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

[Peregrine]

Oh, oh, seven

Why a weakening yuan is rattling markets

As the trade war with America worsens, China has stopped propping up its currency

FREE EXCHANGE rates, argued Milton Friedman in the 1960s, would probably lead to “freer world trade...and a reduction of tariffs”. In China’s case his logic is being turned upside down. The imposition of tariffs is leading to a freer exchange rate. On August 1st President Donald Trump warned that he would soon impose a 10% levy on roughly $300bn-worth of Chinese goods that have not already been hit by the trade war. Four days later China responded by giving its exchange rate unaccustomed freedom to fall. The yuan weakened past seven to the dollar, an important psychological threshold, for the first time in over a decade. And stock prices in America duly fell, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 2%.

Since a messy exchange-rate reform in 2015, China’s authorities have said they will keep the yuan’s value broadly stable against a large basket of currencies, which now has 24 members, from the Thai baht to the Polish zloty. The combined weight of the dollar (and other currencies pegged to the dollar) in this basket is only about 30%. But that understates the dollar’s continued significance. Because most holders of China’s currency remain fixated on its value relative to the greenback, China’s authorities cannot afford to take their eyes off this benchmark either. Any conspicuous weakening of the yuan against its American counterpart makes people nervous, regardless of what is happening to the broader basket. And that nervousness can feed on itself, leading to further selling pressure.

The yuan’s strength against the dollar is also of special concern to Mr Trump and his officials. Odd as it may seem, the president is convinced that foreigners try to take advantage of America by undercharging it for their wares. His officials are therefore always on the lookout for signs that foreign governments are deliberately weakening their currencies to make their exports more competitive. China’s history of currency manipulation and its large trade surplus with America mean that the yuan is always under particular scrutiny.

For both reasons—to keep the White House mollified and yuan-holders calm—China’s authorities have previously resisted letting the yuan weaken past the big, round number seven. In the second half of 2018, for example, the country’s central bank supported the currency with both word and deed, emphasising the need for stability, buying the yuan offshore and increasing the regulatory cost of speculating against the currency.

Why change the approach now? In recent years China’s authorities have tightened controls on capital outflows, so they are less worried that a weaker yuan will prompt Chinese residents to dump their local assets in favour of foreign currencies. (The threshold is not like a “dam”, said China’s central bank, that once breached, will result in a flood.) And now that trade talks with America have broken down anyway, Beijing has little reason to prop up the yuan just to keep the White House happy.

A weaker Chinese currency is, after all, a natural market response to America’s tariffs. The new trade tax will harm Chinese exporters’ earnings, which will in turn reduce the quantity of yuan they can buy with their repatriated dollars. That would put downward pressure on the yuan’s price even if it were an unmanaged, floating currency. Indeed, China’s central bank was quick to blame “trade protectionism” and “unilateralism” for the currency’s decline.

In response, the White House will no doubt accuse Beijing of whetting its currency as a weapon in the trade war. But it would be more accurate to say that Beijing has stopped blunting its currency because it now sees little prospect of trade peace.

Cheers

[darshan]

Anti muslim, fish grabbing, China's brief comments. Probably chinese are busy with the oppression of Hong Kong people in progress.

This is our internal matter, don’t interfere: India reacts sharply to China’s ‘concerns’ over Modi govt’s decision to dilute Article 370
https://www.opindia.com/2019/08/this-is ... ticle-370/
After the Modi government effectively abrogated Article 370 and accorded Union Territory status to J&K and Ladakh, Pakistan and China reacted sharply to India’s bold move.

China has said, “China is seriously concerned about the current situation in Kashmir,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a written response to media queries about the militaries of India and Pakistan exchanging fire along the Line of Control and the Indian government’s move to revoke Article 370 which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

JUST IN: India reacts on China Statement on Article 370 and UT Bill in Parliament: ‘It is an internal matter concerning the territory of India. India does not comment on the internal affairs of other countries and similarly expects other countries to do likewise.’ pic.twitter.com/NPxbgS0jkL

— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) August 6, 2019

Indian MEA official spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said today:

“The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill 2019 introduced by the Government in Parliament on 5th August, which proposes the formation of a new ‘Union Territory of Ladakh’ is an internal matter concerning the territory of India. India does not comment on the internal affairs of other countries and similarly expects other countries to do likewise. So far as the India-China Boundary Question is concerned, the two sides have agreed to a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement of the boundary question on the basis of the Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of India-China Boundary Question. Pending such a settlement, both sides have agreed to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas on the basis of relevant agreements”.

[SSridhar]

China’s grand strategy in outer space: to establish compelling standards of behavior - Namrata Goswami, The Space Review

Invoking Sun Tzu’s The Art of War to understand China—notwithstanding the fact that the China of today is a polity inspired by German philosopher Karl Marx and his political ideology of Marxism—offers significant insights. Sun Tzu’s advice to the Commander during the Warring Period (476–221 BC) was to imbibe the spirit of a comprehensive grand strategy for success. These includes an understanding of the power of norms (moral legitimacy), heaven, earth (physical conditions), leadership, and finally, method and discipline (assessment of military capability, context, relative power potential/difference, logistics, resources). Once all elements come together, a state can benefit from a grand strategy for success.

Sun Tzu counseled that when circumstances were favorable, plans must be modified, with an element of deception maintained as the core guiding tactical principle. The critical core of his philosophy and strategy was that: behave in such a way that the adversary/competitor is unprepared for who you are. This is accomplished by feeding into adversary perceptions of who they believe you are, and not who you actually are. (As I was told in Beijing, “USA thinks we only copy their space technology, cannot innovate. They are right. We are just followers.”) Depending on who your “target audience” was, a king, according to Sun Tzu, could accomplish a particular desired end goal, by stratagem, and superior influence operations backed by targeted resources.

China’s strategy to shape the path for its renaissance and emergence as lead actor in outer space by 2045 can be understood through a Sun Tzu-inspired lens. For one, it was made clear by President Xi Jinping, in his 2012 speech, while he was touring an exhibition on “The Road to Renewal” hosted by the National Museum of China, that the time for renaissance and rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is now. This is Xi’s dream, outlined further when he became president in 2013, that China crystallize itself into the world leading power overall, to include space, that benefits its citizens. In order to ensure stability to that dream, Xi took the unprecedented step of making himself president for life, despite his claims to the contrary of intra-Communist Party of China (CPC) democratic reforms. With that step, he categorically put an end to the once-per-decade high-level CPC leadership transition.

The building of alliances and legitimacy

After Xi took over the reins of China, he has undertaken significant steps to build China’s space capability. Under him, China tested several key technologies for the first time in space: in 2013, a Chinese satellite, Shiyan 7 (SY-7, Experiment 7), with a prototype robotic arm demonstrated that it could capture another satellite in orbit, explained as a space maintenance mission by China, but with dual implications of grabbing adversary satellites.SY-7 also rendezvoused with two other Chinese satellites, the Chuangxin 3 (CX-3) and the Shijian 7 (SJ-7, Practice 7). The strategic significance of these maneuvers at that time was that SY-7 surprised everyone by its sudden maneuvers with a completely different satellite, the SJ-7 (launched in 2005) instead of what experts thought it would rendezvous with, the CX-3 launched along with SY-7 in 2013.

In 2017, China demonstrated the launch and docking of its indigenous cargo spacecraft, the Tianzhou 1, with its space lab, the Tiangong 2. In May 2018, China launched its relay satellite, the Queqiao, to L2 halo orbit to enable communications between its upcoming Chang’e-4 lunar mission to the far side of the Moon. In January 2019, Chang’e-4 successfully landed on the farside.

In July, for the very first time, Chinese private space company, ispace, launched successfully into orbit. Earlier such attempts by Onespace had failed. This is part of President Xi’s push for encouraging private space startups, and investment flows as a result. Under President Xi’s civil-military integration strategy, the PLA opened up its Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center for private launches. Ji Duo, the center's party chief, stated that “carrying out launches of privately made rockets is what a world-class space center is supposed to do, and Jiuquan is willing to put privately funded missions on its launch agenda.” Critically, under that strategy, Chinese investment firms are also looking to aggressively invest in US private space companies. For instance, China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd has invested in Moon Express, one of the companies chosen by NASA for its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Tencent also invested in Planetary Resources (now acquired by ConsenSys, Inc.) and Satelogic, an Argentinian company specializing in satellite imagery. NanoRacks, another US private space company, established a commercial partnership with Kuang-Chi Science LTD in 2018. China established its first overseas satellite ground station in Kiruna, Sweden, that year as well.

Consequently, as is advised by Sun Tzu, to build a comprehensive context for the moral legitimacy of your power, President Xi and the CPC has worked to build alliance structures, signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs), and offered to collaborate on lunar missions with other countries. This is part of Xi’s vision of creating a world order where China not only has capacity but also legitimacy as the country that champions a peaceful and harmonious world order.

One such initiative is the Spatial Information Corridor, where China is offering its Beidou Navigation System to the world, especially to the 70 member countries of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Categorically pitched within the United Nations agenda for making the world a better place, China has offered its space capacity as a force multiplier for a world free of poverty, backed by peace, justice, freedoms, and strong institutions.

This perspective has been vindicated by none other than the United Nations Office on Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) Director, Simonetta Di Pippo. China and UNOOSA signed an MoU that called for applications from UN member states to be part of China’s permanent space station. China’s BRI initiative has been hailed by the African Union and dubbed the Marshall Plan, without a war. Recently, China, in its quest for outer space resources, signed an MoU with Luxembourg and established its deep space exploration unit in the Grand Duchy, primarily to take advantage of Luxembourg’s legislation on space resources. Consequently, China hailed Luxembourg’s entry into its BRI initiative in March, following which the Bank of China chose Luxembourg to list its $500 million BRI bond.

China even invited India, a peer competitor in Asia in space, to become part of its lunar exploration program and research base plans by 2036. This came right after India successfully launched the Chandrayaan-2 mission to the South Pole of the Moon. Earlier in June, China, along with UNOOSA, selected a joint Indian Institute of Technology-University de Bruxelles experiment project, among six others, to conduct experiments on the Chinese Space Station (CSS). India has however announced that it will build its own space station by 2030 and conducted an ASAT test, Mission Shakti, this year vis-à-vis China’s growing counter-space capacities.

Achievements

What China has achieved under Xi are clear demonstrations of international legitimacy and the construction of a narrative that its space activities will lead to global freedom and economic development. This is a rather remarkable achievement, coming from a CPC regime that is brutal to internal dissidents and tolerates no dissent. President Xi, in a speech to the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF), categorically stated that loyalty to the CPC comes above everything else. This loyalty was reiterated by other Chinese state officials as well as Chinese media. And there are dire consequences for those who fail in demonstrating that loyalty.

The example of Hong Kong and the recent proposed extradition changes, under which Hong Kong residents could be tried in mainland China for certain crimes, should give one pause. The extradition principles goes against the legal and ratified commitments China made as per the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, based on which the UK handed over Hong Kong to China in 1997. The 1984 Declaration specifies “the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will be vested with executive, legislative and independent judicial power, including that of final adjudication”. Wide ranging protests by Hong Kong residents have since ensued against it, with China now hinting about the use of its military against the protestors, if requested, by the Hong Kong government who proposed the extradition provisions in the first place. Yet, at the global arena, China is selling a narrative of liberty and freedom, backed by significant resources (billions of dollars in investments), that is succeeding to an extent that countries are buying into that Chinese dream; that China’s success in space will benefit all humankind and promote freedom.

Sun Tzu’s advice to build into the five elements of power, imbibed with stratagem, is clearly a guiding principle for Xi. As the author of the book China Dream, Liu Mingfu, a retired PLA colonel, maintains, as per Sun Tzu’s guidance, the breakout of war is the breakdown of strategy and demonstrates civilizational demise. To win a war by stratagem, without bloodshed, is the way of a superior grand strategy and civilization. With a combination of economic resources, moral legitimacy, and by constituting standards of behavior, China is playing at a game for power, one with consequences for the global order. For with power comes influence, especially “the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.” Given that, we need to reflect on what the world would be like when we have self-appointed leaders for life, inspired by an authoritarian ideology that limits access to political representation within China, leading that global order; especially leaders who believe in the great destiny of their country to emerge as world leader and set standards of behavior for others.

That is a scenario that requires deep philosophical and strategic engagements, answers to which, I am afraid, will not be found by studying European history, warfare, and strategy, which currently dominates professional education courses in the West. For to avoid being caught by surprise, the need of the hour is to broaden your education and go beyond ethno-centric academic, intelligence, and policy discourses dominated by a Western-inspired international history and concepts. For instance, if one analyses how intelligence is gathered by the US ($59.9 billion intelligence budget in 2019), and its closest allies (the Five Eyes: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the concepts are informed by defunct Anglo-Saxon presumptions, and the method is technocratic, utilizing data-mining approaches to understand polities that are informed by a completely different strategic culture. I argue that the US strategic culture has yet to account for the fact that the world has changed, unable or simply unwilling to adapt to a new security environment. And as Klaus Knorr indicated in his chapter on “Threat Perception”, these results in several problems, least of which is the ambiguity of information gathered. More seriously, Knorr specified that ethno-centric predispositions resulted in problems of information gathering, intrinsic intellectual difficulties, and predetermined expectations and beliefs. For he said and I quote “Man, it seems, not only tends to be a prisoner of his perceptions, his perceptions also are slaves to his predispositions”.

For to truly understand complex strategic doctrines like The Art of War, one must move beyond clichés like “deception is the Chinese way of war” or conveniently locate it within realism, to actually grasping that Sun Tzu wrote a comprehensive text in which he asserted, “all warfare is based on deception”, and not just the Chinese way. Moreover, to him, deception was simply a tactic and not the end goal, in the larger “grand strategy for success,” which prioritizes a peacetime offensive. The aim is to win the game for influence and power projection, especially in a domain like outer space without bloodshed so that a Chinese order is established and legitimized. And that after all is President Xi Jinping’s space dream.

[siqir]

PM Modi and Japanese Prince to visit Bhutan

http://www.kuenselonline.com/pm-modi-an ... ext-month/

Japan Times stated, “HRH Prince Hisahito, the second inline to the Chrysanthemum Throne is expected to travel to Bhutan in August with his parents, Crown Prince Akishimo and Crown Princess Kiko, in what would be the 12-year-old’s first overseas trip.”

seems like all out efforts to prevent bhutan falling into sinosphere

[siqir]

but japanese themselves no angels though

from march 2017

Book debates Japan's choice between US, China

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2017-03/2 ... 491199.htm

Japanese scholar Yoshikazu Kato sez

"Going forward, Japan needs to learn to take advantage of powerful countries, especially the conflicts among powerful countries. Japan can benefit from it, and as well as reconcile the conflicts." he writes in the book.

[chola]

China’s grand strategy in outer space: to establish compelling standards of behavior - Namrata Goswami, The Space Review

Cheen's strategy for space will be the same as its strategy for the SCS. They'll use their industrial complex to overwhelm spaces with machines that other nations can never build in the same numbers. Just replace the artificial islands and warships with space stations and spacecraft.

Unless we build up our MIC we'll be left behind. We have a fighting chance with ISRO. But colonization of space will come once the vehicles of space are mass produced and industrialized.

[Peregrine]

Idle hands

The growing ranks of unemployed graduates worry China’s government

But some of the jobless may only have themselves to blame

Throngs of young people roam around the makeshift booths in an exhibition hall in northern Beijing. They are at a job fair organised by the municipal government, aimed at unemployed college graduates. Like most jobseekers in attendance, Su Jian has brought along a stack of cvs to hand out to prospective employers. But Mr Su (not his real name), who graduated in June from a second-tier university in the capital, is unimpressed by what he sees.

The most popular booth at the fair belongs to China Railway, a state-owned behemoth. The firm’s recruiter says it pays new graduates around 4,000 yuan ($580) a month. That is less than half the average salary in Beijing and not even double the city’s minimum wage. Mr Su nonetheless submits his cv. “What can you do? There are too many of us,” he laments.

Chinese universities produced a record 8.3m graduates this summer. That is more than the entire population of Hong Kong, and up from 5.7m a decade ago. Tougher visa policies in much of the West mean that China will also receive nearly half a million returning graduates from foreign institutions this year. It is not a propitious time to enter the job market. China’s economy, buffeted by the trade war with America, is growing at its slowest pace in nearly 30 years. This year fully two-thirds of all workers joining the labour force will be university graduates, up from around half just three years ago. Mr Su wonders whether the number of graduates has outstripped the labour market’s ability to absorb them.

As recently as the early 1990s the government simply assigned graduates to jobs. It no longer dictates people’s lives so crudely, but it is clearly worried about what will happen if they do not find work. On July 12th five state agencies warned local governments that boosting employment “has become more onerous”. They linked the “employment of graduates” with “overall social stability”. Such warnings have been made annually since 2011, but this year, unusually, the public-security ministry attached its name to the notice.

Last month the government announced measures aimed at getting more graduates into work. Small firms that hire unemployed graduates can apply for a tax rebate. The national system of household registration, hukou, which restricts where people can receive subsidised public services, will be kinder to new graduates. The new rules instruct all provincial capitals (but not megacities such as Beijing and Shanghai) to make it easier for graduates to apply for local hukou, boosting labour mobility.

Graduates who want to start their own businesses may be eligible for a state loan with little or no collateral, the ministry of human resources says. Those who cannot get hired and lack entrepreneurial drive are invited to visit one of its many local branches for “one-on-one assistance”. Local governments are also trying to help. One city in Guangxi province announced on July 26th that helping graduates find jobs had become “the utmost priority”.

There are no official statistics on the employment status of fresh graduates, but MyCos, a consultancy on education in Beijing, found that the proportion of them who had found full-time jobs within six months of graduation had fallen from 77.6% in 2014 to 73.6% in 2018. The average monthly salary for new graduates fell from a peak of 4,800 yuan in 2015 to 4,000 yuan in 2017, according to Zhaopin, China’s biggest job-recruitment platform.

The trade war with America seems to have tempered hiring, especially in export industries. A crackdown on shadow banks (lenders that do not take state-guaranteed deposits), which have been enthusiastic recruiters of new graduates, has forced mass layoffs. Growing international suspicion of Chinese tech firms may slow their expansion plans, too. Civil-service recruitment, meanwhile, was cut to 14,500 this year, the lowest intake in a decade.

A recent graduate from Peking University recounts how she was laid off by a financial-services firm earlier this year. She is looking for a job at an internet firm. Prospective employers, she says, have extended the probation period from two or three months to six. “During the probation period employers are legally entitled to pay only 80% of the normal salary,” she explains. “More and more companies are exploiting this power.”

With a degree from China’s most prestigious university, she is at least confident she will soon secure a good job. Graduates from lesser-known institutions face a much harder time. Several recruiters at the job fair in northern Beijing admit to chucking cvs from “no-name schools” straight into the bin. Part of the problem, says Joshua Mok, a professor at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, is that the “average quality” of graduates may have deteriorated in recent years. The number of universities has increased from just over 1,000 in 2000 to around 2,700 today. Employers, unfamiliar with so many new names, often dismiss the obscure ones as degree mills. They are not always wrong.

In 2009 a sociologist coined the term yizu, or “ant tribe” to refer to struggling graduates from the provinces who swarm to megacities. An estimated 100,000 so-called “ants” lived in Beijing in 2010. But the term is no longer widely used, says a graduate from the southern province of Yunnan who lives in Beijing. Rising rents, combined with a crackdown on the illegal subdivision of flats, have driven most provincial graduates away. She, too, may move home soon: salaries may be lower in Yunnan, but so is the cost of living.

Many graduates have unrealistic expectations, says Yao Yuqun of Renmin University: “Everybody wants to be a manager right away.” There are plenty of jobs to go around, he says. A report in May by the China Institute for Employment Research, a think-tank, found that there were 1.4 entry-level vacancies (excluding unskilled work) for each graduating student. Many jobs are in second- and third-tier cities. Graduates, it seems, are too snooty to take them. One calls this the “bat or bust” mentality, referring to Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, three sought-after online giants. The government counsels humility. Anyone blessed with a job offer, it said recently, should “promptly sign the contract”.

Cheers

[hanumadu]

Amid all the talk of this trade war, China's surplus with America is increasing as also with the rest of the world.

[SSridhar]

Amid all the talk of this trade war, China's surplus with America is increasing as also with the rest of the world.

Yeah, true, but that conveys a wrong picture.

That China's economy is slowing for several years now is a proven fact and that is one of the top reasons for BRI too as we all know. It is continuing to go southwards without much letup. There are structural reasons for that such as over-capacity, massive debts, an over-reliance on infrastructure to boost economy etc. That's why Xi launched an innovation-driven technological campaign of 'Made in China 2025' to overcome the drawbacks of just a 'manufacturing-based' economy which is low-hanging fruits and these are now plucked. China is in transition and the US and allies want to stop it in its tracks for that reason. BRI is a stop-gap to keep the economic trajectory going as much as possible during the coasting phase of transition from one to another. So, increasing trade surplus isn't any real measure, IMO.

[hanumadu]

But hasn't the horse already bolted? IMO, China is past the stage that it needs technological cooperation from the west. It may take more time to acquire critical technologies without the west's cooperation but it eventually will.

Huawei is already working on an OS for its devices for the past few years. With a market of one billion, it will create its own ecosystem. Sure, over seas sales will diminish for a few years but eventually it's own market and a few other markets will be enough to sustain it.

Guess who is ready to take advantage of the sanctions on Huawei...ZTE If US wan'ts to curb Chinese tech companies, it has to sanction the things that China cannot make for itself...the chips. Stop the sale of chips and chip manufacturing facilities. China seems to be perfectly able to invent or create the software to run on those chips but not the chips yet. But stopping the sale of those chips would be a drastic step.

Again why I say the horse has already bolted. China has been, for the last several years, working to bring back researchers from the west.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07167-6

The Thousand Talents Plan, launched in 2008 and expanded in 2011 to include younger and foreign researchers, is under particular scrutiny. It has attracted more than 7,000 individuals back to China with lucrative and prominent positions and substantial research grants. The majority of returnees have come from the US, with some top-level candidates maintaining dual US–Chinese institutional affiliations.

The whole article is interesting.

[hanumadu]

Here US bans sale of chips used in super computers to chinese companies. But ban of every day chips is another matter altogether.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/21/tech/chi ... index.html

The Commerce Department said the companies use their supercomputers and components for military and nuclear purposes. US companies won't be able to export components to the five listed companies without a license. The restrictions are similar to the ones the United States recently placed on Huawei.

[siqir]

watched some of the huawei harmony os announcement at their dev conf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEVSf0BvVRM

talk is in chinese but has some english slides

they claim it will be open source microkernel distributed os much safer and responsive than linux
will be able to run same os and apps on all their devices and support c c++ java js for dev

one ipc comparison they showed says their os was 3x better than qnx and 5x fuchsia os which google is developing

this year only on tv products and other devices next year but they still prefer to work with android if possible because of the ecosystem

they didnt actually show the os itself in action or any ui
so it doesnt look like they are confident enough to do that yet

plus nothing about actually developing in a chinese programming language so they are not going full stack replacement or decoupling with the west yet

[siqir]

imo that last point is a key milestone cause until then they basically do not see their own language chinese as a technological language and hence modern on a level with english

they see it as archaic and that reflects their view of their culture and civilization as users of technology whose source is the west and thus looking up to west and trying to catch up

rather than as producers of tech able to set their own standards metrics goals and objectives and thus independent and masters of their own fate

but i think it is just a matter of time before they start down this road

its probably tied to some marxist beliefs they need to give up

[vasu raya]

what US sanctions did China face for buying the S-400? this should be separate from their ongoing trade war. A good article needed from China watchers.

[SSridhar]

China brings up Kashmir, India says internal matter - Indrani Bagchi, ToI

Foreign minister S Jaishankar emphasised to China today India's decision to revoke Article 370 was an internal matter and did not impact border negotiations with either China or Pakistan.

In his first official talks with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, Jaishankar also cautioned him that the "future of India-China relatIonship will depend on mutual sensitivity to each other's core concerns ... Properly managing differences is therefore vital." In a sign of how seriously India takes this approach, Jaishankar repeated these lines in his address at the China-India Media Forum today.

Speaking to journalists at the end of the forum, Wang Yi said the talks were "in-depth" stressing the importance of respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity of both countries. He added they were "candid" about their differences with India. "We repeated our concerns regarding the tensions between India and Pakistan." Wang Yi's comments came even as protests in Hong Kong erupted in violence increasing pressure on the Chinese government in Beijing to act. Many expect China to crack down on the protesters which is certain to invite a spate of international criticism.

Jaishankar explained to Wang Yi that Article 370 was a temporary provision in the Indian Constitution "and was sole prerogative" of India. "The legislative measures were aimed at promoting better governance and socio-economic development. There was no implication for either the external boundaries of India or the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China. India was not raising any additional territorial claims."

Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was in Beijing a few days ago, following which the Chinese foreign ministry had said the Kashmir issue should be "settled" according to the UN Charter and the 1948 resolution, which raised alarm bells among observers. But this did not figure in the conversation, Jaishankar said. A statement issued late on Monday said Jaishankar had told Wang "where India-Pakistan relations are concerned, Chinese side should base its assessment on realities. India, as a responsible power, had shown restraint in the face of provocative Pakistani rhetoric and actions. India has always stood for normalisation of ties in an atmosphere free of terror."

Wang Yi pushed India on the Kashmir issue, and not merely because of Pakistan. China objected to India converting Ladakh into a separate Union territory accusing India of messing around with its own border negotiations with India - China was illegally ceded Aksai Chin, adjoining Ladakh by Pakistan in 1963. Alarm bells rang in Beijing after home minister Amit Shah declared in Parliament that by Kashmir, he meant PoK and Aksai Chin as well. Jaishankar also weighed in on the boundary question reminding Wang that the two sided "had agreed to a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement.." In his remarks at the media forum, Wang Yi hoped the two countries could reap an "early harvest" on the boundary talks. Wang Yi is also the Chinese special representative for boundary talks with NSA Ajit Doval but both sides are yet to meet this year.

The two foreign ministers kicked off what Jaishankar called a "detailed" conversation this morning, following a meeting between him and Wang Qishan, the vice president. This week, Beijing is remarkably thin of the Chinese leadership, most of whom are away for their annual retreat in the beach town of Beidahe.

The bulk of the conversation was a preparation for the second informal summit between Modi and Xi reportedly scheduled for October in Varanasi.

China offered to expand access to the Kailash-Manasarovar Yatra for Indian pilgrims, which was one of the new ideas put forward by the Chinese side at the talks today.

There is no doubt that there remain serious differences between India and China post the Indian reorganisation of Kashmir into two Union territories.

In his opening remarks before the talks this morning, Jaishankar said, "India-China relationship has a unique place in global politics. Two years ago, our leaders recognised that reality and reached a consensus in Astana that at a time of global uncertainty India-China relationship should be a factor of stability."

Wang's opening remarks reflected the Chinese concerns, "When it comes to the regional tensions between India and Pakistan and possible ramifications we follow these developments very closely. We hope that India would also play a constructive role for regional peace and stability."
In other decisions, India and China are looking at doing some 100 joint activities in the 70th anniversary celebrations, including a documentary on the pilgrims, as well as setting up a joint medical team to retrace the steps of Dr Kotnis, and work in the remote areas of both countries.

[Peregrine]

'When will you die?'Hong Kong leader grilled at press conference – AFP


Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam offered no concessions to the demonstrators and insisted that police were facing "extremely difficult circumstances"; (AFP Photo/STR)

When Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam appeared before the press on Tuesday, she appeared to be expecting to deliver a brief statement and move on. Instead she faced a media onslaught.

No sooner were her prepared remarks finished than the full-frontal assault -- in both Cantonese and English -- began.

"You blame your own political misjudgement on others, and refuse to acknowledge your mistakes," one journalist said.

"When will you accept political responsibility to end citizens' fear?... When will you be willing to step down? When will you tell the police to stop?," the reporter from Hong Kong's public broadcaster RTHK asked.

Before Lam could respond, the reporter added an admonition: "You asked me in the past to take my job seriously, so please answer me seriously as well."

The embattled Beijing-backed leader began to reply but more questions were shouted.

"Citizens are afraid of you and the police, can you answer the question?"

The combative press conference was an indication of the rising tensions in the city after a weekend of violence that left dozens of people with injuries, some of them serious.

Under the "One country, two systems" principle, the media in Hong Kong enjoys freedoms unheard of in mainland China. A broad spectrum of political leanings are represented, from fiesty independent elements to strongly pro-Beijing outlets.

Lam at times appeared caught off-guard by the intensity of the questioning, with reporters repeatedly interrupting her and accusing her of failing to respond.

"Please don't interrupt," an official pleaded as reporters shouted over Lam.

At one point she paused, looked down, and then looked up again at reporters with her eyebrows raised as they continued to fire questions at her.

At other moments, she sipped from a glass of water as the barrage of questions continued.

In her opening remarks she called for calm.

"I again ask everyone to put aside your differences and calm down," Lam said, who appeared to be on the verge of tears at one point.

"Take a minute to think, look at our city, our home, do you all really want to see it pushed into an abyss?"

Lam defended the police against accusations of excessive force over the weekend, when rounds of tear gas were fired into subway stations and on crowded shopping streets.

She said she was "heartbroken" by reports of serious injuries, but offered no concessions to the demonstrators and insisted that police were facing "extremely difficult circumstances".

"This question has been answered," she repeated as she was pressed on whether Beijing would allow her to fully withdraw a now-suspended bill allowing extradition to the mainland -- a key protester demand.

And the barrage continued as she abruptly left the podium: "Do you have a conscience?" shouted one journalist.

"Mrs Lam, many citizens have been asking recently when you will die," yelled another.

My Comments :Look on the Bright side and Admire as well Enjoy the looming fact : Al Jamhooria Islami Al Bakistiya will soon become PakZiang!

Cheers

[Peregrine]

Chaguan
Huawei is trying to solve a hard problem
How can it sell sensitive tech in the absence of trust?
On balance, it seems implausible that a committee—let alone a committee run by grey-suited Communist Party commissars—could design anything as odd as the new research campus of Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant. Comprising 12 replica European “towns” spread across lush subtropical hills near the southern city of Dongguan, the campus houses 18,000 scientists, designers and other boffins in turreted German castles, Spanish mansions and Italian palazzi, connected by an antique-style red train. Staff canteens include Illy espresso bars and French bistros. A herd of bronze rhinoceroses grazes by the river that divides faux Verona from ersatz Heidelberg. It is not hard to see why the campus is a stop on tours that Huawei has started offering to foreign journalists in recent months. Impressive, mad and a bit tacky, the research campus is a suggestive bit of evidence. Perhaps Huawei may just be what it claims to be, at least when it comes to decisions about architecture: a privately held company guided by the ambitions and quirks of its billionaire founder, Ren Zhengfei, a former military engineer and Europhile history buff.

After 30 years spent largely shunning publicity, Huawei has turned into one of the world’s chattier high-technology firms, inviting journalists into once-secret research laboratories and smartphone assembly lines. The reasons for all this choreographed openness are straightforward. Huawei, whose worldwide revenues exceeded 720bn yuan ($102bn) in 2018, stands accused by Trump administration officials and members of Congress of being variously owned, subsidised or at least controlled by the Chinese state, with notably close links to the army and intelligence services. American officials accuse Huawei of stealing technology from American and other foreign rivals. They scoff at claims that the firm is owned by its own employees in a benign sort of shareholding co-operative, and that its Communist Party committee is tasked with nothing more sinister than staff training and welfare. The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has spent months touring the globe, urging allies not to allow Huawei to help build their 5g mobile telecommunications networks, with mixed success. In May Huawei’s reputation landed it on the American Commerce Department’s “entity list” of firms that may threaten national security.

Step back a bit, and the company’s woes are an early sighting of a conundrum with no easy solution. Technological advances are expanding the list of products and services that require a lifelong commitment of trust between clients and suppliers, from chips that keep aeroplanes aloft, to devices that control electrical power grids. At the same time, globalisation has built supply chains linking countries that do not much like each other. The problem is acute when those chains connect America, a country used to setting its own technical and security standards, to China, an uneasy mix of trade partner, commercial competitor and ideological rival.

Broadly speaking, when Chaguan visited the firm’s headquarters this week, senior Huawei officers advanced two different solutions to the problem of high-tech globalisation in a low-trust age. Only one of those solutions is very persuasive.

That persuasive idea is to treat distrust in global supply chains as a technical challenge, rather than a political one. In this model, distrust can never be eliminated but may be mitigated. A Huawei executive with experience in African and European markets, where the firm’s products are seen as robust and cheap, draws an analogy with the “abc” approach to cyber-security, meaning: “Assume nothing. Believe nobody. Check everything.” Huawei high-ups praise Britain and other European countries for applying a risk-management approach to the task of building such infrastructure as wireless networks, involving common standards for security and transparency with which all companies are invited to comply, and lots of third-party verification. The organising principle is that no product should be either trusted or distrusted unconditionally, simply on the basis of its country of origin.

Huawei’s second, unpersuasive solution involves trying to convince outsiders that, given the right written and verbal assurances from the state, firms from China can, as it happens, be trusted not to help Chinese spies steal secrets. Thus Huawei bosses note assurances from the Chinese foreign ministry that no law exists that could make Chinese firms install backdoors in digital devices, for spies to use. Asked about national-security laws requiring firms to assist Chinese intelligence services, they retort that such laws do not apply outside China’s borders. A company executive grumbles that Western sceptics seem to doubt that China is run according to the rule of law. At times, a cultural gap in perceptions is detectable. Huawei veterans recall their firm’s early years, when state-owned enterprises bullied private businesses, and on occasion lobbied government officials to deny Huawei the right to seek overseas business. China is so much more open now, such veterans say, lamenting that outsiders cannot see this, or prefer to focus on remaining differences with the West.

What Huawei should say, but cannot

Alas, it is not credible to claim that promises or laws bind the Communist Party and its security apparatus. The party explicitly claims “absolute leadership” over courts, calling judicial independence a Western error. Then there is the exceptional size of China’s visible machinery of repression and surveillance. Given that security services in every country tend to be like icebergs, with still-larger hidden parts, it is reasonable to be exceptionally wary of China’s.

A more convincing approach would see Huawei admit that China is different and concede that some party commands cannot be defied. That agreed, Huawei could then focus on making high-tech products and systems designed for use in a world of low or non-existent trust. Huawei bosses cannot make that argument, because party leaders would be incensed. Those turreted castles are impressive. But outside those manicured grounds is China.■


Cheers

[SSridhar]

China is waging a disinformation war against Hong Kong protesters - Straits Times

When a projectile struck a Hong Kong woman in the eye this week as protesters clashed with the police, China responded quickly: Its state television network reported that the woman had been injured not by one of the police's beanbag rounds, but by a protester.

The network's website went further: It posted what it said was a photo of the woman counting out cash on a Hong Kong sidewalk - insinuating, as Chinese reports have claimed before, that the protesters are merely paid provocateurs.

The assertion was more than just spin or fake news. The Communist Party exerts overwhelming control over media content inside China's so-called Great Firewall, and it is now using it as a cudgel in an information war over the protests that have convulsed Hong Kong for months.

In recent days, China has more aggressively stirred up nationalist and anti-Western sentiment using state and social media, and it has manipulated the context of images and videos to undermine the protesters. Chinese officials have begun branding the demonstrations as a prelude to terrorism.

The result, both in mainland China and abroad, has been to create an alternate version of what, seen from Hong Kong, is clearly a popular demonstration movement. In China's version, a small, violent gang of protesters, unsupported by residents and provoked by foreign agents, is running rampant, calling for Hong Kong's independence and tearing China apart.

This narrative almost certainly reflects that of the country's leaders, including President Xi Jinping, and is fuelling misunderstanding - and, increasingly, anger - among the Chinese public. That could, in turn, raise pressure on the government, increasing the risk of an overreaction or miscalculation based on limited or inaccurate information.

People posting on Weibo, a Chinese social media service similar to Twitter, are increasingly calling for Beijing to act.

"Beating them to a pulp is not enough," one person said about protesters on Tuesday (Aug 13), echoing an increasingly common sentiment on Weibo. "They must be beaten to death. Just send a few tanks over to clean them up."

Since China's censors have the ability to quickly remove offending comments, the abundance of them suggests that the government is willing to tolerate the warning they deliver, however ominous it sounds.

China has long curated the content that it allows its citizens to see and read. Its new campaign has echoes of tactics used by other countries, principally Russia, to inundate domestic and international audiences with bursts of information, propaganda and, in some cases, outright disinformation.

"Propagandists observe each other across borders, and they learn from each other," said Mr Peter Pomerantsev, the author of This Is Not Propaganda, a new book that describes how authoritarian governments have weaponised social media that were once hailed as harbingers for democratic ideals.

The disinformation has clearly been aimed at undermining sympathy for the Hong Kong protesters' goals, which now include demands for greater democratic freedoms for the territory's seven million residents.

Propaganda in the traditional sense, Mr Pomerantsev said, would try to win over an audience, while disinformation is meant simply to sow confusion and fuel conspiracies.

"You have to smother everything with doubt, and conspiracy is very effective in creating that," Mr Pomerantsev said in a telephone interview.

Though China's disinformation network has received less global attention than Russia's, the country's officials have, over the last decade, built a machinery of online controls that far exceed any other country's.

Many overseas websites are blocked in China. Censors embedded within its Internet companies delete anything unacceptable. The police have arrested people who speak out of turn in chat groups, or who share sensitive content online.

The state media - whose history of propagandising stretches back to Mao Zedong's era - have also made powerful inroads in the new media online, filling the mainland's information vacuum with an officially Sinicised worldview.

Hong Kong, which Britain returned to Chinese rule in 1997, remains outside China's firewall, and thus is sitting along one of the world's most profound online divides. Preserving the city's freedom to live without the mainland's controls has become one of the causes now motivating the protests.

"Deep inside, mainlanders and Hong Kong people have very different life experiences and emotions," said Mr Fang Kecheng, an assistant professor of journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "Without the shared emotions, it's not easy for mainlanders - even those who can freely access information - to empathise with Hong Kong people, which is an important explanation for how the government has been able to create a parallel universe of narratives."

China's new aggressiveness in the effort represents a shift in tactics. When large protests erupted in June over the Hong Kong government's proposed law allowing the extradition of criminal suspects to the mainland, China's state media - and officials - largely ignored them.

That changed on July 1, when protesters stormed Hong Kong's Legislative Council building after a day of peaceful demonstrations. A flurry of articles and editorials in China's state media followed, condemning the vandalism and violence - without explaining what the protesters were protesting about.

Since then, the state media have vigorously defended the police in Hong Kong, belittled the protesters and accused Westerners of orchestrating the turmoil. Efforts to contextualise the situation or express sympathy for the protesters were swiftly purged from social media.

The propaganda campaign intensified after July 21, when protesters surrounded the Chinese government's main office in Hong Kong and threw black ink on a government emblem. And when a Chinese flag was thrown into Victoria Harbor on Aug 3, the reaction in China - at least online, stoked by state media - reached a fevered pitch.

"The five-star flag has 1.4 billion guardians," CCTV wrote indignantly to its 87 million followers on Weibo. "Repost! 'I am a guardian of the flag!'" It was reposted by more than 10 million people, including Jackie Chan, the Hong Kong martial arts film star. On Twitter, which is banned in China, the People's Daily later reposted CCTV's original post, giving it an international audience.

Just across the border from Hong Kong, in the city of Shenzhen, the Chinese security forces have conducted large-scale operations in recent days, in a nationalistic display that got prominent coverage in the state media.

Other media reports have been outright deceptive. A video appeared on Monday showing a protester with a toy weapon used in Airsoft - a paintball-like game that is popular in Hong Kong.

The China Daily, a newspaper of the Communist Party, circulated it widely as evidence that the protesters had taken up arms, identifying the toy as an M320 grenade launcher used by the United States Army.

"What is the difference between this and the terrorists!" read one reply. "How long must we tolerate this?"

"What Is America Up To?" has become a hashtag promoted by CCTV on social media, according to Manya Koetse, the editor of What's On Weibo, a site that monitors trends on the platform. Other posts celebrate the Hong Kong police as embattled heroes, while Hong Kong residents are regularly portrayed as spoiled.

The yawning power imbalance, from an information-warfare point of view, has frustrated many protesters as they try to outline their demands and clarify what has actually happened in the streets.

During a peaceful sit-in at Hong Kong's airport late last month, protesters sought to explain their demands to arriving passengers, including travellers from the mainland. But the Chinese media promoted a video of a few protesters harassing a white-haired traveller who had ripped a poster out of a demonstrator's hands.

"Witness said the old man refused to take leaflet demonstrators gave out. I think old people don't deserve this no matter what is the reason," the editor of The Global Times, Mr Hu Xijin, wrote on Twitter, with a video that only showed protesters confronting the man.

"These young people have lost all compassion for political frenzy," he added.

[chola]

Chaguan
Huawei is trying to solve a hard problem
How can it sell sensitive tech in the absence of trust?

Cheen has poisoned the well for everyone. Much harder for any new company to ride technology exports in the new world coming. Techno-nationalism will be the norm going forward.

[Philip]

With China taking Pak's side on Kashmir, in the UNSC too, we should hit back with venom.Huge hikes in trade tariffs and banning many critical items like all electronic goods, to reduce the $60B trade deficit and also protecting our small and medium industries, crippled by the influx of cheap, cheap quality Chinese goods.

Secondly, just as the former ruler of J&K acceded to India in '48, we should get the Tibetan diaspora and govt. in exile to accede to India or like Bhutan become a protectorate of India.That would give us legitimacy in Tibetan affairs to takr any action which we feel neccessary.Unlike Tibet, where the Dalai Lama- head of state as well, fled to India for safety and did NOT sign over his country to China, the maharajah of J&K did so so in 1948.We have far greater legitimacy over Kadhmir than China's military occupation of Tibet, held only by its fascist Nazi jackboot.

[chanakyaa]

X-posting from understanding unkil dhaaga

African swine fever (ASF) is decimating China's pork industry, by far the biggest in the world. Dutch bank Rabobank, which lends to the global agricultural sector, estimates the country's pig population could shrink by a third in 2019 -- up to 200 million animals -- through a combination of the disease and culling.
To put it in context, that's almost as many pigs as in the US and Europe combined.

Someone in the bio waar-faire department has wicked sense of humor and Cloak and dagger technique of increasing polk exports to China. At least a small group of farmers have a reason to celebrate.
African swine fever threatens 200m pigs in China

IN THE CHINESE zodiac, 2019 is the year of the pig. But at the moment hogs have little to celebrate. African swine fever, a highly contagious virus, has spread to every province in China. The country is the world’s biggest pork producer, and home to half the pigs on the planet. In the last year it has reported 149 outbreaks. Some 1.2m pigs have been culled, according to official statistics...

(OIE) African Swine Fever

...
African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious haemorrhagic viral disease of domestic and wild pigs, which is responsible for serious economic and production losses.

It is caused by a large DNA virus of the Asfarviridae family, which also infects ticks of the genus Ornithodoros.

Although signs of ASF and classical swine fever (CSF) may be similar, the ASF virus is unrelated to the CSF virus.
...

[DharmaB]

twitter

China wants democracy in Kashmir, but not in China. China sympathizes with 1 thousand pro-democracy protesters in Kashmir, but not with 1 million pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.

It would be interesting to see China's reaction once we start raising HongKong, Xingiang and Tibet in public. Since they have crossed the line first, we are not to be blamed. We have warned them enough times and still, they are taking us for granted and assuming it as our weakness. If not now, when can we raise voice against china about its atrocities on Tibet and Xingiang ? Or at least use people like Dalia Lama to make some statement that can be heard across all the capitols of world and make them feel the heat. Are we still that afraid of annoying the dragon ? Indian govt need to show some spine on this. If China thinks that it can interfere in Kashmir and get away, we can too change our stance on Tibet and show China its rightful place.

[Sonugn]

twitter

China wants democracy in Kashmir, but not in China. China sympathizes with 1 thousand pro-democracy protesters in Kashmir, but not with 1 million pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.

It would be interesting to see China's reaction once we start raising HongKong, Xingiang and Tibet in public. Since they have crossed the line first, we are not to be blamed. We have warned them enough times and still, they are taking us for granted and assuming it as our weakness. If not now, when can we raise voice against china about its atrocities on Tibet and Xingiang ? Or at least use people like Dalia Lama to make some statement that can be heard across all the capitols of world and make them feel the heat. Are we still that afraid of annoying the dragon ? Indian govt need to show some spine on this. If China thinks that it can interfere in Kashmir and get away, we can too change our stance on Tibet and show China its rightful place.

A small protest by exiled Tibetans against atrocities inn HK & Xingian in front of Chinese embassy would be a good start

[DharmaB]

Sonugn

A small protest by exiled Tibetans against atrocities inn HK & Xingian in front of Chinese embassy would be a good start

Yes, RSS and its sister organizations should proactively help arranging dharnas with exiled Tibetans in front of china embassy.
Also they should not think that they should go for public rallies only when BJP is in opposition. To counter the propaganda of left hinduphobes and congis, they should increase the number of peaceful rallies from time to time to increase the awareness in public against the propaganda of left media. That also will keep them in check to propagate & sell the lies to the world as the view of majority.

[A_Gupta]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ct/596023/

‘One Belt One Road’ Is Just a Marketing Campaign
China’s signature project is actually a sweeping, poorly coordinated branding effort posing as an infrastructure initiative.

In fact, OBOR is something else entirely: a sweeping, poorly coordinated branding campaign posing as an infrastructure initiative. The campaign dovetails with Xi’s personality cult and expanding political authority inside China. Since so much of China’s economic and political engagement with the outside world now falls under the banner of OBOR, countries, firms, organizations, and individuals that embrace Xi’s favored brand can expect to be duly rewarded with investments, loans, promotions, or subtle forms of political favor. Likewise, those that show insufficient enthusiasm can be easily punished.

Understanding OBOR as a branding campaign helps to explain its bizarre excesses. OBOR’s most fawning devotees are not the developing countries that supposedly benefit from China’s largesse, but the smaller nonstate actors closer to China that depend on the Communist Party’s good favor: local officials and bureaucrats, universities, lower-tier cities, private businesses—including Western corporations from Boeing to Walmart, and from Samsung to Allianz—and nearly every large company and public institution in Hong Kong.

[SSridhar]

Doing business with China is far from easy - Ajay Srivastava, Business Line

We often hear this argument. China’s annual imports exceed $2 trillion. Half of this is in products India exports globally. So if China reduces import duties on such products, our exports to China will rise. Alas, the real world is far too complicated.

There are many more barriers than tariffs. Some are needed to ensure health and quality, but most are in place just to restrict imports. A firm aspiring to export to China must be aware of four significant barriers besides tariffs — regulatory, internal market, trade defence, and political. A brief look at each of these.

Regulatory barriers

A firm needs to register its product with the specified Chinese authority. This means submitting a large number of documents, including details about the firm and its products.

The next step is meeting the inspection, product testing, and quality certification requirements. Chinese experts would visit and inspect Indian factories. The costs are to be borne by the Indian side. Only Chinese labs do product testing. And there can be no appeal on their decisions. Let us take the case of medicines, industrial and food products.

India imports 90 per cent of bulk drugs or APIs from China and allows it easy access through a simple registration system. After registration, there’s no rule for checking off each consignment at the time of imports.

Not so in China, though. Registration takes one to three years. Testing takes place again at the time of imports. And, China cancels registration even if one batch has issues.

The provinces do not recognise USFDA certificates and need new clinical trials even on generic drugs. This increases the cost.

Coming now to the export industrial products such as electric wires cables, IT products, motorcycle parts/accessories and electrical tools to China. One has to first get an NOC from the China compulsory product certification system or CCC. The NOC may come after detailed laboratory testing, factory inspection, and labelling.

More stringent processes await exporters of food, meat, fish, and dairy products. They have to get NOC from the General Administration of Customs China (GACC) and relevant administrative ministries.

They will also have to follow the China food safety standards and applicable sanitary and quality regulations. Products like oilmeal need further clearance from China’s Agriculture Ministry.

After obtaining all the NOCs, it is still not done. For products like rice and sugar, a firm needs import quota to avoid exorbitant tariffs. And state agencies get most of the quota.

The complicated and non-transparent system ensures that it takes years to get the green signal. Or it may never come.

Internal market

Only a limited part of China’s imports enter into the domestic market. Most imports act as inputs for making export products. Most electronics and machinery trade between China and Japan-Korea-ASEAN falls in this category.

Much of this trade happens at zero duty outside the FTAs (free trade agreements). Internal market barriers also apply to firms producing in China.

They have to clear extra barriers to sell in the Chinese domestic market. Preference is always to domestic firms.

Trade defence measures

An importing country can impose anti-dumping, countervailing, or safeguard duties. If a foreign firm exports at a price lower than it charges in its domestic market, the importing country can impose anti-dumping duty.

Countervailing duty neutralises the effect of any government subsidy provided by the exporting country. Safeguard duties contain any general surge in imports of a product. China is not alone here. These duties are also levied by the US, Japan, Korea, India, and many other countries. These duties are generally higher than the normal import duties and hence restrict the imports. Factor this into the costing.

Business is politics

China used to buy a large number of bananas from the Philippines regularly. But when the Philippines questioned China’s claim over Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, China suddenly stopped buying its bananas. Most [Chinese] firms have political affiliations. Other countries have started taking notice. For example, when China bought a few German high-tech MSMEs last year, Germany introduced a law to allow greater scrutiny of such deals. The US restricts imports from China on the grounds of industrial espionage and other manipulations.

The Indian situation

In contrast to China, where most foreign firms need a lengthy approval process, India provides an easy entry. It has less than 150 products that have mandatory technical standards. This provides easy passage to cheap, low-quality products. Here is the broad evidence.

Listed are a few products imported into India, with the figures in brackets indicating the difference by which the Chinese price is lower than the world price: pesticides (720 per cent), embroidery machines (130 per cent), gear boxes (22 per cent); select organic chemicals and bulk drugs (20-90 per cent); urea (15 per cent); computer printers (20 per cent), washing machine parts (142 per cent); petroleum coke (57 per cent); refrigerators (52 per cent); solar cells (136 per cent); lithium battery (60 per cent); copper foils (30 per cent); and air purifier (83 per cent). Many of these are sold as Indian products with some packaging. But China is not alone. The world has moved from tariff barriers. Simple average import duties are less than 5 per cent in Canada, Japan, Australia, the US, and the EU. These countries realised that while the earlier 100 per cent tariffs could stop imports, today’s 5 per cent cannot. So they switched to non-tariff measures to control unwanted imports.

China’s example details the type of systems India needs to create. Good news is, India has taken baby steps to expand quality and standard infrastructure. And, finally, most FTAs cut only customs duties. They do not deal with other barriers adequately. The exporter has to comply with each.

The writer is from Indian Trade Service.

[A Nandy]

^^ Is China such an important market that we go all out to appease them? I guess there are economic reasons why this disparity continues.

[SSridhar]

I think it is not a question of important market or not. It is a question of correcting the much skewed trade imbalance. One way of doing that is by exporting enough to them. The other way is by restricting imports from them, which we are not able to do for a myriad reasons.

[darshan]

'Nightmare' as Egypt aided China to detain Uighurs
https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/nightmar ... c-1jc8kb14
Abdulmalik Abdulaziz, an Uighur student, was arrested and handcuffed by Egyptian police and when they removed his blindfold he was surprised to see Chinese officials questioning him in custody.

He was picked up in broad daylight with friends, and taken to a Cairo police station where Chinese officials grilled him about what he was doing in Egypt.

The three officials spoke to him in Chinese, addressing him using his Chinese name not his Uighur one.

"They never said their names or mentioned who they were exactly," said Abdulaziz, 27, who spoke to AFP helping to uncover new details of the 2017 arrests of over 90 Uighurs from the mostly Muslim Turkic minority.

China is one of Egypt's biggest investors, pouring money into massive infrastructure projects such as the construction of a new administrative capital east of Cairo. Trade between the two countries reached a record high of $13.8 billion last year.

Many Uighurs refer to Xinjiang as East Turkestan, including those AFP interviewed, but for Beijing it has troubling connotations of independence and activism.

The Uighurs were split into two groups of 45 to 50 men each and languished in large cells for weeks.

Two weeks before their release, the Uighurs and other Chinese Muslims of different ethnic ancestry, were divided into three groups, and given colour codes.

"It's the same practice and tactic implemented in internment camps in China. I don't believe it's a coincidence," he said, adding Chinese authorities use the same three colour codes for detained Uighurs.

Human rights groups say more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities are held in a network of internment camps in China where they endure political indoctrination.

Beijing says the "vocational education centres" are necessary to counter religious extremism.

Germany-based independent researcher Adrian Zenz, who has mapped out camps in Xinjiang, said: "China's new push to redefine human rights in terms of economic development... suits many of these nations."

"For Uighurs it's a nightmare that your Muslim brother would invite Chinese officials to interrogate you. They have lost their belief and have become paranoid in the diaspora," he said.

[SSridhar]

India must respond to Chinese provocation - Kanwal Sibal, Economic Times

China took the lead to internationalise the Kashmir issue in league with Pakistan by seeking the intervention of the UN Security Council on India’s move to revise its internal constitutional status.

Unlike China’s opaque political functioning and decision-making processes, national media control, suppression of dissent and draconian internal security laws, the change in J&K’s constitutional status was done through an open political process — a publicly aired parliamentary debate and voting.

Opponents in the media, academic and civil society circles have vociferously questioned the government’s decision and it has been challenged in the Supreme Court.

China approached the Security Council with soiled hands. It violated the status quo in J&K and the UN resolutions that it invoked by annexing a part of the state in 1963, occupying Aksai Chin after the UN resolutions and constructing the Karakoram highway through the territory which it calls “disputed”, and more blatantly still through the CPEC project that makes its presence permanent in PoK.

Pakistan changed the status quo in PoJ&K by integrating Gilgit-Baltistan with Pakistan in 2009, with a view to giving itself and China a freer hand to develop Chinese link through PoJ&K to Gwadar. Unlike India, Pakistan has changed the demography of PoJ&K by allowing non-Kashmiris to settle there, besides allowing the presence of China’s military and civilian personnel close to India’s border.

China has also changed the demography of Tibet and Sinkiang by settling Hans in large numbers, imposing the Chinese language and grossly interfering in their Buddhist and Islamic practices.

China’s hypocrisy is unabashed when its PR to the UN speaks of human rights violations of Kashmiris.

China has incarcerated a million Uighurs in “re-education” camps and keeps the Tibetans suppressed under military jackboots, against which the non-violent Tibetans have no choice but to self-immolate.

If India keeps a large number of troops in J&K it is because both Pakistan and China have territorial claims on the state, and also because of the terrorist onslaught on J&K by Pakistan and China’s protection of its “all-weather friend” against mounting international pressure to curb its jihadi links. Why has China militarised Tibet? India has accepted Chinese sovereignty over Tibet and has no territorial claims on it, and neither the Tibetans nor the Indians are engaged in terrorist activities against the Chinese occupying forces.

China claims the changes in J&K constitutional status, especially in Ladakh, affect its sovereignty. If China claims J&K’s status is undecided and it is an internationally recognised dispute, it applies equally to Aksai Chin as part of Ladakh. How can China protest as its own claim over Aksai Chin is “unilateral”?

India must respond to China’s grave provocation in tabling the J&K issue at the UNSC after half a century despite external affairs minister S Jaishankar clarifying India’s position cogently and persuasively in Beijing. China’s UN posturing is encouraging Pakistan, terrorist organisations in Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists to promote violence so as to keep international focus on the situation there.

India has multiple choices — reiterating India’s claim over Aksai Chin as an unsettled territorial issue on the agenda of the special representatives, eliminating Huawei from 5G trials, placing curbs on China’s economic inroads into India in sensitive sectors, making a statement on developments in Hong Kong because of our concerns on the security of our community there, inviting a Taiwan minister to India officially and giving the Dalai Lama a major platform to speak in Delhi, with an Indian minister in the audience.

India must respond to the Chinese provocation, otherwise we will politically weaken our position before the next Modi-Xi summit in the success of which both sides should have equal interest. China has given itself all the space it needs to ignore and hurt our core interest, but we are yet to act.

(The writer is a former foreign secretary)

[SSridhar]

Absolutely brilliant exposition by Kanwal Sibal, thoughts running through all our minds here too.

[chola]

Absolutely brilliant exposition by Kanwal Sibal, thoughts running through all our minds here too.

Sibal's suggestions are pretty good, Sridhar ji.

I'll add a few, more incendiary, ones:

1) Restart the CIA programs fermenting revolution in Tibet we had in the 1950s,

2) Bring in the Uighur community on Indian soil like the Tibetans. This allows us to have a say if and when these groups return to a free or autonomous Xinjiang or Tibet. (Okay more iffy with muslims like the Uighurs but we can nurture the more moderate or secular elements)

3) Support Hong Kong autonomy and perhaps bring in their community if a massacre happens; they are a wealthy, world class population that help a nation unlike most other potential refugees. They can create trade goliath for India with their connections. And like 2) above, if and when Hong Kong autonomy or independence, we'll have a say.

[Peregrine]

Absolutely brilliant exposition by Kanwal Sibal, thoughts running through all our minds here too.

Sibal's suggestions are pretty good, Sridhar ji.

I'll add a few, more incendiary, ones:

1) Restart the CIA programs fermenting revolution in Tibet we had in the 1950s,

2)Bring in the Uighur community on Indian soil like the Tibetans. This allows us to have a say if and when these groups return to a free or autonomous Xinjiang or Tibet. (Okay more iffy with muslims like the Uighurs but we can nurture the more moderate or secular elements)

3) Support Hong Kong autonomy and perhaps bring in their community if a massacre happens; they are a wealthy, world class population that help a nation unlike most other potential refugees. They can create trade goliath for India with their connections. And like 2) above, if and when Hong Kong autonomy or independence, we'll have a say.

chola Ji :

Do you want Uighur Community by the Millions becoming "Separatists and Demanding Sharia" in India? The "Previous" Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has taken in Thousands of Rohingiyas and - I believe - given them the same rights as the "Kashmiris".

Do not make such Haste! For Confucius rightly said "Haste makes Waste - Waste you must Never - For Never is FOREVER"

Are you not aware that in 1947 after Partition the Indian Muslim Population was about 07.5% and now it is 18%.

Please check the Population Muslim Content In West Bengal and the other Seven States in North East India!

Democracy what Mr Jinnah said - Anjum Altaf November 28, 2004

Seeing that I have been writing on democracy, a reader has directed my attention to a speech by Mr Jinnah delivered at the Aligarh Muslim University Union on March 6, 1940.There is one particular passage in this speech that literally jumps out at the reader. It proceeds as follows: "Two years ago at Simla I said that the democratic parliamentary system of government was unsuited to India. I was condemned everywhere in the Congress press. I was told that I was guilty of disservice to Islam because Islam believes in democracy. So far as I have understood Islam, it does not advocate a democracy which would allow the majority of non-Muslims to decide the fate of the Muslims. We cannot accept a system of government in which the non-Muslims merely by numerical majority would rule and dominate us."

BEWARE !

[chola]

Do you want Uighur Community by the Millions becoming "Separatists and Demanding Sharia" in India? The "Previous" Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has taken in Thousands of Rohingiyas and - I believe - given them the same rights as the "Kashmiris".

Do not make such Haste! For Confucius rightly said "Haste makes Waste - Waste you must Never - For Never is FOREVER"

Are you not aware that in 1947 after Partition the Indian Muslim Population was about 07.5% and now it is 18%.

Please check the Population In West Bengal and the other Seven States in North East India!

Democracy what Mr Jinnah said - Anjum Altaf November 28, 2004

Seeing that I have been writing on democracy, a reader has directed my attention to a speech by Mr Jinnah delivered at the Aligarh Muslim University Union on March 6, 1940.There is one particular passage in this speech that literally jumps out at the reader. It proceeds as follows: "Two years ago at Simla I said that the democratic parliamentary system of government was unsuited to India. I was condemned everywhere in the Congress press. I was told that I was guilty of disservice to Islam because Islam believes in democracy. So far as I have understood Islam, it does not advocate a democracy which would allow the majority of non-Muslims to decide the fate of the Muslims. We cannot accept a system of government in which the non-Muslims merely by numerical majority would rule and dominate us."

BEWARE !

Peregrine Sir, you are absolutely right in your concerns but hear me out in this case.

I would never make the same case for the Rohingiyas but the Uighurs are a much more moderate and I dare say secular group. For example, some of Cheen's top female actresses are Uighurs. (Just google for "Uighur actors") There are no calls for their heads from their mullahs unlike even in famously moderate muzzie states like Malaysia or Indonesia. Also five decades of commie atheist rule have had an impact on the population -- similar to Kazakhstan and Tajikistan (who were willing to entertain an Indian airbase.)

Imagine the pressure we can put on Cheen and, especially, the Pakis if we do this. And on the turkic 'Stans of Central Asia. Overnight, we can become their champions and might even flip Turkey.

It would instantly give us a powerful voice in Eurasia. And they would never be here in the millions. Even the Tibetans, who've been in India for decades, are only around 150K. Restrictions in Cheen itself will see to that. We harbor far more from Bangladesh every year without any of the geo-political advantages.

But, of course, I would never entertain this if I thought the Uighurs were irredeemable on the religious front.

[Peregrine]

Do you want Uighur Community by the Millions becoming "Separatists and Demanding Sharia" in India? The "Previous" Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has taken in Thousands of Rohingiyas and - I believe - given them the same rights as the "Kashmiris".

Do not make such Haste! For Confucius rightly said "Haste makes Waste - Waste you must Never - For Never is FOREVER"

Are you not aware that in 1947 after Partition the Indian Muslim Population was about 07.5% and now it is 18%.

Please check the Population In West Bengal and the other Seven States in North East India!

Democracy what Mr Jinnah said - Anjum Altaf November 28, 2004

Seeing that I have been writing on democracy, a reader has directed my attention to a speech by Mr Jinnah delivered at the Aligarh Muslim University Union on March 6, 1940.There is one particular passage in this speech that literally jumps out at the reader. It proceeds as follows: "Two years ago at Simla I said that the democratic parliamentary system of government was unsuited to India. I was condemned everywhere in the Congress press. I was told that I was guilty of disservice to Islam because Islam believes in democracy. So far as I have understood Islam, it does not advocate a democracy which would allow the majority of non-Muslims to decide the fate of the Muslims. We cannot accept a system of government in which the non-Muslims merely by numerical majority would rule and dominate us."

BEWARE !

Peregrine Sir, you are absolutely right in your concerns but hear me out in this case.

I would never make the same case for the Rohingiyas but the Uighurs are a much more moderate and I dare say secular group. For example, some of Cheen's top female actresses are Uighurs. (Just google for "Uighur actors") There are no calls for their heads from their mullahs unlike even in famously moderate muzzie states like Malaysia or Indonesia. Also five decades of commie atheist rule have had an impact on the population -- similar to Kazakhstan and Tajikistan (who were willing to entertain an Indian airbase.)

Imagine the pressure we can put on Cheen and, especially, the Pakis if we do this. And on the turkic 'Stans of Central Asia. Overnight, we can become their champions and might even flip Turkey.

It would instantly give us a powerful voice in Eurasia. And they would never be here in the millions. Even the Tibetans, who've been in India for decades, are only around 150K. Restrictions in Cheen itself will see to that. We harbor far more from Bangladesh every year without any of the geo-political advantages.

But, of course, I would never entertain this if I thought the Uighurs were irredeemable on the religious front.

chola Ji :

The situation cannot be compared to the Tibetans - as they are Buddhists and have an age old connection with India.

Please note that the Uighur Refugees in Turkey are being made to leave and now have the option of either going back or migrate to other Non-Muslim Countries.

There are no moderate Muslims. Period!

I hope you are aware that there is a possibility of sending the Illegal Immigrants from Bangladesh back where they came from.

I trust that you are aware Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was a member of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee from 1936 and of AICC from 1947 to 1974.

I have been given to believe that J L Nehru once complained to him of the Illegal Migration of East Pakistani Muslim Hoards into Assam and they should be sent back to E P. FAA countered "Nehru Ji they always Vote for the Congress". Now these B''Deshis are flying the B'Deshi flags on their Rooftops!

Let us hope that the present Indian Govt. succeeds in sending these these unwanted traitors back to B'Desh

OR Act in Haste and at Repent at Leisure - Forever!

Please - Pretty Please let the CARISTANIS stay away from India. They have the Whole Wide World to go to!

Cheers

[Peregrine]

Peace, rains

Orderly marchers increase the pressure on Hong Kong’s government

During a welcome lull in street violence, Hong Kong’s broad middle comes out to press the government for change

China - Aug 19th 2019 | HONG KONG

THOSE WHO gathered in black T-shirts for a huge rally in Hong Kong island’s main park on August 18th hoped their demonstration would send two messages. First, that even after 11 weeks of protests, their anti-government campaign is still in fine fettle. Second, that those responsible for the havoc and violence at the city’s airport a few days earlier were not representative of the largely peaceful and broad-based pro-democracy movement. Under heavy rain showers and despite police restrictions, the rally achieved both aims.

The organisers were the loose association of pro-democracy parties and NGOs responsible for bringing about enormous rallies in June and July. They had applied to lead participants along a two-and-a-half mile stretch of downtown Hong Kong, past the government offices. Police objected in advance, approving only a static assembly at Victoria Park. In the end a march proceeded anyway. It could hardly have done otherwise: rivers of people were flowing into the park and out of it. The organisers claimed that 1.7m people attended at least some portion of the protest. Police said the crowd present inside the park numbered 128,000 at its peak.

The rain-soaked procession capped a few days of striking calm in Hong Kong, with little of the skirmishing between police and protesters that had marked previous weekends as well as a general strike on Monday, August 5th. On Friday night thousands of Hong Kongers attended a student-organised rally at Chater Gardens in Hong Kong’s Central district. They called for Britain to declare China in breach of the promises of autonomy made when it took back Hong Kong in 1997. A few attendees waved Hong Kong’s old colonial flag. Many more raised the chant “Fight for freedom! Stand with Hong Kong!”

The following day crowds of teachers supportive of student protesters gathered for a short march of their own. A pro-government demonstration, organised by politicians and some business groups, took place at about the same time. On Saturday evening a few hundred anti-government protesters wearing masks and yellow hard hats gathered briefly outside a police station in Kowloon, throwing eggs and shining laser pointers at officers stationed outside. They quickly left when chased off by riot police, though some hung around long enough to throw rubbish bins into the path of police vans.

For the first time in several weekends police fired no tear-gas. Nor did they find reason to deploy three newly-acquired trucks bearing water-cannon. Late on Sunday evening protesters persuaded peers who had gathered near the Legislative Council to disperse quietly (“We win if we leave,” one cried). Several thousand members of the People’s Armed Police, the force China deploys to quell riots, remain stationed at a sports centre in Shenzhen, the closest mainland city. Yet nothing suggested they would soon quit their exercises.

Hong Kong’s own government said it regretted the big march on August 18th—but, significantly, did not condemn it. It said it would conduct “a sincere dialogue with the public” only “when everything is calm”. The peaceful weekend will amplify the call for them to reach out to protesters (whose demands now run the gamut, from a judicial inquiry into the behaviour of the police force to Hong Kong’s being able to choose its own leaders). Another big rally is planned for August 31st; some students say they are planning to boycott classes once term begins in September. “Tell everyone that we Hong Kong people are patient!”, shouted a protester caught up in the long queues at Victoria Park. “We will get what we want.”

Cheers

[IndraD]

Blatant violation of International Laws by China as it places its Coast Guard ships at India’s ONGC Block (0.61) in Vietnam. 20 Chinese Coast Guard and other ships visible. Area falls under Exclusive Economic Zone of Vietnam. Biggest incident since 2011 between China and Vietnam.
https://twitter.com/AdityaRajKaul/statu ... 27557?s=20

[SSridhar]

China hails 3-year extension of Pakistan Army chief General Bajwa's term - PTI

China on Wednesday welcomed the extension of Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa's term for another three years, saying he is an "old friend" of the Chinese government who has made "robust” contributions to the bilateral relations.

Asked about the extension of Gen Bajwa's term, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a media briefing here that the Pakistan Army chief has made “robust” contribution to China and Pakistan relations.

“We noticed the decision by the Pakistan government. Gen Bajwa is an extraordinary leader of the Pakistani army. He is also an old friend of Chinese government and the army," he said.

“He has also made robust contributions to China Pakistan relations. We believe under his leadership, the Pakistan Army will continue to make contributions to upholding Pakistan's sovereignty, security interests and regional peace and stability," Geng said in response to a question from Chinese official media.

Gen Bajwa has promised Beijing to safeguard China's interests in Pakistan under the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which will connect China's largest province Xinjiang with Pakistan's Gwadar port in Balochistan.

Observers say that Geng's comments hailing Gen Bajwa's extension was also aimed at reinforcing China's special relationship with Pakistan military establishment.

Gen Bajwa like his predecessors is a frequent visitor to China. But he was the rare Pakistan Army chief who during his visit to Beijing in September last year met Chinese President Xi Jinping.

[SSridhar]

In tussle with Vietnam, China parks vessels near ONGC Videsh site - ToI

A Chinese seismic survey vessel accompanied by that country’s coast guard ships and air cover recently entered Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and stationed themselves for weeks near an offshore gas field in which India’s state-run ONGC Videsh is a partner.

This is the latest in a series of such manoeuvres Beijing has been undertaking to assert its claims in the territorial dispute with Vietnam and is not particularly aimed against India. China had in the past also warned Russian giant Rosneft against drilling fresh production wells in the field, identified as Block 6.1, in the Nam Con Son basin.

Sources said survey vessel Haiyang Dizhi first entered Vietnam’s EEZ on July 4 and stayed till August 7. It left the Vietnamese waters after an international diplomatic outcry, including an MEA statement reiterating India’s “genuine and legitimate” interests in the region. Vietnamese diplomatic sources in Delhi, however, said the vessel returned on August 13 and was supported by H-6K bombers and fighter jets. Reports said the two Chinese coast guard ships stationed near the field with ONGC stake, located well within Vietnam’s 200-nautical mile EEZ limit, used loudspeakers to assert Chinese sovereignty over the area. ONGC Videsh has 45% stake in the field operated by Russian Petroleum refining company Rosneft, which holds 35% stake. PetroVietnam holds the remaining 20%.

ONGC Videsh had acquired the block in May 1988 with 100% interest and discovered gas the following year. But it had to sell 35% stake to UK oil major BP at the time of the foreign exchange crisis in the 90s. Under an arrangement with the Vietnamese government, it also offloaded 20% in the project to PetroVietnam after gas production started. Rosneft acquired BP’s stake and field operatorship.

ONGC also has exploration licence for Block 128, which too has drawn protests from China in the past. After several years of survey, ONGC Videsh sought to exit the block due to lack of prospectivity. This was also supported by a Vietnamese institute.

[SSridhar]

Xi Jinping to deliver major speech to 'mobilise the whole party, the whole military' - Strait Times

Chinese President Xi Jinping will deliver a major speech to mark 70 years since the official founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the government announced on Thursday (Aug 29).

The speech on Oct 1 will be accompanied by a national day parade showcasing China's advances in military technology, Mr Wang Xiaohui, executive vice-minister for the Communist Party's Publicity Department, said at a press briefing in Beijing.

"The purpose is to motivate and mobilise the whole party, the whole military, and all of the people to unite closely around the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee with Mr Xi at the core," Mr Wang said.

The speech will be closely watched for hints on China's policy direction, especially with the nation facing pressure on multiple fronts, from the trade war with the US and protests in Hong Kong to a slowing domestic economy.

Mr Xi is expected to review the nation's achievements over the past 70 years and also talk about China's future.

He used a speech marking the anniversary of China's May Fourth movement earlier this year to urge the country's young people to stay loyal to the Communist Party.

The scale of the parade will be larger than those held to celebrate the 50th or 60th anniversaries of the PRC, Major-General Cai Zhijun, who is vice-director of the office for parade organisation, said at the press conference.

Mr Cai said the parade would show China's "great achievements" in national defence and the "accumulation of power for promotion of national rejuvenation".

The parade will include strategic nuclear missiles and advanced fighter jets such as the nation's first stealth fighter, the J-20, the South China Morning Post reported.

Installations preparing for the celebration are already being erected in Tiananmen Square and security is being tightened across the city in preparation for the event.

The events will include a National Day Gala, an award ceremony and a musical performance, as well as commemorative stamps and coins, Mr Wang said.