Category: China
The two Canadians were arrested shortly after Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou was detained
During interrogation the pair will be put under immense pressure, a former ambassador to China says
China experts are concerned the pair are being used as political hostages
A new Great Game was afoot and the West had been slow to act. But it is acting now.
Operation hang up on Huawei: how it happened
February 24 – Malcolm Turnbull lobbied by US spy agencies to ban Huawei and ZTE from Australian 5G network
August 19 – Turnbull rings US President Donald Trump and tells him of the Huawei, ZTE ban
August 23 – Australia announces Huawei, ZTE ban
August 24 – Turnbull dumped as Prime Minister
October 29 – Mike Burgess explains decision to ban “high risk vendors” from 5G, cites risks to critical infrastructure
November 21 – White House slams China for increasingly frequent cyber attacks
November 27 – New Zealand bans Huawei citing “significant network security risk”
December 1 – Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou arrested in Vancouver
December 7 – British Telecom says it will strip Huawei equipment out of its 3G and 4G networks and will not use in 5G
via How the ‘Five Eyes’ cooked up the campaign to kill Huawei
The USA supports journalists murder in Turkey but not an arms length trade with Iran (ODT
Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s global chief financial officer, was arrested in Canada on December 1 and faces extradition to the United States, which alleges that she covered up her company’s links to a firm that tried to sell equipment to Iran despite sanctions.
Sinophobia promoters like News Corp have an impact that far outweighs the political right-wing bias they are hoping to promote.(ODT
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has ambitions to reshape the global economy by connecting more than 60 countries across Asia, Europe and Africa through trade and infrastructure projects. All told, it’s envisioned that nearly two-thirds of the world’s population will in some way be connected through BRI projects in the future. Some economists estimate BRI could increase global trade by 12%. Despite these benefits, many questions have been raised about China’s motivations for the initiative, and whether Beijing can afford the US$1 trillion it has committed to infrastructure projects and its partners can afford the debt they are taking on. Some fear BRI could be a Trojan horse for global domination through debt traps.
Source: Will an ambitious Chinese-built rail line through the Himalayas lead to a debt trap for Nepal?
“The benefit is simple in that it is very large-scale base load [continuous] energy production, with zero greenhouse gas emissions and no long-life radioactive waste.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-15/china-attempts-to-create-an-artificial-sun/10495536
But given that Trump has also been targeting other countries over trade, defense and energy security, China has company in a lot of disgruntled nations that are perplexed and disappointed by the US leader’s diplomatic unpredictability, unilateralism and meanness.
Trump’s populist willingness to upset and antagonize the whole world in the name of protecting and promoting US jobs and American manufacturers offers Beijing a unique opportunity to reset ties with several affected nations and strengthen its claim to global leadership based on peaceful intentions.
Read more
Russian S-400 air defense system © Sputnik / Russia’s Defense Ministry ‘Sooner than you think’: Trump vows swift reaction to India’s S-400 purchase from RussiaIndia is topmost in this list. As the Sino-US trade war has escalated, Beijing has dispatched delegations to New Delhi to lobby for increased coordination on trade policy and a reduction in tensions between the two giant Asian neighbors.
via Trump’s willingness to antagonize the world triggers China-India rapprochement — RT Op-ed
All thanks to Tony Abbott’s disinterest
The Vanuatu Foreign Minister, Ralph Regenvanu, has welcomed the intensified Chinese investment and aid efforts in his country while conceding it does come with some extra diplomatic pressure. In an extended interview with Independent Australia’s Lee Duffield at his Foreign Ministry office, Mr Regenvanu took stock of incidents upsetting the Australian Government and many Australians, like the story of China wanting a naval base in Vanuatu, which his government has denied.
MAKING AUSTRALIA MORE INTERESTED
via Vanuatu digs in on Chinese presence – Foreign Minister says it’s “great”
The US continues to ramp up its military footprint in Australia, aimed at countering a perceived threat presented from China. With plans to station 2,500 Marines in Darwin, US military presence in the Pacific continues to expand.
Marine Corps presence in Australia has ballooned since the first rotation of 250 troops arrived in the country in 2012. There are currently 1,500 members of the Marine Rotational Force-Darwin stationed in Australia’s Northern Territory along with an array of US weapons and aircraft. That number is to swell to 2,500 “as soon as practicable,” the Department of Defense said following a meeting between the US and Australia this week.
The ever-increasing US military footprint extends across the Pacific region, with some 22,000 Marines stationed in Okinawa, Japan, 7,000 in Guam and 28,500 in South Korea.
via US to bolster its Marines presence in Australia to tackle ‘China threat’ — RT World News
Tony Abbott Closed Radio Australia and opened the door to China in the region. Now the LNP are trying to correct that threatening an economic backlash. A rolling stone gathers moss and it started with Abbott the Pillock of the Pacific the Europhile (ODT)
The security pact, known as Biketawa Plus, is being considered by members of the Pacific Islands Forum and builds on the Biketawa Declaration signed in 2000 that has guided the forum’s collective response to crises such as natural disasters and civil unrest.
The Global Times warned it would be a “strategic mistake” if the new security agreement was aimed at China.
“Instead of being overly cautious about China’s rise, Australia and New Zealand should avoid misleading the region on China’s role, and other regional countries should be clear about the consequences of being misled,” its editorial said.
“The region will only suffer more losses from containing China.”
The New Zealand Government has also copped criticism after it released its Strategic Defence Policy Statement last week which said China was challenging the existing international rules-based order.
At a press conference in Beijing on Monday China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying urged New Zealand to “correct its wrong words and deeds and contribute more to the mutual trust and cooperation between our two countries”.
Remember when PM Tony Abbott was Pivot of the Pacific and he turned his back on them to shirt front Putin. He got rid of Radio Australia and opened the gate. (ODT)
PNG owes China nearly $2 billion arising from concessional loans, according to the ABC – nearly a quarter of its total debt.
Looking north: PNG signs on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative
About 70 countries have signed the memorandum to collaborate. A raft of other “second division” countries are sympathetic. They cover 4.4 billion people and about 40 per cent of global GDP. China expects its annual trade with countries along BRI routes to surpass $US2.5 trillion dollars within the next decade.
Whether you think it’s benign or not depends on your view of China’s global intentions. Australia, for one, is wary.
It’s either a new network for peaceful cooperation or a bid for hegemony.
And, at its centre, is the Chinese Communist Party and its leader for life, Xi Jinping.
Donald Trump’s “Great Friend” (ODT)
China’s middle-income earners had reached 400 million and is still growing.
Charlene Barshefsky, former US chief trade negotiator and China “Because it’s always important to be reminded that the ultimate aspirations most people in the world have are pretty much the same,” she said.:
“Then he took my arm and he waited till someone passed who spoke English, and as translated by this lovely fellow who stopped, he said, ‘I wanted to thank you. My son will have a better life’,” Barshefsky said, appreciating his politeness and how an average Chinese would anticipate the opportunities arising from the country’s entry into the WTO.
“I’ll never forget this,” Barshefsky said. It was the moment she realized the Chinese, too, have common aspirations, including a better life for their children. “He knew what WTO meant…This was completely astonishing to me, he equated economic improvements with personal improvements,” she said.
That equation is what’s missing in the United States, where economic improvement of the country is no longer viewed as personal improvement, she said. It is partly because of the absence of domestic policy measures to distribute US national wealth in a more equitable way, whether through better education, retraining or other measures, which would equate the rest of the country with national growth, she said.
“But this gentleman simply equated economic improvement with personal improvement…,” she said. And in China, “this is the case－there’s been extraordinary degrees of improvement in the lives of the people”.
via In US, national and personal progress are different things – Opinion – Chinadaily.com.cn
Marxism, much more than any other philosophy or school of thought, has influenced China’s modern history. Yet different people assess its impact on China differently.
Chinese leaders have a tradition of rethinking and developing Marxism instead of treating it as written in stone. And therein lies their success
via Marxism integral to modern China – Opinion – Chinadaily.com.cn
The Chinese read our papers and listen to our public commentator’s opinions. Andrew Bolt is an active and consistent News Corp China basher and the consequences aren’t just verbal coming back. Don’t forget Murdoch left or was kicked out of China where no love was lost and his style not forgotten.( ODT }
Australian business leaders said Chinese officials had been furious that China had been singled out for criticism and used as a means to score domestic political points.
One chief executive with close China ties said he had no doubt the trade difficulties being experienced by some Australian exporters was a deliberate tactical move by China.
Last year, China decided to boycott South Korea’s tourism industry due to Seoul’s installation of an American anti-missile system. Chinese tourism numbers to South Korea fell by 60 per cent in a matter of months and Korean car sales to China also plummeted.
Marx was even invoked as a champion of globalisation. Xi gave an apparent dig at the Trump trade delegation across town.
“Countries are more connected and interdependent to each other than ever before. An integrated world is there. Whoever rejects the world, the world will reject them,” said Xi.
Xi said the world had undergone earth-shaking changes since the Communist Manifesto was published 170 years ago, but its general principles were “entirely correct”.
The speech reinforced that China has no intention of following western democratic reforms.
China faced “unprecedented heavy tasks of reform” and challenges and risks in governance, Xi said, but it had to use Marxism to solve its problems.
Chinese car brands are staking a leadership claim in the global race to dominate electric vehicles, unveiling and promoting more than 100 new models at the country’s annual auto show.
News Corp’s best anti- Australian work
China: The freeze in diplomatic relations between China and Australia is on, despite official denials – and business executives are clearly despondent about it.
via China-Australia tension as biggest trading partner gives us the cold shoulder
For all those conservatives who scream the injustice of Socialism. 2% of our population are Indigenous but
- 27.3%
- Percentage of Aboriginal prisoners in Australia in 2016 [46].
- 34.3%
- Percentage of all incarcerated women in Australia who were Aboriginal in 2016; of incarcerated men: 26.7% [46].
- 48%
- Percentage of juveniles in custody who are Aboriginal [32].
- That stigma stays with them for lif
Source: https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/law/aboriginal-prison-rates#ixzz5BKBExIr0
China’s Social Credit system’s + or – could blacklist 10 million people represents 0.0007% of the total population and not all are in jail hardly something Australia should crow over. When our Indigenous pop is the most systemically incarcerated in the worldLike the other 7 million citizens deemed to be “dishonest” and mired in the blacklist, Mr Liu has also been banned from staying in a star-rated hotel, buying a house, taking a holiday, and even sending his nine-year-old daughter to a private school.
And just last Monday, Chinese authorities announced they would also seek to freeze the assets of those deemed “dishonest people”.
Exclusive: Despite official denials, emails reveal discussions about the Indian company’s requests before ministers wrote to a Chinese agency vouching for the $16bn project
via Adani asked Coalition to help secure funding from China, FoI shows | Environment | The Guardian
Australia’s recycling crisis is rooted in an addiction to cheap trash.
Like much of the developed world, we are hooked on dumping our rubbish in China.
For a while, it worked. China’s enormous factories were hungry for our waste paper and plastic and rubber, which they could recycle and sell back to us at a much higher price.
But China has now slammed the door shut on yang laji – “foreign garbage” – and Australia looks set to pay the price for years of complacency.
via Addicted to cheap trash: the roots of our recycling crisis
Australia does a thousands times more to Papua New Guinea and Nauru than what Turnbull et al are complaining China is trying to do to us through the likes of Dastyari. Barnarby Joyce is even threatening New Zealand as part of this process.
Of course, Chinese imperialism is a threat. U.S. imperialism is our day to day reality. But the main enemy is at home. Australian imperialism is the biggest enemy working people in Australia and the region have.
“Most Americans would be amazed to learn that U.S. Special Operations Forces have been deployed to three quarters of the nations on the planet,” observes William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy. “There is little or no transparency as to what they are doing in these countries and whether their efforts are promoting security or provoking further tension and conflict.”
via Global Spec Ops in Trump’s Pentagon: Elite Commandos in record 149 Countries
It looks like the Chinese Communist Party has spread its tentacles far and wide throughout Australian politics, just like other nations. Who is to say who is an agent of influence and who is not? Although maybe we should be a little more concerned about the ones who possess real influence rather than worrying about feeble little Opposition backbenchers overheard fretting about being overheard.
People’s Daily said China had no intention of interfering in Australian politics or using financial contributions to curry influence.
China is Australia’s largest trading partner.
The two countries had no historical enmity or conflicts over each others’ basic interests and could absolutely forge good relations, it said.
China “urges the Australian government and media to cast aside political prejudice and bigotry and stick to the principle of using the facts in handling issues of relations with China”.
People’s Daily said China had no intention of interfering in Australian politics or using financial contributions to curry influence.
China is Australia’s largest trading partner.
The two countries had no historical enmity or conflicts over each others’ basic interests and could absolutely forge good relations, it said.
China “urges the Australian government and media to cast aside political prejudice and bigotry and stick to the principle of using the facts in handling issues of relations with China”. Reports of Chinese influence on Australia ‘hysterical paranoia’, People’s Daily says | Australia news | The Guardian
So eager is the Turnbull government to increase Bill Shorten’s pain over Sam Dastyari’s China connections, that it has dialled to 11 its anti-Beijing espionage/influence warnings, potentially alienating swathes of voters in Bennelong this Saturday. Coalition risks its majority in rush to skewer Bill Shorten over Sam Dastyari
China announced on Thursday (28 September) it would start phasing out fossil fuel cars and set a 10% minimum quota of “new energy vehicles” in 2019, in a move European industry groups called a game changer and a wake-up call for Europe.
Source: EV Game-Changer: China dumping Gasoline Cars even Sooner | Informed Comment
China has given North Korean companies operating in China 120 days to close, including joint ventures with Chinese firms.
Source: China orders North Korean companies in the country out by January
China has started “relevant research” but has not yet decided when the ban would come into force.
Source: China looks at plans to ban petrol and diesel cars – BBC News
Australia is the third most popular destination for ultra-rich Chinese to invest wealth offshore, a new report shows.
Source: China’s richest have $30 trillion to spend, and more investing in Australia
China’s massive, floating solar farm is just the latest in a series of moves geared toward making the nation less reliant on fossil fuels.
Source: The world’s largest floating solar power plant just went online in China
By Denis Bright As the Trump Administration looks inwardly to rehabilitate its domestic economy, China’s President Xi is sprinting ahead with a New Globalization Initiative: The One Belt One Road Project. The recent Belt and Road Summit in Beijing on 13-14 May 2017 attracted representatives from 130 countries including 30 heads of state from all…
Source: All cheers for the new globalization? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Chinese Government is inviting world leaders to Beijing to sell them its hugely ambitious, signature One Belt One Road project.
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump has pronounced solar power “too expensive” and has pledged …
China expressed “serious concern” on Monday after US president-elect Donald Trump said the United States did not necessarily have to stick to its long-held stance that Taiwan is part of “one China”.
Source: China expresses ‘serious concern’ over Trump’s ‘one China’ Taiwan remark
A Chinese TV series about corruption is meant to underline that President Xi Jinping is serious about wiping out graft.
Source: Crocodile meat and piles of cash: China’s lifestyles of the rich and disgraced
Japan protests to China which it says has sent a fleet of more than 200 ships towards disputed islands in the East China Sea.
Source: Chinese fleet sails near Japanese Senkaku islands – BBC News
Australia has been issued with an unusually blunt warning from China.
China says its armed forces will defend its sovereignty and maritime interests.
Source: Tribunal Rules Chinese Have No Legal Claims Over South China Sea
Hong Kong’s richest man said China’s economic outlook is bright in the long term, casting a vote of confidence in a country that’s growing at its slowest pace in a quarter century.
Source: Billionaire Li Ka-Shing Says China’s Economic Outlook Is Bright – Bloomberg
China, a country infamous for its hellish traffic and inexperienced drivers,
As Chinese women face stigma for remaining unmarried past their late 20s, the boyfriends for rent business is booming.
Source: My time as a fake boyfriend to China’s ‘leftover women’ – Al Jazeera English
The 1966-76 Cultural Revolution is a history too long and too tragic to fully conceal.
Source: Breaking the silence on China’s ‘Great Revolution’ – Al Jazeera English
The Turnbull government has again rejected the sale of Australia’s largest private land holding to a Chinese business interests, declaring the proposed deal was not in the national interest.
Source: Scott Morrison’s decision to block S. Kidman and Co sale leaves investors fuming
