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Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

E.R. Campbell said:
The HK Police force is, normally, highly regarded for its professionalism. My, personal sense is that they are equal to the best forces in North America and Europe. But someone, not the whole force, just one supervisor and a couple of officers, blundered and beat up a protestor (actually a few of them) when such action was completely unjustified ~ it was a tiny handful of people venting their frustrations. But it has cost them HUGELY in HK. The people are getting tired of the protests, especially tired of the protests in the Mong Kok area, they want 'freer' flows of traffic in commercial districts, they want the police to open the streets ... but they are, I think, quite horrified by the unjustified beating of some students and angry at the police.

I haven't read that bit of news about the HKPF hitting protesters, but thanks to some good media attention via TV shows starting in the 80s, the (R)HKPF has been put on a bit of a pedestal.  Movies like Infernal Affairs (AKA The Departed) have shown corruption, etc. in the force, but prior to that, at least in the shows I remember from my childhood, the (R)HKPF was portrayed similarly to pre-9/11 US military (think JAG, etc.)
 
A local TV crew filmed what appears to be seven plain-clothes officers kicking a protester while his hands were secured with plastic ties. The officers were identified by the HKP and have been suspended pending an investigation. The incidnt was widely reported in HK, including by the South China Morning Post, and beyond, and the video is available on the internet.
 
Let's see if these soon-to-be unveiled legal reforms next week will actually be effective...especially given Pres. Xi's highly publicized efforts to stamp out corruption.

Reuters

Companies look for more fairness as China eyes legal reforms at key meeting
Sat Oct 18, 2014 7:06pm EDT

By Ben Blanchard and Sui-Lee Wee

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is set to unveil key legal reforms this week that will try to limit the influence local officials have on court cases, a move being closely watched by company executives who hope it will make the legal system more impartial.

The announcement is expected at the end of an Oct. 20-23 meeting of the ruling Communist Party elite, which has made the "rule of law" the theme of the gathering. The meeting, called a plenum, comes at a time when slowing economic growth in the world's second-largest economy is raising the prospect of more commercial disputes.

The business community, in particular Chinese private firms and foreign investors, have long complained about the difficulty of getting a fair hearing in court because judges usually answer to local governments and party organs, which often have their own interests to protect.

Chinese media has recently carried reports on local companies suing each other when a dispute arises, with the parties lodging separate cases in courts in their home provinces, which then inevitably find for the home firm.

In April, Knowles Corp (KN.N: Quote), a New York-listed maker of advanced micro-acoustic products, said its lawyers had been blocked by a provincial court from attending a patent infringement case involving Chinese group GoerTek.

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The F-35 may already be obsolete as China has developed passive detection systems that make stealth technology less effective.

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20141004/DEFREG03/310040023

TAIPEI — America’s most advanced stealth fighter poses a great risk to China’s air defense network — and the military is going to great lengths to learn how to shoot one down.

China claims it has a new passive detection “radar” capable of identifying stealth aircraft, including the more advanced F-22 Raptor fighter based at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam.

 
Xi sending a message to corrupt Chinese officials that no country is a safe haven for them or their financial assets from his anti-corruption campaign:

Reuters

Australia set to help China seize assets of corrupt Chinese officials: paper

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian police have agreed to assist China in the extradition and seizure of assets of corrupt Chinese officials who have fled with hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit funds, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported on Monday.

The joint operation would make its first seizure of assets in Australia within weeks, the newspaper quoted Bruce Hill, manager of Australian Federal Police (AFP) operations in Asia, as saying in an interview.


AFP officials in Canberra had no immediate comment.

China announced in July an operation called Fox Hunt to go after corrupt officials who have fled overseas with their ill-gotten gains, part of President Xi Jinping's broader crackdown on graft.

Getting such cooperation from Australia would be a coup for Beijing, which has struggled to get its hands on suspects in Western countries, whose governments have been reluctant to hand over wanted Chinese because of concerns over whether they would get fair trials back home.

The United States, Canada and Australia are the three most popular destinations for suspected Chinese economic criminals, Chinese state media has said.

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For wanting to see a piece of chaotic, 1930s China, the movie "The Golden Era" might interest you. It's currently showing in some Canadian theatres, with English subtitles.

Cineplex summary: The Golden Era

The Golden Era (Mandarin w/e.s.t.)

SYNOPSIS

In early-1930s Manchuria, twenty-year-old Xiao Hong flees home to escape a despotic, abusive father and an arranged marriage. Independently minded, she sets out to forge a new life in the city of Harbin, unconstrained by the social mores of her times. Soon after, she is abandoned by her lover, left with an unwanted pregnancy and a crushing hotel room debt. When the hotel owner threatens to sell her to a brothel, she writes a last-ditch, near-random plea for help to the editors of the International Gazette. Xiao Jun (Feng Shao Feng), the handsome, hard-drinking young writer sent by the journal to respond to her request, is enthralled by the fascinating young lady and her free spirit. Their intellectual affinity instantly apparent, the two writers become partners in bold, progressive thinking. And so begins not just a one-of-a-kind relationship, but also Xiao Hong's life in letters; the following decade of personal and social upheaval will see her evolve into a brilliant, politically engaged author.
 
A possible concession in the student protesters' talks with the Hong Kong SAR government?

Reuters

Hong Kong leader indicates possible concession as student-govt talks start
Tue Oct 21, 2014 7:06am EDT

By James Pomfret and Clare Baldwin

HONG KONG (Reuters) - The panel chosen to pick candidates for Hong Kong's 2017 election could be made "more democratic", the territory's leader said on Tuesday, the first indication of a possible concession to pro-democracy protesters who have blocked city streets for weeks.

Leung Chun-ying was talking just hours before formal talks got under way between student protest leaders and city officials aimed at defusing the crisis in the former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

"There's room for discussion there," he told reporters. "There's room to make the nominating committee more democratic."

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An update on the Canadian couple accused of spying in China.

If I can recall correctly, this couple had set up a cafe in a town right near China's border with North Korea, if I can correctly.

CBC

Kevin and Julia Dawn Garratt, accused of spying in China, held in near isolation, son says
Canada, China relations strained ahead of Harper trip to China


Thomson Reuters Posted: Oct 24, 2014 5:49 AM ET Last Updated: Oct 24, 2014 9:04 AM ET

A Canadian couple accused of spying near China's sensitive border with North Korea has been kept in near isolation for more than 80 days, their son said, and they have repeatedly been denied access to legal counsel.

Treatment of the couple, who are being held without charge at a remote facility in the border city of Dandong, has seriously strained China's ties with Canada ahead of a planned visit by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for a multilateral summit next month in Beijing.

Kevin and Julia Garratt were allowed to meet briefly for breakfast last week - the first contact they had with each other during their detention.

"It's not their physical health I'm concerned about, it's more their mental health," said their son Simeon Garratt. "You put anybody in a situation like that for 80 days, where you can't talk to anybody else and with no outside contact, and you don't know what could happen. It's not about food or water."

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Bad news for Uighur separatists if China's MSS gets their act together on this:

Reuters

China to improve intelligence coordination in terror fight
Sun Oct 26, 2014 11:43pm EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will seek to improve intelligence gathering and information coordination with an amendment to its anti-terror law, state media said on Monday, following an upsurge in violence in the far western region of Xinjiang.

Hundreds have died in the past two years or so in Xinjiang in unrest blamed by Beijing on Islamists who want to establish a separate state called East Turkestan.


Rights groups and exiles though blame Beijing's repressive policies for stoking resentment among the Muslim Uighur people who call Xinjiang home.

China's anti-terror law will probably be amended this week to set up a national anti-terrorism intelligence system and a platform for sharing information across government departments, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Improving China's anti-terror law will also assist in bettering international cooperation in the fight, it added.

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And some observers, like the editorial staff at The Economist, ass, in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from that newspaper: "For how long can the Chinese economy defy the odds?"

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21627627-new-study-asks-how-long-chinese-economy-can-defy-odds-even-dragons-tire
the-economist-logo.gif

China’s future growth
Even dragons tire

A new study asks how long the Chinese economy can defy the odds

Oct 25th 2014 | From the print edition

THE announcement this week that China’s economy had grown by 7.3% in the third quarter year-on-year was widely seen as marking the country’s “new normal” of slower growth. It was well below the roughly 10% pace China had averaged from 1980 until two years ago. Yet according to a new working paper by Lant Pritchett and Larry Summers of Harvard University, it is still abnormal: Chinese growth is likely to be lower still in future.

Forecasters often extrapolate from recent growth rates, the authors note. The IMF, for instance, projects that Chinese growth will slow almost imperceptibly over the next five years, from about 7.4% this year to 6.3% by the end of the decade. Yet Messrs Pritchett and Summers point out that if it is possible to infer anything from past patterns of growth around the world, it is that economies suffer from “regression to the mean”: growth rates in countries that have been growing fast tend to drop, often sharply, toward the long-run global average (of about 2% growth per year in real GDP per person).

20141025_FNC106.png


Given this tendency, China’s long spell of breakneck growth—of more than 6% a year since 1977—already stands out. It is, the authors reckon, the longest such spell “quite possibly in the history of mankind, but certainly in the data”. In almost every other remotely comparable episode, very fast growth ended in a sharp slowdown, with a median drop in the growth rate of 4.7 percentage points. The IMF’s forecast of China’s growth over the next five years may seem slightly bearish, but it is wildly optimistic by historical standards.

China bulls may ask what it is that will hobble China’s growth, but the authors reckon the question should be reversed: the onus is on the bulls to explain why China should continue to defy history. Slowdowns often occur despite seemingly sound prospects: both Brazil in 1980 and Japan in 1991 looked like juggernauts, yet they managed scarcely any growth at all in real GDP per person over the following 20 years. A slowdown is not a sign of failure, they say; rather, persistent rapid growth suggests unusually good fortune or policy.

In China that has meant a broad move toward more liberal markets. The authors suggest that the way forward is treacherous, however. Richer countries are almost uniformly much more democratic than China. Yet a democratic transition (were China to embark on one) nearly always coincides with a period of falling growth (one notable exception being South Korea in the 1980s). For China to maintain its current rate of growth, in other words, it would have to beat long odds on multiple bets. The surest of historical rules of thumb implies that 20 years from now, China’s economy, measured by market exchange rates, will probably still be smaller than America’s (see chart).


I think we need to look at China as we sa, say, Britain in the 19th century and the USA in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Graph_rel_share_world_manuf_1750_1900_02.png
US-GNP-per-capita-1869-1918.png

                        Britain and the USA demonstrate that sustained periods (40 or 50 years) of fairly steady economic growth are possible, even in the face of competition

I think that there are impediments to sustained 7% growth, but there are also (historical) reasons to believe that, given the current global balances, high levels of growth can continue for 20 or even 30 more years.
 
He should have been aware this would happen to him for working on a sensitive topic:

Reuters

Chinese filmmaker to stand trial for constitution documentary
Mon Oct 27, 2014 1:56am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - A filmmaker who made a documentary on China's constitutional governance will stand trial on charges of "illegal business activity", raising questions about Beijing's promise to uphold the rule of law in accordance with the constitution.

Shen Yongping will be the first person prosecuted for documenting China's constitutional history in a film called "100 years of constitutional governance", his lawyer, Zhang Xuezhong, told Reuters in a telephone interview on Monday.

The trial comes at a time of increased optimism among some Chinese scholars about Beijing's willingness to enforce the supervision of China's Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression.

But Shen's detention and other arrests have eroded some of that optimism. Chinese intellectuals and international rights groups have denounced President Xi Jinping's administration for the worst suppression of human rights in years.

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While Hong Kong has allowed many protests in the past, would Beijing even tolerate this latest set of protests to last that long?? Comparatively, the Tiananmen protests were a few months at the most, if I can recall correctly from what I read.

Reuters

Nine out of 10 Hong Kong activists say will fight on for a year
Tue Oct 28, 2014 12:40pm EDT

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Nearly nine out of 10 Hong Kong protesters say they are ready to stay on the streets for more than a year to push for full democracy to counter China's tightening grip on the city, according to an informal Reuters survey on Tuesday.

For a month now, key roads leading into three of Hong Kong's most economically and politically important districts have been barricaded with wood and steel by thousands of protesters who have set up semi-permanent occupation zones amid a sea of tents.

The so-called "umbrella" movement, named after umbrellas used as flimsy shields against police pepper spray, has become one of the biggest political challenges to face China's Communist Party leadership since it crushed pro-democracy protests in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

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To the aforementioned "string of pearls" perimeter and beyond...  :o

Military.com/Defensetech.org

China’s Submarine Fleet Takes Historic Steps Forward
by KRIS OSBORN on OCTOBER 29, 2014

China’s submarine fleet made its first known trip into the Indian Ocean, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. A Chinese attack submarine passed through the Straits of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia with sightings near Sri Lanka and the Persian Gulf.

It’s the latest report of the significant steps forward the Chinese navy has taken in advancing its submarine fleet. Earlier this year, a U.S. Navy report estimated that the Chinese navy has nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines able to launch strikes against the United States from the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The Chinese navy has ambitious plans over the next 15 years to rapidly advance its fleet of surface ships and submarines as well as maritime weapons and sensors, according to a report by the Office of Naval Intelligence.


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Part 1 of 2

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from Foreign Affairs, is an interesting article by Elizabeth Economy, a pretty well respected commentator on Chinese affairs:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/142201/elizabeth-c-economy/chinas-imperial-president
2-4-Foreign-Affairs-logo.jpg

China’s Imperial President
Xi Jinping Tightens His Grip

By Elizabeth C. Economy
FROM OUR NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2014 ISSUE

Chinese President Xi Jinping has articulated a simple but powerful vision: the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. It is a patriotic call to arms, drawing inspiration from the glories of China’s imperial past and the ideals of its socialist present to promote political unity at home and influence abroad. After just two years in office, Xi has advanced himself as a transformative leader, adopting an agenda that proposes to reform, if not revolutionize, political and economic relations not only within China but also with the rest of the world.

Underlying Xi’s vision is a growing sense of urgency. Xi assumed power at a moment when China, despite its economic success, was politically adrift. The Chinese Communist Party, plagued by corruption and lacking a compelling ideology, had lost credibility among the public, and social unrest was on the rise. The Chinese economy, still growing at an impressive clip, had begun to show signs of strain and uncertainty. And on the international front, despite its position as a global economic power, China was punching well below its weight. Beijing had failed to respond effectively to the crises in Libya and Syria and had stood by as political change rocked two of its closest partners, Myanmar (also known as Burma) and North Korea. To many observers, it appeared as though China had no overarching foreign policy strategy.

Xi has reacted to this sense of malaise with a power grab -- for himself, for the Communist Party, and for China. He has rejected the communist tradition of collective leadership, instead establishing himself as the paramount leader within a tightly centralized political system. At home, his proposed economic reforms will bolster the role of the market but nonetheless allow the state to retain significant control. Abroad, Xi has sought to elevate China by expanding trade and investment, creating new international institutions, and strengthening the military. His vision contains an implicit fear: that an open door to Western political and economic ideas will undermine the power of the Chinese state.

If successful, Xi’s reforms could yield a corruption-free, politically cohesive, and economically powerful one-party state with global reach: a Singapore on steroids. But there is no guarantee that the reforms will be as transformative as Xi hopes. His policies have created deep pockets of domestic discontent and provoked an international backlash. To silence dissent, Xi has launched a political crackdown, alienating many of the talented and resourceful Chinese citizens his reforms are intended to encourage. His tentative economic steps have raised questions about the country’s prospects for continued growth. And his winner-take-all mentality has undermined his efforts to become a global leader.

The United States and the rest of the world cannot afford to wait and see how his reforms play out. The United States should be ready to embrace some of Xi’s initiatives as opportunities for international collaboration while treating others as worrisome trends that must be stopped before they are solidified.

A DOMESTIC CRACKDOWN

Xi’s vision for a rejuvenated China rests above all on his ability to realize his particular brand of political reform: consolidating personal power by creating new institutions, silencing political opposition, and legitimizing his leadership and the Communist Party’s power in the eyes of the Chinese people. Since taking office, Xi has moved quickly to amass political power and to become, within the Chinese leadership, not first among equals but simply first. He serves as head of the Communist Party and the Central Military Commission, the two traditional pillars of Chinese party leadership, as well as the head of leading groups on the economy, military reform, cybersecurity, Taiwan, and foreign affairs and a commission on national security. Unlike previous presidents, who have let their premiers act as the state’s authority on the economy, Xi has assumed that role for himself. He has also taken a highly personal command of the Chinese military: this past spring, he received public proclamations of allegiance from 53 senior military officials. According to one former general, such pledges have been made only three times previously in Chinese history.

In his bid to consolidate power, Xi has also sought to eliminate alternative political voices, particularly on China’s once lively Internet. The government has detained, arrested, or publicly humiliated popular bloggers such as the billionaire businessmen Pan Shiyi and Charles Xue. Such commentators, with tens of millions of followers on social media, used to routinely discuss issues ranging from environmental pollution to censorship to child trafficking. Although they have not been completely silenced, they no longer stray into sensitive political territory. Indeed, Pan, a central figure in the campaign to force the Chinese government to improve Beijing’s air quality, was compelled to criticize himself on national television in 2013. Afterward, he took to Weibo, a popular Chinese microblogging service, to warn a fellow real estate billionaire against criticizing the government’s program of economic reform: “Careful, or you might be arrested.”

Under Xi, Beijing has also issued a raft of new Internet regulations. One law threatens punishment of up to three years in prison for posting anything that the authorities consider to be a “rumor,” if the post is either read by more than 5,000 people or forwarded over 500 times. Under these stringent new laws, Chinese citizens have been arrested for posting theories about the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Over one four-month period, Beijing suspended, deleted, or sanctioned more than 100,000 accounts on Weibo for violating one of the seven broadly defined “bottom lines” that represent the limits of permissible expression. These restrictions produced a 70 percent drop in posts on Weibo from March 2012 to December 2013, according to a study of 1.6 million Weibo users commissioned by The Telegraph. And when Chinese netizens found alternative ways of communicating, for example, by using the group instant-messaging platform WeChat, government censors followed them. In August 2014, Beijing issued new instant-messaging regulations that required users to register with their real names, restricted the sharing of political news, and enforced a code of conduct. Unsurprisingly, in its 2013 ranking of Internet freedom around the world, the U.S.-based nonprofit Freedom House ranked China 58 out of 60 countries -- tied with Cuba. Only Iran ranked lower.

In his efforts to promote ideological unity, Xi has also labeled ideas from abroad that challenge China’s political system as unpatriotic and even dangerous. Along these lines, Beijing has banned academic research and teaching on seven topics: universal values, civil society, citizens’ rights, freedom of the press, mistakes made by the Communist Party, the privileges of capitalism, and the independence of the judiciary. This past summer, a party official publicly attacked the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government research institution, for having been “infiltrated by foreign forces.” This attack was met with mockery among prominent Chinese intellectuals outside the academy, including the economist Mao Yushi, the law professor He Weifang, and the writer Liu Yiming. Still, the accusations will likely have a chilling effect on scholarly research and international collaboration.

This crackdown might undermine the very political cohesiveness Xi seeks. Residents of Hong Kong and Macao, who have traditionally enjoyed more political freedom than those on the mainland, have watched Xi’s moves with growing unease; many have called for democratic reform. In raucously democratic Taiwan, Xi’s repressive tendencies are unlikely to help promote reunification with the mainland. And in the ethnically divided region of Xinjiang, Beijing’s restrictive political and cultural policies have resulted in violent protests.

Even within China’s political and economic upper class, many have expressed concern over Xi’s political tightening and are seeking a foothold overseas. According to the China-based Hurun Report, 85 percent of those with assets of more than $1 million want their children to be educated abroad, and more than 65 percent of Chinese citizens with assets of $1.6 million or more have emigrated or plan to do so. The flight of China’s elites has become not only a political embarrassment but also a significant setback for Beijing’s efforts to lure back home top scientists and scholars who have moved abroad in past decades.
 
Part 2 of 2

A MORAL AUTHORITY?

The centerpiece of Xi’s political reforms is his effort to restore the moral authority of the Communist Party. He has argued that failing to address the party’s endemic corruption could lead to the demise of not only the party but also the Chinese state. Under the close supervision of Wang Qishan, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, tackling official corruption has become Xi’s signature issue. Previous Chinese leaders have carried out anticorruption campaigns, but Xi has brought new energy and seriousness to the cause: limiting funds for official banquets, cars, and meals; pursuing well-known figures in the media, the government, the military, and the private sector; and dramatically increasing the number of corruption cases brought for official review. In 2013, the party punished more than 182,000 officials for corruption, 50,000 more than the annual average for the previous five years. Two scandals that broke this past spring indicate the scale of the campaign. In the first, federal authorities arrested a lieutenant general in the Chinese military for selling hundreds of positions in the armed forces, sometimes for extraordinary sums; the price to become a major general, for example, reached $4.8 million. In the second, Beijing began investigating more than 500 members of the regional government in Hunan Province for participating in an $18 million vote-buying ring.

Xi’s anticorruption crusade represents just one part of his larger plan to reclaim the Communist Party’s moral authority. He has also announced reforms that address some of Chinese society’s most pressing concerns. With Xi at the helm, the Chinese leadership has launched a campaign to improve the country’s air quality; reformed the one-child policy; revised the hukou system of residency permits, which ties a citizen’s housing, health care, and education to his official residence and tends to favor urban over rural residents; and shut down the system of “reeducation through labor” camps, which allowed the government to detain people without cause. The government has also announced plans to make the legal system more transparent and to rid it of meddling by local officials.

Despite the impressive pace and scope of Xi’s reform initiatives, it remains unclear whether they represent the beginning of longer-term change, or if they are merely superficial measures designed to buy the short-term goodwill of the people. Either way, some of his reforms have provoked fierce opposition. According to the Financial Times, former Chinese leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao have both warned Xi to rein in his anticorruption campaign, and Xi himself has conceded that his efforts have met with significant resistance. The campaign has also incurred real economic costs. According to a report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Chinese GDP could fall this year by as much as 1.5 percentage points as a result of declining sales of luxury goods and services, as officials are increasingly concerned that lavish parties, political favor-buying, and expensive purchases will invite unwanted attention. (Of course, many Chinese are still buying; they are just doing so abroad.) And even those who support the goal of fighting corruption have questioned Xi’s methods. Premier Li Keqiang, for example, called for greater transparency and public accountability in the government’s anticorruption campaign in early 2014; his remarks, however, were quickly deleted from websites.

Xi’s stance on corruption may also pose a risk to his personal and political standing: his family ranks among the wealthiest of the Chinese leadership, and according to The New York Times, Xi has told relatives to shed their assets, reducing his vulnerability to attack. Moreover, he has resisted calls for greater transparency, arresting activists who have pushed for officials to reveal their assets and punishing Western media outlets that have investigated Chinese leaders.

KEEPING CONTROL

As Xi strives to consolidate political control and restore the Communist Party’s legitimacy, he must also find ways to stir more growth in China’s economy. Broadly speaking, his objectives include transforming China from the world’s manufacturing center to its innovation hub, rebalancing the Chinese economy by prioritizing consumption over investment, and expanding the space for private enterprise. Xi’s plans include both institutional and policy reforms. He has slated the tax system, for example, for a significant overhaul: local revenues will come from a broad range of taxes instead of primarily from land sales, which led to corruption and social unrest. In addition, the central government, which traditionally has received roughly half the national tax revenue while paying for just one-third of the expenditures for social welfare, will increase the funding it provides for social services, relieving some of the burden on local governments. Scores of additional policy initiatives are also in trial phases, including encouraging private investment in state-owned enterprises and lowering the compensation of their executives, establishing private banks to direct capital to small and medium-sized businesses, and shortening the length of time it takes for new businesses to secure administrative approvals.

Yet as details of Xi’s economic plan unfold, it has become clear that despite his emphasis on the free market, the state will retain control over much of the economy. Reforming the way in which state-owned enterprises are governed will not undermine the dominant role of the Communist Party in these companies’ decision-making; Xi has kept in place significant barriers to foreign investment; and even as the government pledges a shift away from investment-led growth, its stimulus efforts continue, contributing to growing levels of local debt. Indeed, according to the Global Times, a Chinese newspaper, the increase in the value of outstanding nonperforming loans in the first six months of 2014 exceeded the value of new nonperforming loans for all of 2013.

Moreover, Xi has infused his economic agenda with the same nationalist -- even xenophobic -- sentiment that permeates his political agenda. His aggressive anticorruption and antimonopoly campaigns have targeted multinational corporations making products that include powdered milk, medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, and auto parts. In July 2013, in fact, China’s National Development and Reform Commission brought together representatives from 30 multinational companies in an attempt to force them to admit to wrongdoing. At times, Beijing appears to be deliberately undermining foreign goods and service providers: the state-controlled media pay a great deal of attention to alleged wrongdoing at multinational companies while remaining relatively quiet about similar problems at Chinese firms.

Like his anticorruption campaign, Xi’s investigation of foreign companies raises questions about the underlying intent. In a widely publicized debate broadcast by Chinese state television between the head of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and an official from the National Development and Reform Commission, the European official forced his Chinese counterpart to defend the seeming disparities between the Chinese government’s treatment of foreign and domestic companies. Eventually, the Chinese official appeared to yield, saying that China’s antimonopoly procedure was a procedure “with Chinese characteristics.”

The early promise of Xi’s overhaul thus remains unrealized. A 31-page scorecard of Chinese economic reform, published in June 2014 by the U.S.-China Business Council, contains dozens of unfulfilled mandates. It deems just three of Xi’s policy initiatives successes: reducing the time it takes to register new businesses, allowing multinational corporations to use Chinese currency to expand their business, and reforming the hukou system. Tackling deeper reforms, however, may require a jolt to the system, such as the collapse of the housing market. For now, Xi may well be his own worst enemy: calls for market dominance are no match for his desire to retain economic control.

WAKING THE LION

Xi’s efforts to transform politics and economics at home have been matched by equally dramatic moves to establish China as a global power. The roots of Xi’s foreign policy, however, predate his presidency. The Chinese leadership began publicly discussing China’s rise as a world power in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, when many Chinese analysts argued that the United States had begun an inevitable decline that would leave room for China at the top of the global pecking order. In a speech in Paris in March 2014, Xi recalled Napoleon’s ruminations on China: “Napoleon said that China is a sleeping lion, and when she wakes, the world will shake.” The Chinese lion, Xi assured his audience, “has already awakened, but this is a peaceful, pleasant, and civilized lion.” Yet some of Xi’s actions belie his comforting words. He has replaced the decades-old mantra of the former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping -- “Hide brightness, cherish obscurity” -- with a far more expansive and muscular foreign policy.

For Xi, all roads lead to Beijing, figuratively and literally. He has revived the ancient concept of the Silk Road -- which connected the Chinese empire to Central Asia, the Middle East, and even Europe -- by proposing a vast network of railroads, pipelines, highways, and canals to follow the contours of the old route. The infrastructure, which Xi expects Chinese banks and companies to finance and build, would allow for more trade between China and much of the rest of the world. Beijing has also considered building a roughly 8,100-mile high-speed intercontinental railroad that would connect China to Canada, Russia, and the United States through the Bering Strait. Even the Arctic has become China’s backyard: Chinese scholars describe their country as a “near-Arctic” state.

Along with new infrastructure, Xi also wants to establish new institutions to support China’s position as a regional and global leader. He has helped create a new development bank, operated by the BRICS countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa -- to challenge the primacy of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. And he has advanced the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which could enable China to become the leading financer of regional development. These two efforts signal Xi’s desire to capitalize on frustrations with the United States’ unwillingness to make international economic organizations more representative of developing countries.

Xi has also promoted new regional security initiatives. In addition to the already existing Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Chinese-led security institution that includes Russia and four Central Asian states, Xi wants to build a new Asia-Pacific security structure that would exclude the United States. Speaking at a conference in May 2014, Xi underscored the point: “It is for the people of Asia to run the affairs of Asia, solve the problems of Asia, and uphold the security of Asia.”

Xi’s predilection for a muscular regional policy became evident well before his presidency. In 2010, Xi chaired the leading group responsible for the country’s South China Sea policy, which broadened its definition of China’s core interests to include its expansive claims to maritime territory in the South China Sea. Since then, he has used everything from the Chinese navy to fishing boats to try to secure these claims -- claims disputed by other nations bordering the sea. In May 2014, conflict between China and Vietnam erupted when the China National Petroleum Corporation moved an oil rig into a disputed area in the South China Sea; tensions remained high until China withdrew the rig in mid-July. To help enforce China’s claims to the East China Sea, Xi has declared an “air defense identification zone” over part of it, overlapping with those established by Japan and South Korea. He has also announced regional fishing regulations. None of China’s neighbors has recognized any of these steps as legitimate. But Beijing has even redrawn the map of China embossed on Chinese passports to incorporate areas under dispute with India, as well as with countries in Southeast Asia, provoking a political firestorm.

These maneuvers have stoked nationalist sentiments at home and equally virulent nationalism abroad. New, similarly nationalist leaders in India and Japan have expressed concern over Xi’s policies and taken measures to raise their countries’ own security profiles. Indeed, during his campaign for the Indian prime ministership in early 2014, Narendra Modi criticized China’s expansionist tendencies, and he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have since upgraded their countries’ defense and security ties. Several new regional security efforts are under way that exclude Beijing (as well as Washington). For example, India has been training some Southeast Asian navies, including those of Myanmar and Vietnam, and many of the region’s militaries -- including those of Australia, India, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, and South Korea -- have planned joint defense exercises.

A VIGOROUS RESPONSE

For the United States and much of the rest of the world, the awakening of Xi’s China provokes two different reactions: excitement, on the one hand, about what a stronger, less corrupt China could achieve, and significant concern, on the other hand, over the challenges an authoritarian, militaristic China might pose to the U.S.-backed liberal order.

On the plus side, Beijing’s plans for a new Silk Road hinge on political stability in the Middle East; that might provide Beijing with an incentive to work with Washington to secure peace in the region. Similarly, Chinese companies’ growing interest in investing abroad might give Washington greater leverage as it pushes forward a bilateral investment treaty with Beijing. The United States should also encourage China’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major regional free-trade agreement under negotiation. Just as China’s negotiations to join the World Trade Organization in the 1990s prompted Chinese economic reformers to advance change at home, negotiations to join the TPP might do the same today.

In addition, although China already has a significant stake in the international system, the United States must work to keep China in the fold. For example, the U.S. Congress should ratify proposed changes to the International Monetary Fund’s internal voting system that would grant China and other developing countries a larger say in the fund’s management and thereby reduce Beijing’s determination to establish competing groups.

On the minus side, Xi’s nationalist rhetoric and assertive military posture pose a direct challenge to U.S. interests in the region and call for a vigorous response. Washington’s “rebalance,” or “pivot,” to Asia represents more than simply a response to China’s more assertive behavior. It also reflects the United States’ most closely held foreign policy values: freedom of the seas, the air, and space; free trade; the rule of law; and basic human rights. Without a strong pivot, the United States’ role as a regional power will diminish, and Washington will be denied the benefits of deeper engagement with many of the world’s most dynamic economies. The United States should therefore back up the pivot with a strong military presence in the Asia-Pacific to deter or counter Chinese aggression; reach consensus and then ratify the TPP; and bolster U.S. programs that support democratic institutions and civil society in such places as Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Vietnam, where democracy is nascent but growing.

At the same time, Washington should realize that Xi may not be successful in transforming China in precisely the ways he has articulated. He has set out his vision, but pressures from both inside and outside China will shape the country’s path forward in unexpected ways. Some commodity-rich countries have balked at dealing with Chinese firms, troubled by the their weak record of social responsibility, which has forced Beijing to explore new ways of doing business. China’s neighbors, alarmed by Beijing’s swagger, have begun to form new security relationships. Even prominent foreign policy experts within China, such as Peking University’s Wang Jisi and the retired ambassador Wu Jianmin, have expressed reservations over the tenor of Xi’s foreign policy.

Finally, although little in Xi’s domestic or foreign policy appears to welcome deeper engagement with the United States, Washington should resist framing its relationship with China as a competition. Treating China as a competitor or foe merely feeds Xi’s anti-Western narrative, undermines those in China pushing for moderation, and does little to advance bilateral cooperation and much to diminish the stature of the United States. Instead, the White House should pay particular attention to the evolution of Xi’s policies, taking advantage of those that could strengthen its relationship with China and pushing back against those that undermine U.S. interests. In the face of uncertainty over China’s future, U.S. policymakers must remain flexible and fleet-footed.


I agree broadly and generally with both her thesis and her conclusions.
 
Something literally closer to home than other recent articles on China:

Vancity Buzz

NORTH AMERICA’S FIRST CHINESE RENMINBI CURRENCY HUB PROPOSED FOR VANCOUVER

The Vancouver Economic Commission (VEC) has released a new report that presents a case for the city of Vancouver to become Canada’s Chinese renminbi currency hub – the first hub of its kind in the Americas.

Currently, Canadian businesses are hampered by the inability to perform business transactions through converting the Canadian dollar into the Chinese renminbi. The renminbi is not traded freely on global financial markets, meaning there are foreign exchange costs for businesses between Canadian and Chinese companies.

A currency hub in the country means Canadian businesses would be able to purchase the renminbi directly by using the Canadian dollar, reducing costs by potentially billions per year with the eradication of the need to go through foreign exchange transactions. It will reduce supply chain costs, increase bargaining power and create more favourable and transparent pricing of goods.

Within the integrated Asian regional economic bloc, the U.S. dollar is increasingly being replaced by the renminbi as the currency of choice for conducting economic and financial activity. The renminbi is in the process of internationalization and becoming a stable global alternative to the U.S. dollar.

(...SNIPPED)
 
The main event at this year's Zhuhai air show...

Defense News

China Airshow Will Unveil J-31
Nov. 3, 2014 - 11:47AM  |  By WENDELL MINNICK

TAIPEI — A Chinese airshow official has confirmed that China will unveil its stealthy J-31 fighter aircraft at China’s biggest commercial and defense airshow next week in Zhuhai, in the southern province of Guangdong near Hong Kong.

Known officially as the 10th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, the event will be held from Nov. 11-14. About 700 aviation companies and 120 aircraft will participate.

Built by Shenyang Aircraft, this will be the first public demonstration of the twin-engine J-31. The fighter is similar in configuration to the single-engine Lockheed F-35 stealth fighter. Chinese-language military blogs posted photographs of the J-31 practicing demonstration flights at Zhuhai last week.

The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) will be exhibiting the JH-7A and J-10 fighters, Z-8KA helicopter, and the upgraded H-6M medium-range bomber capable of carrying cruise missiles. The Hongdu L-15 Falcon fighter trainer is not yet listed nor is there a press conference. Hongdu has made a special effort at other air shows in the Middle East and Asia to promote the aircraft.

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Plus an older graphic to highlight the similarities and differences between the J-31 and F-35, etc.

417872_506283686104976_425761179_n.jpg
 
Somehow I think the students may be "playing with fire" if they try to bring the fight direct to Beijing.

Reuters

Hong Kong students fine-tune plan to take democracy call to Beijing
Wed Nov 5, 2014 7:37am EST

By Clare Baldwin and Diana Chan

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Students calling for full democracy for Chinese-ruled Hong Kong are hoping to take their protest to Communist Party rulers in Beijing and are expected to announce details of their new battle plan on Thursday.

The plan signals a shift in the focus of the protests in the former British colony away from the Hong Kong government which has said it has limited room for maneuver.

But China is highly unlikely to allow any known pro-democracy activists into Beijing, especially if the trip coincides with this weekend's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum there.

(...SNIPPED)
 
S.M.A. said:
Somehow I think the students may be "playing with fire" if they try to bring the fight direct to Beijing.

Reuters


I agree with you; this will be, I am 100% certain, "a bridge too far."

For reasons I have explained earlier the students can "win" in HK ... it cannot be an immediate, visible "win," but it can be a big win, all the same. But, and it is a Huge BUT, Xi Jinping cannot and will not "lose;" no leader can afford to lose that much face.
 
An update on China's carrier aviation arm:

Chinese Carrier Fighter Now In Serial Production
By: Mike Yeo
Published: November 10, 2014


PLAN_J15_108.jpg

Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark tail number 108


China has put the Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark carrier-borne multirole fighter into serial production, with at least eight production examples known to be flying already. This is in addition to the six J-15 prototypes, some of which conducted carrier trials on board China’s refurbished former Soviet Kuznetsov-class carrier, Liaoning.

Undated photos published on Chinese online forums in October showed J-15s bearing the tail numbers 107 and 108 operating from an undisclosed airfield in China. Both aircraft carried the Flying Shark motif on the tail, along with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ensign on the fuselage, similar to all production J-15s seen so far.

It is worth noting that all production J-15s seen thus far have been powered by the Russian Saturn AL-31 turbofan engine instead of the locally-developed WS-10 Taihang. The Russian engine is still used in a number of aircraft types in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and PLAN.

To date, no WS-10 powered J-15s have been observed in carrier operations. The reason for that reticence to use the WS-10 is unclear, but it is possible that the Chinese are still not satisfied enough with the reliability of the WS-10 to use it for carrier operations.


USNI News
 
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