China Watch Thread

[weatheriscool]

Hong Kong police arrest 5 trade union members for sedition
Source: AP

By ZEN SOO

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police on Thursday arrested five trade union members over children’s books they described as seditious, and a court denied bail for four editors and journalists held on charges of endangering national security, as part of a widening crackdown on dissent in the city.

The five who were arrested are members of the General Association of Hong Kong Speech Therapists, according to local media reports.

The association published three children’s books that Li Kwai-wah, a senior superintendent of the national security department, said have seditious intent.

The books feature stories that revolve around a village of sheep that has to deal with wolves from a different village. The sheep take action like going on strike or escaping by boat, according to the synopses published on the association’s website.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/business-arr ... a01780f62d

[caltrek]

China Roundup
by Rita Liao
July 24, 2021

https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/24/china ... k-startup/

Introduction:

(TechCrunch) Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China Roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world.

Despite the geopolitical headwinds for foreign tech firms to enter China, many companies, especially those that find a dependable partner, are still forging ahead. For this week’s roundup, I’m including a conversation I had with Prophesee, a French vision technology startup, which recently got funding from Kai-Fu Lee and Xiaomi, along with the usual news digest.

Spotting opportunities in China

Like many companies working on futuristic, cutting-edge tech in Europe, Prophesee was a spinout from university research labs. Previously, I covered two such companies from Sweden: Imint, which improves smartphone video production through deep learning, and Dirac, an expert in sound optimization.

The three companies have two things in common: They are all in niche fields, and they have all found eager customers in China.

For Prophesee, they are production lines, automakers and smartphone companies in China looking for breakthroughs in perception technology, which will in turn improve how their robots respond to the environment. So it’s unsurprising that Xiaomi and Chinese chip-focused investment firm Inno-Chip backed Prophesee in its latest funding round, which was led by Sinovation Venture.

[weatheriscool]

Hong Kong protester given 9-year term in 1st security case
Source: AP

By KATIE TAM and JANICE LO

HONG KONG (AP) — A pro-democracy protester was sentenced Friday to nine years in prison in the closely watched first prosecution under Hong Kong’s national security law as the ruling Communist Party tightens control over the territory.

Tong Ying-kit, 24, was convicted of inciting secession and terrorism for driving his motorcycle into a group of police officers at a July 1, 2020, rally. He carried a flag bearing the banned slogan, “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times.”

President Xi Jinping’s government imposed the law on the former British colony last year following protests that erupted in mid-2019. Beijing has rolled back the territory’s Western-style civil liberties and tried to crush a pro-democracy movement by jailing activists. The public’s role in picking Hong Kong’s legislators has been reduced.

Critics accuse Beijing of violating the autonomy promised when Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 and wrecking its status as a global business center. Human rights activists say the security law is being abused to attack legitimate dissent.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/hong-kong-05 ... 590587b57c

[caltrek]

It was a tough call whether to put this in the China Watch Thread or a thread dealing with AI and robots. I hope you all think I made the right choice. Also, I would have no problems with a moderator type citing this in another thread they think is appropriate.

China's Developing Policy to Keep Down Internet Start-ups and Cultivate Hard Tech

by Rita Liao
July 31, 2021

https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/31/china ... hard-tech/

Introduction:

(TechCrunch) Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world.

The tech industry in China has had quite a turbulent week. The government is upending its $100 billion private education sector, wiping billions from the market cap of the industry’s most lucrative players. Meanwhile, the assault on Chinese internet giants continued. Tech stocks tumbled after Tencent suspended user registration, sparking fears over who will be the next target of Beijing’s wrath.

Incisive observers point out that the new wave of stringent regulations against China’s internet and education firms has long been on Beijing’s agenda and there’s nothing surprising. Indeed, the central government has been unabashed about its desires to boost manufacturing and contain the unchecked powers of its service industry, which can include everything from internet platforms, film studios to after-school centers.

A few weeks ago I had an informative conversation with a Chinese venture capitalist who has been investing in industrial robots for over a decade, so I’m including it in this issue as it provides useful context for what’s going on in the consumer tech industry this week.

Automate the factories

China is putting robots into factories at an aggressive pace. Huang He, a partner at Northern Light Venture Capital, sees three forces spurring the demand for industrial robots — particularly ones that are made in China.

[weatheriscool]

Britain is 'a bi*ch asking for a beating' with its South China Sea warship challenge, Beijing warns
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... warns.html

By Lauren Lewis and Chris Pleasance for MailOnline

Published: 09:18 EDT, 30 July 2021 | Updated: 09:18 EDT, 30 July 2021

China has warned Britain is 'a bi*ch... asking for a beating' if British warships challenge Beijing's claim to the South China Sea.

The HMS Queen Elizabeth and her carrier group arrived in the disputed waters on Thursday and are set to sail through Beijing's backyard alongside eight other vessels in a show of strength to Chinese President Xi Jingping.

But Chinese state media has warned any move seen as a challenge to islands which Beijing lays claim to would mean Britain 'is being a bi*ch' and 'asking for a beating'.

Editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times Hu Xijin said China would 'make an example' of any British incursion into waters claimed by Beijing.

[Time_Traveller]

Mass protests ‘no longer possible’ in Hong Kong, says journalist Steve Vines

6 Aug 2021

US President Joe Biden has been accused of “interfering” by China after announcing thousands of Hong Kong residents will be offered a temporary “safe haven” in America.

When Beijing imposed its new national security law on the territory last year, the UK offered those from Hong Kong a path to permanent residency.

https://www.channel4.com/news/mass-prot ... teve-vines

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There’s a Religious Revival Going on in China – Under the Constant Watch of the Communist Party

by Mario Poceski
August 6, 2021

https://theconversation.com/theres-a-re ... rty-164211

Introduction:

(The Conversation) The Chinese Communist Party is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding in 1921. For most of those decades, the party sought to restrict or obliterate traditional religious practices, which it considered part of China’s “feudal” past.

But since the late 1970s, the party has slowly permitted a multifaceted and far-reaching revival of religion in China to take place. More recently, current Chinese president and Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has endorsed continued party tolerance for religion as filling a moral void that has developed amid China’s fast-paced economic growth.

This support does come with caveats and restrictions, however, including the demand that religious leaders support the Communist Party.

As a scholar of Chinese religions, these considerable changes are of special interest to me.

The Chinese government has promoted a revival of Confucianism, along with traditional religious practices, as part of its nationalist agenda.
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

[wjfox]

My Dad's latest blog.


China bans tutors: levelling-up or dumbing down?

https://richardhfox.wordpress.com/2021/ ... bing-down/

[caltrek]

Taliban Muslims all ready to cuddle up with China should take into account how that country treats Muslim minorities within their own border:

New Study Published in Central Asian Survey Indicates Up To 4.5 Million Lives Could be Lost Under China’s Uyghur Crackdown


https://www.courthousenews.com/up-to-4- ... own-study/

Introduction:

(Courthouse News) - By 2040, up to 4.5 million lives could be lost as a result of China's brutal crackdown on ethnic minorities, a new study has found, providing what researchers say is more pointed evidence that the country is intentionally violating the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Earlier this year, on his last day in office, outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused the Chinese government of committing genocide, saying that the Uyghurs — a Muslim minority ethnic group who are indigenous to the country’s Xinjiang region, or what they call East Turkistan — have been subjected to crimes against humanity that have escalated since at least 2017.

Some of the measures China has allegedly taken include placing millions of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities under mass surveillance or in concentration camps, subjecting them to forced sterilization, unwanted abortions, political reeducation and other human rights abuses — with the justification that doing so prevents terrorism and religious extremism. Other allegations include rape and torture of Uyghur detainees.

China has repeatedly denied the accusations, calling them absurd lies.

Now, through the examination of China’s own government and academic reports, a new study published Tuesday in the journal Central Asian Survey has quantified the potential amount of lives that could be lost as a result of the population control policies and analyzed the country’s intent behind those policies.

[wjfox]

China blasts '996' excessive work culture

Updated 0842 GMT (1642 HKT) August 27, 2021

China is putting companies that overwork their employees on notice.

The country's top court on Thursday issued a lengthy condemnation of what's commonly known in China as "996," the practice of working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week that is said to be common among the country's big technology companies, startups and other private businesses.

"Recently, extreme overtime work in some industries has received widespread attention," the Supreme People's Court wrote in its statement, which it issued with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. Workers deserve rights for "rest and vacation," adding that "adhering to the national working hour system is the legal obligation of employers," the court wrote.

It cited several examples of companies across a range of industries it said violated labor rules, including an unnamed courier company that it said told employees to work 996 hours. Telling employees to work that much "has seriously violated the law on extending the upper limit of working hours and should be deemed invalid," the court said.

The public backlash against the excessive-work culture isn't new. Alibaba (BABA) co-founder Jack Ma, for example, was heavily criticized in China two years ago after he called 996 culture a "huge blessing." And Chinese labor law already prohibits employees from working that long.

Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/27/tech ... index.html

[caltrek]

Beijing Wants Tech Giants to Shoulder More Social Responsibilities
by Rita Liao
September 5, 2021

https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/05/china ... ibilities/

Introduction:

(TechCrunch) This week, the gaming industry again became a target of Beijing, which imposed arguably the world’s strictest limits on underage players. On the other hand, China’s tech titans are hastily answering Beijing’s call for them to take on more social responsibilities and take a break from unfettered expansion.

Gaming curfew

China dropped a bombshell on the country’s young gamers. As of September 1, users under the age of 18 are limited to only one hour of online gaming time: on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays between 8-9 p.m.

The stringent rule adds to already tightening gaming policies for minors, as the government blames video games for causing myopia, as well as deteriorating mental and physical health. Remember China recently announced a suite of restrictions on after-school tutoring? The joke going around is that working parents will have an even harder time keeping their kids occupied.

A few aspects of the new regulation are worth unpacking. For one, the new rule was instituted by the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), the regulatory body that approves gaming titles in China and that in 2019 froze the approval process for nine months, which led to plunges in gaming stocks like Tencent.

It’s curious that the directive on playtime came from the NPPA, which reviews gaming content and issues publishing licenses. Like other industries in China, video games are subject to regulations by multiple authorities: NPPA; the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the country’s top internet watchdog; and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which oversees the country’s industrial standards and telecommunications infrastructure.

[weatheriscool]

Biden calls Xi as US-China relationship grows more fraught
Source: AP

President Joe Biden spoke with China’s Xi Jinping on Thursday amid growing frustration on the American side that high-level engagement between the two leaders’ top advisers has been largely unfruitful in the early going of the Biden presidency.

Biden initiated the call with Xi, the second between the two leaders since Biden took office. It comes at a moment when there is no shortage of thorny issues between the two nations, including cybersecurity breaches originating from China, Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and what the White House has labeled as “coercive and unfair” trade practices by the Chinese.

Biden’s aim with the 90-minute call was less focused on any of those hot-button issues and instead centered on discussing the way ahead for the U.S.-China relationship after it got off to a decidedly rocky start in his tenure.

The White House said in a statement the “two leaders had a broad, strategic discussion in which they discussed areas where our interests converge, and areas where our interests, values, and perspectives diverge.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-he ... eede133c69

[wjfox]

[Yuli Ban]

[Yuli Ban]

Imagine Biden gets smacked with his own 1929

[Yuli Ban]

[caltrek]

Will China Let Evergrande Fail?
by Jake Perez
Updated on September 26, 2021

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/wil ... l-5149084/

Entire Article:

(Linked In) Chinese property development giant Evergrande's massive debt crisis has led to protests, with retail investors, suppliers and homebuyers seething. It threatens to further drag down China's recovery, since its economy is "so dependent on producing real estate," per a Harvard economist. But fallout over Evergrande's potential debt default extends far beyond China and has already roiled global markets. Evergrande's electric vehicle division has admitted it's facing a "serious shortage of funds" and can't guarantee it'll meet its financial obligations unless it gets an urgent infusion of capital.

China appears to be signaling its reluctance to bail Evergrande out, asking local governments to prepare for possible economic fallout and unrest in the event it collapses, anonymous sources tell The Wall Street Journal.

[caltrek]

The article below is a full length interview, and so is a long read compared to a lot of other articles that I post. It is rather broad in its scope, so it does manage to cover a lot of ground in a concise manner.

China’s Fortune Cookie Crumbles
Ross Ashcroft interviewing Michael Hudson
September 30, 2021

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/30 ... -crumbles/

(Renegade Inc. via Counterpunch) With China’s increasing wealth, Western investors want some of the action. One of those investors is a bullish gentleman called George Soros. However, the Chinese are acutely aware that with Western investment comes inequality. So as Beijing begins to rethink how to do proper economic growth, we ask, will China learn from Western mistakes?

Ross Ashcroft Michael Hudson, always great to have you back on Renegade Inc.

Michael Hudson It’s good to be back here. Thanks for having me.

Ross Michael, we join you at a time where a lot of people think the unipolar world could have maintained its supremacy. Turns out it hasn’t. Multipolar world is here to stay. You of late have been quite vocal about George Soros, no less. Mr. Soros has been casting aspersions about various things, but one of them is talking about the Chinese economy and why Black Rock, amongst others, should be allowed to invest there, because ultimately it’s going to undo American interests. Can you unpack that for us because it seems very complicated?

Michael Hudson Well, George Soros’ dream is that China would do what Yeltsin did to Russia – that it would privatise the economy, really carve it up and let US investors buy control of the most profitable heights. In that way, the foreign investors would be able to sort of get the profits of Chinese industry, Chinese labour, and it would become the darling stock market of the world, just like Russia’s stock market was the leading booming stock market of 1994-96. China would be run to benefit US investment bankers. Soros is furious that China is not following the neoliberal policy that the United States is following. It’s following a socialist policy wanting to keep its economic surplus at home to benefit its own citizens, not American financial investors. For Soros, this is a clash of civilizations. His proposed strategy is to stifle the Chinese economy by putting sanctions against it, to stop investing in it so as to force it to do to itself what Yeltsin did to Russia.

[Yuli Ban]

The internal memo from a recent internal training by the state-backed gaming association was revealed by the South China Morning Post, lays out new restrictions for approving video games in China.

According to the publication, the memo said that video games must not be viewed as “pure entertainment”, and should instead convey “a correct set of values”.

Games that feature queer relationships or “effeminate males”, the memo states, should not be approved for release in China.

“If regulators can’t tell the character’s gender immediately, the setting of the characters could be considered problematic and red flags will be raised,” it added.

Games that allow players to make moral choices between good and evil should also not be approved, according to the memo.

“Some games have blurred moral boundaries,” it said.

“Players can choose to be either good or evil… but we don’t think that games should give players this choice… and this must be altered.”

The memo comes as China increasingly regulates its gaming industry, with the government announcing in August that it would be limiting the amount of time minors can play online games to three hours per week.

[caltrek]

Police Halt 4-person National Day Protest in Hong Kong
October 1, 2021

https://www.courthousenews.com/police-h ... hong-kong/

Introduction:

HONG KONG (AP) — Police in Hong Kong halted a four-person pro-democracy protest on China’s National Day Friday amid an expanding crackdown on free speech and opposition politics.

Chanting and carrying a placard calling for the release of Hong Kongers arrested in the crackdown and chanting pro-democracy slogans, the four members of the opposition party League of Social Democrats had attempted to march to the harbor-side Convention Center where the official celebration was being held.

Dozens of officers, part of a massive police presence deployed to prevent any disruptions on the day, surrounded them and kept them out of sight and earshot of officials attending a flag-raising ceremony.