Hong Kong detains 8 people on eve of Tiananmen Square anniversary
Source: AP
By KANIS LEUNG
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police detained eight people, including activists and artists, on the eve of the 34th anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown, a move that signals the city’s shrinking freedom of expression.
Police said in a statement late Saturday that four people have been arrested for allegedly disrupting order in public spaces or carrying out acts with seditious intent. Four others were taken away for investigation on suspicion of breaching public peace. Authorities did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Saturday.
For decades, tens of thousands of Hong Kongers held an annual candlelight vigil in Victoria Park each June 4 to commemorate the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, in which tanks rolled into the heart of Beijing and hundreds, possibly thousands, of people were killed.
During the pandemic, protests in Hong Kong were rare due to COVID-19 restrictions. In addition, many activists there have been silenced or jailed after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law following massive protests in 2019. When the British handed Hong Kong to Beijing in 1997, it was promised 50 years of self-government and freedoms of assembly, speech and press that are not allowed on the Chinese mainland, but critics say those freedoms are being eroded.
Why China’s 45-Year Reform Anniversary Matters Globally by Dan Steinbock
July 3, 2023
Introduction:
(Eurasia Review) At the 45-year anniversary of economic reforms and opening-up, China’s continental economy is driving global economic prospects and fostering inclusive global cooperation.
Starting from the late 1970s, when the Chinese reform and opening-up policy was launched, the Communist Party of China (CCP) has focused on the de-collectivization of agriculture, opening the country to foreign investment and advanced technology, and encouraging entrepreneurship – which was also the topic of the World Economic Forum’s “Summer Davos” in Tianjin, northern China.
With nationwide industrial takeoff, economic reforms broadened in the 1980s, as price controls and protectionist policies and regulations were lifted in many industries.
From Shenzhen to the Greater Bay Area
Nothing exemplifies the success of Chinese reforms more than Shenzhen in the southern Guangdong province. In 1979, it was still a poor fishing village with some 20,000 inhabitants struggling at a subsistence level. Today, it has an urban population of almost 18 million and its GDP per capita exceeds $27,000 (nominal), which is at par with Portugal and Bahrain. In this process, a special catalyst role belongs to the Special Economic Zones (SEZs), which were initiated in the big first-tier cities of coastal China.
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Conclusion
Today, the emerging world economy thrives on inclusive globalization, which seeks to lift all boats, not just a few. The future belongs to multipolar inclusion, not exclusion.
China's Xi tells Kissinger that China-US ties are at a crossroads and stability is still possible
Source: AP
Published 5:05 AM CDT, July 20, 2023
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping told former top U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger on Thursday that relations between the two countries are at a crossroads and both sides need to “make new decisions” that could result in stable ties and “joint success and prosperity.”
The 100-year-old Kissinger is revered in China for having engineered the opening of relations between the ruling Communist Party and Washington under former President Richard Nixon during the Cold War in the early 1970s.
Xi, who is head of state, party general secretary and commander of the world’s largest standing military, met with Kissinger in the relatively informal setting of Beijing’s park-like Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, with Chinese senior diplomat Wang Yi also in attendance.
“China and the United States are once again at the crossroads of where to go, and the two sides need to make new decisions,” Xi said, according to a statement released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
A property developer collapse bigger than Evergrande might be poised to happen.
Country Garden Holdings Co., helmed by one of China’s richest women, Yang Huiyan, has left investors in the dark after dollar bondholders said they’ve yet to receive coupon payments effectively due Monday. That puts the firm—which had 1.4 trillion yuan ($199 billion) of total liabilities at the end of last year—on course for its first public default if it doesn’t make the payments within a 30-day grace period.
Formerly the nation’s largest private-sector developer by sales, the builder of more than 3,000 housing projects in smaller cities is a household name and employed about 70,000 people at the end of last year. That status had given it the firepower to withstand an industry cash crunch that led to record defaults since Evergrande first missed bond payments in 2021. But tumbling industry home sales and soaring refinancing costs are threatening that streak.
“Any default would impact China’s housing market more than Evergrande’s collapse as Country Garden has four times as many projects,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Kristy Hung wrote in a report Wednesday. “Any debt crisis at Country Garden will have a far-reaching impact on China’s housing market sentiment and could significantly weaken buyer confidence on solvent private developers.”
China a 'ticking time bomb' because of economic woes, Joe Biden warns
Source: Guardian
The US president pointed to the country’s high unemployment and ageing workforce, saying: “China is in trouble.”
“They have got some problems. That’s not good, because when bad folks have problems, they do bad things,” Biden said at a political fundraiser in Utah on Thursday. He said he did not want to hurt China and wanted a rational relationship with the country.
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China’s economy fell into deflation in July, while factory-gate prices also extended declines. China may be entering an era of much slower economic growth with stagnated consumer prices and wages, contrasting with inflation elsewhere in the world.
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Analysts said the data was a clear sign that the Chinese economy was weakening, which would spark concern for EU companies and economies for whom China was a key trading partner.
China's rare earths dominance makes U.S. supply chains vulnerable, trade representative says
Source: CNBC
Updated Sat, Aug 26 2023 11:37 PM EDT
China’s dominance in rare earths makes U.S. supply chains vulnerable, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in an exclusive interview Saturday with CNBC’s Martin Soong. Rare earth metals are used in high-tech products such as electric car motors. Over the decades, China has built up its ability to process the metals — giving it enormous pricing power in a critical global market.
“What I want to draw your attention to is not just the vulnerabilities around China’s investments [overseas], but the fact that China’s dominant position in the world market now in [rare earths] means that it is able to turn on the faucet and turn off the faucet,” Tai said. “And until we are able to access and create additional supply chains we remain entirely vulnerable to that leverage,” the U.S. trade representative said. Tai was speaking in New Delhi, India, on the sidelines of B20, the official business dialogue forum of the G20.
Tai pointed out that about a decade ago, China raised rare earths prices so high that some U.S. mines were able to operate in the industry again, only to have to close once China cut prices. The U.S. held a majority stake in the rare earths metals market prior to the 1980s. But lower labor costs overseas, as well as less pressure on environmental standards, helped send the rare earths industry out of the U.S.
Meanwhile, Beijing supported the industry. “The advantage in terms of China’s dominance isn’t necessarily a natural advantage,” Tai said. “It’s not that they have more rare earths but that they were able to pursue coordinated industrial and trade policies that allowed them to corner the market.” The Chinese government sets economic plans at least every five years, with some goals — such as boosting self-sufficiency in technology and reaching carbon neutrality — set years earlier in advance.
Chinese Shipbuilding Capacity Over 200 Times Greater Than The US, Claims Navy Intelligence
A leaked slide from the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence (abbreviated the ONI) has raised some concerns regarding China’s ever-expanding navy and its shipbuilding capabilities that surpass those of the U.S.
The slide which circulated online, shows that China’s shipyards have a capacity of more than 232 times that of the U.S., with China producing nearly 23.2 million tons of vessels compared to less than 100,000 tons in the U.S.
The ONI also estimated that China boasted 355 naval vessels in 2020, while the U.S. had about 296, and such a disparity is likely to keep growing.
The Chinese dominance in commercial shipping has implications for U.S. security and the economy, as a significant portion of the global supply chain relies on Chinese shipping.
