All the devils are here
All the devils are here
The 20th Party Congress is nearly upon us with more than 2,000 delegates' names listed
The upcoming 20th CCP Party Congress will be a far bigger and more sumptuous occasion than the first in 1921, recreated above as a museum piece in Shanghai. Photo: WikiCommons.
After an edge-of-the-seat weekend that saw a range of left-field sources claim that Xi Jinping was under house arrest, The South China Morning Post reports that the names of more than 2,000 delegates have been released.
Xi Jinping surprisingly made it to the list, despite the weekend arrest by the PLA.
‘Each electoral unit across the country convened a party congress or party representative meeting and elected 2,296 delegates to the 20th party congress,’ state broadcaster CCTV said on Sunday.
The congress will get under way on October 16 and is expected to mark the start of President Xi Jinping’s third term as the party’s leader.
Trivium, which continues a pared back daily newsletter after going mostly paywalled, notes:
Potential delegates were assessed on their performance on the 4-4-2, i.e. “enhancing the ‘Four Consciousnesses,’ strengthening the ‘Four Confidences,’ and achieving the ‘Two Upholds.”
Basically, the Four Consciousnesses, Four Confidences and Two Upholds – see the China Media Project dictionary for a deep dive into the impenetrable CCP thicket of upholds, establishments and represents etc – have nothing to do with the Three-Body Problem and everything about loyalty to General Secretary Xi Jinping.
Writes the South China Morning Post:
The twice-in-a-decade congress will see a major shuffle of the party’s top leadership for the next five years and amend the party charter, which is expected to further raise Xi’s personal status.
State-run Xinhua news agency said the selection of delegates was guided by “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, the political philosophy of the president that is enshrined in the state’s constitution and party charter.
Xi has “personally deployed” the selection of the delegates and has heard multiple reports on the progress, a spokesperson with the Central Organisation Department, the party’s organ to oversee cadre selection, told Xinhua on Monday.
When they convene in Beijing next month, the delegates will choose members of the party’s Central Committee. And the full members of the Central Committee will then vote for the 25-person Politburo and its Standing Committee, the power centre of the ruling party.
China growth flags behind Asian neighbors for the first time since 1990
The world’s second-largest economy’s struggles with an imploding real-estate sector, roiling weather events and an official zero-tolerance approach to Covid-19 has fast-tracked China back to the economic doldrums post-1989, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The World Bank] cut its forecast for Chinese growth this year but said it expects growth among 22 neighboring economies to more than double in 2022 compared with the pace they notched last year, as countries benefit from dismantling most Covid-19 restrictions and a revival in tourism.
The Financial Times reports:
The World Bank has revised down its forecast for gross domestic product growth in the world’s second-largest economy to 2.8 per cent, compared with 8.1 per cent last year, and from its prediction in April of between 4 and 5 per cent for this year.
At the same time, expectations for the rest of east Asia and the Pacific have improved. The region, excluding China, is expected to grow 5.3 per cent in 2022, up from 2.6 per cent last year, thanks to high commodity prices and a rebound in domestic consumption after the coronavirus pandemic.
Belt & Road Initiative scales back under pressure of debts
The Trans-Himalayan Economic Corridor is a Belt & Road project that connects China with Nepal and India. Photo: Photo: Bouncy390 | Dreamstime.com
Once heralded as the project of the century – at least by Xi Jinping – China’s BRI is getting an overhaul in light of tens of billions of debts gone south and stalled projects, reports the the Wall Street Journal.
A slowing global economy, combined with rising interest rates and higher inflation, have left countries struggling to repay their debts to China … Western leaders have criticized China’s lending practices, which some have labeled ‘debt-trap diplomacy,’ embarrassing Beijing.
Insiders are allegedly calling what will be a more cautious approach to throwing around development funds the Belt and Road 2.0.
It would …
… more rigorously evaluate new projects for financing, the people involved said. They have also become open to accepting some losses on loans and renegotiating debt, something they had been previously unwilling to do.
Apple manufacturing shift to India underway at pace
The iPhone train – well, a train – rolls into Chennai India. Photo: WikiCommons.
Apple’s vaunted iPhone production shift from China to India is underway – and at a clip that is surprising even seasoned industry insiders, slashing “the lag between Chinese and Indian output from months to mere weeks,” according to Bloomberg.
Apple, which long made most of its iPhones in China, is seeking alternatives as Xi Jinping’s administration clashes with the US government and imposes lockdowns across the country that have disrupted economic activity. At the same time, Narendra Modi’s administration is keen to make the country into a viable competitor to China in technology and production capability, especially as Western investors and corporations begin to sour on Beijing’s track record.
‘India is now an attractive location for manufacturing as it offers better labor cost structure while Apple is looking to reduce geopolitical risks,’ said Jeff Pu, an analyst with Haitong International Securities. ‘To turn India into a major manufacturing site, Apple will help India accelerate its production timeline.’
Taiwan’s Foxconn, Apple’s iPhone assembler mainstay, is manufacturing at its Sriperumbudur factory on the outskirts of Chennai, southern India, betting on a potential growth market as big as that of China, reports CNBC.
But the story is about more than about market scale and opportunities, as Bloomberg adds:
Apple, which long made most of its iPhones in China, is seeking alternatives as Xi Jinping’s administration clashes with the US government and imposes lockdowns across the country that have disrupted economic activity. At the same time, Narendra Modi’s administration is keen to make the country into a viable competitor to China in technology and production capability, especially as Western investors and corporations begin to sour on Beijing’s track record.
‘India is now an attractive location for manufacturing as it offers better labor cost structure while Apple is looking to reduce geopolitical risks,” said Jeff Pu, an analyst with Haitong International Securities.
Marine marauders
A New York Times interactive reveals how China is emptying coastal South America of its fish supplies.
A single country has accounted for about 80 percent of the fishing in the international waters just off Argentina, Ecuador and Peru this year. And it is not a South American country. It is China.
Chinese fishing vessels cast their nets 24 hours a day, seven days a week, off South America, the ships sailing seasonally “from Ecuador to Peru to Argentina.”
The reason: depleted fish stocks in China’s own waters.
“Our sea can’t handle this pressure anymore,” said Alberto Andrade, a fisherman from the Galápagos. The presence of so many Chinese vessels, he added, has made it harder for local fishermen inside Ecuador’s territorial waters, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Fishing so far from China’s shores is made possible by so-called “motherships.”
Take the Hai Feng 718, a refrigerated cargo ship built in Japan in 1996, registered in Panama and managed by Zhongyu Global Seafood Corporation, which is owned by the China National Fisheries Corporation.
It can preserve tons of catch, while carrying fuel and other supplies for smaller ships, “allowing them to fish almost continuously.”
“The industrial fleets are razing the stocks, and we are afraid that in the future there will be no more fishery,” .. said [Galápagos fisherman Andrade]. “Not even the pandemic stopped them.”
Xinjiang exports to the US surge despite ban
President Joe Biden signs an act “to ensure that goods made with forced labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region don’t find their way onto US shopping shelves. Adam Schultz, White House; WikiCommons.
Despite the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act, which came into effect in June, according to The South China Morning Post, “shipping records and customs data suggest that companies from Xinjiang are still sending their goods to the US – and at a much higher volume than before.”
Chinese customs data showed that Xinjiang entities exported US$56.8 million worth of goods to the US in August, surging to their highest level in 10 months, and appearing for the second consecutive month to defy the new law.
The value more than doubled that of July – the first full month after the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act went into effect – and was almost sevenfold of that in June. It also surged 592.8 per cent compared to a year earlier.
The surge in trade reported from Xinjiang also bucked the overall trend of weakening Chinese exports to the US, which recorded a year-on-year decline in August for the first time since May 2020.
‘Rotting’ unfinished properties are home for some
Some Chinese are refusing pay mortgages on unfinished housing; others are moving into ‘rotting’ properties, amid a mass real estate slump. Photo: Photo Tomasragina | Dreamstime.com.
Reuters reports a movement of home buyers around China into so-called "rotting" apartments, “either to pressure developers and authorities to complete them or out of financial necessity, as numerous cash-strapped builders halt construction amid the country's deep real estate slump.”
Social media has led to what Reuters called “unprecedented collective disobedience,” as “thousands of home buyers in at least 100 cities threatened to halt mortgage payments to protest stalled construction.”
Others have no choice but to move into unfinished properties that were being built “off plan,” – sold before even being built – as some 90% of residential real estate is in China.
Surprise movie success ‘disappeared’ in China
Sleeper hit Return to Dust, directed by Li Ruijun – a low-budget production set in the impoverished countryside – and which debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival early this year and has steadily grown in popularity in China, has reportedly been yanked from streaming services and even been banned from commentary on Weibo, according to The Economist.
In the first week of September it was one of China’s top-grossing films. Its total box-office earnings have exceeded 110m yuan ($15.8m).
Conjecture has it that the “sensitive” subject matter, which highlights some of China’s unmentionable hardships – an “arranged marriage between a middle-aged man who has struggled to find a wife and a woman who is disabled, incontinent and unable to have children because of abuse suffered earlier in life” – have become increasingly embarrassing to the government as the movie has grown in success.
The movie continues – at the time of writing – to be available with English subtitles on YouTube and is highly recommended.
Studies continue to cast doubt on origin of SARS-2
Still mutating and on the move, wherever it came from. Photo: Zack Studio, Dreamstime.
The Conversation – in a machine translation from French – draws on two recent studies, one of which ChinaDiction has already covered from the Lancet Commission and the other by the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens ( SAGO), which was established by the World Health Organization in August 2021.
Both conclude:
The origin of the coronavirus is not yet established and that several hypotheses must be considered :
zoonotic animal-to-human transmission unrelated to research,
infection as a result of research-related activities, with three possible routes: infection in the field when collecting samples, infection in the laboratory when studying unmodified viruses, or infection by a virus genetically manipulated.
The conclusions:
So far, no independent, international, transparent and scientific detailed investigation has been carried out into the possibility of a laboratory accident. Lab notebooks, emails, databases and samples from the institutions involved in this research have not been made available to independent researchers or the WHO by China.
Many avenues are still available to experts to try to understand how this pandemic began, according to the studies:
High on the wishlist is retrieving “WIV's virus database which has been removed from the Internet and other laboratory documents.”
It’s unlikely that this will happen, unfortunately, even if the database still exists.
The Greater Sinosphere
Hong Kong
Cardinal Zen in the dock
Art: courtesy of badiucao.
Hong Kong’s Cardinal Joseph Zen (Zen Ze-Kiun, Chén Rìjūn, 陈日君), and five others, went on trial yesterday.
They pleaded not guilty to the charge of failing as trustees to properly register an aid fund for pro-democracy demonstrators,
Zen is also subject to an ongoing investigation on accusations of colluding with foreign powers under Hong Kong’s national-security law, which could bring him a life sentence.
Writes the National Review:
Even under Mao, the Chinese Communist Party never forced a Chinese Catholic cardinal to stand trial on political charges. Now, this persecution of the venerable cardinal, who is 90 years old and the veritable face of the Chinese Catholic Church, comes as negotiations are underway for the renewal of the Sino–Vatican agreement on the appointment of bishops and must be seen in that context.
Pope Francis has yet to speak up on behalf of Hong Kong’s beleaguered representative of Catholicism, saying recently on a visit to Kazakhstan, which coincided coincidentally with a visit by CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping, “The cardinal ‘says what he feels’ and freedom has ‘limitations.’
So, apparently, do the principles of faith – even if you happen to be the pope.
Philippines
Joint exercises held with the US close to Taiwan
US Marines with the Philippine Marine Ready Force conduct a live fire range in the Philippines, 2019. Photo: Sgt. Mackenzie Carter; WikiCommons.
The Philippines and US are increasing military co-operation amid a potential war with China over Taiwan, the Financial Times reports.
The US and Philippines will next year send 16,000 forces to participate in Balikatan, their main annual bilateral military exercise, said Colonel Michael Logico, director of the Philippine military’s Joint and Combined Training Center, which recently hosted a planning conference with US counterparts.
‘We are going to do a full battle test for operating together, including in Northern Luzon’ near the country’s sea border with Taiwan, Logico said.
Taiwan
Bankers prep for possible Taiwan conflict
Global banks, most of which were taken by surprise by Russia’s moves on Ukraine and the resulting sanctions, are now turning their attention to China’s Taiwan ambitions, reports Bloomberg.
Lenders including Societe Generale SA, JPMorgan Chase & Co. [and] UBS Group AG have asked their staff to review contingency plans in the past few months to manage exposures, according to people familiar with the matter. Global insurers, meanwhile, are backing away from writing new policies to cover firms investing in China and Taiwan, and costs for political risk coverage have soared more than 60% since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Political risk around potential US sanctions and the likelihood that China would respond by restricting capital flow has kept risk managers busy,” said Mark Williams, a professor at Boston University. “A sanctions war would significantly increase the cost of doing business and push US banks to rethink their China strategy.”
Pompeo redux
President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen presents former US Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo with the Order of Brilliant Star on his last visit earlier this year. Photo: Office of the President, Taiwan.
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, sanctioned by China when he left office at the end of the Trump presidency and who last visited Taiwan in March of this year, is back.
Pompeo, who flew in to the southern city of Kaohsiung (Gāoxióng, 高雄) yesterday, told an audience that the era of "blind engagement" with China is ending, and that Beijing's increasingly aggressive behavior has brought like-minded nations closer together, Focus Taiwan reports.
In the keynote speech at the Global Taiwan Business Forum, organized by the Chinese-language, independence-leaning Liberty Times – with more than 300 entrepreneurs and Vice President Lai Ching-te (Lài Qīngdé, 賴清德) present – Pompeo said that he advocates a trade agreement with the US so as to extricate itself from China supply chains, reported the Taiwan News.
China’s Global Times editorialized that Pompeo is again in Taiwan for the speaking fees and to drum up business for American companies with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (Mínjìndǎng, 民進黨), who are …
… cooperating with them [the US] to spend huge amounts of money to pocket the political gains, playing ‘cash-for-friendship’ tactics and seeking "Taiwan independence" on the global stage.
The Global Times talking points notwithstanding, it should be noted that Pompeo’s trip this time has been relatively low key. There was no display in his honor this time on the Taipei 101 building, no audience with the president thus far, and most importantly no embarrassing leaks about his speaking fees or efforts to drum up investment from Taiwan government funds.
Chris Taylor in Bangkok with Michael Fahey in Taipei
Backup satellite internet planned for China invasion
Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s first Digital Affairs Minister, gives Vulcan salute in a move sure to anger China. Photo: WikiCommons.
Taiwan is building a backup satellite internet system so its internal and external communications are not blacked out by China in the event of an invasion or a blockade.
"The experience of Russia's invasion of Ukraine... showed that the whole world can know what is happening there in real time," said Taiwan's Digital Minister Audrey Tang (Táng Fèng, 唐鳳) in recent media interviews, conveying plans to build "digital resilience for all" in Taiwan, The Straits Times reports.
Over the next two years, the island is set to trial a NT$550 million (S$24.67 million) satellite programme that aims to keep Taiwan's command systems running if conventional connections get cut, Ms Tang said.
Several Taiwan companies are now in discussions with international satellite service providers, she added, without providing details.
Writes QA Math Blog:
Taiwan has about 15 undersea cables connecting it to the world and which transmit digital communications such as phone calls and e-mail.
A study published Aug. 29 by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center said these cables come ashore at just three places in Taiwan: the city of New Taipei, the town of Toucheng in the north, and the town of Fangshan in the south. The centre said analysis of open-source data showed submarine cable landing stations are among China’s strategic points of interest when it comes to invasion planning.
‘The Internet used in Taiwan relies heavily on undersea cables, so if [attackers] cut off all the cables, they would cut off all of the Internet there,’ Dr Lennon Chang, a cyber-security researcher at Monash University, told The Straits Times.
‘It makes sense for the government to have alternative forms of communication ready for emergency situations,’ he added.
In related news, Taiwanese tech tycoon Robert Tsao recently pledged some US$20 million in funding for Kuma Academy, a company founded last year to help Taiwanese prepare for a potential Chinese invasion.
Puma Shen, co-founder of Kuma Academy, said that open source intelligence OSINT – including compiling lists of words typically used by netizens in Taiwan but not in China – could help determine the identity of social media users posting information while claiming to be Taiwanese.
Shen added that the classes aim to foster a sense of hope among Taiwanese people by showing them how they can play a part in the national defense and pointing out the limitations China faces if it were to attempt an invasion.
Increasing numbers of Taiwanese are studying Ukrainian resistance tactics.
Taiwan sends delegation to Abe funeral
The Taiwan delegation in Taiwan. Photo: Live News screen grab.
Taiwan dispatches ‘heavy hitters’ to Abe funeral
Focus Taiwan reports that Taiwan’s delegation to murdered former Japanese prime minister, Abe Shinzō (安倍晋三), included former Legislative Yuan speakers Su Jia-chyuan (Sū Jiāquán, 蘇嘉全) – currently chairman of the Taiwan-Japan Relations Association – and Wang Jin-pyng (Wáng Jīnpíng, 王金平) of Taiwan's main opposition Kuomintang, as well as Taiwan's representative to Japan Frank Hsieh (Xiè Chángtíng, 謝長廷).
All three are household names in Taiwan.
Tibet
Clampdown on religious practices
Monks engaged in traditional religious debate. Photo: ChinaDiction.
According to Bitter Winter, a website dedicated to religious liberty and human rights, in May of this year, monks and nuns in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (former Tibet) began to be summoned for re-education on the “Three Consciousnesses” – national consciousness, citizen consciousness and rule of law consciousness.
Re-education programs are nothing new on the high plateau, but this one was reportedly novel insofar as it specifically required the renunciation and condemnation of certain key Tibetan Buddhist tenets, such as tsethar or the “merit release” of animals, saka dawa fasting, which celebrates the birth, enlightenment, and death of the Buddha and losar, the Tibetan New Year.
Fourth, monks and nuns are required …
… to take a stand against the “farmers’ strikes” … [a] form of non-cooperative protest in which farmers refuse to cultivate their land to protest the suppression of Tibetan language and culture.
Coda
Taiwan county mascot stirs debate
The Changhua County new official mascot – clearly draped over a human being – is vaguely the shape of geographical Changua, but is that enough for a mascot? Photo: Twitter.
Mascots are huge in Taiwan, as in Japan and increasingly – and perhaps ironically – in relatively non-kawaii China.
However, the recently unveiled Changhua County mascot – and Taiwan has a less than perfect record on the mascot front – bears all the hallmarks of an uninspired committee compromise – aiming to offend no one, and with next to no chance of inspiring anyone to visit the county.
What if you were to bump into one in the street – and worse, with a small child in tow?
Some social media commentators remarked that the attempt to recreate Changhua’s districts on the body of the mascot look like “varicose veins” – a cruel barb, when the appropriate reaction is pity for the committee behind the mascot’s creation and for the poor fellow who has to wear the outfit.