The Curious Case of a Map and a Disappearing Taiwan Minister at U.S. Democracy Summit
A video feed of a Taiwanese minister was cut during U.S. President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy last week after a map in her slide presentation showed Taiwan in a different color to China, which claims the island as its own. Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that Friday’s slide show by Taiwanese Digital Minister Audrey Tang caused consternation among U.S. officials after the map appeared in her video feed for about a minute. The sources, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the video feed showing Tang was cut during a panel discussion and replaced with audio only – at the behest of the White House.
https://thebeltandnoose.com/the-curious-case-of-a-map-and-a-disappearing-taiwan-minister-at-u-s-democracy-summit/
Chinese Censorship Is Going Global – Beijing is not content to stop stifling free speech at the water’s edge. Western companies and institutions must put liberty before profits.
In late September, the businessman Bill Browder received an unusual alert from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office. Browder, an activist who champions sanctions against government officials complicit in human rights abuses in Russia and around the world, was warned not to travel to countries that honor extradition treaties with Hong Kong. The places he was warded off from included democracies such as South Africa and Portugal. British officials told the activist that, under the terms of a 2020 Hong Kong law, Browder could risk arrest, extradition, trial, and even punishment by the Chinese regime. Browder’s ostensible crime in such a scenario would be his public call for Britain to push back against human rights abuses in Hong Kong.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/26/chinese-censorship-enes-kanter-celtics-browder-is-going-global/
Taiwan’s defense ministry says it is confident Chinese invasion of the island would be very hard
A full Chinese invasion of Taiwan with troops landed and ports and airports seized would be very difficult to achieve due to problems China would have in landing and supplying troops, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said in its latest threat assessment.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/13/taiwan-says-confident-chinese-invasion-would-be-very-hard.html
U.S. Ramps Up Fentanyl Counterattack on Chinese Mainland, as DEA Faces Troubles at Home
“China, to its credit, helped us quite a bit,” says Holske, the former DEA director. “The controls tightened the pipeline of fentanyl that was coming directly to the U.S. and killing Americans.” But Chinese traffickers quickly found another workaround by selling the chemicals to make fentanyl to cartels in Mexico, which put up roadblocks to DEA agents. In the past year alone, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has delayed visas for agents and restricted intelligence sharing in protest of the DEA arrest of a former defense minister on drug-related charges.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/12/14/us_drug_agents_ramp_up_fentanyl_counterattack_on_chinese_mainland_-_as_dea_faces_its_own_troubles_at_home_807483.html
G-7 Raises Concern Over China’s ‘Coercive Economic Policies’ and Human Rights Issues
The Group of Seven (G-7) foreign ministers on Dec. 12 expressed concern over China’s “coercive economic policies” and the challenges posed by the Chinese regime in the East and South China Seas, as well as the human rights violations linked to Beijing, during their first meeting with ASEAN nations.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/g-7-raises-concern-over-chinas-coercive-economic-policies-and-human-rights-issues_4153601.html
China uses quantum satellite to protect world’s largest power grid against attacks
China launched Mozi in 2016 for scientific experiments, but in recent years the satellite has found a growing number of civilian and military applications. Applying quantum communication technology in the energy sector was prompted by national security concerns, lead scientist Zhao Ziyan and his colleagues said in a paper published last month in industry journal Electric Power Information and Communication Technology.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3159234/china-uses-quantum-satellite-protect-worlds-largest-power-grid
Taiwan chipmakers hint at decoupling from the US
The Taiwanese initiative responds to Washington’s extraterritorial sanctions on buyers of US fabricating equipment, imposed by then-president Donald Trump in May 2020. The US asserts the right to block sales of chips produced with US machines or intellectual property.
https://asiatimes.com/2021/12/taiwan-chipmakers-hint-at-decoupling-from-the-us/
China Is Turning Africa Into a Military Base
China has tried to sell the world on the idea that it is a peaceful superpower with only benign intentions, helping developing countries build up their infrastructure with China financing, while at the same time sharing the industriousness and technical expertise of the Chinese people. But when China starts building military bases in other countries it gets hard to keep up that image. China has one military base in Africa already, and according to US intelligence, is trying to build another one on the other side of the continent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79KVP2npcZE
Xi Jinping’s New World Order – Can China Remake the International System?
Yet even as Xi’s ambition and China’s global prominence have become indisputable, many observers continue to question whether Beijing wants to shape a new international order or merely force some adjustments to the current one, advancing discrete interests and preferences without fundamentally transforming the global system. They argue that Beijing’s orientation is overwhelmingly defensive and designed only to protect itself from criticism of its political system and to realize a limited set of sovereignty claims. That view misses the scope of Xi’s vision. His understanding of the centrality of China signifies something more than ensuring that the relative weight of the country’s voice or influence within the existing international system is adequately represented. It connotes a radically transformed international order.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-12-09/xi-jinpings-new-world-order
What’s Behind China’s Regulatory Storm
China’s authorities attracted the world’s attention during 2021 with a series of abrupt and unanticipated regulatory and policy changes. With several strokes of the pen, regulators wiped out hundred of billions of dollars of equity value, and imposed new and more restrictive regulations on a range of sectors, from internet finance to education.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-is-behind-china-regulatory-storm-11638372662
EXCLUSIVE Envoy says China will forego many ‘developing country’ benefits at WTO
China, which has the world’s second largest economy, is this week celebrating 20 years since joining the Geneva-based trade watchdog, during which it has seen outstanding economic growth thanks largely to its participation in global trade. As China has grown richer, trading partners – most notably former U.S. President Donald Trump – have criticised its developing country status, calling it unfair that China gets preferential treatment intended for poorer countries.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/exclusive-envoy-says-china-will-forego-many-developing-country-benefits-wto-2021-12-10/
China’s investment in diplomacy falls, as its global ambitions rise
“We have to form an iron army of diplomats who have the invincible political will, unwavering determination, high ability, and tough spirit to turn new pages for diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era.” But in a reversal of its pre-2020 trajectory of rising spending on diplomacy, Beijing cut its actual outlay on foreign affairs last year by 16.47 per cent, to 51.41 billion yuan (US$8.07 billion).
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3159198/chinas-investment-diplomacy-falls-its-global-ambitions-rise