China - News & Discussion

News and Discussions about politics, current affairs, international relations, economy, elections, state level politics etc.
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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by chetak » Thu Nov 08, 2018 7:12 pm

Well, if true, this came much sooner than I thought it would.


Caixin Global Verified account @caixin

China think tank head Li Yang says nation's economy may be entering a long-term "downward spiral"

Economy at Risk of Long-Term ‘Downward Spiral,’ State Researcher Says
The head of an influential state-backed think tank has forecast that China’s economic expansion may be entering a long-term “downward spiral” as all three engines of growth — investment, exports and consumption — slow down.

The comments by Li Yang, head of the National Institution for Finance & Development (NIFD) and the former deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, come against the backdrop of increasing concern among the country’s top policymakers about the outlook for the world’s second-largest economy and the impact of the trade war with the U.S. Gross domestic product (GDP), a measure of all goods and services produced in an economy, rose by 6.5% year-on-year in the third quarter, the lowest in almost a decade.

“GDP (growth) is slowing, investment (growth) is slowing, export (growth) is slowing and consumption (growth) is slowing” and the growth rates are slowing at the same pace or faster than GDP growth, Li said in a speech at the Chinese Institutional Investors Summit on Saturday in Beijing.

“There’s a lot of musing about what’s really going on with the numbers, but in short, we need to pay extremely close attention because it might mean that the economy is in a kind of downward spiral,” Li said. “The recent meeting between the central authorities and private enterprises also suggests that the situation (of the private sector) is quite serious.”

President Xi Jinping held a seminar with private entrepreneurs on Thursday in Beijing to assure them of the government’s and the Communist Party’s support for the private sector as the entrepreneurs struggle amid a cooling economy and an unfavorable financing environment. The event followed a meeting of the Politburo, a committee of the Party’s top 25 officials chaired by Xi, which also emphasized support for the private sector.

Employment worries

In addition to his academic roles, Li is a delegate to the National People’s Congress — the country’s legislature — and a member of its financial and economic committee. He also advises a number of provincial and municipal governments, according to his biography on the NIFD website.

Li’s speech touched on several economic challenges facing China, including job creation; monetary policy and the changing dynamics of credit creation; the relationship between the country’s financial system and the real economy; and the potential impact of the trade war between China and the U.S. and its geopolitical significance.

Although government data show that the target for job creation this year was met ahead of schedule in October, evidence is starting to emerge that the employment situation could become more challenging in 2019 or 2020, compounded by the U.S.-China trade friction, Li said.

“As the economy cools, it’s possible new job creation will soften, companies who are in difficulty will cut wages, the growth rate of salaries will decline, and we will see an absolute fall in pay,” Li said. “We may even see people lose their jobs. This is the impact of Sino-U.S. trade friction passing through into the labor market.”

Li also highlighted weak credit creation by financial institutions and how the credit impulse, which is the change in new lending by banks as a percentage of GDP, has weakened significantly. Although the People’s Bank of China can influence the money supply and can add more money to the financial system by cutting banks’ reserve requirement ratio, for example, financial institutions also influence money supply by increasing their lending.

But the process of money creation has stalled or contracted because demand for loans from companies is insufficient and profitable investment opportunities are limited, Li said. This has become a prominent problem and a sign of economic contraction, he said.

Although the PBOC has adjusted the way it calculates total social financing (TSF) — the broadest measure of credit in the economy that includes bank loans, “shadow banking,” and bond and equity issuance — growth in TSF has lost steam and continues to slow, Li said, adding that the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimates the increase in the measure will be “even worse” next year, he said.

Economic aggression

Li also raised the alarm about the economic slowdown in Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong and Zhejiang provinces in the first half of 2018. These are China’s most developed regions, and they showed a slide in growth that was higher than the national average, he said.

Turning to the deterioration in relations between China and the U.S., Li said this is not a short-term problem that can be solved anytime soon. Washington’s China policy has undergone a fundamental change from one of engagement and negotiation to one of containment.

China’s call for its relationship with the U.S. to be based on a new model of great power relations, which in effect signals China does not acknowledge the U.S. as the world’s No. 1 superpower, somehow crossed a red line with Washington, he said. The U.S.’s aim is now to stifle China’s ability to develop its technological strength, and this is a form of economic aggression, Li said.

China should not give in to the U.S., and while it should not go on the attack, neither should it be afraid of a fight, Li said. Beijing should stick to its position but also seek to reduce friction by offering reasonable solutions.

Li also called for the government to take a market-oriented approach to managing the economy, such as abandoning the policy of handing out massive subsidies to encourage innovation, and to expand reforms.

“There are important reforms such as property rights, especially the issue of non-state ownership, intellectual property rights,” as well as accelerating fiscal reform, Li said.

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by vishvak » Wed Dec 26, 2018 9:49 am

X-posting from earlier
quote=vishvak post_id=15306 time=1543252115 user_id=545]
Chinese checkers:
Some details on BRI.
Read it all.

China is building local courts for 'international' dispute resolution for BRI.

Also Chinese are using same mechanisms, prolly same people too. Meaning chances galore for corruption and pulling towards Chinese interests indirectly in other forums too, and showing off otherwise.

Not to mention putting BRI in Chinese constitution thereby increasing its pitch for support in some way or another.

The authors wonder in the second paragraph why not much is done to study certain aspects. Who else is going to do that otherwise?!
to influence the world — if not directly control it — by making the rules on which it functions. This normative determination to achieve a far greater objective has hardly been addressed when analysing China’s BRI and its impact.
[/quote

Don't let anyone talk big and slightly about how non-card-holding-members of other countries benefit due to Chinese loose monies and kind considerations.

And more importantly this is recent and ongoing thing.

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by vishvak » Wed Dec 26, 2018 10:10 am

Another report of Ecuador in debt due to Chinese dam that is built somewhere near volcano spewing ash.

Now cracks started appearing in the dam too. Wonder what were they thinking.

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by chetak » Tue Jan 08, 2019 7:16 am

India, Iran, Russia look for new trade corridor


India, Iran, Russia look for new trade corridor

7 Nov 2018

Image
India, Russia and Iran explore new route

India, Russia and Iran are meeting next month to work out the details of a massive project to open a new sea-land transport corridor that would be a cheaper and shorter alternative to shipping oil and other goods through the Suez Canal.

According to RT, the North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), the name for the new transit route, will connect India to Russia and Europe via a combination of sea routes and an overland passage through Iran, according to Iranian state-owned news outlet Press TV. The 7,200-kilometers long corridor will reduce the time and costs of shipping by up to 40%. Transport time between Mumbai and Moscow will fall to 20 days. The annual capacity of the transport artery is expected to reach 30 million tons.

Indian logistics companies presently need to route shipments through China, Europe or Iran to access Central Asian markets. Already, routing shipments through Iran is the least time-consuming option. But the INSTC will have the ancillary benefit of allowing Indian companies to forge a new trade route to Afghanistan without having to travel through Pakistan, as tensions over Kashmir are once again on the rise. The passage corridor through the Persian Gulf will mean billions of dollars in trade for Afghanistan, cutting its dependence on foreign logistics.

Already, India has committed $500 million for developing the Iranian port of Chabahar, which will be a crucial trans-shipment point for transitioning cargo from sea to land. What's more, the arrangement has the blessing of China, which could potentially incorporate the passage into its multi-trillion-dollar 'One Belt, One Road' initiative to build new trade routes connecting China to Europe, Asia and Africa.

Indian officials said they're hoping to start building out the infrastructure required for the route to function as swiftly as possible.

"All issues may be resolved in order to operationalize the (INSTC) route as early as possible," according to Indian Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu, as quoted by the media.

The alliance of these four countries should unnerve the US. As it stands, the rise in bilateral trade denominated in rubles, yuan and rupees, while modest so far, is set to grow, with plans to eventually undermine the dollar's hegemonic grip on global trade settlement. And with US sanctions on Iran set to take effect on Nov. 4, the Iranian regime only stands to benefit by encouraging the blooming economic partnership between Russia and India, as Russia implements its plan to circumvent the dollar, and, by extension, Treasury Department sanctions.

Russia and India have recently announced that they had sealed a long-discussed $6 billion arms deal despite threats of economic sanctions from Washington.

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by Singha » Wed Jan 16, 2019 3:58 am

india - 1.6m, russia - 1.5m and iran - 1.4m(euro std gauge) seem to use different gauges of rails but nevertheless, all should be able to tranship std 20 and 40 feet containers.
with a journey across the caspian sea the logistics is complex. would have been better if iranian train could directly travel to russia via azerbaijan but the gauge is not compatible.

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by vishvak » Wed Jan 16, 2019 2:00 pm

Chinese military capabilities increasing..
Includes non war mission capabilities. Read it all.

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by chetak » Sat Jan 26, 2019 7:25 pm

china's internal dissension is gradually rising to become a real and present danger to Xi Jinping's very aggressive global vision and that may be one of the primary reasons that he chose to make himself singularly powerful.

He simply cannot put the genie back in the bottle without possibly causing harm to himself as well as his cause.



Brahma Chellaney @Chellaney

My op-ed: It's not just capital that’s fleeing China; rich Chinese choose to live overseas. In an informal vote of no confidence in the Chinese system, more than a third of surveyed millionaires in China said they were “currently considering” emigrating.
China's lonely rise: After decades of heady growth, Beijing is suddenly facing resistance at home and abroad

China's lonely rise: After decades of heady growth, Beijing is suddenly facing resistance at home and abroad

Xi Jinping's word may be law, but faced with difficult choices on China’s new challenges, he now finds himself under pressure



As the People’s Republic of China prepares to celebrate the 70th anniversary of its founding later this year, the limits of its Communist Party-led model are becoming apparent. And more than ever, the world’s longest-surviving and most-powerful autocracy faces difficult choices at home and abroad.

By China’s own statistics, its economy is registering its most sluggish growth in nearly three decades. The world’s second-largest economy grew by 6.6 per cent in 2018, the lowest rate since 1990, when the fallout from the massacre of as many as 10,000 people in a tank and machine-gun assault on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square a year earlier kept growth to a humble 3.9 per cent.

At a time when China appears to have entered a new era of uncertainty after more than a quarter century of phenomenal growth, it is perhaps fitting that this year marks the 30th anniversary of that massacre.

The uncertainty is evident in a new phenomenon – the flight of capital from a country that, between 1994 and 2014, amassed towering piles of foreign-exchange reserves by enjoying a surplus in its overall balance of payments.

But now, faced with an unstoppable trend of net capital outflows, President Xi Jinping’s government has tightened exchange controls and other capital restrictions to prop up the country’s fragile financial system and sagging currency. The regime has used tens of billions of dollars in recent months alone to bolster the yuan’s international value.

It is not just capital that’s fleeing China, as more and more Chinese choose to live overseas. In an informal vote of no confidence in the Chinese system, more than a third of surveyed millionaires in China said they were “currently considering” migrating to another country. An earlier report found that almost two-thirds of rich Chinese were either emigrating or have plans to do so.

Today, China’s mounting internal challenges are being compounded by new external factors. Chinese belligerence and propaganda, for instance, have spawned a growing image problem for the country internationally, which is apparent even in regions where China has invested heavily, from Africa to Southeast Asia.

More significantly, Beijing has come under international pressure on several fronts – from its trade, investment and lending policies to its human rights record, including its incarceration of more than a million Muslims from Xinjiang, a sprawling territory Mao Zedong annexed in 1949. Perhaps China’s free ride, which helped propel its rise, is coming to an end.

In modern-day “re-education” prisons, China is accused of forcing Uighurs and other Muslim groups to forsake Islamic practices and become secular citizens.

The Soviet Communist Party that ran gulags was consigned to the dustbin of history. But now the Chinese Communist Party has set up its own gulags that are more high-tech and indiscriminate and have Islam as their target. The network of concentration camps is designed to dismantle Muslim identities and change the outlook of entire communities – a grim mission of unparalleled scale.

Yet, even as international criticism has mounted, the West still seems reluctant to hold Beijing accountable for its harsh treatment of ethnic minorities, deciding against, for instance, introducing sanctions.

China, meanwhile, is confronting growing US-led pressure on the trade and geopolitical fronts, accentuating Beijing’s dilemmas and fuelling uncertainty at home. As long as the US-China trade war rages, flight of capital will remain a problem for Beijing, whose foreign-exchange reserves have shrunk by about $1 trillion from their peak of just over $4 trillion in mid-2014.

At a time when China’s imperial project, the Belt and Road Initiative, is running into resistance from a growing number of partner countries, Beijing is also confronting an international pushback against its telecommunications giant Huawei. In fact, the pushback has broadened from opposition to Huawei’s participation in next-generation 5G wireless networks to a broader effort in Europe, North America and Australia to restrict the use of Chinese technology because of concerns that it is being used for espionage.

The arrest of the Huawei founder’s daughter in Canada, at the behest of Washington, rattled China’s elites, making them angry but also fearful that any one of them could meet a similar fate while travelling to the West. With Meng Wanzhou’s detention, the US signalled that it has more powerful non-tariff weapons than China, which has long used such tools to punish countries as diverse as Japan, Mongolia, South Korea and the Philippines.

Ms Meng was held for an alleged violation of America’s Iran-related sanctions, but even Western onlookers saw her arrest as an example of US high-handedness. Instead of galvanising support against the American move, China responded in typical fashion that, as an American analyst put it, is the “mark of a thuggish state” – by jailing two Canadians.

Indeed, it is Beijing’s open disregard for international rules that explains why it can count on few true strategic allies or reliable security partners. Contrast this with the strong network the US maintains, including close collaboration with many of China’s neighbours. Beijing has alienated almost every significant power in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

China’s lonely rise could become more pronounced with the newly restructured People’s Liberation Army becoming less of an army and more of a power projection force, the majority of whose troops now are not from the army but from the other services. Indeed, the PLA’s shift away from being a defensive force foreshadows a more aggressive Chinese military approach of the kind already witnessed in the South China Sea, where China has fundamentally changed the status quo in its favour.

The Dalai Lama recently said that, due to Chinese pressure, no Buddhist country, with the sole exception of the nominally Buddhist Japan, is now willing to grant him entry as the exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhism. However, whenever Chinese pressure forces smaller nations to cave in on any issue, it only fuels greater resentment against Beijing.

Against this backdrop, where is China heading? It has come a long way since the Tiananmen Massacre, with its citizens now more prosperous, mobile and digitally connected. Its economy, in purchasing power parity terms, is already the world’s largest.

However, its political system remains as repressive as ever, with Mr Xi centralising power in a way China has not seen since Mao. Under his leadership, the party has set out to systematically quash Muslim, Tibetan and Mongol identities, expand China’s frontiers far out into international waters, and turn the country into a digital totalitarian state.

Yet, one should not overlook what a difference less than a year has made. Few in China dared to criticize Mr Xi when he ended the decades-old, Party-led collective leadership system and abolished a two-term limit on the presidency –actions that theoretically allow him to rule for life.

But, in the new international environment in which China finds itself today, he is facing domestic criticism – however muted — for building a cult of personality around his one-man rule and for inviting an international pushback by overemphasising China’s strength and power.

Mr Xi’s word may be law but, faced with difficult choices on China’s new challenges, he now finds himself under pressure. His primary focus will probably remain ensuring stability at home. Without stability, neither he nor the Party can hope to survive in power.

To calm the economic turbulence, China’s central bank has substantially increased domestic credit to help boost consumption and investment at home. In the medium-term, the US-led tariff pressures are likely to accelerate China’s shift from low-end manufacturing to higher value-added industries like electronics, robotics and artificial intelligence.

The geopolitical pushback, for its part, could force Xi to return to the “hide your capacities, bide your time” strategy of Deng Xiaoping. But such a return can scarcely obscure China’s ambitious goals that Mr Xi has laid bare. Even if Beijing starts soft-pedalling its ambitions, it is likely to adopt a “two steps forward, one step back” strategy to keep progressing toward its goals.

Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water, Peace, and War”

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by vishvak » Sat Feb 02, 2019 7:33 am

Kenya's biggest port under risk of Chinese control after, what else but, non repayment of loans.

China is also building deep sea port for Nigeria and railways.
China's expanding footprints
Analysis reported by Washington Post.
Read it all.

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by chetak » Tue Mar 19, 2019 9:15 am

twitter
Must watch video:

Joint Chiefs Chairman says Google refuses to work with US military but provides “direct benefit” to China’s military



https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1106247367177764865

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by Muns » Fri May 29, 2020 6:12 am

Not sure what the Chinese are really playing by first instigating Nepal as to the boundary issue and Lipulekh, before simultaneously launching aggressive attacks on Indian Army soldiers all across the LAC. China at this stage well knows that India is mean the tree capability as increased by several bounds over the last 20 years. It seems ridiculous from the Chinese side to try and engage with India brimming with agni missiles as well as over 250 Sukhoi MKI’s with many of them armed with Brahmos missiles.

Obviously, this seemed to be more of a magician distraction show. It usually means that the Chinese are acting somewhere else and what is going on in the Indian border is purely a distraction. Perhaps it’s meant to take away the focus from Hong Kong and what may be a brutal crackdown over the next couple of days.

India here is really not the target. Somebody else is.

Unfortunately, we have really not used our Brahmastra against China being the Dalai Lama. All across the Himalayas he is well revered. It is really time to resurrect the Tibet cause. With the world looking to Chuck China as a manufacturing base, India is strategically placed towards gearing up for this kind of manufacturing as well. A few well-placed statements from the Dalai Lama is enough to irritate the Chinese to no end. The Tibet flame must be kept alive for even diplomatic bargaining.

The Chinese seem to have trouble on all ends. Diplomatically with the world, especially the US where the coronavirus is now taken over 100,000 people. Multiple unrest in provinces including Xinjiang, Hong kong, Tibet and of course border complexities with all of their neighbors.
It is well time that we resurrect the flame of Tibetan independence from India.

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by Muns » Sun Jun 07, 2020 6:09 am

Swarajya I have to say is go to great article this month with regard to the line of actual control and recent conflict between India and China. The Chinese apparently have gotten increasingly alarmed at the rate of progression with regard to roadbuilding by the BRO over the last few years. Modi's government has made it a priority to get infrastructure up to par all along the border. In view of this the Chinese have been trying to slow progress. The area includes flat plains where the Chinese have been trying to salami slice sections of land by building infrastructure.

They have even been making claims where the border is well-established such Sikkim. Apparently it was there that a young Indian Army Lieut. smacked a Chinese major right on the nose making his face a bloody mess.
The Chinese would also quite well remember the standoff at Doklam as well.

My take on this is that I am quite glad that we are ramping up efforts with regard to reactivation of airfields as well as strengthening the infrastructure along the border. It is simply vast open plains where trying to understand the border is a very difficult thing to do. The Chinese maybe making a hue and cry on the Western front while they are secretly massing on the Eastern front along the LAC as well. It is no secret that they have long held a desire to take back Tawang as one of the most important spiritual centers for Lamaism for Tibet.

From my above post, my thinking has changed. Perhaps the focus really is not someone else, but perhaps somewhere else.

Hopefully, we will continue to give the Chinese a few more bloody noses to back off.

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by Muns » Wed Jun 17, 2020 6:12 am

Posting here in full before it reaches the news site. Unbelievable scene of events in Galwan. I have however made a quick list of well known responses that India can create and complete over the next few months.

Indian options after Galwan

By Vikram Hakura.

For far too long we have stood by and accepted China’s quiet terrorism by proxy. Having been beaten at Doklam and alarmed by the rapid pace of roads been created all along the LAC, the Chinese have been quietly trying to push the boundaries over the last two months. That quietness is all but shattered after last night’s events when so far up to 20 Jawans were martyred in the Galwan valley.
Having reached an acceptance of withdrawing from the LAC by regional commanders, the Chinese betrayed our trust yet again after a gap of five decades by launching a preemptive attack in the Galwan Valley. Having realized such rapid construction and connectivity between Darbuk and Daulat Beg Oldie, the Chinese were imminently worried about the strategic nature of their own Belt Road initiative which can rapidly be shut down from the Galwan heights.

In the ensuing ambush, over 20 Jawans lost their lives with yet double the number of Chinese being laid to waste in this valley. The Chinese would’ve never expected such a ferocious response in yet another attempt by the Chinese to forcefully and unilaterally enlarge their borders.
Fortunately, this has elicited response from all quarters of India except the opposition parties which yet again have showed that even in a time of war crisis they still tight fully clutch their own pockets. With innumerable photos of Rahul Gandhi often meeting diplomatic heads from China behind closed borders, it is no wonder that his first reaction was to attack the Prime Minister of India rather than the communist Chinese party.
However, if history is to go by, it is no doubt that a strong response to Galwan is in the offing. Having been beaten at Doklam and now Galwan, further attempts to strengthen our position at the LAC should be done on a war footing. They are however several advantages that India can make to make China’s life internationally more uncomfortable. This is especially true when there is such negative publicity about China releasing this pandemic on the world.


Review military and diplomatic ties with China’s nemesis neighbors.


This would mean consideration of export of Brahmhos missiles to Vietnam as well as Taiwan. This would severely impact safety of Chinese travel all along the South China seas. Vietnam as well has long been looking at Tejas fighters for its Air Force and also Shivalik frigates for its navy. Re-engagement military between India and Japan as well as a review of pacts and use of each other’s naval establishments should be a priority.

Harrying of trade along the Belt Road

If the belt Road really is visible from the heights of India and Galwan, then it would well be within India’s engagement to shift military equipment to the top of the sites and use them for interdiction of trade along the Belt Road. China’s long-held ambition of increased trade between multiple neighbors would come to a grinding halt.

Re-engagement with the world on Tibet

It is high time that India review its policy with regard to one China. Chinese occupied Tibet has long been an affront to Indian sensibilities. A few choice words from the Dalai Lama as well as increasing of exposure of Tibetans living in India and yearning for their homeland is sure to irritate the Chinese. The Tibetans have been treated with utmost respect in India almost creating a mini Tibet. With some of his greatest leaders existing in exile, it is time to create and engage meaningful discussions with the Tibetan leadership in exile again.

Nepal’s political establishment must be clearly told in no uncertain terms that anything that would negatively impact India’s security would lead to a difficult proposition for Nepal’s China backed elite. Hindus they may be, however like most political parties in India corruption runs rife throughout the upper echelons of Nepali power. It is high time that India created a grassroots movement in Nepal with support for India.

Regular IAF patrols all across the LAC.

Intelligence gathering as well as peering deep into Tibet via its AWACS should be a priority for the IAF. Back in 1962, the IAF’s hands were tied by the political establishment of the time. The IAF can carry 2 to 3 times the payload on its aircraft in view of starting off from the plains of India all across the Himalayas. Fortunately, the Chinese can only muster meager payloads from their aircraft in view of the air density of airbases in Tibet. Let’s not tie the hands of the IAF this time.

Indo US military exercises both militarily as well as diplomatically.

Increased Indo US military exchanges will no doubt irritate the Chinese no end. Aiming to be the next superpower, it would frustrate them further to see such high-level exchanges between India and the US. It would also mean better interoperability between equipment as well as commanders as well. India should join the US tirade of China propagating and unleashing this pandemic upon the world. Hopefully in the future it would lead to a decrease of exports from China and an increase in manufacturing base in India as well. It is high time that US companies consider India as a manufacturing base apart from China.

After five decades, the Chinese Dragon may have awakened a very angry and ferocious elephant. While overt war between both countries is something that both countries will avoid, India has a list of diplomatic as well as military offensives at its fingertips. While Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh and the chief of defense staff formulate a response to the severe Chinese provocation, we all can contribute in our actions to minimize any purchase of Chinese products and further the Tibet cause.
More than that, we can all have more sense than our opposition political leaders in supporting the government than seeking to cause further confusion during a war like situation.

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by Muns » Wed Dec 30, 2020 7:17 am

Saw this documentary today regarding Chinese police state all across Xinjiang. Effectively millions of Chinese were held in detention camps before “supposedly” being released. The power of policing a state electronically via millions of cameras and using the power of artificial intelligence to recognize Uighur faces and understand emotions was quite shocking. Millions of Uighurs recorded, pretty much on an electronic lockdown, without any access to the outside world at all.

What is especially shocking to me is the amount of freedom, that Kashmiri Muslims have, equivalent to any other Indian citizen. There are no reeducation camps, and the freedom of political parties to partake in a democratic process with complete freedom of the media.
If anything, the harshest process really seems to be limiting social media groups where terror groups have often organized violent attacks on innocent civilians.

What is also amazing is the complete silence with regard to the Muslim world to China on Xinjiang. This is also completely true of Pakistan. Pakistan has completely turned a blind eye towards Muslims a fairly short distance away in Xinjiang while continues to Holler “Humans rights” for Kashmir. It’s completely ridiculous.

Increasingly however we could see the Chinese system, been bought out by many Muslim nations, essentially run by dictators to police their own states for decades to come. One such Policed Muslim state is Saudi Arabia. Pakistan under the ISI could well be the next. In fact, dictatorships are welcome to the Chinese technology. This kind of technology however has far-reaching consequences with regard to the ease at which anyone can be detained on any pretext.

A fairly quick death to any remaining minorities in China and the Muslim world.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film ... ndercover/

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by chetak » Wed Sep 29, 2021 11:18 pm

If it had been any other govt but Modi's, India would have been a huge part of this debt trap mess by now with the country in hock upto the eyebrows

xi certainly tried everything, sweet talk, coercion, political pressure, and now finally renewed military pressure in ladakh after their failure at doklam.

xi still desperately needs India in the BRI, her resources and markets have been the covetous target of the cheeni trade and geopolitical policies, both overt and covert for some decades now.

Only this time around, there has been a massive blowback from India with clear financial, diplomatic, and geopolitical repercussions, the likes of which the hans would never have imagined in their wildest nightmares

If the regime changes in India as many BIF are making efforts to bring about just such a change , there will be a renewed push to get the BRI into India among other social justice efforts to establish political leverage to stymie the awakening of the majority.




China’s debt-trap diplomacy?


China’s debt-trap diplomacy?

BRI participant countries owe over 385 billion USD to China in hidden debt, study reveals

The research estimated that 40 lower-to-middle income countries(LMIC) have debt exposure to China that is higher than 10 per cent of their national gross domestic product(GDP)

29 September, 2021
Jinit Jain

China's BRI is proving to be a massive debt trap for low and middle income countries, study reveals


China has long been known for using its financial clout to further “debt-trap diplomacy”, a policy that encompasses saddling borrowing nations with excessive credit with the intention of extracting economic or political concessions from the debtor country when it finds it increasingly difficult to meet its debt repayment obligations.

Now, a report published by AidData says China’s Belt and Road Initiative has left a large number of countries burdened with “hidden debts” to the tune of $385 bn.

The report published by AidData, an international development research lab based at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, further says that scores of countries underreported their financial liabilities linked to China for many years now, resulting in mounting “hidden debts”, or confidential liabilities that the countries might be obligated to pay.

AidData has parsed through more than 13,000 aid and debt-financed projects worth more than $843bn across 165 countries for a period of 18 years ending 2017 to arrive at the conclusion that Beijing has been stealthily deploying its “debt-trap diplomacy” where China uses its financial supremacy to tie smaller countries in the allure of lucrative loans and then using the leverage to bend them to its will.

The analysis conducted by AidData researchers has hinted that Chinese lendings are considerably larger than previously estimated by credit rating agencies and intergovernmental organisations with surveillance capabilities. China, they conclude, has been able to pull the wool over intelligence agencies from finding out the substantial leverage it held on small countries by extending seemingly large credit lines to them.

Brad Parks, executive director of the AidData team, was astonished to discover that the hidden debt amount granted by China is close to $385bn, as reported by Financial Times.

The discovery of China’s practice of saddling countries with outsize loans in order to exert its influence on them has come at a time when the pace of lending on the Belt and Road Initiative has hit roadblocks, partly because of the United States’s initiative in leading the G7 effort to undercut Beijing’s hegemony in international development finance.

However, the report underscores the enduring consequences of a sharp transition since Xi Jinping unveiled the BRI plan after coming to power in 2013.

The marked shift in Beijing’s lending strategy after Xi Jinping was elected as the President of China

China had previously directed its lending to sovereign borrowers such as central banks. But under Xi Jinping’s leadership, that changed fundamentally. As of now, more than 70 per cent of China’s foreign debt comprises loans extended to state-owned companies, state-owned banks, special purpose vehicles, joint ventures and private sector institutions.

The research estimated that 40 lower-to-middle income countries(LMIC) have debt exposure to China that is higher than 10 per cent of their national gross domestic product(GDP). On average, the LMIC government is under-reporting repayment obligations to China by an equivalent of nearly 6 per cent of GDP.

“These debts usually do not appear in the government balance sheets in developing countries. The critical point is that most of them have safeguard against explicit or implicit forms of host government liability protection. That’s equivalent to erasing the difference between private and public debt,” Parks said in an interview with Financial Times.

China’s plan of pressurising borrowing countries that are struggling to repay their loans to cough up their physical assets

The research has come at a time when there is a looming fear among many countries about China moving to seize their assets in case they default in their loan repayment. Earlier last year, former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed said China’s banks were not giving them ‘breathing space’ even in the pandemic.

The exorbitantly high outstanding amount that the Maldives owes to China led Mr Nasheed to worry if the country could face the same fate as Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port. Earlier in 2018, China made Sri Lanka cough up the Hambantota port, miles off the shores of its rival India, and a critical base to monitor the Indo-Pacific trade route.

Similar to the case of the Maldives, the former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa had taken enormous loans from China that the succeeding government in Sri Lanka struggled to square accounts with. As a result, after tough negotiations and months of pressure from Beijing, the Sri Lankan government handed over the port and 15,000 acres of land nearby to China for 99 years.

Not just physical but China is focused on collateralising liquid assets too: Brad Parks
Parks, however, revealed that though China has developed an image of a country using its loans to collateralise physical and illiquid assets, the research suggests that they are also involved in collateralising liquid assets.

“It is true that Chinese state-owned lenders have a strong preference for collateralisation: we find 44 per cent of the overall lending portfolio was collateralised, and when the stakes are really high, that’s when they turn to collateral,” he said.

Park says China is asking borrowers to maintain a minimum cash balance in an offshore account, or an escrow account, that is controlled by Beijing. So when the borrower fails to repay loans, the lender claws back the amount through such offshore accounts.

African countries who are part of China’s BRI cancel projects blaming China’s lack of transparency and shoddy work of Chinese companies

Countries that have a financial relationship with China are not just wary of losing their physical or liquid assets but also about the shoddy quality of work the Chinese companies are doing on their soil. This is the reason why a great many African countries are showing stiff resistance to Chinese companies, initiating action against Chinese investment and cancelling existing Chinese projects.

According to the Singapore Post, the low-grade work of the Chinese companies is to blame for the cancellation of a spate of projects.

John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies’ China-Africa Research Initiative report said that China signed 1,141 loan commitments with various African governments and state enterprises which were worth USD 153 billion. This was done during the period 2000 to 2019, according to the Singapore Post.

Most of these Chinese projects in Africa are getting suspended or abandoned by the African countries amidst the Covid-19 crisis and the inability of these African countries to pay back the huge loans taken from China. Hence in order to cut debt burdens, these countries decided to shut down the Chinese projects, most of which fall under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative 2013.
via OpIndia

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by Muns » Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:26 am

Looking up some maps of Tawang especially on the satellite images. What is especially interesting to me is that all along the Himalayan chain , this seems to be one of the few breaks in the mountain wall leading from Tibet to Tawang.

The red pin is Bum La pass, Tawang can be seen a few Kilometers down to the South. It is no wonder that India has been recently heavily fortifying leave fortifying this area to make sure sure of no misadventures by the Chinese.

A new mountain strike corps has been posted here specifically along with many new Weapons system inductions.
These include the Brahmhos missile system along with Pinaka marks and the ultra light howitzer from the US.

If needed it's Plenty of offensive weaponry to upper cut directly into Tibet itself.

Highlighted the break in the mountain chain below in blue.....



Image

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Re: China - News & Discussion

Post by Muns » Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:29 am


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