China faces $4 trillion 'ticking debt bomb' amid financial crisis fear - "China is facing a "dangerous debt bubble" amid the ongoing crisis at the Chinese property giant Evergrande... the true number may be much higher amid attempts by Xi Jinping's officials to hide the amount of borrowing needed to fuel China's massive housing and infrastructure boom... "In 2018 Standard and Poor's came out with a report estimated that hidden government debt could be well over $4 trillion. "And this $4 trillion bomb now looks set to explode. "China tried to clean the house quietly but the defaults, have brought the truth.""
Analysis: If Xi secures just 5 more years, he loses - Nikkei Asia - ""If all he gets is another five-year term as party general secretary, leaving prospects for his ultra-long-term reign unclear, it will, in effect, be a defeat," one Chinese political source whispered recently. His grip on the party will gradually weaken, the person said. The comment reflects a delicate atmosphere that has lingered for more than two months since the "third resolution on history" was adopted at the sixth plenary session of the Chinese Communist Party's 19th Central Committee in November... If possible, he wants to become the top leader for life. One way to do this is for him to become "party chairman," a post last held by Mao. But if Xi is to win that title at the upcoming national congress he would need solid achievements on par with Mao's... Coincidentally, Jan. 18 marked the 30th anniversary of one of Deng's milestones. On Jan. 18, 1992, Deng embarked on his famous southern tour. He spent about a month inspecting Hubei Province, Guangdong Province and Shanghai, calling for reforms and opening up to be accelerated... Thirty years on, with China keen to highlight Xi's new era, there have been no big events to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Deng's southern tour. Openly praising Deng's achievements has become dangerous... At the sixth plenary session in November, Xi vowed to "crack down on party figures who have been absorbed into interest groups, powerful groups and privileged classes." His full remarks from that November event were not released until January. They are, in effect, a declaration of war on those within the party. One source familiar with Chinese politics said that the interest groups targeted by Xi include tech giants such as Ant Group, Alibaba Group and Didi, major property developers such as China Evergrande Group and Fantasia Holdings Group, as well as the tutoring school industry. This cluster of private companies tends to be close to the politicians who pretend to obey Xi but secretly hold grudges; the companies often financially back such political forces. Among these forces is the Shanghai clan, led by former President Jiang Zemin and his close aide former Vice President Zeng Qinghong. They maintain strong influence in political and bureaucratic circles that move the economy. Alarmed by them, Xi is now poised to take a tough stance against their two-faced attitudes... The successful fight against corruption is about Xi's only achievement. And with the Chinese economy slumping, Xi has no choice but to barrel ahead with his signature campaign to take down enemies."
China's pan-Asian railway sputters to a halt in Thailand - Nikkei Asia - "China's plan to build a pan-Asian railway through the Indochina region is sputtering as construction of a connection to Thailand has stalled due to deteriorating ties and both countries' diverging priorities."
Analysis: Xi's 'common prosperity' puts cake debate back in oven - Nikkei Asia - "Amid growing signs of weakness in the Chinese economy, President Xi Jinping's policies are facing headwinds as he pursues the goal of "common prosperity," or sharing the fruits of development... China's gross domestic product in the July-September quarter grew at a slower-than-expected pace of 4.9% in real terms, the government announced on Oct. 18. Furthermore, the official manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index, or PMI, stood at 49.2 in October, the government announced on Sunday. It is the lowest reading since February 2020, when the Chinese economy was hit directly by the coronavirus. These are serious signs of weakness in China's economy. Usually, economic data sets like these are reported to the nerve center of the Chinese government about 10 days before they are publicly announced. According to informed sources, top leadership, shocked by the economy's rapid deterioration, held a secret emergency meeting to discuss how to cope with the situation... the Xi administration recently sent another signal to the business world. Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma Yun in the second half of October abruptly went on what China calls an overseas inspection tour of Spain and the Netherlands, according to a Hong Kong newspaper affiliated with Alibaba. It was thought in some quarters that Ma had been restricted from traveling abroad after his Ant Group, the financial arm of Alibaba, was forced to delay its dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong one year ago. If that view is correct, then the restrictions have been lifted. Said a private-sector source, "It is a signal of easing tensions sent to the business world by the leadership, which has become aware of an adverse impact of crackdowns on businesses." Will China continue to send pro-business messages? Or will it revert to tightening its grip? Only Xi knows."
stalinist gaming ☭ on Twitter - "leftists should treat uyghur genocide believers as harshly as we treat white genocide believers"
China's Xi Jinping Could Make Same Mistakes as Kaiser Wilhelm II - Bloomberg - " Scholars call this kind of conflict spiral a “Thucydides trap.” It’s the apparent tendency, throughout history, toward war whenever a rising nation challenges an incumbent power. The label comes from the ancient Greek historian who so perceptively chronicled the complex Peloponnesian War, which he believed was ultimately caused by the rise of Athens and the fear this provoked in Sparta. But in the case of the U.S. and China, there’s a much better analogy, as these historians and economists have described. It is the struggle between the British Empire and the up-and-coming German Empire after its unification in 1871... Diplomatically, it helped that Germany in the 19th century and China more recently at first had leaders sophisticated enough to make their own countries stronger without risking an all-out conflagration. In the first case, this was Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who masterminded Germany’s rise under two Kaisers until he was fired by the third, Wilhelm II, a vain and insecure character who felt as threatened by “experts” as Trump does today. Bismarck’s analogue in China was Deng Xiaoping, who as “paramount leader” oversaw China’s industrialization, but without openly antagonizing the Americans. Under one of his successors, Hu Jintao, this policy of avoiding the Thucydides trap — and specifically the Anglo-German precedent which Beijing had studied in depth — became official doctrine under the label “peaceful rise.” But eventually the zeitgeist changed. Wilhelm II, a cousin of King George V, on one hand admired and envied everything English and on the other projected a crude and jingoistic militarism, changing uniforms several times a day. Chinese President Xi Jinping esteems the U.S. enough to send his daughter (under a pseudonym) to get a degree from Harvard University. But his foreign policy is known as “wolf warrior diplomacy,” after a buffoonish film about Chinese studs kicking Western butts."
WeChat, Banned by Trump, Is Vital but Dangerous for Chinese Diaspora - " WeChat has thus become a complete digital ecosystem where people in China lead their entire digital lives, and they are trapped in its controlled information environment without meaningful choice. Anyone outside the country who wants to connect with people in China has to use what is available in China and thus also gets sucked into the Chinese government’s machinery of censorship and surveillance. International WeChat users are estimated at between 100 million and 200 million; there are an average of 19 million daily active users in the United States. A recent study by Citizen Lab showed that WeChat surveils its users outside China to build up the database it uses to censor China-registered accounts. As international users are governed by terms of service and privacy policies of Singapore, it is unclear whether WeChat shares this information with the Chinese government. But it is essential to remember that all Chinese companies are subject to government control. Those free speech implications don’t just apply inside China. The centrality of WeChat in information acquisition and communication among the Chinese diaspora, especially first-generation immigrants from China, should be a source of real concern elsewhere. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been interviewing members of the Chinese diaspora around the world on the Chinese government’s activities undermining human rights abroad. A reoccurring problem I run into is that some of my sources only wanted to use WeChat to communicate, mainly because they had not installed any other messaging apps... The pull of WeChat is so strong that communication among first-generation Chinese immigrants is often exclusively done via the app... because WeChat is a payment app as well, it can see to whom they send money or from whom they get it or even who pays for dinner. WeChat is also where many members of the Chinese diaspora obtain information, including about the countries they immigrated to. A survey of Mandarin speakers in Australia found that 60 percent of those polled identified WeChat as their primary source of news and information, while only 23 percent said they regularly accessed news from mainstream Australian media such as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Sydney Morning Herald. Some of the most popular publications catering to the diaspora originated on WeChat. In order to attract readership, traditional Chinese-language media outlets now also publish through WeChat. In this sense, news produced by a local Chinese-language outlet in New York goes through censors in Beijing before it reaches the Chinese-speaking community in New York... The impact of living online in WeChat’s ecosystem means that people outside China are subjected to the same censorship and propaganda, which shapes their worldview in ways more amenable to the Chinese government."
Tencent’s WeChat Is China’s Everything App, and the ‘We’ Is Increasingly Suspect - Bloomberg - "foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin telling reporters on Aug. 7 that it was “nothing short of bullying.” He said, “The U.S. side has put selfish interests above market principle and international rules to the detriment of American users and companies.” Political manipulation and oppression “will only end up with its demoralization, eroded national image, and trust deficit.”... Even news of the executive orders themselves has vanished from the platform, according to Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. “We found that WeChat blocked a few Chinese and English keyword combinations referencing the executive orders, China’s information control apparatus, as well as related accusations of Tencent’s involvement in the apparatus,” says Lotus Ruan, a researcher at Citizen Lab. Tencent has offered no comment on the allegation. Citizen Lab has noted that it had no evidence that surveillance of overseas users was at the “direction of the Chinese government.” The keyword and photo deletions, however, align with official pronouncements—perhaps even more so. In a Citizen Lab experiment using WeChat and Weixin, even passages from Chinese state media reports that used keywords were blocked. Zhou Fengsuo, a former student leader during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and a naturalized American citizen living in the U.S., says his WeChat account has been temporarily suspended numerous times over the past seven years. “WeChat censorship is so obvious that people are no longer sensitive about it,” he says. “My account is dealt with in the same way as Chinese accounts, which are under surveillance all the time.” Shortly after Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo died in 2017, Zhou says he couldn’t commemorate Liu by sharing photos of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and his wife with friends on WeChat, or on the app’s semi-public feed. Images he’s sent to people in group chats never made it through, nor did many messages he sent as part of conversations with users based in the mainland as well as overseas. “You have to acknowledge the fact that there’s no way to communicate privately with people inside the Great Firewall,” he says. “You should assume that everything is transparent.” Zhou says that, according to China-based activists he’s talked to, political dissidents who use the app to advocate against the regime are reported to authorities who then visit them to threaten retaliation. To the Trump administration, the national security concerns surrounding WeChat go beyond Communist Party surveillance, censorship, and the silencing of activists. There is the “Chinese appetite for large volumes of sensitive personal data”.. WeChat is also used, Demers said, as a messaging tool to try to maintain the loyalty of Chinese studying overseas. “Here’s the goal of the Chinese government: Send the Chinese students here to reap all the benefits of the U.S. technical education, but do not allow them to get polluted by ideas like liberal democracy or religious freedom”... One, for example, warned Chinese people in the U.S. of the possibility of a terrorist threat occurring during the July 4 holiday celebrations. “They message how dangerous the U.S. is. Don’t go out there and get to know the country”... Cybersecurity experts agree that a ban on WeChat and even TikTok for its mass collection of personal user data should be on the table when it comes to national security"
Given that China bans foreign apps, their hypocrisy is rich
Chinese official finance and political participation in Africa - "Media outlets globally have been reporting about civil protests against Chinese investments in Africa. We provide new evidence on this controversial topic and investigate the influence of Chinese official projects on political participation in 54 African countries between 2000 and 2014. Using 50 × 50 km cells as the unit of analysis, we match data on the occurrence of protests and other forms of political participation to georeferenced data on projects financed by the Chinese government. We find that cells which receive a larger number of projects are more likely to experience protests. Further, our analysis suggests that citizens’ heightened perception of China's rising influence on the domestic economy and lowered trust in the local government are two channels through which projects might motivate local protests."
i.e. Chinese investment in Africa pisses Africans off. Apparently they don't value the new roads and railway lines as much as China shills think they do, and ordinary Africans don't want to be colonised by China
Amazon Removed Reviews of Xi Jinping's Book on Orders From Beijing: Report - "Amazon elected to remove all comments and reviews tied to a listing on its Chinese site marketing the speeches and writings of the country's Communist leader Xi Jinping after Beijing issued an order demanding the feedback be removed from its site. This action took place about two years ago but reportedly wasn't covered until Reuters released a "special report""
Chinese actress told to remove a social media post if she wants her complaint of high electricity bills resolved - "A veteran Chinese actress received a warning from China’s internet censors to remove a post complaining about her high electricity bills if she wants the matter to be resolved. Ma Ling had posted her bills on Weibo after finding a sharp increase and this led to heated discussions among Chinese social media users... The images, posted on October 23, showed her bill for July had shot up to 130,000 yuan (RM84,504) from the normal rate of less than 1,000 yuan (RM649) monthly."
Facebook - "Credit where credit's due: President Joe Biden just signed into law the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, a rare bipartisan bill that overwhelmingly passed both chambers in Congress. Crucially, it creates a presumption that all goods coming from Xinjiang are made with forced labor. Businesses will have to prove that forced labor played no part in a product to bring it into the United States. This is a de facto ban on imports from Xinjiang, putting the onus on importers to do their due diligence. This bill took a sinuous path, meandering through the House for two years to get to a point where it ended up on Biden's desk. It faced opposition* from companies like Nike, Apple, Patagonia, Coca-Cola. Xinjiang is a resource-rich mining region, important for agricultural production, particularly cotton and sugar, and home to a booming industrial and manufacturing sector. Rights groups and journalists have reported instances of forced sterilization and large detention camps where Uyghrs are compelled to work in factories. High-tech surveillance systems which utilize biometric facial recognition and DNA databases are part of the systematic effort to suppress Uyghurs. China says the steps are necessary to combat terrorism and a separatist movement. Forced labor is nothing more than a euphemism for slavery. These very same companies have adopted social issues into their brand identities, saying virtuous things about the legacy of slavery here in the US but surprise surprise, they actively campaigned to ignore modern slavery that exists and is occurring right now in lieu of profit margins. If this were antebellum America, you know they'd be arguing against abolition. This law is a small step toward ending our corporate dependence on China, and a large step toward ending our role in the moral depravity of partaking in Uyghur repression. Also, 3 cheers for our government. This is how it's supposed to work."
Lynn Hu: Chinese Canadians should not have to fear retaliation for speaking about China - The Hub - "while most Canadians were relieved to learn of the release of the two Michaels after over 1,000 days of detention in China, posts on the popular Chinese social media WeChat shared by some of my Chinese Canadian friends told a vastly different version of the story. Parroting the nationalistic rhetoric commonly found in Chinese state media, they cheered with genuine enthusiasm the release of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou (instead of the two Michaels), whom they believed to be the victim of a political prosecution led by the U.S. To them, her release signaled the display of rising Chinese power on the international stage and their pride of coming from such a powerful country. Their legal status as permanent residents or citizens of Canada were secondary to and separate from their nationalistic identities as Chinese. Due to a combination of language barrier and cultural affinity, a large number of Chinese Canadians and immigrants still consume exclusively or predominately Chinese-language media and social media here in Canada. This is no small matter as Mandarin is now the largest non-official language spoken in Canada (followed by Cantonese), according to the 2016 Census by Statistics Canada. As Beijing works to tighten its grip on Chinese-language media outside of China through government organizations like the United Front Work Department, those segments of new immigrants and Chinese Canadians remain susceptible to CCP-directed misinformation and propaganda. Despite being outside of the Chinese Great Firewall, it’s as if they are still living in a filter bubble or a world with “alternative facts” distinct from the rest of Canada. As a result, they are particularly prone to exploitation by the Chinese government and pressured to exert foreign interference in Canada. Or, out of nationalistic convictions, they are induced to voluntarily do its bidding by cancelling or reporting public criticisms of the Chinese Communist Party and its policies... some Chinese Canadians are the toughest critics of the CCP (such as the followers of Falun Gong), having been on the receiving end of the Chinese government’s political oppressions and human rights violations. However, these liberal-minded Chinese people not only find themselves increasingly censored in China, but face similar threats by their Chinese peers here in Canada as well. Back in the pre-COVID days of August 2019, a few hundred Hong Kong Canadians and their supporters gathered outside of the Old City Hall in Toronto to march in support of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. They were soon stopped by a group of Chinese counter-protestors, who saw the pro-democracy protests as an attempt to assert Hong Kong independence and a grave assault to the integrity of the Chinese sovereignty. A similar instance occurred in the same year at University of Toronto-Scarborough, when Chemi Lhamo, a Tibetan-Canadian student-union president received verbal threats and online attacks by other Chinese students for her activism work with Free Tibet. In British Columbia, former editor-in-chief of Global Chinese Press Inc. Lei Jin was fired from his job for simply writing about the death of Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and critic of the one-party rule in China. Cases like these create an atmosphere of fear for any Chinese Canadians and immigrants with some financial or family ties in China, particularly those from Hong Kong given the new National Security Law implemented in the region. Should they be reported to the Chinese embassy or consulate for critical speech on China, they could be subjected to harassments and surveillance even while in Canada, or risk their family members in China being visited by the local police. This is all happening in Canada — a free and democratic nation with legal protection of individual rights. Canadians should be gravely concerned about these threats to academic freedom, freedom of speech, and the independence of our media. Any potential means of foreign interference must be thoroughly investigated... In keeping with the Chinese government’s concerted efforts to conflate concepts of party, country, and personal identity, any criticism of the CCP or its policies can be taken by them as xenophobic comments against China, or racist affronts to their cultural identity. These accusations are often mixed together with actual instances of anti-Chinese racism and discrimination (also on the rise since the COVID outbreak), making the latter cases even harder to address."
China trying to portray criticism of government as racism, says report - "Australian politicians need to push back against Beijing's complaints that criticism of its Communist regime is tantamount to racism, one of the nation's top China experts says. Swinburne University Emeritus Professor John Fitzgerald warns the Chinese government is attempting to drive a wedge between Australian communities and silence criticism by distorting legitimate commentary and reporting on its activities"
A Legal Settlement Shows the Risks of Doing Business in China - WSJ - "China lacks the rule of law, but that doesn’t stop Chinese companies from taking advantage of the U.S. legal system. A California bankruptcy court judge last week approved a settlement agreement between the state-owned Aviation Industry Corp. of China, or AVIC, its subsidiaries and two American entities and their co-claimants. After years of litigation and under some duress, the Americans agreed to walk away with less than a third of the more than $85 million they were owed under an arbitrator’s judgment... That rich legal record should serve as a warning to any American considering business with AVIC, its subsidiaries or other Chinese state-owned enterprises."
14,000 Game Companies In China Have Gone Out Of Business - "China’s freeze on video game licenses continues. South China Morning Post notes that the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) has not released a list of newly approved titles since July 2021. Because of this, state-run newspaper Securities Daily reports, approximately 14,000 small game studios and video game connection companies, including those involved in merchandising or publishing, have gone under."
It’s Getting More Likely The Japanese Would Fight For Taiwan - "Increasingly, the Chinese navy and air force are exploring indirect approaches to Taiwan that could allow them to bypass the stiffest beach defenses. It’s not for no reason that the air force has been sending bigger and bigger formations of fighters, patrol planes and bombers around Taiwan into the vast expanse of the Philippine Sea east of the island country."
China Uses YouTube Influencers to Spread Propaganda - The New York Times - "“China is the new super-abuser that has arrived in global social media,” said Eric Liu, a former content moderator for Chinese social media. “The goal is not to win, but to cause chaos and suspicion until there is no real truth.”... When the YouTubers travel on the state dime, official organizers shape what they see and do. Not long ago, Lee Barrett, an influencer named Matt Galat and two creators from Mexico held a livestreamed discussion about a trip they took to Xi’an with the state broadcaster China Radio International. The organizers asked Mr. Galat to deliver a speech praising a place he had yet to see, he said during the discussion. He refused. During another part of the trip, Mr. Galat was frustrated that a visit to a sacred mountain was cut from the schedule. “They had to fit in more propaganda visits,” he said. Mr. Galat later removed the stream of the discussion from his channel. He declined to say why."
The foreigners in China’s disinformation drive - "Foreign video bloggers denouncing what they say is negative coverage of China on highly controversial subjects such as Xinjiang are attracting large numbers of subscribers on platforms like YouTube... The vloggers include British expatriates Barrie Jones, Jason Lightfoot and father-and-son team Lee and Oli Barrett, who use their platforms to comment on the West's alleged "lies" and China's government policies... Earlier videos on their personal channels focus on navigating daily life within China. More recent videos, however, have become overtly political; they staunchly defend China's rhetoric on topics ranging from Covid-19, to Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Many of these YouTubers have hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and their videos are fiercely promoted and commented on by nationalist users... China's 1982 constitution guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press. However, Chinese vloggers and citizen journalists are often detained or arrested for making videos deemed to be unfavourable by the authorities. In December 2020, citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was jailed for four years after making a number of vlogs during Wuhan's coronavirus outbreak. Expat vloggers like the Barretts and Jason Lightfoot, however, appear to be in a comparatively privileged position with significant access, and in some cases facilitated by local officials or state media in China. The Barretts have attended multiple government-sponsored events. In one of his videos, Lee Barrett comments that organisations like state-owned China Radio International will "offer to pay for the transport, the flights [and] accommodation" in exchange for him and his son commenting on their trip in state media... Lee Barrett has been listed as a "global stringer" on CGTN's website in recent videos on Xinjiang - that is, somebody who reports for the broadcaster, but is not a staff employee. Jason Lightfoot is also on its list of stringers. The station billed him as a vlogger critical of "distorted reports" by Western media outlets... some videos on their personal channels are subsequently uploaded to and endorsed by government media accounts. A video featuring Barrie Jones was not only uploaded to CGTN's YouTube account, it was used by China's foreign ministry in a daily government press briefing. In the video - titled "How do some Western media twist facts about Xinjiang?" - Mr Jones claims to have "worked for a newspaper in England… Britain's largest daily circulation newspaper for six years". Some state media publications have referred to Mr Jones as a former British journalist, yet the BBC found no evidence to support this, and his channel is peppered with grammatical and punctuation errors. When asked about his journalism experience, Mr Jones told the BBC "where and when" he worked as a journalist "is not your concern". He stood by his claim to have worked for a newspaper but declined to give any further information. He also denied being "paid, prompted, or coerced in any way". It's unclear why China's foreign ministry presented him as a credible voice at its news conference. Mr Jones, who also regularly promotes conspiracy theories, denied that his videos had become more political and described claims that he is part of a disinformation campaign as "laughable"... There appears to be a growing network of foreigners being pulled into Chinese state media campaigns. On its website, CGTN says it currently has more than 700 "global stringers" worldwide, to whom it offers "international visibility" and "bonuses". It aims to expand its influencer pool further by offering cash rewards of up to $10,000 (about £7,190) to reporters, podcasters, presenters and influencers who join its newly-launched "media challengers" campaign. Jason Lightfoot, and Lee and Oli Barrett have appeared in promotional material for this campaign... Israeli vlogger Raz Gal-Or has posted videos of his recent trips to the region. Mr Gal-Or claims he was invited into people's homes and farms in Xinjiang and says in a video he was able to interview "random Xinjiang locals". However it appears he was accompanied on his trip by a film crew from CGTN, who later shared footage of his video on their YouTube channel. This experience contrasts with the surveillance, harassment and obstruction faced by the BBC and other media when attempting to report freely in Xinjiang... All of the named vloggers, who are able to monetise their videos, have quickly racked up tens of thousands of views on their channels, as well as hundreds of comments from highly-active, nationalist commenters, despite YouTube being officially blocked in China. Australian cybersecurity researcher Robert Potter from Internet 2.0 says that although some videos attract genuine views and support, there is evidence that fake bot accounts are fiercely promoting others... During the 2019 Hong Kong protests, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube said they witnessed a co-ordinated attempt by the Chinese government to spread disinformation on their channels. Google said attempts were made to "disguise the origin of these accounts", and platforms took swift action to remove them. News website Sixth Tone also noted in May how "click farms" increasingly operate on Chinese social media to boost local influencers' presence. In 2020, China's advertising association banned companies from using click farms for commercial gains. But operations to inflate propaganda are permissible. It's unclear what drives the foreign vloggers - whether they believe in China's messaging or are motivated by the lure of local fame and fortune instead. The BBC put this question to Lee Barrett and Barrie Jones and asked why their videos had become more patriotic, but we received evasive responses. The Barretts posted on Twitter when approached for this article, describing it as a "hit piece" by the "anti-China biased BBC". The motivation for China's government media working with the expat vloggers, however, seems clear enough at a time when there is growing international criticism of China for its treatment of Uyghur Muslims and on other issues."
Martial arts star Jackie Chan wants to join the Chinese Communist Party, but China doesn’t want him | South China Morning Post - "Martial arts legend Jackie Chan has expressed his admiration for and desire to join the Chinese Communist Party, but some Chinese people have said he is not welcome. Many have said on social media that he has cheated on his wife and that his son has used drugs, both of which would disqualify him from membership."
Douglas Todd: Young Chinese Communist revolutionized by move to Canada - "The world began opening up for Anastasia Lin after she arrived in Metro Vancouver as a 13-year-old from China, where she had been a fiercely patriotic leader in the Young Pioneers, a Communist organization... Since a pivotal moment in 2015, when she was barred from re-entering the land of her birth, Lin has been warning of the threat China poses to the world and especially its overseas critics. She has experienced the intimidation. After Lin was crowned Canada’s Miss World in 2015 and was refused entry to China to take part in the Miss World competition, she began to make headlines around the world as an actress and human-rights advocate. Lin has been on the front pages of global newspapers, given talks at Oxford and other universities, met with leading politicians and worked in the film industry, all while getting out the message China’s leaders are infiltrating the West and bullying dissenters... Her businesswoman mom, and her side of the family in China, have already been hounded by security agents and by ethnic Chinese in Canada who demand she make her daughter stop saying the leaders of China are a danger. Heightening the intensity, Lin suggests the hard squeeze put on her mother and family has been relatively moderate compared to the repression falling on her businessman father in China. “My father has been pressured to the point of breaking,” she says. “Two sentences into our phone calls he now starts telling me: ‘You have to go to the Chinese consulate, you have to submit an apology letter, you have to love China.’ It’s come to a point where talking has just become traumatic for both of us. And we know on the other side of the phone, there is someone listening.”... One of the accusations the Chinese Communist Party and its backers make against anyone who tries to speak out is they are fomenting anti-Chinese racism, said Lin. But while aware any ethnic group can be stereotyped, she said “Chinese leaders do it to try to shield themselves from being scrutinized for their brutal human-rights abuses in China. They claim they’re Chinese people’s protector. But it’s the biggest hypocrisy.”"
China's secret loan contracts reveal clout over developing nations - Nikkei Asia - "The terms of China's loan deals with developing countries are unusually secretive and require borrowers to prioritize repayment of Chinese state-owned banks ahead of other creditors... "China is the world's largest official creditor, but we lack basic facts about the terms and conditions of its lending," the authors, including Anna Gelpern, a law professor at Georgetown University in the United States, wrote in their paper. The researchers at AidData, the Washington-based Center for Global Development (CGD), Germany's Kiel Institute and the Peterson Institute for International Economics compared Chinese loan contracts with those of other major lenders to produce the first systematic evaluation of the legal terms of China's foreign lending... Their analysis uncovered several unusual features to the agreements that expanded standard contract tools to boost the chances of repayment, they said in the 77-page report. These include confidentiality clauses that prevent borrowers from revealing the terms of the loans, informal collateral arrangements that benefit Chinese lenders over other creditors and promises to keep the debt out of collective restructurings - dubbed by the authors as "no Paris Club" clauses, the report said. The contracts also give substantial leeway for China to cancel loans or accelerate repayment... Scott Morris, a senior fellow at CGD and co-author of the report, said the findings raised questions about China's role as one of the G20 group of major economies that has agreed a "common framework" designed to help poorer nations cope with the financial pressure of COVID-19 by allowing them to overhaul debt burdens. The framework calls for comparable treatment of all creditors, including private lenders, but he said most of the contracts examined prohibit countries from restructuring those loans on equal terms and in coordination with other creditors. "That's a very striking prohibition, and it seems to run counter to the commitments the Chinese are making at the G20," Morris told Reuters, though he added that it was possible China would simply not enforce those clauses in its loan contracts."
Damn CIA, forging documents again!
