Chinese Foreign Policy Primer
If you weren’t sure about how China conducts foreign policy, this week’s news could be a primer for you. In addition to bogus disease numbers (see below), monetary and political influence at WHO, China also threatened an editor in Nepal, threatened to retaliate against Czech companies in China, and ejected three journalists (on specious grounds) from China (see below). All in a week's work for the CCP.
The ejecting of journalists seems to be getting the most news (likely because it's journalists writing the news, eh?). And most see these last ejections as retaliation for the US naming 5 Chinese news outlets as state actors and requiring them to register as such, limiting their scope of actives in the US. Probably one of the smartest things I’ve read, is the opinion that China doesn’t understand the difference between “news,” “opinion,” and “editorial” pieces in countries with a free press. And while I think that this may be true for a majority of Chinese citizens who are not familiar with the responsibilities and autonomy of the 4th estate, I do not believe it holds for Chinese policymakers. Rather, I think they fully understand, but they choose to willfully conflate the three so as to be able to assign full responsibility to the host state govt. This stance is an admission that they assume that the host govt is in control, a promotion of the Chinese model of govt control as the default, and that because of these first two points a right and/or ability to act against individuals and free press as representatives of the host govt. It’s very strategic and provides them with both a propaganda target as well as multiple opportunities to show their domestic audience their power without actually damaging foreign relations beyond repair.
These actions also highlight another significant position, that China is completely at odds with anyone inside or outside of China holding competing views of an ever-expanding list of “sensitive” issues (Hong Kong, Tibet, Xi, XJ, Taiwan, SCS, Corvid-19, etc). For the longest time, China advocates were able to say that "at least China isn't exporting their authoritarianism. Only now is the mainstream media and the average China investor realizing that indeed China has been actively and strategically exporting censorship and political and financial control for decades now.
The two most interesting stats to follow in China, if you want to know about the sate of manufacturing and actual disposable income are electricity consumption and transportation respectively. And while it’s more about quarantine than income now, trans numbers are still informative: Transportation in China running at about 20% capacity and most workers facing a 2-week quarantine when they return to their work-site means that the economy will likely continue to run at 40%-50% for the rest of this month. (no electricity number for 2020 yet) Some individual investment groups follow similar numbers (speed of payments, shipping times, etc) to judge just how the Chinese economy is really doing since all the official numbers are crap.
Here’s a real doozy of a number: HSBC to cut 35k. It’s interesting to me that while the traded war is mentioned, the US and EU are the markets to blame for most of the disappointing results. I would have thought that a year of protests and Covid-19 would have had more impact. If you’ve never used HSBC they are by far the best bank in East or SEA (don’t know about Japan/SK)—especially their HK offices and online services. Thai and Chinese banks are typically a horrible combination of paperwork, bureaucracy, lines, and untrained staff with limited permissions.
In relatively better news, and I hope that this is indeed the moment when the corner is turned, but I have my doubts, many cities are allowing manufacturing to return. This, even though a factory in CQ started back up this week and was closed down within a couple days with 3 new confirmed cases of Covid-19. Also, many cities are still not allowing commercial and retail stores to reopen yet. The 2-week quarantine for all returning residents will mean that it will be a slow ramp-up regardless.
Out in Western China, there is still “the Muslim problem.” And by problem I mean, China still won’t allow for religious freedoms. The production value looks like a Jr. High school project and the narration is slow and turgid, BUT THE INFORMATION IS CHILLING AND WE KNOW FROM OTHER LEAKS IT’S TRUE.
On a completely different note, the death of the CCP has been widely exaggerated. The CCP is agile, has widespread public sport, has unquestioned control, is generally well educated, and has the resources to react to almost any calamity. It is not just a bunch of old men waving red flags and spouting ideological phrases to apparatchiks with guns. Most people in China fear chaos more than the CCP, and despite all the historical disasters and crackdowns, propaganda and patriotic education has worked on even some of the best-educated Chinese. The failures of democracy abroad and the constant mantra of “100 years of humiliation” at the hands of the West ring true for many, thus alternatives to the CCP are never seriously considered.
This is a short but interesting identity negotiation piece on a Canadian-Hong Konger. Many people outside of China are being forced to have similar negotiations as the CCP tries to control the definitions of Chinese and Chineseness.
Social credit system in action. Medical workers' kids get 10 extra points on enrollment exams. One take on this could be that it’s the govt run amok, involved in everyone’s lives. That awarding points to kids that had nothing to do with anything shows how intrusive this can be. Another take is that the govt can’t do much but it will compensate these families for their commitment to the state's efforts.
Q1 growth in China expected to be at 3% and urban unemployment over 6%. But the official China news is that everything is OK and China GDP will still hit 6% this year.
This is a short article that focuses on the WHO only, but China’s use of int’l organizations to promote it’s own Taiwan and other policies globally is very real, very active, and very influential.
Hong Kong is no more. Long live Hong Kong!
“the Chinese health system: overloaded, ineffective, expensive and chaotic.”
Interesting blog post on the Corona-complacent. Focusing mostly on the poorly thought out positions of those that claim the Covid-19 isn’t a big deal. Personally, I don’t know what to believe. I don’t believe the numbers out of China, and Japan looks to be increasingly problematic. But really I’m just reading the news like everyone else. I do like his thoughts on retirement though.
If you or your kids have TikTok, you need to delete it. In addition to censoring news and posts to convey only the CCP opinion on many issues (like: Hong Kong, Taiwan, XJ, WHO, Covid-19, Tibet, Japan, SCS, etc.) but the ap collects a TON of personal user data.
Trump admin will now treat state-run Chinese media as state actors and force them to register in the US. About. Freakin’. Time!
When people not connected with China run the Covid-19 numbers, they just don’t add up. No surprise here—This is China! From the article: “A statistical analysis of China’s coronavirus casualty data shows a near-perfect prediction model that data analysts say isn’t likely to naturally occur, casting doubt over the reliability of the numbers being reported to the World Health Organization.”
What’s really sad about this is that it’s endemic to China and it literally means that people are dying for the Party line. Here’s a paper that says the organ donation market in China “…can only be plausibly explained by systematic falsification and manipulation of official organ transplant datasets in China. Some apparently nonvoluntary donors also appear to be misclassified as voluntary.” Yea, it looks like all those horrible pictures from Falundafa that we try to avoid around HK and embassy are real.
In a related story, here is Bloomberg threatening a great China journalist with financial ruin if she won’t sign an NDA. The timing of this is really political on her part, as she is a Warren campaign activist, but the story is chilling and despicable nonetheless.