Links - 18th June 2020 (3) (China's 'peaceful' rise)

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Can Afghanistan find peace? - "We’re not meant to focus on the many individuals scars made in the course of China's modern history. It's the end result that matters and on face value, the transformation has been extraordinary. New visitors to China are awestruck by the skyscraper-festooned high tech megacities connected by brand new highways and the world's largest high speed rail network. They see a rampant consumer society, with the inhabitants enjoying the freedom and free time to shop for designer goods, to dine out and to surf the internet. How bad can it really be the onlookers ask, reflecting on the negative headlines they've read about China back home. The answer however, as in all societies, depends very much on who you are. Many of those in China's major cities, for example, who've benefited from this explosion of material wealth and opportunity are genuinely grateful and loyal. In exchange for prosperity they may well accept or at least tolerate the censorship and the lack of political freedom that feature so often in foreign news reports. But in the carving out of a new China, the knife has cut long and deep. Chairman Mao's manmade famine did claim 10s of millions of lives, and his Cultural Revolution killed hundreds of thousands more, truths notably absent from Chinese textbooks. After his death, the demographically calamitous one child policy, brutalized generations. And even today, the new two child policy continues to violate that most intimate of rights, an individual's choice over her fertility. The list of losers is long, with each category adding to the toll of those damaged or destroyed by one party rule. There are the victims of religious repression, of local government land grabs and of corruption. There are the 10s of millions of internal migrant workers, the backbone of China's industrial success, who have long been shut out of many of the benefits of citizenship. And in recent years, there are the estimated one and a half million Muslims in China's western region of Xinjiang - Uighers, Kazakhs and others who have been placed in mass incarceration camps that the government claims are vocational schools, on the basis of their faith and ethnicity. Viewed from this perspective, the censorship of large parts of China's recent history is not simply part of a grand bargain to be exchanged for material enrichment. It is something that makes the silence of their suffering all the more difficult to penetrate. But while censorship can shut people up, it cannot stop them remembering. As if to prove the point about how the unsettled past continues to impact the present, the [National Day] parade is for invited guests only. The troops will be marching as they always do on these occasions down the same Avenue along the north side of Tiananmen Square, where Beijing's pro democracy movement was gunned down 30 years ago. The risk of even a lone protester using the parade to try to commemorate an event that the authorities have spent years trying to bury is just too great. With central Beijing sealed off, ordinary people in whose honor it is supposedly being held can only watch it on TV."

The long arm of authoritarian China reached into my seven-year-old’s bedroom - "the world globe by his bedside became the latest target in the People's Republic of China's war on words... it was time to return home, and the removalists were going through our rooms at lightning speed. Until the globe was seized by their supervisor. "Taiwan," he said, pointing to the island off the mainland Chinese coast. "Taiwan is not a country, it is a part of China. You can't take this." A new customs regulation was being zealously enforced, as China ramped up diplomatic fury at Taiwan's independence-leaning government... "The typeface used for the city of Taipei is the same size as Beijing. It shows Taipei is a capital. It isn't," he said. I got out a black marker and put a line through Taipei. "You can't take it, it is out of my hands," he repeated... Raising an Australian boy in Beijing threw up interesting dilemmas. Like the time I returned from a reporting trip in Xinjiang in China's far western desert. I had been detained and trailed by police who sought to stop foreign reporters speaking to Uighur Muslims, as the government locked up the Muslim population there en masse in re-education centres... as an Australian journalist in China, I saw my job as the independent observer – "independent always" – looking for facts, not an activist. Covering the trade war between the United States and China I would look through Australian eyes for the impact on Australia. As the Tweets raged against China supposedly banning Peppa Pig, I could still see Peppa everywhere, beloved by Chinese four-year-olds... During my China posting I witnessed the rise of the digital surveillance state. In 2017, People's Liberation Army soldiers stood guard at my office and apartment compound gates. They were soon replaced by cameras, lots of cameras, as white cyclopes appeared on most street corners.  Facial recognition screens I had first seen in Xinjiang soon replaced ticket collectors at Beijing train stations... Tencent founder Pony Ma revealed at China's own "World Internet Conference" that when WeChat used artificial intelligence to allow commuters to scan a barcode with their smartphone at the subway instead of buying a ticket, there was also a "security" feature. "It also gives authorities access to the real identity of passengers"... For a reporter on the ground trying to report China as it really is, the hurdle was the increasing reluctance of Chinese people to go "on the record" in foreign media, unwilling to risk the trouble this might bring.  Insightful interviewees pulled out of stories as the geopolitical winds blew."
Presumably according to China shills she couldn't be allowed to speak to Uighers because she would spread fake news. So we must content ourselves with official Chinese government press releases; how ironic that China shills demand you must visit Xinjiang to be able to say anything negative about China's treatment of the Uighers, but the Chinese government goes out of its way to make that hard or impossible

Gene-Edited Babies Claim Sparks New Questions About Safety - "it has become clear that He actually missed precisely editing his genetic target.He tried to make a change in a gene that would protect the girls from HIV. But, at best, he may have protected only one twin from HIV, inadvertently making her genes ostensibly superior to her sister. It's also possible the genetic changes he made may not have protected either twin at all.Perhaps more worrisome, his attempt to use the powerful gene-editing tool CRISPR appeared to create unintended mutations in their DNA that could harm their health"
A China shill was posting this approvingly - then the Chinese government went after He

15 Worrying Things About the CRISPR Babies Scandal - The Atlantic

BBC World Service - The World This Week, The rich countries where people are dying younger - "Across the border in mainland China's Guangdong Province, people were able to watch live broadcasts of the elections on Hong Kong TV channels with the help of satellite dishes, which are illegal but tolerated, and many Chinese people were not impressed. On the popular chatting platform WeChat, some postings question the validity of the ballot counting. One mainlander even asked me whether there was vote buying. Even those who accept the election results were not persuaded by the will of the majority. They saw it as a result of Western culture brainwashing Hong Kong's youth and a rejection of China and being Chinese. If you don't like to be Chinese, then you can get out of China, one friend in China’s Xianjing City said… Some people see events in Hong Kong as a precursor of what might happen in mainland China in the distant future. When Chinese people are well off and well informed, they might want more decision making power. These people hope Beijing has learned the lesson"
Ironically, the views of many mainland Chinese suggest that never the twain shall meet, and that it's a bad idea for Hong Kong (and Taiwan) to reunite with China

BBC World Service - The World This Week, NATO takes on China - and Trump - "‘[The ubiquity of apps in China in everyday life in China] enables a Chinese company which is bound to hand over all this information to the Communist Party an enormous amount of data on your everyday movements. And so the power in these devices is like nothing we’ve ever seen before’
‘China has more CCTV cameras than any other country, but now there are signs of public unhappiness with the sheer extent of surveillance. How is the Chinese government reacting to that?’
‘There was a survey that we saw released this week showing, as you say, some sort of concern about it. But to tell the truth, not very much considering what it is. I mean, what that survey found is that most people would prefer that there was some other option available other than face scanning to log your ID, to perform some sort of task. Whereas really in in many other countries, the rollout of technology like this would see a lot of suspicion amongst the general public. It just shows the extent to which people are either, well, they haven't thought it through, or they just think that the convenience so far outweighs any potential concerns as to not be so worried about it...
Like in other parts of the world, there is a problem there with Islamic extremism, and a certain proportion of people there are prepared to use violence, either to achieve a sort of independent homeland, or to further the causes of Islamic extremism, and yet, because of that relatively small group of extremists, everybody is now paying the price in terms of a heavy crackdown there… what they're trying to do there is to use DNA samples, and there’ve been huge numbers of DNA samples taken in Xinjiang, to create sort of mapping of people's faces. One of the big ethical problems with that is that those people didn't agree to have their DNA handed in to be used for these tests. It was, by and large, forcibly taken from them. Because if you're a Uigher in Xinjiang, you have to do what you're told you. Or, you'll be thrown in a reeducation camp.'…
The main opposition Labour Party used Mr. Trump's visit to highlight concerns that the UK’s very large and much loved government owned and run health care system, the NHS, would somehow be on the table in any post Brexit trade talks with the US
Strange, somehow China shills claim that the "biased" "Western media" are spreading fake news that there is no terrorism in Xinjiang. Of course, this arises from their simplistic, binary thinking

China is leasing an entire Pacific island. Its residents are shocked - "Under a secretive deal signed last month with a provincial government in the South Pacific nation, a Beijing-based company with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party has secured exclusive development rights for the entire island and its surroundings.The lease agreement has shocked Tulagi residents and alarmed American officials who see the island chains of the South Pacific as crucial to keeping China in check and protecting important sea routes. It is the latest example of China using promises of prosperity to pursue its global aspirations — often by funneling money to governments and investing in local infrastructure projects that critics call debt traps for developing nations... Even compared to previous Chinese development deals in nearby countries — including a wharf in Vanuatu, whose terms were not publicly released for years — the Tulagi agreement is remarkable for both its scope and lack of public input.The renewable 75-year lease was granted to the China Sam Enterprise Group, a conglomerate founded in 1985 as a state-owned enterprise, according to corporate records... many residents of Tulagi, an island of a little over 1,000 people, are taking the signing of the document to mean it is a real agreement, and outrage has quickly set in.“They cannot come in and lease the whole island like that,” said Mr Michael Salini, 46, a business owner on Tulagi who is helping organise a petition to oppose the China Sam agreement.“Everyone is really scared about the possibility of China turning the island into a military base,” he added. “That is what really scares people — because why else do they want to lease the whole island?” A military installation would carry strategic and symbolic significance. Some American officials believe China’s efforts in the region echo the period before and during World War II, when Japan wrested control of island assets, which were won back in turn by American and Australian troops in bloody battles."

Contractors hit as China local government defaults rise | Financial Times - "China’s local governments face a record number of lawsuits for failing to pay their contractors as the country’s slowing economy puts a strain on public finances.The financial outlook has deteriorated so markedly that analysts have warned that there is a risk of social unrest.Chinese courts have listed 831 local governments as being in default in the first 10 months of this year, compared with 100 in the whole of 2018. The value of these local authorities’ overdue payments grew by more than 50 per cent from Rmb4.1bn at the end of last year to Rmb6.9bn ($984m) at the end of October. The totals do not take into account the amount owed by local government finance vehicles and companies operated by municipal or provincial officials, more than 1,000 of which have been listed as defaulters over the past three years... “The surge in government defaulters could lead to a social crisis with workers taking to the street and protesting against official agencies. That’s the worst-case scenario for Beijing”... Making government entities pay their bills is challenging. There is no official guidance on seizing government assets to settle overdue payments.China’s political regime prioritises party control over rule of law and local governments face few consequences if they decide not to pay.“I can’t think of a single official being punished for failing to pay contractors,” said Mr Wang, the Beijing lawyer. “They are above the law.”"

China's economy is in more trouble than markets think - Nikkei Asian Review - "China's economic slowdown just got real. The world is well aware that Asia's biggest economy is growing at its slowest pace since 1992. The 6% growth in gross domestic product recorded for July to September reflects a rapid weakening of demand from abroad as the trade war damages production.Yet three developments last week suggest China may be in more trouble than President Xi Jinping's government admits.First, warning signs are flashing over corporate profits. Beijing's official data on GDP, inflation and production often generate doubt, but China Inc.'s deterioration is unmistakable... This is not an epic decline, but it belies the conventional wisdom that growth is stabilizing. Instead, Xi's team has a traction problem. Traditional pump-priming -- public works spending, tax cuts, local-government debt issuance -- is not working its magic. This has the central bank springing into action, our second indication China Inc. is reeling... The trade war is forcing Yi's hand. Factory prices are veering toward outright deflation. Not Japan-like "lost decade" stuff, but the 1.2% drop in producer prices in September year-on-year is more alarming than the fall in corporate profits.  The third indicator of trouble is that Xi wants to make a deal. In recent months, Trump tried to claim Washington and Beijing were on the verge of a giant trade pact -- only to see Beijing deny it. Last week, it was Xi's team moving markets with talk of detente. On November 7, both sides confirmed tariffs may be rolled back in a "phase one" trade deal."

“You can never be China’s friend” - "A former head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) told me it's a matter of whether westeal everybody's data or the Chinese steal everybody's data. And don't you prefer having the Americans steal your data?... The Chinese understanding is that every smartphone is a data gatherer. It'll gather data on health, on consumer transactions, on the environmental traffic patterns. All of this data can be uploaded to the Cloud. It can be processed by Chinese computers, and it can give China massive advantages in terms of industrial controls, health systems, the environment, urban planning and, of course, social and political control... They want to have everybody in the world pay rent to the Chinese Empire. They want to control the key technologies, the finance and the logistics, and make everyone dependent on them. Basically, make everyone else a tenant farmer... The single biggest misconception is that you have a wicked government and a good people. The Chinese have had 3,000 years for the government and the people to shape each other. The institution in the West that most closely resembles the Chinese system is, in fact, the Sicilian mafia. You have a capo di tutti capiwho prevents the other capifrom killing each other. Because they're natural anarchists, they don't like any form of government. They're loyal to their families. The emperor is nothing but a necessary evil. The idea of public trust and subsidiarity that's fundamental to democracy is unknown to the Chinese.
What holds a country of anarchists together, if not the emperor? ...
China is a country of 1.4 billion emperors. Everyone wants to be an emperor. Everyone strives for his own and his family's power. There's no sense of Res publica. Certainly no Augustinian sense of common love to hold a country together. What holds the country together is ambition. Therefore, it's critical that the meritocracy be fair... the one thing that we're much better at than the Chinese is innovation. As I mentioned, Huawei is very much dependent on Western employees for innovation... If you ask the Chinese what worries them the most, many will say, "How come we have no Nobel prizes?" Eight Chinese have won the Nobel prize in sciences, but they are all Chinese who lived in America.  The Chinese system is very bad at identifying those eccentrics, like an Einstein, who make fundamental contributions. We are much better at that. The Western idea of the divine spark in the individual simply doesn't exist in China. So, I think we do have a chance against the Chinese...  If you look at the disposition of Chinese forces, it looks like a person with a gigantic head and tiny legs. The Chinese spend $1,500 to equip a foot soldier. That's basically a rifle, and a helmet and some boots. Americans spend $18,000 to equip a foot soldier. We have enormous airlift capability. We have enormous amount of technology applied to the infantry. The People's Liberation Army(PLA) infantry is one of the most poorly-equipped and badly trained in the world. On the other hand, their missile forces, their satellite forces, their submarines, and so forth, are extremely good...
Some people say that confrontation is the wrong strategy, that we should become friends. Do the Chinese have the same concept of friendship that we have?
The Chinese, as individuals, have no friends. China, as a country, all the less so... It was explained to me by my Chinese colleagues while I worked there that, when you're in first grade in primary school, you look to your left and right and try to figure out whom you're going to walk over. In China, you have your family. Otherwise, you have inferiors and superiors. But there are no parallel institutions. There's no group of people coming together, spontaneously, to do something together as equals. You have a superior and you have inferiors. There's no concept of political friendship in Aristotle's sense... You can never be China's friend. We obviously have to do business with China. You can't isolate 1.4 billion clever and industrious people. That's absurd. But one can only deal with them successfully from a position of strength... The Chinese only respect power, and our power is in innovation. If we show that we can out innovate the Chinese and leave them behind in critical sectors of technology, I think that will undermine the credibility of the present government."

Chinese nationalist upset with Tsai Ing-wen’s victory, calls on 1.4 billion Chinese to vote & gets censored - "the nationalist’s Weibo account got locked after his post went up...
“You can’t even say the word “vote (in an election)” on the mainland, and now you want to decide who should be Taiwan’s president, you poor thing.”...Chinese state media Xinhua has denounced Taiwan’s election results, saying Tsai’s victory came about due to “dirty tactics such as cheating, repression and intimidation”.It also claimed that “external dark forces” contributed to the election results... Chinese authorities tend to shut down forms of expression that might potentially gain traction and inspire a mass movement, even if the act itself is borne from support for the government.This is why they are particularly sensitive to any causes that might gather steam among the masses, going as far as banning them... While the Chinese Communist Party lets nationalistic expressions have a free rein on the Chinese Intranet, Chinese nationalism can be a double-edged sword for the one wielding it.If not kept under control, it can go out of hand, and even challenge the party, especially if the party is seen as not being assertive enough in its foreign policy when it comes to protecting China’s interests.Political scientist Jessica Chen Weiss told LA Times the Chinese government commonly stirs up nationalistic sentiments among the people, but then reel that in when nationalism has served its purpose.Such a tactic could generate resentment against what appears to be government hypocrisy"
Calling for democracy hurts the feelings of the Chinese people

China GDP growth at 29-year low as economy feels trade war fallout