Nato on the Firing Line
Amid all the confusing messaging, the die is cast and China is lockstep with Russia in opposing Nato and the decadent West.
Nato exercises in Nurenberg, Germany January 1986. Photo by Nancy Wong, Wikicommons
China's stance on the Ukraine issue is on the right side of history, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday.
That’s according to China’s CGTN, which goes on to say that
President Xi has "clearly and comprehensively" clarified China's position on the Ukraine issue
Wang was referring to a two hour phone conversation between presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping that took place Saturday.
But nothing’s clear at all. As for the right side of history, that will be for the victor to write and we’re a long way from knowing who will be last standing amid the rubble of the old world order.
For example, today the New York Times reported that China’s ambassador to the US, Qin Gang, stated on Sunday that China would not be supplying Russia with weapons and ammunition and would be doing “everything to de-escalate the crisis.”
But, the Times admits:
"The remarks came as higher-ranking Chinese officials continued to accuse the United States and Europe of instigating the conflict, and continued to amplify Russian disinformation that served as a rationale for the invasion. They also followed President Biden’s warning on Friday to President Xi Jinping that China would face “consequences” if Beijing gave material aid to Russia to support its war.
On the face of things, it’s what the hell? But this is just China doing what China does: send out a message to placate its international audience, while going about business as planned–in this case supporting Russia.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken lashed out at China “for refusing to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ‘while seeking to portray itself as a neutral arbiter’ in the crisis.
‘We believe China in particular has a responsibility,’ Blinken said, ‘to use its influence with President Putin and to defend the international rules and principles that it professes to support.’
China will not attempt to bring any influence to bear on Putin–Xi Jinping might well be afraid to be in the same room as him–but more on that in a moment.
A bird’s eye view of the situation reveals a tangled mess, but if you pay close attention to the Chinese team, they’re not really that inscrutable. Who does China support? China. Who is China aligned with in this fiasco–Putin and Russia, even if Xi Jinping may be starting to regret taking the stand. Where does Ukraine fit in? It’s about drawing a line on further Nato expansion; it’s a first step to containing Nato as a sphere of influence.
China blames Nato for this war. China's vice foreign minister Le Yucheng speaking at a conference in Beijing called NATO a "Cold War vestige," warning that its expansion could cause "repercussions too dreadful to contemplate," according to the AP.
China hasn’t forgotten Nato’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in 1999.
The joint statement issued by China and Russia when Putin visited China for the Winter Olympics accused Nato of promoting a Cold War ideology and Putin has long claimed that the Western powers are using the Nato defense alliance to undermine Russia.
In short, China and Russia are partners in opposing the US and Nato, for good or for bad. In a tweet that did the rounds over the weekend, CGTN’s Liu Xinin broadcast China’s view on negotiating with Russia on behalf of the west.
Dexter Roberts pointed out in his newsletter Trade War:
The Chinese and English versions of Beijing’s readout of the Biden-Xi meeting differ substantially, points out Hofstra University law professor Julian Ku.
The Chinese version “includes Xi blaming Biden's team for undermining the two leaders' consensus, and Xi blaming the US in general for causing problems in the relationship and the world,” notes Ku.
China’s confusing rhetoric makes it look like the Republic of Gibberish at times, but Xi Jinping’s “no limits” agreement with Putin has locked China into a war. China could argue–I don’t think it has–that it thought that Russia only intended a limited military incursion to gain concessions, but that means it thought that Russia would succeed.
As Andrew Small comments in the German Marshall Fund (GMF):
Unsurprisingly, the result was that several European leaders, including the president of the European Commission and the NATO Secretary General, started speaking of China and Russia as a conjoined threat. This was not a lazy conflation of authoritarian powers, but rather a facing-up to the bleak consequences of the decisions that Xi appeared to have taken.
Xi has cast in his lot with Putin. These are the opening salvos of a Sino-Russian assault on the US and Nato and liberal democracy. But it’s difficult to imagine that Xi is not somehow terrified that Putin will fail–and worse still be dethroned? At the very least, it would undoubtedly bode badly for Xi’s bid for a third term at the Communist Party's 20th party congress later this year. At worst, Xi has made a misstep that could put a serious dent in his grandiose global ambitions.
Other News
Hong Kong Starts to ‘de-Zero’ Covid
Hong Kong has essentially been closed for business since 2020. Chief Executive Carrie Lam has announced that some rules may be relaxed. Picture: Wikicommons
Yielding to pressure from the local business community and local residents – or perhaps simply making a logical next move – Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced today that Hong Kong will be relaxing many of its most draconian zero-covid measures, according to Reuters.
Starting in April, Lam said that Hong Kong would lift its ban on flights from nine countries, reduce quarantine on arrivals from overseas and will reopen schools.
The moves, announced on Monday by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, come after a backlash from businesses and residents who see the rest of the world shifting to "living with the virus".
Residents in the Chinese ruled territory have become increasingly frustrated with the stringent measures, many of which have been in place for over two years.
A ban on flights from Australia, Britain, Canada, France, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines and the United States would be lifted from April 1.
Hotel quarantine for arrivals could be cut to seven days from 14 if residents tested negative, Lam said. She had previously said measures would be in place until April 20.
Lam has come under enormous pressure just weeks before elections for chief executive (a five-year position) on May 8. She hasn’t commented on whether she will run, but Hong Kong has essentially been shut down since 2020, causing enormous economic damage and psychological distress–and when Covid finally arrived it do so in an attack unrivaled anywhere else.
These last-minute moves will not save her political career,
Numbers are easing now but at its height, Hong Kong was suffering more covid deaths per million than anywhere else in the world has just a week ago.
Mission accomplished on 3 SCS islands
Once upon a time, before the Chinese military bases that Xi vowed never to build were actually built anyway. Picture: Wikicommons
According to the Associated Press, all systems are go on at least three of the islands that China has constructed in the disputed South China Sea, “arming them with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems, laser and jamming equipment, and fighter jets in an increasingly aggressive move that threatens all nations operating nearby, a top US military commander” said over the weekend.
In short, the islands are fully militarized, despite past assurances by China’s Xi Jinping that Beijing would never transform the islands into military bases.
‘I think over the past 20 years we’ve witnessed the largest military buildup since World War II by the PRC,’ US Indo-Pacific commander Adm. John C. Aquilino told The Associated Press in an interview, using the initials of China’s formal name. ‘They have advanced all their capabilities and that buildup of weaponization is destabilizing to the region.’
US Proposes ‘Ring of Fire’
We don’t want to hear anything about how this is the wrong missile to picture here. It’s a missile. Picture: Wikicommons
Frankly, ChinaDiction is tempted to just file this under “Huh?” and move on, but Nikkei Asia reported it and so have several other regional media outlets such as the Japan Times and Taiwan News, possibly on the back of the Nikkei story. We’ve checked and there’s very little discussion of the issue in Taiwan’s Chinese-language media, which seems somewhat odd. And where is the froth-at-the-mouth Global Times editorial?
Meanwhile, writes the Nikkei:
The U.S. will bolster its conventional deterrence against China, establishing a network of precision-strike missiles along the so-called first island chain as part of $27.4 billion in spending to be considered for the Indo-Pacific theater over the next six years, Nikkei has learned.
They form the core proposals of the Pacific Deterrence Initiative that the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has submitted to Congress and Nikkei has reviewed.
The first island chain consists of a group of islands including Taiwan, Okinawa and the Philippines, which China sees as the first line of defense. Beijing's "anti-access/area denial" strategy seeks to push American forces out of the East and South China seas within the first island chain.
China’s Big Plans for Xinjiang
Urumqi train station, probably the South Station … Picture: Wikicommons
The South China Morning Post reports that China has gone into development mode in East Turkestan (Xinjiang), amid “subtle signs on the ground that change is on the way.”
If the reports–which seem to be sourced from the the official Xinjiang Daily–are true, it’s all on in Urumqi, the capital.
Breathlessly:
In all, work got under way or resumed on 4,467 projects in the region – 27 with a total investment of more than 5 billion yuan and 103 projects with a total investment of 1 billion yuan to 5 billion yuan, the report said.
The launch of the major infrastructure projects appears to be another sign that Beijing is confident of its grip on society and its Xinjiang policy is tilting back to economic development, an observer says.
The shift, if indeed that is what it can be called, follows the appointment of Ma Xingrui as the region’s new Communist Party chief in late December last year.
Ma, a prominent technocrat with a track record of development in China’s economic powerhouse of Guangdong, took over from Chen Quanguo, the chief architect of Xinjiang’s social control measures.
The Post comments that while China is as intolerant of “international criticism and Western sanctions over alleged human rights abuses in the region, it no longer focuses solely on draconic social control.”
Beijing has agreed to a trip to Xinjiang in May by United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet. There’s next to no hope this trip will be as productive as the WHO visits to Wuhan.
The cynical response to what’s going on in Xinjiang is that China feels secure that its surveillance and incarceration systems, putting it completely control of the region and ready to start infrastructure projects.
Reality Vs China’s Price Housing
Apartment blocks, Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Picture: Wikicommons
China’s red-hot housing market has cooled to room temperature and it’s back to business to normal – at least according to government statistics, which suggest the property market has stabilized. But the Wall Street Journal reports, off-stage outbreaks of panicky discounting and other measures reveal a market that has far from stabilized.
Conjecture has it that government statistics may have been massaged with the aim of stabilizing the market.
Li Yujia, chief researcher with the Guangdong Housing Policy Research Center, wrote in a newspaper column last month that the relatively stable home-price data in January aimed to “ease the pessimistic mood” of the sector and prevent a downward trend in new-home prices. He also noted that the government’s goal has been to maintain land- and home-price stability and that the gradually declining year-over-year growth in prices helps guide market expectations.
Meanwhile, reports the Journal:
Debt-burdened developers are selling apartments at falling prices and in some cases providing big discounts to get cash in the door.
Since last summer, most residential real-estate developers in China have reported steep drops in contracted sales. Many have also disclosed substantial declines in average selling prices this year, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of their monthly stock-exchange filings.
Industry giant Country Garden Holdings Co. , one of China’s financially stronger developers, reported a 14% decline in its average selling price in January and February from the same months in 2021. A midsize developer, Logan Group, said its average selling price tumbled close to 40% year over year in the first two months of 2022.
‘The market has yet to show a clear recovery,”’said Lin Bo, vice-research director at CRIC, a real-estate-industry data provider. ‘The supply, demand and prices are going down,’ he added, referring to homes.
Earlier this month, Soho China, a developer of mixed-use commercial and residential buildings, said it would sell nine projects in Beijing and Shanghai at a 30% discount and use all the proceeds to pay off its debts.
At issue is China’s price housing index, which was implemented in 2005 when many of today’s massive cities were still villages or towns. Critics of the index say that the 70 cities chosen in 2005 are no longer representative of China’s urban landscape.
The index has a disproportionate focus on cities whose housing prices are stronger, analysts say. Those that have seen the biggest price drops are often not in the index.
“I believe most of those developers’ properties are in lower third- or fourth-tier cities,” said You Zipei, an analyst with Huaxi Securities.
Unsold homes are piling up in tier-three and tier-four cities. According to a recent report from Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute, the number has been growing for nearly 40 months.
Mega cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, where property values have risen the most, have imposed price limits and taxes to curb the prices. There are also cities that in recent months have imposed minimum prices to stop home prices from falling further.
US Proposes ‘Ring of Fire’
We don’t want to hear anything about how this is the wrong missile to picture here. It’s a missile. Picture: Wikicommons
Frankly, ChinaDiction is tempted to just file this under “Huh?” and move on, but Nikkei Asia reported it and so have several other regional media outlets such as the Japan Times and Taiwan News, possibly on the back of the Nikkei story. We’ve checked and there’s very little discussion of the issue in Taiwan’s Chinese-language media, which seems somewhat odd. And where is the froth-at-the-mouth Global Times editorial?
Meanwhile, writes the Nikkei:
The U.S. will bolster its conventional deterrence against China, establishing a network of precision-strike missiles along the so-called first island chain as part of $27.4 billion in spending to be considered for the Indo-Pacific theater over the next six years, Nikkei has learned.
They form the core proposals of the Pacific Deterrence Initiative that the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has submitted to Congress and Nikkei has reviewed.
The first island chain consists of a group of islands including Taiwan, Okinawa and the Philippines, which China sees as the first line of defense. Beijing's "anti-access/area denial" strategy seeks to push American forces out of the East and South China seas within the first island chain.
Coda
That’s one hell of a cute jade dragon. Picture: Twitter, @cute_history.