Tag: Chinese President Xi Jinping

As US Secretary of State Blinken heads to China, these are the major divides he will try to bridge

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken is starting three days of talks with senior Chinese officials in Shanghai and Beijing this week with US-China ties at a critical point over numerous global disputes.

The mere fact that Blinken is making the trip — shortly after a conversation between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, a similar visit to China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and a call between the US and Chinese defense chiefs — might be seen by some as encouraging, but ties between Washington and Beijing are tense and the rifts are growing wider.

From Russia and Ukraine to Israel, Iran and the broader Middle East as well as Indo-Pacific and trade issues, the US and China are on a series of collision courses that have sparked fears about military and strategic security as well as international economic stability.

Blinken “will raise clearly and candidly our concerns” during the talks starting Wednesday, a senior State Department official said.

Here’s a look at some of the key issues Blinken is expected to bring up on the trip:

RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR

The Biden administration has grown increasingly concerned in recent months about Chinese support for Russia’s defense industrial base, which US officials say is allowing Moscow to overcome Western sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine and resupply its military. US officials say this will be a primary topic of conversation during Blinken’s visit.

While the US says it has no evidence China actually is arming Russia, officials say other activities are potentially equally problematic.

“If China purports on the one hand to want good relations with Europe and other countries, it can’t on the other hand be fueling what is the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War,” Blinken said last week.

A senior State Department official said Friday that “through Chinese support, Russia has largely reconstituted its defense industrial base, which has an impact not just on the battlefield in Ukraine but poses a larger threat, we believe, to broader European security.”

MIDDLE EAST TENSIONS

US officials, from Biden on down, have repeatedly appealed to China to use any leverage it may have with Iran to prevent Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza from spiraling into a wider regional conflict.

While China appears to have been generally receptive to such calls — particularly because it depends heavily on oil imports from Iran and other Mideast nations — tensions have steadily increased since the beginning of the Gaza war in October and more recent direct strikes and counterstrikes between Israel and Iran.

Blinken has pushed for China to take a more active stance in pressing Iran not to escalate tensions in the Middle East. He has spoken to his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, several times over the past six months and urged China to tell Iran to restrain the proxy groups it has supported in the region, including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria.

Blinken told Wang in a phone call this month that “escalation is not in anyone’s interest and that countries should urge Iran not to escalate,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said of their last conversation.

The senior State Department official said Blinken would reiterate the US interest in China using “whatever channels or influence it has to try to convey the need for restraint to all parties, including Iran.”

TAIWAN AND THE SOUTH CHINA SEA

In the Indo-Pacific region, China and the United States are the major players, but Beijing has become increasingly aggressive in recent years toward Taiwan and its smaller Southeast Asian neighbors with which it has significant territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea.

The US has strongly condemned Chinese military exercises threatening Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province and has vowed to reunify with the mainland by force if necessary. Successive US administrations have steadily boosted military support and sales for Taipei, much to Chinese anger.

The senior State Department official said Blinken would “underscore, both in private and public, America’s abiding interest in maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. We think that is vitally important for the region and the world.”

In the South China Sea, the US and others have become increasingly concerned by provocative Chinese actions in and around disputed areas.

In particular, the US has voiced objections to what it says are Chinese attempts to thwart legitimate maritime activities by others in the sea, notably the Philippines and Vietnam. That was a major topic of concern this month when Biden held a three-way summit with the prime minister of Japan and the president of the Philippines.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND SYNTHETIC OPIOIDS

The US and China are at deep odds over human rights in China’s western Xinjiang region, Tibet and Hong Kong as well as the fate of several American citizens that the State Department says have been “wrongfully detained” by Chinese authorities.

China has repeatedly rejected the American criticism as improper interference in its internal affairs. Yet, Blinken will again raise these issues, according to the senior State Department official, who added that China’s self-described efforts to rein in the export of materials that traffickers use to make fentanyl have yet to yield significant results.

The two sides agreed last year to set up a working group to look into ways to combat the surge of production of fentanyl precursors in China and their export abroad. US officials say they believe they had made some limited progress on cracking down on the illicit industry but many producers had found ways to get around new restrictions.

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Key points to observe in China’s biggest political event of the year

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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One burning issue dominates as the 2024 session of China’s legislature gets underway this week: the economy.

The National People’s Congress annual meeting, which opens Tuesday, is being closely watched for any signals on what the ruling Communist Party might do to reenergize an economy that is sagging under the weight of expanded government controls and the bursting of a real-estate bubble.

That is not to say that other issues won’t come up. Proposals to raise the retirement age are expected to be a hot topic, the state-owned Global Times newspaper said last week. And China watchers will parse the annual defense budget and the possible introduction of a new foreign minister.

But the economy is what is on most people’s minds in a country that may be at a major turning point after four decades of growth that propelled China into a position of economic and geopolitical power. For many Chinese, the failure of the post-COVID economy to rally strongly last year is shaking a long-held confidence in the future.

A CEREMONIAL ROLE

The National People’s Congress is largely ceremonial in that it doesn’t have any real power to decide on legislation. The deputies do vote, but it’s become a unanimous or near-unanimous formalizing of decisions that have been made by Communist Party leaders behind closed doors.

The congress can be a forum to propose and discuss ideas. The nearly 3,000 deputies are chosen to represent various groups, from government officials and party members to farmers and migrant workers. But Alfred Wu, an expert on governance in China, believes that role has been eroded by the centralization of power under Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“Everyone knows the signal is the top,” said Wu, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore and a former journalist in China. “Once the top says something, I say something. Once the top keeps silent, I also keep silent.”

Nonetheless, the reports and speeches during the congress can give indications of the future direction of government policy. And while they tend to be in line with previous announcements, major new initiatives have been revealed at the meeting, such as the 2020 decision to enact a national security law for Hong Kong following major anti-government protests in 2019.

A TARGET FOR GROWTH

The first thing the legislature will do on Tuesday is receive a lengthy “work report” from Premier Li Qiang that will review the past year and include the government’s economic growth target for this year.

Many analysts expect something similar to last year’s target of “around 5%,” which they say would affirm market expectations for a moderate step up in economic stimulus and measures to boost consumer and investor confidence.

Many current forecasts for China’s GDP growth are below 5%, but setting a lower target would signal less support for the economy and could dampen confidence, said Jeremy Zook, the China lead analyst at Fitch Ratings, which is forecasting 4.6% growth this year.

Conversely, a higher target of about 5.5% would indicate more aggressive stimulus, said Neil Thomas, a Chinese politics fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

There will be positive messages for private companies and foreign investors, Thomas said, but he doesn’t expect a fundamental change to Xi’s overall strategy of strengthening the party’s control over the economy.

“Political signals ahead of the National People’s Congress suggest that Xi is relatively unperturbed by China’s recent market troubles and is sticking to his guns on economic policy,” he said.

A NEW FOREIGN MINISTER, MAYBE

China’s government ministers typically hold their posts for five years, but Qin Gang was dismissed as foreign minister last year after only a few months on the job. To this day, the government has not said what happened to him and why.

His predecessor, Wang Yi, has been brought back as foreign minister while simultaneously holding the more senior position of the Communist Party’s top official on foreign affairs.

The presumption has been that Wang’s appointment was temporary until a permanent replacement could be named. Analysts say that could happen during the National People’s Congress, but there’s no guarantee it will.

“Wang Yi enjoys Xi’s trust and currently dominates diplomatic policymaking below the Xi level, so it would not be a shock if Wang remained foreign minister for a while longer,” Thomas said.

The person who has gotten the most attention as a possible successor is Liu Jianchao, a Communist Party official who is a former Foreign Ministry spokesperson and ambassador to the Philippines and Indonesia. He has made several overseas trips in recent months including to Africa, Europe, Australia and the U.S., increasing speculation that he is the leading candidate.

Other names that have been floated include Ma Zhaoxu, the executive vice foreign minister. Wu said it likely depends on whom Xi and Wang trust.

“I don’t know how Wang Yi thinks about it,” he said. “If Wang Yi likes somebody like Liu Jianchao or likes somebody like Ma Zhaoxu. And also Xi Jinping. So it’s more about personal relations.”

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US President Jo Biden to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in San Francisco this month

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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US President Joe Biden will meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco on November 15.

The confirmation by White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre follows months of work between the two countries to set up a sit-down for the two leaders around the APEC meeting – though the official acknowledgement appeared to happen almost by mistake during the daily White House press briefing. AFP News Agency on November 9 confirmed that the meeting would take place on November 15.

Jean-Pierre was asked why a formal announcement had not yet been finalised and disputed the premise of the question.

“The president said he’s looking forward to meeting with President Xi, and so, not going to get into details about this meeting that’s going to happen in this — tomorrow’s November — next month,” Jean-Pierre said. “It’s going to be in San Francisco. It’s going to be a constructive meeting. The president’s looking forward to it.”

Pressed further, Jean-Pierre backed away slightly, saying the US was “aiming to have a constructive conversation, meeting between the leaders in San Francisco in November.” But later, she conceded that the meeting was “going to happen.”

The Chinese embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The two sides agreed in principle to a meeting between Biden and Xi following a visit in October by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, according to an American official at the time, but held off on an announcement as they worked to finalize the details.

The agenda for the Biden-Xi meeting is likely to span issues including disputes over their economic and technological ambitions, disagreements over Taiwan, human rights, as well as broader geopolitical issues such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war. The US has pushed China to use its ties with Iran to keep the conflict from escalating and drawing in other countries and groups in the Middle East.

Biden administration officials had been eager to announce a face-to-face meeting between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies. It will be the first time Biden and Xi have spoken since they met in November 2022 at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. That meeting saw a short-lived thaw between the leaders as new tensions rose in the bilateral relationship.

Relations hit a new low in February after the US military shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon and virtually all channels of communication were cut off. The relationship has improved since then, due in part to a series of visits by US Cabinet officials to Beijing and working groups to address technology and economic issues.

Still, the countries are at odds over a number of issues and Chinese officials discussions’ with the US have been increasingly focused on economic issues such as US technology sanctions. Biden is restricting the export of advanced semiconductor and chipmaking technologies to China and seeking alternative sources for critical minerals — the natural resources needed for high-tech manufacturing.

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China’s economic crisis: Real estate woes ripple across sectors, households

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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As China grapples with a deepening economic crisis, analysts and experts are pointing to underlying issues that could have far-reaching implications. Experts believe the ramifications of the crisis extend beyond economic sectors, impacting households, consumer confidence, and international investor sentiment.

Brahma Chellaney, a strategic affairs expert, highlighted the severity of the real estate crisis and suggested that it poses a significant challenge for President Xi Jinping’s leadership.

“China’s real estate crisis is actually a bigger crisis confronting Chinese President Xi Jinping. China’s President is in a hurry, feels he has a small window to put China back on track,” Chellaney said. He further noted that the urgency to rejuvenate China’s economy could lead to increased risk-taking and potential crackdowns on protests. 

Notably, Evergrande Group, one of China’s highly indebted property giants, recently filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in the U.S., underscoring the gravity of the situation.

China’s Evergrande, the most indebted property developer in the world, defaulted in 2021. Evergrande’s struggles are mirrored by Country Garden, another major player, which warned of up to $7.6 billion first-half loss and apologized for misjudging market conditions.

According to Chellaney, the real estate slump in China is a part of a larger economic crisis, with structural constraints like an aging population and mounting debt adding to the woes. The ambition of transforming China into a global eco superpower may be hindered by these long-term challenges.

“China is world’s factory floor, crisis in China will hurt global eco. It will be very difficult for China to come out of the crisis given long-term constraints,” he said.

Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, emphasized the concerns of foreign investors, particularly regarding the contagion effects stemming from the real estate sector’s financing practices and the state of China’s shadow-banking system. The trust industry, valued at $2.9 trillion, has attracted regulatory attention as authorities seek to manage potential risks.

“A lot of the contagion concerns come from how real estate sector has been financed, trust industry…A lot of the contagion concerns come from the state of China’s shadow-banking system.”

“China’s property market is the face of a deeper crisis that has ripple effect across sectors, households. The crisis will, deeper down, hit Chinese consumers and international investor confidence in China,” Liu said.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

There is little chance that China will get involved with Russia at military level, says former deputy NSA

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Moscow for the first time since the Ukraine war to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Pankaj Saran, Former Deputy NSA, speaking to CNBC-TV18 stated that the relationship between Xi and Putin goes back many years, and the bonhomie between the two leaders is typical of Russia-China meet.

Saran stated that despite Russia-China deals, there is little chance that China will get involved with Russia at a military level. There is an element of opportunism for Russia and China, but their relationship will grow in the long term.

He said, “There was an element of warning to China about not getting involved militarily into the conflict. I do not think China is going to get militarily involved in the conflict, because of many reasons. And insofar as the Russia-China Summit is concerned and the various deals that were signed, I think China’s just being opportunistic. It is holding out a degree of comfort to Russia, in terms of bailing Russia out of its current position.”

Read Here | Putin, Xi conclude two days of talks — Key takeaways from China and Russia meet

One notable aspect of the meeting is Xi’s solidarity with Putin. Both countries are under siege by the West, and China wants to project itself as a global statesman and peacemaker. In doing so, China hopes to demonstrate its influence over Russia to the West and be seen as helping wind down tensions between Russia and the West.

Saran said, “The Chinese intention is perhaps to come across as a global statesman, as a global peacemaker, and to project to the West, that it has some influence over Russia, and that it can actually help in winding down the tensions. Insofar as the chances of success are concerned, as you have pointed out, I don’t think there are very good chances because of the Western suspicions over China.”

However, it is unlikely that the West will allow China the privilege of coming across as a global peacemaker.

Watch the video for more.

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U.S. warns China after South China Sea standoff with Philippines

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The United States on Friday warned China after a standoff in the South China Sea between China and the Philippines, saying it stood by Manila amid an “escalation that directly threatens regional peace and stability”.

Beijing “should not interfere with lawful Philippine activities in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone”, U.S. State Department Ned Price said in a statement.

On Thursday, the Philippines condemned “in strongest terms” the actions of three Chinese coast guard vessels that it said blocked and used water cannon on resupply boats headed towards a Philippine-occupied atoll in the South China Sea.

“The United States stands with our Philippine allies in upholding the rules-based international maritime order and reaffirms that an armed attack on Philippine public vessels in the South China Sea would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments,” Price said.

“The United States strongly believes that PRC (People’s Republic of China) actions asserting its expansive and unlawful South China Sea maritime claims undermine peace and security in the region,” he added.

The incident came as U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed a range of issues in a three-hour video call.

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China strengthens land border protection with new law amid standoff with India

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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China passed a law on Saturday to strengthen border protection amid a protracted standoff with India, worries about spillover effects from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and the spread of COVID-19 from Southeast Asia.

The Land Borders Law will not necessarily change how border security is handled when the measure takes effect on January 1, but it reflects China’s growing confidence in its capability to manage its frontiers.

China has been closely watching neighbouring Afghanistan, where the Taliban returned to power in August, to guard against a possible inflow of refugees or Islamic extremists crossing over to link up with the Muslim Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang region.

Chinese soldiers have been in a standoff with Indian troops since April 2020. The country will “take effective measures to resolutely protect territorial sovereignty and land border security”, the law says.

This is the first time that the People’s Republic of China, founded 72 years ago, has a dedicated law specifying how it governs and guards its 22,000-km (14,000-mile) land border shared with 14 countries, including former superpower Russia and nuclear-capable North Korea.

Chinese military and military police – the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Armed Police Force – are responsible for guarding the border against any “invasion, encroachment, infiltration, provocation”.

The law stipulates that China can close its border if a war or other armed conflict nearby threatens border security.

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At 39 aircraft, China sets new high for Taiwan defence zone incursion

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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A total of 39 Chinese air force aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defence zone on Saturday, the defence ministry in Taipei said, setting a new high for missions that have infuriated the island’s government and further raised tensions with Beijing.

Taiwan, a democratically governed island that is claimed by China, has complained for over a year of repeated missions near it by China’s air force, often in the southwestern part of its air defence zone close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands.

Taiwanese fighters scrambled against the 39 Chinese aircraft in two waves on Saturday, the Taiwan Defence Ministry said. It said Taiwan sent combat aircraft to warn away the Chinese aircraft, while missile systems were deployed to monitor them.

That was one more aircraft than on Friday, the day China marked its national day, which was at the time more planes than the country had ever sent before to harry Taiwan’s air defence zone.

Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said that on Saturday the Chinese aircraft first came during the day – 20 aircraft – followed on Saturday night by a further 19. Most of the aircraft were J-16 and Su-30 fighters, it added.

The aircraft on both missions flew near the Pratas, the ministry said, in separate statements late Saturday and early Sunday morning.

Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang condemned China for its actions on Saturday, saying the country was engaging in military aggression and damaging regional peace.

China is yet to comment.

It has previously said such flights were to protect the country’s sovereignty and aimed against “collusion” between Taiwan and the United States, the island’s most important international backer.

Taiwan marks its national day next Sunday, with a major speech by President Tsai Ing-wen and military parade in central Taipei, which will include a fly-by of fighter jets.

China has stepped up military and political pressure to try to force Taiwan to accept Chinese sovereignty. Taiwan says it is an independent country and will defend its freedom and democracy.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow