China Watch Thread

[wjfox]

China to increase defense spending 7.2%, sets economic growth target of ‘around 5%’ for 2023

Updated 12:38 AM EST, Sun March 5, 2023

Hong Kong CNN — China has set an official economic growth target of “around 5%” for 2023, as it seeks to revive the world’s second-largest economy after a year of tepid growth because of pandemic measures.

It will also expand its defense budget 7.2%, marking a slight increase over growth the previous year.

Both figures for the coming year were released at the opening of the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s rubber-stamp legislature, which draws nearly 3,000 delegates to Beijing for the next eight days.

“China’s economy is staging a steady recovery and demonstrating vast potential and momentum for further growth,” outgoing Premier Li Keqiang told delegates while delivering a government work report at the opening of the congress on Sunday.

The economy added more than 12 million urban jobs last year, with the urban unemployment rate falling to 5.5%, according to the work report, which emphasized China’s focus on ensuring stable growth, employment and prices amid global inflation and set the GDP target.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/04/econ ... index.html

[weatheriscool]

Taiwan suspects Chinese ships cut islands' internet cables
Source: Associated Press

NANGAN, Taiwan (AP) — In the past month, bed and breakfast owner Chen Yu-lin had to tell his guests he couldn’t provide them with the internet.

Others living on Matsu, one of Taiwan’s outlying islands closer to neighboring China, had to struggle with paying electricity bills, making a doctor’s appointment or receiving a package.

For connecting to the outside world, Matsu’s 14,000 residents rely on two submarine internet cables leading to Taiwan’s main island. The National Communications Commission, citing the island’s telecom service, blamed two Chinese ships for cutting the cables. It said a Chinese fishing vessel is suspected of severing the first cable some 50 kilometers (31 miles) out at sea. Six days later, on Feb. 8, a Chinese cargo ship cut the second, NCC said.

Taiwan’s government stopped short of calling it a deliberate act on the part of Beijing, and there was no direct evidence to show the Chinese ships were responsible.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/matsu-taiwan ... 366d7a7c70

[wjfox]

China leading US in technology race in all but a few fields, thinktank finds

Thu 2 Mar 2023 05.00 GMT

The United States and other western countries are losing the race with China to develop advanced technologies and retain talent, with Beijing potentially establishing a monopoly in some areas, a new report has said.

China leads in 37 of 44 technologies tracked in a year-long project by thinktank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The fields include electric batteries, hypersonics and advanced radio-frequency communications such as 5G and 6G.

The report, published on Thursday, said the US was the leader in just the remaining seven technologies such as vaccines, quantum computing and space launch systems.

It said the findings were based on “high impact” research in critical and emerging technology fields, focusing on papers that were published in top-tier journals and were highly cited by subsequent research.

“Our research reveals that China has built the foundations to position itself as the world’s leading science and technology superpower, by establishing a sometimes stunning lead in high-impact research across the majority of critical and emerging technology domains,” the report said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... tank-finds

[caltrek]

^^^Not that this isn't concerning, but it would be interesting to see a China versus rest of the world comparison. Especially versus countries associated with being in or allied to the West. It is not as if Germany, South Korea, Japan, etc. are technological back-waters.

What I came here to post:

Xi Awarded 3rd Term as China’s President
March 10 , 2023

Introduction:

BEIJING (AP via Courthouse News) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping was awarded a third five-year term as the nation's president Friday, putting him on track to stay in power for life at a time of severe economic challenges and rising tensions with the U.S. and others.

The endorsement of Xi's appointment by the ceremonial National People's Congress was a foregone conclusion for a leader who has sidelined potential rivals and filled the top ranks of the ruling Communist Party with his supporters since taking power in 2012.

The vote for Xi was 2,952 to 0 by the NPC, members of which are appointed by the ruling party.

Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/xi-awar ... ing-rule/

Edit: Here is another article on the same subject, some of which is repetitive of the above. Still, there is some added detail: https://www.eurasiareview.com/11032023- ... -jinping/

[weatheriscool]

China will become the global economy's biggest growth driver in the next 5 years, doubling the US
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-be ... 03280.html

China will become the biggest driver of global growth over the next five years and will contribute double what the US adds, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Based on Bloomberg calculations from data in the IMF's World Economic Outlook released last week, China's slice of global gross domestic product expansion will be at 22.6%, India's will be 12.9%, and the US will add 11.3%.

snip

Three-quarters of global growth will stem from 20 countries, and over 50% will come from just China, India, the US, and Indonesia.

The IMF expects growth contributions from Brazil, Russia, India, and China to outpace Group of Seven nations.

[weatheriscool]

China Prioritizes 3 Strategic Technologies in Its Great Power Competition
https://thediplomat.com/2023/04/china-p ... mpetition/
Space, AI, and quantum computing and communication are China’s top technology priorities. How advanced are its capabilities in each?
Namrata Goswami
By Namrata Goswami
April 22, 2023

China recently reconstituted its Ministry of Science and Technology and created a powerful Central Science and Technology Commission in order to ensure that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has more direct oversight over the ministry. This change, which was recommended by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, recognizes that technology competition with the United States requires direct supervision from the highest level of the party.

This reorganization was carried out during the “Two Sessions,” annual meetings of National People’s Congress (NPC) and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) held in Beijing in March of this year. This is where policy direction of the CCP becomes clear as thousands of delegates ratify institutional and personnel changes, legislate, and endorse government budgets in rather ceremonial but important meetings. Dissent is hardly allowed.

The result of endorsing the dominant role of the CCP over China’s technology development in these sessions implies the importance China’s leaders place on the sector. During the Two Sessions, Xi indicated that “enhancing integrated national strategies and strategic capabilities” is key to China’s aim of becoming a global power. In this, the development of key strategic technologies plays a vital and consequent role.

By 2049, China aims to emerge as a global leader in three strategic technologies, identified by President Xi Jinping as critical for China’s national rejuvenation: space, AI, and quantum communications and computing.
Diplomat Brief

In 2019, a white paper on defense, titled “China’s National Defense in the New Era,” issued by the State Council, highlighted the critical importance of competing in key strategic technologies to emerge as a great power. Since then, these technologies have been described as China’s “new infrastructure” or critical infrastructure, to ensure China continues its national rejuvenation – and adds to its great power advantage vis-à-vis the United States.
This is not entirely new; science and technology development was identified as key for China to emerge as a great power as per the Comprehensive National Power (CNP) concept developed under Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. As Michael Pillsbury noted back in 2000, “CNP (zonghe guoli) refers to the combined overall conditions and strengths of a country in numerous areas,” of which science and technology are perhaps amongst the top.

Given the international environment framed by the State Council as competitive, assuming leadership in these key strategic technologies has been identified as vital. Various strategies have been developed to advance China’s progress, including China’s innovation strategy, as well as “Made in China 2025” strategy. To support the development of strategic technologies, China made important changes to its Politburo and Central Committee during the 20th Party Congress last year as I have argued previously.

So where is China today in terms of these three key strategic technologies?

[weatheriscool]

China world leader in 37 out of 44 critical technologies, Finland out of chart
https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/themes/the ... d's%201%25.
Themes
23 April 2023

Photo: See-ming Lee 李思明 SML Universe
Science and technology


China is dominating the global race for future power, with the country establishing a significant lead in high-impact research across the majority of critical and emerging technology domains, according to a report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). The report, called the Critical Technology Tracker, examines 44 critical technologies spanning defence, space, robotics, energy, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, advanced materials and key quantum technology areas.


China's global lead extends to 37 of the 44 technologies tracked, with the country excelling in defence and space-related technologies. Notably, China's strides in nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles reportedly took US intelligence by surprise in August 2021. ASPI's Critical Technology Tracker shows that, for some technologies, all of the world's top 10 leading research institutions are based in China, collectively generating nine times more high-impact research papers than the second-ranked country, most often the US.

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

China bans major chip maker Micron from key infrastructure projects

2 hours ago

China says products made by US memory chip giant Micron Technology are a national security risk.

The country's cyberspace regulator announced on Sunday that America's biggest maker of memory chips poses "serious network security risks".

It means the firm's products will be banned from key infrastructure projects in the world's second largest economy.

It is China's first major move against a US chip maker, as tensions increase between Beijing and Washington.

The announcement is the latest development in a deepening row between the US and China over the technology crucial to economies around the world.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65667746



REUTERS

[weatheriscool]

Hong Kong's 2nd largest pro-democracy party disbands amid political crackdown
Source: AP

HONG KONG (AP) — One of the few remaining pro-democracy parties in Hong Kong voted to dissolve itself on Saturday, joining a growing list of organizations that have disbanded as authorities crack down on dissent.

Civic Party chairman Alan Leong told reporters that the dissolution of the party was a “writing on the wall” as there was no one to take over. None of its members at an extraordinary general meeting filed nominations for executive positions.

Thirty of the 31 members voted to disband, with one person abstaining.

The party, which was founded in 2006, was made up of mostly professionals, lawyers and academics. At its peak, it won six seats in the Hong Kong legislature during the 2012 elections, and was the city’s second-largest pro-democracy party after the Democratic Party.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/hong-kong-ci ... 29b8e1e240

[weatheriscool]

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.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/hong-kong-ar ... 5212dcbf1b

[caltrek]

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.

…
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.

Read more here: https://www.eurasiareview.com/03072023 ... analysis/

[weatheriscool]

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.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/china-us-xi- ... 33c2470d46

[funkervogt]

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.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/country- ... 53352.html

[weatheriscool]

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.
...
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.
...
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.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -time-bomb

[funkervogt]

Here's a NYT article discussing the slew of serious economic problems China is now grappling with. Read the whole thing.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-stalli ... 31036.html

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

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.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/27/ustr-ch ... rable.html

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

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.

https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping- ... elligence/