it is in place in perhaps two years, will assign to every person in China a constantly updated score based on observed behaviors. For example, an instance of jaywalking, caught by one of those cameras, will result in a reduction in score.

Although officials might hope to reduce jaywalking, they seem to have far more sinister ambitions, such as ensuring conformity to Communist Party political demands. In short, the government looks as if it is determined to create what the Economist called "the world's first digital totalitarian state."

China's President Xi Jinping is not merely an authoritarian leader. He evidently believes the Party must have absolute control over society and he must have absolute control over the Party. He is taking China back to totalitarianism as he seeks Mao-like control over all aspects of society. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

That social credit system, once perfected, will surely be extended to foreign companies and individuals.

At present, there are more than a dozen national blacklists, and about three dozen various localities have been operating experimental social credit scoring systems. Some of those systems have failed miserably. Others, such as the one in Rongcheng in Shandong province, have been considered successful.

In the Rongcheng system, each resident starts with 1,000 points, and, based upon their changing score, are ranked from A+++ to D. The system has affected behavior: incredibly for China, drivers stop for pedestrians at crosswalks.

Drivers stop at crosswalks because residents in that city have, as Foreign Policyreported, "embraced" the social credit system. Some like the system so much that they have set up micro social credit systems in schools, hospitals, and neighborhoods. Social credit systems obviously answer a need for what people in other societies take for granted.

Yet, can what works on a city level be extended across China? As technology advances and data banks are added, the small experimental programs and the national lists will eventually be merged into one countrywide system. The government has already begun to roll out its "Integrated Joint Operations Platform," which aggregates data from various sources such as cameras, identification checks, and "wifi sniffers."

So, what will the end product look like? "It will not be a unified platform where one can type in his or her ID and get a single three-digit score that will decide their lives," Foreign Policy says.

Despite the magazine's assurances, this type of system is precisely what Chinese officials say they want. After all, they tell us the purpose of the initiative is to "allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step."

That description is not an exaggeration. Officials prevented Liu Hu, a journalist, from taking a flight because he had a low score. The Global Times, a tabloid that belongs to the Communist Party-owned People's Daily, reported that, as of the end of April 2018, authorities had blocked individuals from taking 11.14 million flights and 4.25 million high-speed rail trips.

Chinese officials, however, are using the lists for determining more than just access to planes and trains. "I can't buy property. My child can't go to a private school," Liu said. "You feel you're being controlled by the list all the time."

The system is designed to control conduct by giving the ruling Communist Party the ability to administer punishments and hand out rewards. And the system could end up being unforgiving. Hou Yunchun, a former deputy director of the State Council's development research center, said at a forum in Beijing in May that the social credit system should be administered so that "discredited people become bankrupt".

"If we don't increase the cost of being discredited, we are encouraging discredited people to keep at it," Hou said. "That destroys the whole standard."

Not every official has such a vindictive attitude, but it appears that all share the assumption, as the dovish Zhi Zhenfeng of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said, that "discredited people deserve legal consequences."

President Xi Jinping, the final and perhaps only arbiter in China, has made it clear how he feels about the availability of second chances. "Once untrustworthy, always restricted," the Chinese ruler says.

What happens, then, to a country where only the compliant are allowed to board a plane or be rewarded with discounts for government services? No one quite knows because never before has a government had the ability to constantly assess everyone and then enforce its will. The People's Republic has been more meticulous in keeping files and ranking residents than previous Chinese governments, and computing power and artificial intelligence are now giving China's officials extraordinary capabilities.

Beijing is almost certain to extend the social credit system, which has roots in attempts to control domestic enterprises, to foreign companies. Let us remember that Chinese leaders this year have taken on the world's travel industry by forcing hotel chains and airlines to show Taiwan as part of the People's Republic of China, so they have demonstrated determination to intimidate and punish. Once the social credit system is up and running, it would be a small step to include non-Chinese into that system, extending Xi's tech-fueled totalitarianism to the entire world.

The dominant narrative in the world's liberal democracies is that tech favors totalitarianism. It is certainly true that, unrestrained by privacy concerns, hardline regimes are better able to collect, analyze, and use data, which could provide a decisive edge in applying artificial intelligence A democratic government may be able to compile a no-fly list, but none could ever come close to implementing Xi Jinping's vision of a social credit system.

Chinese leaders have long been obsessed with what then-President Jiang Zemin in 1995 called "informatization, automation, and intelligentization," and they are only getting started. Given the capabilities they are amassing, they could, the argument goes, make defiance virtually impossible.

Technology might even make liberal democracy and free-markets "obsolete" writesYuval Noah Harari of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the Atlantic. "The main handicap of authoritarian regimes in the 20th century — the desire to concentrate all information and power in one place — may become their decisive advantage in the 21st century," he writes.

There is no question that technology empowers China's one-party state to repress people effectively. Exhibit A for this proposition is, of course, the country's social credit system.

Yet China's communists will probably overreach. The country's experience so far with social credit systems suggests that officials are their own worst enemies. An early experiment to build such a system in Suining county in Jiangsu province was a failure:

"Both residents and state media blasted it for its seemingly unfair and arbitrary criteria, with one state-run newspaper comparing the system to the 'good citizen' certificates issued by Japan during its wartime occupation of China."

The Rongcheng system has been more successful because its scope has been relatively modest.

Xi Jinping will not be as restrained as Rongcheng's officials. He evidently believes the Party must have absolute control over society and he must have absolute control over the Party. It is simply inconceivable that he will not include in the national social credit system, when it is stitched together, political criteria. Already Chinese officials are trying to use artificial intelligence to predict anti-Party behavior.

Xi Jinping is not merely an authoritarian leader, as it is often said. He is taking China back to totalitarianism as he seeks Mao-like control over all aspects of society.

The question now is whether the increasingly defiant Chinese people will accept Xi's all-encompassing vision. In recent months, many have taken to the streets: truck drivers striking over costs and fees, army veterans marching for pensions, investors blocking government offices to get money back from fraudsters, Muslims surrounding mosques to stop demolition, and parents protesting the scourge of adulterated vaccines, among others. Chinese leaders obviously think their social credit system will stop these and other expressions of discontent.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09- ... experiment
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Monitor Indo-China border: Parliamentary Panel – Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury

NEW DELHI: India's Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs has recommended that the government should continue to monitor the border with China, including Dokalam to meet any contingency.

"India and China have a long history of military face-offs along the border but Dokalam was the longest one so far as the Sumdorung Chu incident, and arguably the most grave in its implications. In terms of the security, implications and number of troops involved it was on a far higher scale than the previous such incidents," the committee said in its report on Sino-Indian ties.

At the end of the 72-day stand-off it was made clear to China that India will not countenance any change in the status quo or unilateral attempts to change the trijunction point between India, Bhutan and China, the Committee led by former MoS External Affairs Shashi Tharoor pointed out.

"Our defence forces and our diplomatic corps have shown firmness in responding to the crisis without actually being drawn into any kind of political rhetoric. The Committee hope that all this must have made it clear to the Chinese not to attempt any such misadventure again," the report recalled.

The Committee would strongly desire that India should continue to monitor the Chinese activities along the border in general and the area in particular very intensely, to improve the military infrastructure (particularly roads) and equipment (particularly high technology gear), and to prepare our security forces to respond befittingly to any contingency.

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

Post by Peregrine »

China installing QR codes on Uighur Muslim homes in mass security crackdown - Tom Embury Dennis

LONDON: China is installing QR codes on the homes of the Uighur Muslim community in order to get instant access to the personal details of people living there, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The development comes as part of a mass security crackdown on minorities in province, the charity said, which includes arbitrary detentions, daily restrictions on religious practice and "forced political indoctrination".

Officials reportedly scan the "smart" doorplates with mobile devices before entering homes to monitor the inhabitants.

Sophie Richardson, China director at HRW, said: "The Chinese government is committing human rights abuses in Xinjiang on a scale unseen in the country in decades. The campaign of repression in Xinjiang is a key test of whether the United Nations and concerned governments will sanction an increasingly powerful China to end this abuse."

Authorities claim the codes — which in some locales feature on every home — help with population control and delivery of services.

"Starting from spring 2017, in every home where one enters there’s a QR code," one former resident who left Xinjiang, in the far west of the country, told HRW. "Then every two days, or every day, the cadres come and scan the QR code, so they know how many people live here — and starting around then, they would ask [our] visitors, ‘Why are you here?’ In the evenings the cadres would check as well."

Former residents said authorities are also collecting biometric data, such as DNA and voice samples, when people apply for passports or ID cards, or during police interrogations.

"They did take our DNA samples and iris scans when we applied for the passports," a middle-aged woman who left Xinjiang last year said. "For those who can read, they read out from a paper but for those who cannot, they said, ‘You can sing a song or tell a story and we will record you’. You aren’t in a position to argue with them." She said people were even forced to walk back and forth at police stations so officials could record their gait.

The United Nations human rights panel in August said China is believed to be holding up to one million ethnic Uighurs in a secretive system of "internment camps" in Xinjiang, where they undergo political education.

Beijing has denied such camps are for "political education", insisting instead they are vocational training centres, part of government initiatives to bolster economic growth and social mobility in the region. China has said Xinjiang faces a serious threat from Islamist militants and separatists who plot attacks and stir up tensions between Uighurs who call the region home and the ethnic Han Chinese majority.

Uighurs and other Muslims held in the camps are forbidden from using Islamic greetings, must learn Mandarin Chinese and sing propaganda songs, according to former camp detainees interviewed by HRW. People in Xinjiang with relatives living abroad in one of 26 "sensitive countries", including Kazakhstan, Turkey and Indonesia, have reportedly been targeted by the authorities and are often held for several months, without any formal procedure.

Punishments for refusing to follow instructions in the camp could mean being denied food, being forced to stand for 24 hours or even solitary confinement, HRW said.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Geng Shuang, declined to give a detailed response to the report and said HRW was a group "full of prejudice" against China. Measures in Xinjiang aim to "promote stability, development, unity and livelihoods", while also cracking down on "ethnic separatism and violent terrorist criminal activities", he said.

Security conditions in Xinjiang outside the camps have also intensified markedly and now bear "a striking resemblance to those inside", said Hong Kong-based HRW researcher Maya Wang, who has interviewed 58 former Xinjiang residents now living abroad.

Ms Wang and her team only spoke with people who had left Xinjiang due to a lack of access to the region and to avoid endangering those still living there. Monitoring of Islamic religious practices, such as asking people how often they pray and the closure of mosques, as well as regular visits by party officials to rural parts of Xinjiang, mean that practising Islam "has effectively been outlawed", Ms Wang said.

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

Post by Peregrine »

Taiwan courts security ties with bigger friends as China snatches allies – Reuters

HONG KONG/TAIPEI: As Beijing intensifies its effort to further isolate diplomatically, Taipei is actively but discreetly broadening security ties with regional powers beyond its long-standing relationship with the United States.

From efforts to share intelligence on China's military with India and the prospect of engaging Japanese experts in its submarine programme, Taipei's push is gradually bearing fruit despite sensitivities surrounding relations with Taiwan, according to government officials, military attaches and diplomats.

Apart from India and Japan, Taipei has targeted Australia and Singapore.

While the effort is being kept low-key to avoid further inflaming Beijing and adding to pressure on countries aiding Taipei unofficially, the moves mirror Taiwan's more public "southbound" policy to deepen commercial and cultural links with the region.

It also comes amid several recent successes by China in luring away some of the few nations that diplomatically recognise the democratically self-ruled island.

While Taipei battles to keep its remaining formal allies, it is keen to deepen strategic ties with larger regional powers, sensing an opportunity as they too seek to cope with a rising China, Taiwanese officials say.

"We want Taiwan and those countries to have more in-depth understanding of the strategic or secruity environment we are in," Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu told Reuters.

As China grows more powerful and assertive, he said "many of these countries feel the pinch and they might want to know more about Taiwan as an interest to them, rather than something they want to avoid."

Switching ties

China considers democratic Taiwan to be a wayward province and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. It has intensified military activity surrounding Taiwan in recent years.

El Salvador switched ties to Beijing last month, while the Dominican Republic did so in May and Panama changed sides last year - leaving Taiwan with just 17 diplomatic allies, six of which are small Pacific island states.

"None of the other regional powers will come close to what Taiwan is doing with the US," said Bonnie Glaser, a security expert at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies. "But it is clear that there are intersecting interests, and that these are being actively explored."

Washington, like other major powers, maintains a "one China" policy that thwarts formal diplomatic relations with Taipei but remains by far Taiwan's largest weapons supplier and most powerful international backer.

That relationship has been boosted under US President Donald Trump, whose administration is eyeing more weapons sales and is encouraging official exchanges.

According to US estimates obtained by Reuters, on average 100 US officials, including military personnel, visit Taiwan each week.

Anecdotally, the intensity of interactions is rising under the administration of Taiwanese President .

India advances

While security ties with Tokyo, including some intelligence sharing, have been evolving for some time, Taipei's ties with New Delhi are rapidly growing, according to people familiar with discussions.

Unofficial military attaches have been placed within Taiwan's new de-facto embassy, the Taipei Economic Cultural Centre, while senior Indian military officers regularly visit Taipei on ordinary rather than official passports.

Taiwan also fields military attaches unofficially in Tokyo and Singapore as well as Washington.

Taiwan's knowledge of Chinese military deployments, including troop movements in the west of the country are of particular interest, said an Indian source familiar with ties.

"We are dependent on Taiwan because they are watching the Chinese," the source said. "Indian serving officers regularly go to Taiwan, they go on so-called study leave."

When asked for a formal Indian government response, a source familiar with the government's thinking declined to comment on security cooperation, but said India's "engagement with Taiwan is limited to economic and commercial links. And people to people contacts."

Taiwan is also pushing Australia, a major US ally, for closer co-operation, regional diplomats told Reuters. Discussions remained largely in the exploratory stage over shared interests over watching Chinese manoeuvres in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, where China's presence is growing.

Like the Indian relationship, it is most likely to evolve into information sharing on Chinese activities, deployments and intentions rather than hard weapons' programmes.

An Australian government spokesman declined to comment.

Euan Graham, a regional security analyst at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, said Australia would likely remain cautious, despite deepening understanding in Canberra of Taiwan's strategic importance.

"It might be a bit ambitious of the Taiwanese to think Australia would go as far as say Japan," he said.

"Directly taking on a military-to-military relationship with Taiwan would be very uncomfortable for Australia."

Singapore, however, has repeatedly signalled to Taiwanese officials it intends to maintain its low-key military presence on the island despite pressure from Beijing, according to people close to discussions.

That decades-old presence - revolving detachments of troops for infantry and heavy armour training - faced Chinese criticism in late 2016 when Hong Kong authorities temporarily seized armoured personnel carriers being shipped from Taiwan to Singapore.

"Taiwan is pleased that Singapore has resisted Chinese pressure and, beyond the training elements, exchanges between senior officers are broad and deep," said one Singaporean scholar familiar with the relationship, speaking privately due to sensitivity that surrounds it.

"In the current environment they have plenty to talk about."

Speaking privately, other Singaporean academics say that state-linked Chinese counterparts frequently complain about Singapore's on-going military relationship.

"They inevitably ask: when is Singapore going to finally give this up?...the hint is clear," one veteran scholar said.

Singapore's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Taiwanese scholars said retired Japanese engineers have been coming to Taiwan to assist with research and development in its nascent submarine programme.

The Taiwanese defence ministry referred Reuters to a previous statement by the navy in which it said reports of Japan's assistance with Taiwan's submarine programme was "completely conjecture."

A Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said they had no knowledge of any involvement of Japanese engineers in the project.

"Our stance toward Taiwan is based on the 1972 joint communique by Japan and China meaning our relationship is not an official one between governments but is conducted at a working level," the spokesman said.

More broadly, a Taipei-based think-tank close to the office of the president forms a key part of the growing semi-official effort.

The Prospect Foundation, in part funded by Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with close ties to President Tsai's National Security Council, reaches out to a wide range of scholars, retired officials and military brass and sometimes still-serving officials.

As the foundation helps Taiwan create reciprocal exchanges, scholars have noted if serving military officers are involved, no uniforms are worn on foreign trips, underscoring the discreet nature of the missions.

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

Post by nam »

We need to get Taiwan on our side. The country itself is no use.. it is their component manufacturer and Foxconns, who need to be brought to India.
Trikaal
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Trikaal »

Meh, I don't know how reliable an ally Taiwan can be. They officially claim Arunachal Pradesh as their land so technically we have a land dispute with them.
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