Foreign Policy

• Xi urges global transport cooperation, common development (Xinhua)
• Ministers vow to enhance China, Indonesia cooperation (Xinhua)
• Chinese ambassador slams AUKUS pact as "textbook case" of nuclear proliferation (Xinhua)
• China calls for swift efforts to help Afghanistan, removal of unilateral sanctions (GT)
• Xi Jinping speaks with 'old friend' Angela Merkel in diplomatic push (SCMP)
• COP15 adopts Kunming Declaration, a message of unity to facilitate future negotiations on biodiversity (GT)
• China's African resource-for-infrastructure deals face growing concern that locals don't feel the benefits (SCMP)

Domestic Policy

• Xi Jinping says China's 'democratic' political system is a 'great creation' that holds key to international success (SCMP)
• International experts: China an important contributor to global human rights progress (People's Daily)
• NPC steps up supervisory work of law enforcement (China Daily)
• Amended laws to guarantee people are masters of the nation (China Daily)
• China announces to establish five national parks (GT)
• Local governments roll out booster shots (Chian Daily)

Beijing

• Japan dominates short program at Beijing 2022 test event (Xinhua)

Guangdong

• Guangdong Province issues offshore municipal gov't bond in Macao SAR (Xinhua)

Tibet

• Tibet screens children for congenital heart disease (Xinhua)

Xinjiang

• Russian govt reps voice support for China's Xinjiang policy, slam Western lies (GT)
• Xinjiang allegations aim to curb China's growth (China Daily)
• 1st counter-terrorism exhibit held outside Xinjiang (GT)

Hongkong

• UN experts urge review of Hong Kong security law; say arrests 'incompatible' with human rights and int'l law (HKFP)
• All Hong Kong schools must display Chinese national flag, hold weekly flag-raising ceremonies from next year (HKFP)

Taiwan

• PLA exercises aimed at Taiwan secessionists (China Daily)
• Tsai's Double Ten speech a political farce (GT)

Economy

• Evergrande crisis: Beijing not likely to let developer collapse even as it gets tough, analysts say (SCMP)
• China's foreign trade maintains robust growth, reports improved quality (Xinhua)
• Several Private Banks Hit With Record Fines for Playing Fast and Loose With Loans (Caixin)

DPRK

• North Korea's Kim Jong-un blames US for being 'root cause' of tensions (SCMP/AFP)

Mongolia

• China, Mongolia pledge to enhance cooperation (Xinhua)
• Mongolia, Belarus express interest to strengthen political ties (Montsame)
• Ambassador T.Badral visits Inner Mongolia (Montsame)

^ top ^

Xi urges global transport cooperation, common development (Xinhua)
2021-10-15
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday called for advancing global transport cooperation and promoting common development amid world changes and a pandemic both unseen in a century. Addressing via video link the opening ceremony of the Second United Nations Global Sustainable Transport Conference in Beijing, Xi called for "writing a new chapter featuring connectivity of infrastructure, unfettered flows of trade and investment, and interactions between civilizations." The conference, scheduled from Thursday to Saturday, will underscore the importance of sustainable transport to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Representatives from 171 countries gathered online and offline for the three-day meeting. Stressing that transport is the artery of the economy and a bond between civilizations, Xi said transport has facilitated economic integration and people-to-people exchanges, and turned the world into a close-knit global village. "Only with openness, inclusiveness and connectivity can countries reinforce each other's efforts and achieve win-win results," Xi said. He urged efforts from all countries to strengthen both hard connectivity of infrastructure and soft connectivity of institutions and rules, and develop four-dimensional connectivity of land, sea, air and the Internet. He highlighted the importance of common development. To achieve common prosperity, efforts should be made to enhance North-South and South-South cooperation and scale up support for developing transport infrastructure in the least developed countries and landlocked developing countries, Xi noted. He called for deep integration of new technologies like big data, the Internet, artificial intelligence and blockchain with the transport sector, as well as more efforts to foster a green and low-carbon way of transport. Transport is responsible for around a quarter of direct CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion, according to statistics from a United Nations (UN) report on sustainable transport. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called on countries across the world to join forces to build more sustainable transport systems and accelerate the decarbonization process of the entire transport industry. "All stakeholders have a role to play," the UN chief said at the opening ceremony. Liu Zhenmin, under-secretary-general for the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, viewed the ongoing transport conference as an opportunity for knowledge-sharing, collaboration and dialogue necessary to advance progress in sustainable transport. China has constantly expanded global cooperation in the transportation field and supported developing countries including African and Latin American countries in capacity building and technical training, according to a report on China's sustainable transport development released on the official website of the UN conference Thursday. Xi announced that China will set up a Global Innovation and Knowledge Center for Sustainable Transport, as a contribution to global transport development. "China will continue to hold high the banner of true multilateralism, and stay connected with the world and abreast with the times. This way, we will contribute more to global development while pursuing our own development," Xi said. ^ top ^

Ministers vow to enhance China, Indonesia cooperation (Xinhua)
2021-10-15
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met on Thursday with Indonesia's Coordinator for Cooperation with China and Coordinating Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan via video link, and the two sides agreed to enhance cooperation and bring bilateral ties to a higher level. Noting that relations between China and Indonesia have maintained a strong momentum of development, Wang said the two sides should give full play to the high-level dialogue and cooperation mechanism and move the China-Indonesia comprehensive strategic partnership forward in the direction of a community with a shared future. China welcomes Indonesia to purchase more COVID-19 vaccines from China, and supports Indonesia in building a regional vaccine production center, Wang said. "China is willing to work with Indonesia to jointly oppose the stigmatization of the epidemic and the politicization of COVID-19 origins tracing," Wang said. Wang said China is ready to deepen economic, trade and investment cooperation with Indonesia, and work together for more achievements in major Belt and Road projects, such as the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Corridor and the "Two Countries, Twin Parks" project. China will continue to encourage Chinese-funded enterprises to actively participate in Indonesia's industrialization process and continuously expand market access for Indonesian exports to China, Wang said. Indonesia firmly pursues a friendly policy toward China and supports the vision of a community with a shared future for humanity, Luhut said. "It is expected that the two sides will continue to strengthen vaccine research and development, as well as production cooperation, and accelerate the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative," Luhut added. The two sides expressed concerns and opposition to actions that create nuclear proliferation risks and regional division, stressing that all parties should jointly safeguard regional peace and stability. The two sides also agreed to strengthen coordination on promoting regional cooperation and addressing climate change. Regarding Indonesia's presidency of the G20 in 2022, Wang said that China supports Indonesia in hosting the G20 summit. ^ top ^

Chinese ambassador slams AUKUS pact as "textbook case" of nuclear proliferation (Xinhua)
2021-10-14
The AUKUS pact among the United States, Britain and Australia, which will enable Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines with technology provided by the United States and Britain, is a "textbook case" of nuclear proliferation based on the Cold War mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical calculation, a Chinese diplomat said Wednesday. Answering questions at a virtual press conference, Chinese Ambassador for Disarmament Affairs Li Song said that the deal constitutes a serious challenge to the letter and spirit of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). He told journalists from the United Nations Correspondents Association that AUKUS is also an awkward example set by the United States, Britain and Australia in their so-called "leadership" in non-proliferation. "As the depositary states of the NPT, the United States and Britain are to help Australia, a non-nuclear-weapon state, to obtain nuclear-powered submarines, sensitive nuclear materials including tons of weapon-grade Uranium, and other relevant technologies and equipment. Such cooperation has never happened in the history of the NPT," Li said. "To put it in a nutshell, AUKUS is like a fire, the comprehensive safeguard mechanism is like a piece of paper. You just can't cover the fire with paper," he added. The Chinese envoy further pointed out that such cooperation will lead to a wider range of impacts to regional nuclear-weapon-free zones in South Pacific and Southeast Asia, spur regional arms race, undermine regional unity and cooperation, and therefore disturb regional peace and stability. "Nuclear proliferation is not welcomed in Asian Pacific," said the ambassador, noting the recent incident of foreign nuclear submarine in South China Sea further indicated "that those submarines which traveled all the way across the globe will only bring trouble to our region." "They are also not welcomed by regional countries and peoples," Li said. A nuclear-powered U.S. Navy fast-attack submarine was damaged after it "struck an object" while submerged in waters in the Indo-Pacific region on Oct. 2, the U.S. Navy said in a statement. A U.S. defense official told U.S. Naval Institute (USNI) News that about 11 sailors were hurt in the incident. ^ top ^

China calls for swift efforts to help Afghanistan, removal of unilateral sanctions (GT)
2021-10-13
At a special G20 summit on Tuesday to discuss Afghan issues, China called for joint and swift efforts to help Afghanistan avoid looming crises and urged countries that have caused the current predicament in Afghanistan to learn the lessons and assume their responsibilities. Chinese President Xi Jinping's special representative Wang Yi, also Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister, attended the extraordinary G20 leaders' summit on the Afghanistan issue via video link on Tuesday. "Today's Afghanistan is at the crossroads of the rise and fall of governance, and there is still a long way to go to achieve peace and stability," Wang said at the meeting. "The past 20 years in Afghanistan have once again suggested that the right path is always to respect each other's choice of development path, and mutual tolerance for different civilizations," Wang noted, adding that imposing ideology on others will only bring chaos and poverty that will lead to serious humanitarian disasters. Wang urged G20 members to contribute to the peaceful development of Afghanistan on the basis of respect for its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. Wang put forward four proposals at the meeting, including putting people first and helping Afghanistan to overcome the humanitarian crisis; encouraging Afghanistan to move toward inclusive development; holding a zero-tolerance attitude to terrorism, and pushing for joint efforts with a consensus toward helping Afghanistan. Wang noted that countries that have caused the current predicament in Afghanistan should learn the lessons and take responsibility to help avoid a humanitarian and refugee crisis. Countries that still impose unilateral sanctions should lift them, and international financial organizations should increase financial support for Afghanistan's poverty alleviation and infrastructure construction. The international community should also build a united front to fight terrorism, abandon double standards and avoid Afghanistan falling into the role of being a shelter and hotbed for terrorism. Wang noted that China is implementing its commitment of emergency aid worth 200 million yuan ($0.31 million) and the first batch has arrived in Afghanistan. The virtual meeting was hosted by Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the rotating president of the G20. US President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Europe's G20 leaders also took part. "The summit's focus points include urgent humanitarian support for the Afghan population, the fight against terrorism, freedom of movement inside the country and open borders," Draghi's office said in a brief statement, Reuters reported on Tuesday. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres joined the summit, according to the report, highlighting the central role given to the UN in dealing with Afghanistan. However, no major consensus is likely to be reached at the summit, experts believe. For one thing, Russia and China are opposed to Western countries' attitudes in settling the Afghan issue. "They want to set some preconditions for their assistance, for example, asking the Afghan Taliban to meet certain requirements in regard to the political system, religious policy, and policies on women's and children's rights, before they provide any actual aid," Wang Jin, an associate professor at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies of Northwest University, told the Global Times on Tuesday. Zhu Yongbiao, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies in Lanzhou University, held a similar view, noting that the meeting's form is heavier than its content. Zhu said that although there are common concerns in terms of refugees and the Afghan Taliban's commitments in safeguarding national security, countries' views on core issues are very different - such as, with regard to its humanitarian crisis, how many refugees each will take, the amount of aid to be provided, and recognition of the Taliban. While few actual results will emerge, observers believed the meeting is more a case of showing the moral image of developed countries, to express their concern for the regional hot issue. Another practical purpose for holding the meeting is that, if the Afghan issue is not dealt with properly and promptly, more Afghan refugees will continue to flee to Europe, which is a consequence they do not want to see, Wang noted. The major challenges that Afghanistan faces are international recognition, a socioeconomic crisis, and security threats, and these problems are intertwined, analysts explained. "What the world should do right now is to address the country's humanitarian crisis, to provide it with the amount of aid promised at the United Nations Refugee Agency, to which a pledge of over $1 billion was made for Afghanistan," Zhu told the Global Times on Tuesday, noting that Western countries had failed to entirely fulfill their promises over previous years. At the meeting, Guterres said that banks in Afghanistan are running out of money, civil servants have not been paid and food prices have soared. "The crisis is affecting at least 18 million people - half the country's population," Guterres said. China will provide Afghanistan with 200 million yuan ($31 million) worth of grain, winter supplies, vaccines and other medicine in line with the needs of the Afghan people, Wang Yi said in early September during a meeting with foreign ministers from Afghanistan's neighboring countries, just one day after the Afghan Taliban announced a new interim government. It included a donation of 3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the country and a promise that China will continue to provide more material and technical support. ^ top ^

Xi Jinping speaks with 'old friend' Angela Merkel in diplomatic push (SCMP)
2021-10-13
Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke to outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday, bidding her farewell and emphasising the solidity of Beijing-Berlin relations, as part of a diplomatic flurry designed to steady European ties. The leaders reviewed the development of China-Germany relations in a "friendly atmosphere" in their virtual meeting, state broadcaster CCTV reported, with Xi saying Merkel – due to step down after 16 years at the helm – was an "old friend". The engagement between China and Europe follows last week's meeting between top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and the announcement last month of a security alliance between the US, the UK and Australia that has angered France. Xi told Merkel that China and Germany have pushed for mutually beneficial cooperation and their economies complemented one another. "China and Germany have developed well on their own and have made greater contributions to the world economy. This proves that the zero-sum game can be avoided completely between countries," Xi was quoted as saying. The common interests of China and Europe have overridden their differences, and Europe should remain independent in its foreign policies, he said. "Both sides should look at China-EU relations from a broader perspective, see each other objectively … and handle their differences in a rational, peaceful and constructive way." A statement from Merkel's office said the two leaders spoke about the development of bilateral relations and current issues on the international agenda. "Among other things, [the meeting] dealt with preparations for the upcoming G20 summit, issues of climate protection and the fight against pandemics, as well as human rights and the investment agreement between the European Union and China," the statement said. The virtual call may be the last official engagement between Xi and Merkel, who helped to nurture EU-China ties during her 16 years as German chancellor. However, her Christian Democratic Union party suffered a chastening defeat in last month's election. "The Chinese people will never forget their old friend. The doors of China will always be open to you," Xi was quoted as telling Merkel. "We hope you will continue to care for and support China-German and China-European relations." The online meeting was the latest event in a diplomatic flurry between Chinese and European Union leaders. As previously reported by the South China Morning Post, Xi will also hold a call with European Council President Charles Michel on Friday, in a week of top-level diplomatic exchanges regarded as efforts by China to improve fraying ties. This comes amid speculation that Xi will not travel to Europe for the G20 leaders' summit at the end of the month or for the COP26 climate talks in November, leaving no opportunity for face-to-face talks. A European diplomat briefed about the Xi-Merkel call said it had been arranged, at Xi's request, to discuss issues related to the COP26 summit. EU-China relations sank this year to arguably their lowest point in three decades, with Brussels imposing sanctions on Chinese officials for their role in alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang – the first such action taken by the EU since the arms embargo that followed the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. China responded with sweeping sanctions on a host of EU ambassadors, parliamentarians and academics, leading the European Parliament to stall consideration of an EU-China investment pact that had been agreed to in principle at the end of 2020. Alarmed by the deterioration in ties, in recent weeks the European Union has also sought ways to improve the relationship. At an informal dinner in Slovenia last week, the bloc's 27 national leaders discussed China strategy for the first time in a year. An official who attended said they talked about a need to "rebalance" ties with China, while the EU's de facto foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell wrote in a blog post on Sunday that they "agreed that we must remain strong in our approach, based on the 'partner, competitive, rival' tryptic". "We must encourage dialogue and cooperation in certain areas like climate policy," Borrell added. "But we should also be ready to push back when Chinese decisions run counter to our views, notably on human rights and geopolitical choices." Beijing is anxiously watching for a resolution on three-way coalition talks in Berlin. The Social Democratic Party is negotiating for a governing coalition with the Green Party and the Free Democratic Party, both of which advocate a tougher line on China. While a radical overhaul in Germany's China policy is not likely, some changes are expected. "If you're steering a tanker and turn it five degrees in one direction, you end up in a completely different place," said one person involved in the talks. The interaction between Xi and senior EU leaders comes during the fallout from the announcement of the Aukus alliance, which caused France to lose out on a lucrative submarine sale to Australia. French President Emmanuel Macron has redoubled his push for European "strategic autonomy" and his vision of the EU ploughing a furrow independent of both the US and China. "The United States wants to confront China. The European Union wants to engage China," French Foreign Minister Bruno Le Maire told The New York Times in an interview published on Tuesday, adding that the EU must be "independent from the United States, able to defend its own interests, whether economic or strategic interests". Cui Hongjian, director of the Department for European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, a think tank affiliated with the foreign ministry, said: "China-EU cooperation should not be overshadowed by their differences. The upcoming G20 summit and the COP26 meeting in Glasgow will be important occasions where the two sides can work together." Beijing is concerned about Europe losing its strategic autonomy by siding with the US on China. The concept of strategic autonomy is rejected by some Central and Eastern European nations like Lithuania and Poland, both of which see the US as integral to European freedom. China policy in Lithuania, in particular, is arguably more reflective of Washington than Brussels. One of the bloc's smallest members, it has become embroiled in a diplomatic dispute with Beijing over Taiwan and has been pushing a tougher EU line on China. Following the talks in Slovenia, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said that he thought "the recent events related to Lithuania have a certain impact on the general stance of the EU, given that we see increased aggressiveness on the part of China, its stronger wish to dictate its own terms and, of course, to play a bigger role in the world". ^ top ^

COP15 adopts Kunming Declaration, a message of unity to facilitate future negotiations on biodiversity (GT)
2021-10-13
A declaration on joint efforts and momentum to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity was passed on Wednesday in Kunming, Southwest China's Yunnan Province, at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15). Chinese Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu declared the adoption of the declaration titled "Towards an Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth" at the High-Level Segment of the first part of COP15. The declaration will send a powerful signal, showing the world our determination to solve the problem of biodiversity loss, and our stronger action on the issues discussed at this high-level meeting, Huang said. The Kunming Declaration embodies the consensus of all parties, shows the political determination of all parties to take action to address the challenges of biodiversity and jointly build a community of life on earth, Zhao Yingmin, vice minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said at Wednesday's press conference. In the Kunming Declaration, Parties vowed to accelerate formulating or revising biodiversity action plans in each country, set up or optimize a reserve system, actively improve the global environmental legal system and increase funding and technical support for developing countries to achieve the post-2020 global biodiversity framework to push protection and restoration of land, freshwater and marine biodiversity. The Kunming Declaration is the main achievement of this conference. The declaration commits to ensuring the formulation, adoption and implementation of an effective post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework to reverse the current loss of biodiversity and ensure that biodiversity is on the path to recovery by 2030 at the latest to fully meet the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature. Uruguay's Ambassador to China Fernando Lugris told the Global Times in Kunming that the declaration is a very important political message because it's a message of unity. The declaration sets the tone for future negotiations, and we need to act to adopt the post-2020 biodiversity framework next year which will set new targets and a new level of ambitions for the international community, Lugris said. Bangladeshi Ambassador to China Mahbub Uz Zaman told the Global Times that the declaration is political support, a pledge made by world leaders to save the planet, and political support is very important. If we don't have it for projects or targets, we cannot achieve them. The ambassador also hailed the 1.5 billion yuan ($233 million) fund proposed by China, as climate vulnerable countries like Bangladesh can benefit from it. He said Bangladesh will learn from China's efforts in ecological protection and reforestation. Lugris also spoke highly of the fund, which added impetus and created an atmosphere for discussions in Kunming. The declaration was made with China's coordination, reflecting the nation's enduring commitment to biodiversity protection. With a consensus, concrete negotiations and actions can be made, Qin Tianbao, professor and director of the Research Institute of Environmental Law at Wuhan University, told the Global Times on Wednesday. The declaration was made with China's coordination, reflecting the nation's enduring commitment to biodiversity protection. With a consensus, concrete negotiations and actions can be made, Qin Tianbao, professor and director of the Research Institute of Environmental Law at Wuhan University, told the Global Times on Wednesday. Qin, who is also chief expert with the Academy of International Law and Global Governance at Wuhan University, said the protection of biodiversity is more complex than tackling climate change, where countries negotiate on a simpler goal of carbon reduction. Biodiversity, the protection, use and share of relevant resources, plus the situations in different countries, make the issue complex, he said. One major power has long been absent in global biodiversity protection efforts - the US. It hasn't approved the Convention on Biological Diversity 30 years after signing it. US utilitarianism has prompted it not to join many global biodiversity protection conventions, and US biofirms are part of the reason, experts said. Qin said joining those conventions would increase US firms' costs to access bio resources in many developing countries, and add pressure on them to provide funding and transfer technologies on biodiversity protection. Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Wednesday that the US' absence has damaged global biodiversity protection efforts, and urged it to cast aside utilitarianism and assume its responsibilities. ^ top ^

China's African resource-for-infrastructure deals face growing concern that locals don't feel the benefits (SCMP)
2021-10-11
Chinese infrastructure-for-minerals deals across Africa are coming under growing scrutiny amid concerns that the promised benefits have failed to materialise. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, President Felix Tshisekedi recently ordered renegotiation of a US$6 billion deal between state-owned commodity trading and mining company Gecamines with a consortium of Chinese firms led by Sinohydro and China Railway Engineering Corporation to develop a copper and cobalt mine. Kinshasa maintains that it has not benefited much from the arrangement but Beijing says it has built several projects in the Central African nation despite obstacles, including a lack of power to develop the mine. Another similar project is a bauxite-for-infrastructure deal in Ghana under which state-owned Chinese firm Sinohydro Corp agreed to invest about US$2 billion in infrastructure such as roads, housing and rural electrification. In exchange, Ghana would use money earned from the sale of bauxite – the main ore used to make aluminium, refined bauxite and aluminium to repay the loans. As collateral, Ghana agreed to establish an offshore escrow account for receiving revenues generated from the sale of bauxite. According to a study in June by Luis Scungio, a corporate accountability researcher and adviser at the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations, such deals "reflect the underdeveloped economies of some host countries that have significant natural resources, along with a need for roads, power plants, schools and other infrastructure". The study said China lacked natural resources but was very experienced in construction. It also said China had signed similar deals in the 1980s when Japan needed raw materials and oil from an underdeveloped China. "China has replicated this model in Africa, swapping its expertise in the infrastructure sector for various natural resources," Scungio said. He said both the DRC and Ghana cases had been subject to accusations that they were destroying the environment. Sicomines, the Sino-Congolese joint venture that operates the copper and cobalt mine, has in the past been accused of releasing chemicals from its sites into a river, affecting communities downstream that depended on the water source. And in Ghana, "the [bauxite] deal has become a matter of fierce controversy because the earmarked location for bauxite exploitation is the Atewa Forest, one of the major evergreen forests in Western Africa". Some Ghanaian opposition leaders have described the deal as a fiasco because not a single road had been delivered three years after the resource-backed arrangement was signed. They also warn the US$2 billion deal between Ghana and Sinohydro will increase the debt burden, but the government says it is a barter arrangement that will not increase the country's public debt. Last week, Gideon Boako, a spokesman for Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia, told local media that projects funded by a loan from Sinohydro would be completed within three years. David Landry, a global studies assistant professor at Duke University, said a major problem for the Congolese agreement – and similar deals in Angola and Guinea – was a lack of transparency that "fuelled speculation about who, between the Chinese and African parties of the deal, would benefit from it". This issue was particularly salient in the case of the Congolese deal as it was signed shortly after the 2006 Congolese elections and was closely tied to former president Joseph Kabila's election promises. "This led many to believe that it was negotiated from a position of weakness by the Congolese government," Landry said. He said resource-for-infrastructure agreements were often unpopular with the populations of the countries where they were implemented. "They are also unlikely to grow in popularity among creditors because of the important risks they comprise. Therefore, in my view, they are unlikely to become more popular in the future," Landry said. Christian-Geraud Neema, an independent Congolese mining and policy analyst, said electoral considerations were a factor in both the Ghana and Congo deals. In the case of Ghana, President Nana Akufo-Addo had promised a lot with the bauxite deal, which was supposed to help Ghana fill a part of its infrastructure gap. "At the end of his second tenure, he needs to leave a political legacy for himself and his party. So there is an urgent political incentive for him to see that deal through with tangible positive results," Neema said. As for the DRC, Neema said Tshisekedi was running for a second term. "Pushing for more results from the Sicomines deal is one of the sure ways for him to have infrastructure built in the country right before elections in 2023," Neema said. "We see both governments have political incentives to see those deals go through successfully." "Where African governments are looking to secure political points, China is looking to make money" and would take factors such as commodity prices into account when disbursing funds for these projects, he said. Neema said that despite the challenges, "China is the only major power with the financial, technical and political will and incentive to invest in major infrastructure projects in Africa". "It is easier for African countries to secure funding from China than from the international market. The political and economic instability of many resource-rich African countries raises the cost of lending for major projects," he said. "As long as Western or international market funding will come with political and economic conditions, this model still has a future in Africa for resource-rich countries." ^ top ^

Xi Jinping says China's 'democratic' political system is a 'great creation' that holds key to international success (SCMP)
2021-10-14
President Xi Jinping has hailed China's political system as a "great creation" and the key to its global success on Thursday amid intensifying ideological confrontation with Washington. He told a party meeting in Beijing that the competition between political systems was a "key aspect" in the competition between nations, and could be a "key advantage for the country in gaining the strategic initiative", according to state media reports. "History and reality have shown that a country is stable if its system is stable, and a country is strong if its [political] system is robust," he said. Xi made the remarks on Thursday at a party meeting to discuss China's constitutional system, where he hailed the Chinese system as a "whole-process democracy", adding: "[It] is a great creation in the political history of the human race by our party, and a significant brand new system in the history of the political development of our country and even that of the world." Xi also argued that real democracy was not about rhetoric and pledges made on the election trail, saying: "Democracy is not ornament or just for decoration. Democracy is for solving the people's real problems." The meeting comes as Beijing is stepping up its efforts to defend its system in the face of mounting pressure from the West, which has slapped multiple sanctions on China amid growing concerns over human rights and the suppression of dissent. Xi's speech was an apparent response to the pressure by Washington on human rights and values, said Qin Qianhong, a law professor with Wuhan University. "[US President Joe] Biden has used different ways to pressure China compared with [Donald] Trump, and has played with issues like human rights and democratic values," he said. Biden is expected to host the first of two Summits for Democracy in December, and Beijing will be watching closely to see if delegates from Taiwan, which it considered a breakaway province, will be invited. "I personally think that this is a response after Chinese leaders have been under great pressure … including the democracy summit [proposed by Biden] and the sanctions," Qin said. To Beijing's discomfort, the White House has also used phrases such as "shared democratic values" in the framework for new multinational trade and security agreements, such as the US-EU Trade and Technology Council and Aukus, the security partnership between Australia, Britain and the US. In his Thursday speech, Xi apparently sought to discredit any criticism of China's political system, without naming specific countries. "Whether a country is democratic or not should only be judged by the people of that country, and there is no place for a small number of outsiders to point fingers at this or that," he said. Xi added that it is "undemocratic" to judge all political systems by one single standard. His remarks echo previous attempts by Chinese diplomats, including Qin Gang the ambassador to the US, to challenge the emerging narrative that defines US-China ties as "democracy versus authoritarianism". In one recent speech to the Carter Centre and the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations, Qin argued that China is a "whole-process democracy" in which "all power belongs to the people" whose interests are represented at all levels of the system. Xi previously used the phrase "whole-process democracy" in his July 1 speech to mark the Communist Party's centenary. The ambassador also quoted Abraham Lincoln's concept of government "of the people, by the people, for the people" and Plato's belief in the importance of a state educating its citizens to prove that China is a genuine democracy. But Xi went further on Thursday, saying: "If there are only high-flying promises before elections and no say for the people after them, then such a democracy is not a real democracy." He continued: "In judging whether the political system of a country is democratic or effective, [we should] examine if there is an orderly and legal succession of its leadership, if its people can manage state affairs, social, economic and cultural matters in accordance with the law, and if its people can effectively express their interests and demands. "[It depends on] whether different sectors of the society can effectively participate in the political life in the country … and whether there are effective checks and balances on power," he added. Qin, the law professor, said Xi was also trying to contrast China's orderly preparations for the 20th Communist Party Congress next year with the chaos following last year's US presidential election, including the attack on Capitol Hill. Xi is expected to be appointed for a third term as party chief at next autumn's party congress, the first Chinese leader to do so in decades. ^ top ^

International experts: China an important contributor to global human rights progress (People's Daily)
2021-10-14
China has made remarkable achievements in human rights and contributed its wisdom and solutions to global human rights governance, promoting the world's human rights cause, said heads of social organizations, experts and scholars from countries including China, the United Kingdom (UK), France, Japan, Pakistan, Laos, and Venezuela. They expressed such views at online side events at the 48th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which were held by social organizations and human rights research institutes including China Society for Human Rights Studies and China NGO Network for International Exchanges (CNIE). The country won wide recognition at multiple side events for its achievements in protecting the rights of ethnic minority groups as well as other aspects of its human rights progress. Through institutional and policy guarantees, China ensures that ethnic minority citizens enjoy rights to equality and freedom and to economic, social and cultural services. China helps all ethnic minority areas accelerate their economic and cultural development, according to attendees at these side events. China's efforts and achievements in promoting overall, comprehensive, proactive, and substantial protection of the rights of people of all ethnic groups in its Tibet autonomous region over the past 70 years since the peaceful liberation of the region have fully demonstrated socialist system's advantage and characteristic of protecting the rights of ethnic minority groups, said Yang Zongke, president of Northwest University of Political Science and Law in China. China's experience in protecting human rights in Tibet has offered the world good examples of human rights protection, Yang said. China's success in reducing poverty in Tibet has further guaranteed a fair and just environment for human rights development, strengthened the capabilities of impoverished population in Tibet to take part in social and economic development and share the fruits of development, and better safeguarded the rights of residents in the region to subsistence and development, representing a historic achievement in human rights in Tibet, said Kelsang Drolma, a researcher on Tibetan economy and society with the China Tibetology Research Center. By showing the realities of the sound economic and social development in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, participants in these side events have debunked the false allegations against the region made by a handful of Western countries who have attempted to smear China. Carlos Martinez, an independent researcher and political activist from the UK, said that he hasn't seen any phenomenon of the so-called "cultural extinction" or "religious persecution" in Xinjiang during his visits to the region in recent years. The accusation of human rights violations in Xinjiang made by certain Western countries is entirely groundless, according to him. Muhammad Zamir Assadi, a journalist with Independent News Pakistan, said he has visited Xinjiang and had a wonderful time there. During his stay in the region, he could truly feel that the Chinese government respects the traditional culture and folk customs of the ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang very much and fully guarantees local Muslims' freedom of religious belief, according to Assadi. Last month, China's State Council Information Office released the "Human Rights Action Plan of China (2021-2025)," the country's fourth human rights action plan. It attracted wide attention and became a hot topic at online side events. China's fourth human rights action plan is in line with the country's social and cultural environment and shows the country's attention to safeguarding the rights of special groups and commitment to solving problems including poverty, said Sitsangkhom Sisaketh, Lao deputy permanent representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG). China has set a good example to countries around the world by issuing and implementing the action plan, he said. China has made significant progress in protecting human rights, said Rajmi Manatunga, first secretary of the Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the UNOG. China has met the poverty eradication target set out in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule, which is particularly impressive and has a profound influence on the international community, Manatunga noted. China's fourth human rights action plan is rich and comprehensive in content and worth recommending and encouraging, Manatunga said. There are good practices of respecting and safeguarding human rights in different industries in China, which are worth further studying and sharing by the international community, said Bård A. Andreassen, professor of human rights at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo and research director of the research group on human rights and development at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo. "The Chinese government has issued four human rights action plans consecutively. It is an important manifestation of the constant development of China's human rights," said Tang Yingxia, deputy director of the human rights research center of China's Nankai University. A highlight of the latest human rights action plan is that it uses a whole chapter to specify people's environmental rights and enrich the connotation of environment-related human rights, which demonstrated China's high attention to the field, Tang noted. ^ top ^

NPC steps up supervisory work of law enforcement (China Daily)
2021-10-14
China's top legislature has played a bigger role in supervising the enforcement of laws and how State departments work in the past few years to keep the people's congress system running and ensure the people are the masters of the country. From November 2012 to September this year, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress inspected the enforcement of 48 laws and two legal decisions, and reviewed 157 work reports made by administrative, procuratorial, supervisory and judicial agencies. While being given the power to supervise the enforcement of the Constitution and laws, the NPC Standing Committee is also allowed to monitor work of the State Council and its departments as well as the National Supervisory Commission, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate. According to the NPC Standing Committee's research office, the NPC Standing Committee has made law enforcement inspection a top priority since 2012 and has inspected about six laws every year since 2015. To make the inspections more scientific, the NPC Standing Committee invited third-party assessment institutes to help test to see if environment-related laws, such as those on water quality and soil degradation prevention and control, were working, the office said. It said all irregularities in law enforcement should be exposed, and factors that made laws hard to implement must also be figured out. Meanwhile, the NPC Standing Committee has established a routine in work report review since 2012. For example, in June each year, it deliberates on a State Council report on the final accounts of the previous year and an audit report on the central government's budget, fiscal revenue and expenditures of the previous year. In August, it reviews a report on the implementation of the plan for national economic and social development, and also checks whether the current year's budget is being implemented properly. In October, it deliberates on reports made by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate about some specialized industries to check procuratorial and judicial work and also promote related reforms. Zhai Wei, deputy director of the research division of the NPC Standing Committee's general office, said the stronger the supervisory role the NPC Standing Committee plays, the better the people's congress system will be implemented. "The better implementation of the system will contribute to promoting law enforcement and ensuring the people are the masters of the nation," he said. Zhai told media last month that the NPC Standing Committee is planning to revise the Supervision Law and considering strengthening the management of economic work by improving related legal decisions. The NPC Standing Committee has also intensified supervision of work in some major areas, including environmental protection, State-owned assets management and fighting corruption, increasing the frequency of reviews of related reports. "For instance, we've begun reviewing the State Council's annual report on environmental protection since 2014, and deliberating on a report on how to correct problems found in audits since 2015," Zhai said. The NPC Standing Committee has also focused more on poverty relief and livelihoods, reviewing a number of reports involving technology, agriculture, education, healthcare, the maritime economy and cultural development to promote the country's high-quality growth. ^ top ^

Amended laws to guarantee people are masters of the nation (China Daily)
2021-10-13
China has been stepping up efforts to amend laws involving the people's congress system to further guarantee the people are masters of the nation and implement whole-process people's democracy. The amendments not only keep the country's important system running by rule of law, but also meet new needs of the people and social development, senior legislators said. The people's congress system is the fundamental political system in China. Under the Constitution, all State power belongs to the people. The National People's Congress and the local people's congresses are the bodies through which the people exercise State power. The people's congresses at all levels are constituted through democratic elections, and are responsible to the people and subject to their supervision. All administrative, supervisory, judicial and procuratorial agencies of the country are created by the people's congresses to which they are responsible and by which they are supervised. In March, the amended Organic Law and Procedural Rules of the National People's Congress were adopted by lawmakers after deliberation, opening a new chapter for the NPC, the country's top legislative body. "The revisions to the law and rules of the system were made based on experience gained and the successful practices over the past period," said Zhai Wei, deputy director of the research office of the NPC Standing Committee's general office. He made the remark last month when introducing legal achievements on the NPC system to media, depicting the revised laws as improvements to uphold the system and regulate its work flow. For example, learning from the experiences of holding the third session of the 13th NPC amid the COVID-19 pandemic last year, the amended NPC's Procedural Rules added that the agenda of NPC meetings should be arranged more rationally and the efficiency and quality of the meetings need to be improved. In general, the NPC's annual session, the most important political event in the country, is held in Beijing in March. Due to the pandemic, however, the 2020 session was postponed to May and lasted for just seven days, as opposed to around 10 days in the past. The revised NPC Organic Law also clarifies that members of the National Supervisory Commission should submit motions to the NPC and its standing committee to meet new requirements of China's institutional reform. The amendments have attached importance to NPC deputies, urging the NPC and its standing committee to provide deputies with more chances to participate in legislative activities and use technologies to make it easier for them to perform their duties. Before amending the two key legal documents, Zhai said the country had also increased the numbers of deputies to the people's congresses at the township and county-level regions by revising the Electoral Law to optimize the structure of the system. In addition, several other laws involving the system are also on the list to be revised, said Tong Weidong, an official from the NPC Standing Committee's Legislative Affairs Commission. According to a proposed agenda disclosed by the top legislature at the end of last month, a new session of the NPC Standing Committee will be held in Beijing from Oct 19 to 23, during which lawmakers will review a draft amendment to the Organic Law of the Local People's Congresses. Tong said they're also planning to amend the Supervision Law to further reinforce the system. Both the officials noted what they have done and will do aim to ensure the people are masters of the country and advance law-based governance in all respects in the new era by improving the NPC system. "We'll highlight the whole-process people's democracy put forward by the central leadership when amending the laws, as the NPC system is a key way to ensure that the people are the masters," Tong said, adding that this is also the duty and mission of the NPC Standing Committee. ^ top ^

China announces to establish five national parks (GT)
2021-10-12
China on Tuesday announced it would formally establish its first batch of five national parks, including the Sanjiangyuan (the Three-River-Source) National Park, the Wuyi Mountain National Park, the Giant Panda National Park, the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park and the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park. Addressing the leaders' summit of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity by video link, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China is moving faster to establish a protected areas system with national parks as the mainstay. Xi noted that areas with the greatest importance to the natural ecosystem, and with the most unique natural landscapes, the most valuable natural heritage and the greatest biodiversity reserve will be included in the system. The parks are among the 10 pilot national parks which have been reviewed by the country's authorities for national park status. Each of those parks hopes to protect the habitat of some endangered species. The Giant Panda National Park holds 1,631 wild pandas, which accounts for 87.5 percent of the country's wild giant pandas, according to information the Global Times got from the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA). Aside from the giant pandas, dubbed "the national treasures," the park is also home to highly protected animals, including the snub-nosed monkey. Local governments have greatly contributed to protecting species in the park that stretches across Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Sichuan has set up a biological court to review cases involving the illegal hunting and killing of key protected animals in the park. It also used high-tech methods, including infrared cameras, to monitor giant pandas. National parks are China's calling card, and unlike nature reserves which protect specific species, national parks emphasize the protection of the entire ecosystem, Li Junsheng, a deputy director of the research center for eco-environmental science at the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences in Beijing, told Global Times on Tuesday. Sanjiangyuan National Park is near the Giant Panda National Park. Located on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Sanjiangyuan, known as the source of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers, is home to hundreds of species of wild animals, many of which are under state protection, such as wild yaks, snow leopards, Tibetan antelopes and Tibetan gazelles. Under the national park management, herders and farmers will be turned into the forces of environmental protection in the the Three-River-Source area. The work is expected to provide jobs, boost incomes and give people an incentive to protect the environment, said Xinhua. At least 12 Siberian tiger cubs and 11 Amur leopard cubs have been born since 2017, when the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park pilot project was launched in Northeast China's Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, Xinhua reported on Sunday. Populations of other wild animals, such as spotted deer and boars, are also on the rise, suggesting an improving eco-environment in the park that covers 1.46 million hectares. Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park witnessed the largest numbers, and the most frequent activities of Seberian China tigers and leopard, said the NFGA. The Wuyi Mountain National Park experimental area is the only one in China which is both a biosphere reserve and heritage site. With a total of about 1,001 square kilometers, the park has about 210.7 square kilometers of primordial forest vegetation, preserving the world's largest subtropical primordial forest ecological system on the same latitude zone. Since the pilot program was launched in 2016, the ecological system of the Wuyi Mountain National Park has been protected, making it a successful example of a national park within a popular tourist region. The Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park occupies only 0.046 percent of the country's territory, yet it is home to almost 20 percent of the country's amphibians and 38.6 percent of China's birds. The conservation of Hainan gibbons in China is a success story for biodiversity preservation worldwide. Hainan gibbon, the most endangered of all gibbons and the world's rarest primate, is endemic to the South China island. Its population has increased from as few as 7 to 9 in the 1980s to 35 today, according to a report released at the World Conservation Congress (WCC) in September. The national park system aims to end the segmented management of a nature reserve that covers multiple provinces so that the integrity of wild animals' habitat can be guaranteed. NFGA told the Global Times that the formal establishment of those national parks is just a start. In 2035, China will initially build a natural protected land system based on national parks. ^ top ^

Local governments roll out booster shots (Chian Daily)
2021-10-11
Some local governments in China have begun offering COVID-19 booster shots to people over 18 who have already been vaccinated amid rising evidence supporting the ability of an additional dose to improve immunity. The Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region said on Saturday that booster shots will be made available across the region for adults who have been fully vaccinated for at least six months. Key groups will be prioritized during the initial stage, including people at higher risk of contracting the disease, such as workers in the cold chain, customs, transportation and health services sectors, as well as those who plan to travel abroad. In addition, essential workers in the public service sector, such as police officers, community workers, elderly care and sanitation staff, will also be given priority to receive an extra dose, according to a notice released by Guangxi's disease control and prevention center. It added that four types of vaccines will be deployed as booster shots. They are two Sinopharm inactivated vaccines, one created by the group's Beijing Institute of Biological Products and the other by its Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, one inactivated vaccine made by Sinovac Biotech, and an adenovirus vector vaccine from CanSino Biologics. People intending to get an additional shot will be given the same vaccine made by the same company. If supplies of a particular vaccine run short, other vaccines of the same type but created by a different company can be used as an alternative, local authorities said. Guangxi had fully vaccinated nearly 34.5 million people, or about 85 percent of residents above 12 years old, as of Saturday, the regional government said. Nationwide, China had administered more than 2.22 billion doses as of Saturday, according to the National Health Commission. Since mid-September, Tianjin and several cities in the provinces of Fujian, Hainan, Guangdong, Anhui, Hubei and Heilongjiang have announced the rolling out of booster shots for targeted groups. In Shenzhen, Guangdong, a community worker surnamed Xue told local media that she had opted for a third shot because she had frequent interactions with local residents and wanted to boost her immunity against the disease. Zhao Hancheng, deputy head of the city's Donghu neighborhood, said staff members at a major local supermarket, as well as those working for cold chain or seafood wholesale markets, were urged to get a booster shot. Sanya, Hainan, began offering booster shots on Tuesday. As of Saturday afternoon, over 14,100 people had received an extra dose, local health officials said. Booster shots are being adopted by an increasing number of countries as protection triggered by COVID-19 vaccine wanes after six or more months, health experts have said. Wang Huaqing, chief expert at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said clinical trial results released by vaccine developers have shown a rapid rebound in the amount of neutralizing antibodies in humans following a booster shot. "In addition to increased antibody levels, the spectrum of antibodies is also wider, suggesting that a booster shot will likely elicit stronger protection against variants," he told a briefing late last month. A new piece of evidence was published by Chile's Health Ministry on Thursday regarding a two-dose inactivated vaccine made by Sinovac Biotech. Clinical trial results show that delivering a third dose of the vaccine to fully vaccinated people can boost its efficacy rate against symptomatic infections from 56 to 80.2 percent, and improve the efficacy rate against hospitalizations from 84 to 88 percent, according to Chilean health authorities. ^ top ^

Japan dominates short program at Beijing 2022 test event (Xinhua)
2021-10-14
Japanese figure skaters secured one-two finishes in both men's and women's short programs of the 2021 Asian Open Figure Skating Trophy here on Thursday. In the first competition day of the Asian Open, which is also a Beijing 2022 test event, 18-year-old Yuma Kagiyama, who took silver at the Stockholm Worlds in March, scored 97.80 points to top the men's short program standings, followed by his 17-year-old compatriot Shun Sato with 90.77 points. "This was the first time I completed all my jumps in competition this season. It's great," said Kagiyama after the competition. "I feel so good about the ice here, which is conducive to fast and smooth skating," he added. China's Jin Boyang, 24, twice a World Championship bronze medalist, finished third with 85.02 points. In the women's short program, Kaori Sakamoto finished first with 76.70 points, followed by Mai Mihara with 67.83 points and Jenni Saarinen of Finland with 62.25 points. China's Zhu Yi and Jin Hengxin finished fifth and ninth respectively. The pairs and ice dance events feature only Chinese competitors. World champions and Olympics silver medalists Sui Wenjing and Han Cong eased to the top of the short program. "This was the first competition for us this season. I was so excited that my nerves affected my performance today," said Sui. "In tomorrow's free skating, I need to calm down a bit," she added. The ice dance sees only two pairs of skaters from China. In the rhythm dance, Wang Shiyue and Liu Xinyu led Chen Hong and Sun Zhuoming. A total of 31 athletes from nine countries and regions are competing on the ice of Beijing's Capital Gymnasium. ^ top ^

Guangdong Province issues offshore municipal gov't bond in Macao SAR (Xinhua)
2021-10-12
China's Guangdong Province on Tuesday issued offshore municipal government bond in the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), marking the first mainland municipal government bond issued in the SAR. The bond was offered to institutional investors with an issuance size of 2.2 billion yuan (about 341.2 million U.S. dollars), a tenor of three years and an interest rate of 2.68 percent. The SAR government said the bond has provided local and other institutional investors with more investment options, as well as opportunities to participate in the economic development of Guangdong. Hailing it as a new breakthrough for the Guangdong-Macao cross-boundary financial cooperation, the SAR government said the issuance will also deepen and broaden the scope of Macao's bond market, reinforce the stable development of the local bond market, promote the internationalization of the Chinese currency renminbi, and further enrich the range of renminbi financial products available in Macao's offshore market. ^ top ^

Tibet screens children for congenital heart disease (Xinhua)
2021-10-12
Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region has been promoting the screening of congenital heart disease among people of 18 years or below this year, according to the regional government. So far, 188 such patients have been treated in Tibet, the regional government said on its website. Congenital heart disease is the most common type of cardiac condition among newborns. The incidence of the disease in the plateau region is above the national average due to special geographical and climatic conditions, including the lack of oxygen. At an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, the city of Nagqu sees higher incidence of the disease compared to other prefecture-level regions in Tibet, and has so far treated 102 patients. Liu Zhong, an official with the regional health commission, said the region will continue to strengthen congenital heart disease screening and treatment. The region will also seek more personnel and funding support from other provincial-level regions, centrally administered state-owned enterprises and charitable organizations, Liu added. ^ top ^

Russian govt reps voice support for China's Xinjiang policy, slam Western lies (GT)
2021-10-14
"However white the cotton, however red the tomatoes, to them they are all black," said Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui about the malicious fabrications and sanctions imposed by some Western countries over China's Xinjiang policy on Wednesday. Zhang was speaking at a virtual promotional event for Xinjiang, winning wide support from Russian officials, media and organizations. Themed "Xinjiang is a beautiful place," the event was hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Russia on Wednesday. Ambassador Zhang started off by introducing some of the historic feats that Xinjiang has achieved over the years. In 2020, Xinjiang shook off absolute poverty as all of the province's 32 poverty-stricken counties and more than 3.08 million registered impoverished residents have been lifted out of poverty, the Global Times learned at the meeting. Zhang noted that under the continuous efforts of local security departments, Xinjiang has not seen one single terrorist attack in more than four years, after years of turbulence that had badly haunted local people's normal work and lives. "However, some anti-China forces have been blatantly distorting and smearing China's Xinjiang policy, making up fake stories about so-called forced labor and genocide. They do not really care about human rights, but only use it as an excuse to obstruct China's development," Zhang said. "The vitriol has dismayed and enraged every Chinese citizen," he said, expressing absolute opposition to the West's double standards and interference. At the event, a number of Xinjiang residents shared their stories, and refuted Western accusations about "concentration camps," "forced sterilization" and "religion blockade." The owner of a car-selling company in Yecheng county named Aihebaiti spoke about how he managed to get rid of extremist thoughts and realized the horrible deeds of extremists by studying in a local training and education center. "Not only was I able to shake off extremism through learning on anti-terrorism courses, but I learned many skills such as car repair that prompted me to open up this company," Aihebaiti said at the event. "I am very grateful that the center helped me back on the right track, and gave me such a promising and happy life." Zeligulmayr, the owner of a beauty and skincare center in Kashi told attendees stories of her three children. Zeligulmayr said that the local government paid most of the fees when she gave birth at hospitals, and sent her nutrition bags regularly. School tuition fees are also paid by the government, the Global Times learned. "I am leading a satisfied, happy life thanks to the support of the government, and claims of so-called genocide are a complete insult to our Xinjiang people. Stop talking nonsense and don't disturb our lives," she said. Deputy of the Russian State Duma Sergei Gavrilov acknowledged Xinjiang's rapid socioeconomic development over the years, as well as the strong and effective measures in safeguarding the region against terrorism. He appreciated the extended cooperation on the border between the two countries in Xinjiang, and called for a deepened relationship in fighting against foreign interference in each other's internal affairs. In late September, 65 countries delivered a joint statement against interference in China's internal affairs under the pretext of human rights at the 48th session of the Human Rights Council, stressing non-interference in China's internal affairs including Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet-related issues. In addition, six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) issued a joint letter supporting China's position. More than 20 countries expressed their support for China in their national statements. All together, nearly 100 countries expressed their understanding and support for China's position. ^ top ^

Xinjiang allegations aim to curb China's growth (China Daily)
2021-10-12
Anti-China forces are obsessed with using fake testimonies and fabricated documents to support allegations of human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, a spokesman for the regional government said on Monday. As more and more people learn about the real situation in Xinjiang, they can see clearly that those allegations are made up to curb China's development, Xu Guixiang said at a news conference in Beijing. Xu said the anti-China forces only have four types of "evidence" to support their allegations of human rights violations in Xinjiang: testimonies of so-called survivors and witnesses; fake information produced by Western reporters, nongovernment organizations and scholars; misinterpreted satellite images; and so-called internal government material. "In fact, those allegations are all based on unreliable sources, one-sided stories and deliberately produced material. There aren't any facts to back the allegations at all," Xu said. Elijan Anayt, another spokesman for the regional government, described allegations aired by some foreign media of torture and abuse in Xinjiang vocational education and training centers as sounding "very fake". The allegations were made by a man claiming to be a former police officer who identified himself by only one name. Elijan said the regional government is willing to verify the identity of the interviewee if the news outlet can provide his name. As there have been previous cases where people pretend to be former police officers and make up stories, the spokesman said he hopes reporters can be careful when they are approached by people making similar claims so they won't produce irresponsible reports. Since 2014, Xinjiang has established vocational education and training centers in accordance with the law to offer vocational training and deradicalization courses to people influenced by religious extremism and terrorism. All the trainees have already graduated. "What is sure is that the human rights of the trainees at the centers are protected by law, so the interviewee's claims can never happen," Elijan said. Meanwhile, the treatment of a man who claimed to be a former police officer and appeared in June as a "witness" in the public hearings of a so-called Uygur tribunal on accusations of genocide in Xinjiang has stirred controversy. Supporters of the so-called tribunal were angered after they found out that the man was paid much more than Uygur "witnesses". The "witness" called himself Wang Leizhan and claimed that he had spent several months in Xinjiang in 2018 and witnessed the abuse of suspects. China has stated many times that the tribunal, based in the United Kingdom, is a pseudo court established for hostile forces to attack and smear Xinjiang and interfere in China's internal affairs. The "witnesses" are simply actors funded by separatist groups and anti-China forces. On Sept 3, a Twitter user called Nacar Hoshur posted an image of a spreadsheet showing the tribunal's payments to different "witnesses". Of the $137,637 paid to the "witnesses", Wang, who now lives in Germany, received 43 percent of the total, while Uygur "fact witnesses "only received 17 percent. The other 40 percent of payments were distributed to "expert witnesses", the image showed. ^ top ^

1st counter-terrorism exhibit held outside Xinjiang (GT)
2021-10-11
An exhibition on the counter-terrorism situation in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was displayed in Beijing on Monday - the first time such an exhibit was held outside the region with a large number of pictures and videos on more than 50 terror attacks. Senior officials and experts said the display proves that the Xinjiang region is more open to show the international community what it has suffered, and showcases its confidence in current policies, which have brought hard-won stability. The Xinjiang regional government held a press conference in Beijing on Monday. Before the press event, domestic and foreign journalists were guided to the counter-terrorism exhibit, which is similar to the one displayed in the Urumqi International Convention Center in the regional capital. The exhibit consists of three parts - an overall introduction on Xinjiang, some of the terror attacks taking place in the region from 1990 to 2016, and the measures taken and the achievements made of the counter-terrorism work in the region. Selected from thousands of terror attacks in the region, the 52 terror attacks displayed in the second part of the exhibit are listed chronologically with introductions, photos, and sometimes video footage in Chinese and English next to each display. The introduction on terror attacks started with an attack in Baren township of the Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture, plotted and carried out by the "Turkistan Islamic Party" in 1990, and ended with the attack in Moyu county, Hotan Prefecture on December 28, 2016 when four terrorists raided the building of the county Party committee. Counter-terrorism exhibits have been staged in different prefectures and cities in the Xinjiang region, but it is the first time for such an exhibit to be staged outside Xinjiang, the Global Times learned from an exhibition organizer. The exhibition in Beijing will better show the outside world on Xinjiang's counter-terrorism work and achievements, Xu Guixiang, spokesperson of the Xinjiang regional government, told the Global Times on Monday. "We also want to tell people how the current stability and peace in Xinjiang was achieved. Many visitors to the Urumqi exhibit told us that they were shocked and even shed tears over the past tragedies," said Xu. "We believe that only by knowing the whole picture in Xinjiang can the outside world avoid being fooled by rumors [about Xinjiang] made by those anti-China forces." The Global Times learned from the working staff that compared to the exhibition in Urumqi, the Beijing one has no display of the various weapons used by the terrorists, the self-made explosive gear, the textbooks with distorted religious content or the banners with slogans promoting "jihad." There were more detailed photos and videos on the same terror attacks featured in exhibits in prefectures and cities in the Xinjiang region, including Hotan and Kashi. The staff noted that they have blurred some bloody videos and photos in consideration of the visitors' feelings. Filming or taking photos in the exhibition hall is not allowed to avoid spreading violent and terrorist content. The exhibition was held in Beijing in the middle of July and accepted only group visits. Monday was the first time for foreign visitors to come, the staff at the exhibit told the Global Times, noting that previous visitors left notices, with many saying that the exhibit helped them change their impression of Xinjiang. "When seeing the second part, I felt sad about the many tragedies in Xinjiang… but after learning about the third part - the changes that took place after the crackdown on terrorism in the region - I felt gratified and happy for the local residents," one visitor wrote. Muhammad Asghar, a journalist from Pakistan, visited the Beijing exhibit on Monday. "This is not my first time to see the counter-terrorism exhibit, but it is still shocking to see the tragedies in the past." Asghar had traveled to Xinjiang twice and visited the Urumqi exhibit with a group of foreign journalists. He told the Global Times that the exhibit is very informative and offers an overall perspective of what the region has suffered from and what steps the government has taken to fight terrorism, and to improve the lives of local residents. "The exhibit is also necessary to make the outside world see the true situation in Xinjiang since there are so many rumors on Xinjiang. After you see these photos and videos, you come to know what happened to the victims, what happened to their families," Asghar said. Asghar recalled that after visiting the exhibit in Urumqi, some foreign journalists also said they were shocked to see the photos and videos. "I think it [the exhibit] is very useful in helping people understand Xinjiang," the Pakistan journalist said. "Aside from the exhibit, we also visited many places in Xinjiang, including Kashi, and saw many things, including the vocational training and education centers. The current peaceful and happy life of local residents is in sharp contrast to the previous terror attacks they had suffered," he said, noting that he hopes more foreigners, especially foreign journalists, come to see the exhibit. Along with Asghar, journalists from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and a few foreign media outlets who attended the Monday press conference on Xinjiang-related affairs also visited the exhibit. The Global Times reporters noticed that a few of them took notes during the tour, while some foreign media just skipped the exhibit. As of press time, no news on the exhibit in Beijing came out of some Western media, which is keen on spreading "negative" news from and about Xinjiang. The Global Times learned previously from a staff member of the Urumqi exhibit that some Western journalists refused to visit the exhibit there. "They claimed that this is 'moral abduction' and would compromise their 'objective' judgment. I was furious at such remarks for they refused to know the truth about Xinjiang!" said the staff member. Whether the Western media outlets or their reporters are willing to see the counter-terrorism exhibit or not, they cannot cover up all the terror attacks and scars the Xinjiang region has suffered and the hard work it has done to restore stability and prosperity, experts said, noting that as Xinjiang has seen no terror attacks for more than four years, the region is also becoming more confident and open to the outside world despite increasing Western smearing. Experts said that China's strategies to tell the truth on the counter-terrorist situation in Xinjiang have also changed - from the initial silence to releasing the first documentary on Xinjiang's counter-terrorism campaign in December 2019, which offered never-seen-before crime scenes of terrorist attacks in Xinjiang, and to victims of terror attacks sharing their stories at press conferences. "We have reiterated on different occasions that what Xinjiang has done is to make local residents live a safer and better life. Staging the exhibition in Beijing shows we have the confidence to let more people know and be touched by the far-reaching changes Xinjiang has experienced," Xu said. Xinjiang has been free from any terrorist attacks for four years and nine months, which is considered a great achievement of the measures the region took in the past years. Xu also noted that to remove the soil for the three evil forces - separatism, terrorism and extremism, there is still more work to do. "The current achievements do not mean that we can let our guard down and put arms into the warehouse and release the horses. As long as the three evil forces exist, Xinjiang will not alter its determination to implement counter-terrorism measures." ^ top ^

UN experts urge review of Hong Kong security law; say arrests 'incompatible' with human rights and int'l law (HKFP)
2021-10-14
Four United Nations international rights experts have urged the Hong Kong authorities to launch an independent review of the Beijing-imposed national security law, saying it is "incompatible" with international standards of rights and civil liberties. The government has rejected the criticism, saying that rights and freedoms "are not absolute." The experts' statement on Tuesday said that there "needs to be a reinvigoration of an independent judiciary in Hong Kong, a pause in applying this law, and a fundamental reconsideration of its use." They also called on Hong Kong authorities to "refrain and reconsider" security law charges against human rights barrister Chow Hang-tung, the former vice-chair of the now-disbanded group behind the city's annual commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, calling recent arrests under the legislation a "serious concern." Chow was arrested and charged with "incitement to subversion" as part of a police crackdown last month on the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China after it refused to comply with a national security probe. The Alliance itself and two other leaders — veteran activists Albert Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan –have also been slapped with the same charges. Concurrently, five Alliance committee members, including Chow, were charged with violating security law provisions granting police powers to demand information while investigating suspected violations. Ho and Lee were already serving sentences relating to unauthorised assemblies during the 2019 pro-democracy protests, while the five others have been denied bail. The group's remaining members voted to disband a fortnight later. The Alliance had been a key player in Hong Kong civil society, organising annual candlelight vigils every June 4 to call for democracy and commemorate victims of the bloody crackdown in Beijing. The vigil was often seen as a barometer of the city's freedoms, in contrast to the strict censorship in mainland China where the massacre has been scrubbed from collective memory. The Tiananmen Massacre occurred on June 4, 1989 ending months of student-led demonstrations in China. It is estimated that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people died when the People's Liberation Army was deployed to crack down on protesters in Beijing. The experts also accused Hong Kong authorities of misusing charges of terrorism and sedition to stifle local opposition voices, and freedom of speech, assembly and political participation. "The cheapening of the seriousness of terrorist acts and sedition offences, when Governments improperly use them to justify quelling domestic dissent, limiting protests and curbing criticism by civil society and human rights defenders, is deeply troubling," they said. ^ top ^

All Hong Kong schools must display Chinese national flag, hold weekly flag-raising ceremonies from next year (HKFP)
2021-10-12
Hong Kong schools must fly the Chinese flag daily and conduct weekly flag-raising ceremonies from the beginning of next year to promote affection for the mainland's people and a sense of belonging to the nation, the Education Bureau has announced. Under new regulations issued on Monday, the national flag should be flown every school day and on three key public holidays: New Year's Day, the anniversary of the handover on July 1, and China's National Day on October 1. Schools must hold weekly flag-raising ceremonies at which China's national anthem will be sung. The bureau also "strongly advised" schools to hold flag-raising ceremonies on important and special occasions, such as graduations and sports days. Updated legislation governing the treatment of the national flag and emblem came into effect last Friday. The new arrangements are intended "to promote national education and help students develop a sense of belonging to the country, an affection for the Chinese people and enhance their sense of national identity," the bureau said in a statement. The new guidelines also provide for the display of Hong Kong's own bauhinia flag if schools have "adequate flagpoles." Universities and other tertiary education institutions should "take reference" of the new protocol for primary and secondary schools when arranging to display the national flag on campuses. "The EDB issued a letter today to relevant institutions to remind them of their responsibilities under the Ordinance," Mondays' statement read. Kindergartens are also expected to hold weekly flag-raising ceremonies where space and conditions allow "so that students can learn about the national flag and national anthem of their own country from an early age." The new protocols are not mandatory for non-local schools. The bureau however "strongly recommended" international and private schools to follow the practice so as to "enable students of different ethnicities or nationalities to learn about the culture and history of the country where they live," according to the statement on Monday. The announcement came as lessons about the importance of the national flag and emblem are being inserted into school curriculums. Schools must by 2022 follow a new "national security" curriculum mandated by the Beijing-enacted security law. The education sector is coming under increasing pressure to comply with the security law. The Secretary for Education has said the government will announce oath-taking procedures for teachers in due course. In August, the bureau cut ties with the city's largest teachers' union, accusing it of "spreading political propaganda." The move, and sustained pressure from Chinese-backed media and officials, prompted the union, which represented over 90 per cent of the city's educators, to disband within a fortnight. The union's leaders had accused the government of "scapegoating" the education sector for the 2019 pro-democracy protests and unrest, which the government has largely blamed on student-aged protesters. ^ top ^

PLA exercises aimed at Taiwan secessionists (China Daily)
2021-10-14
Military exercises conducted by the People's Liberation Army near Taiwan are aimed at "Taiwan independence" secessionists and are a just and necessary move to protect peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said on Wednesday. The drills also target interference by foreign forces and safeguard national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the common interests of compatriots on both sides of the Straits, the office said. The comments came after Taiwan's "defense" authority claimed last week that military tensions across the Taiwan Straits are at their worst in 40 years and warned that the Chinese mainland would be fully capable of mounting a full-scale "invasion" of the island by 2025. The island's Democratic Progressive Party politicians have been appealing to the United States and its allies to strengthen their commitment to the island to deter the mainland. Joseph Wu, a high-ranking DPP official, claimed that the island was preparing for war with the mainland and would fight to the end. The PLA Daily said in a social media post on Monday that the PLA had carried out beach landing drills in the southern part of Fujian province, across the sea from Taiwan. Footage that accompanied the post showed PLA soldiers seizing a beach, destroying barbed wire and digging trenches in the sand. A record number of mainland military aircraft flew near Taiwan during the National Day holiday, with almost 150 aircraft sent into the island's "air defense zone" between Oct 1 and 4, island media reported. Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang condemned the DPP for hyping up the exercises as a "military threat" to Taiwan compatriots and inciting confrontations across the Straits. Ma said the DPP and "Taiwan independence" forces had misjudged the situation and colluded with foreign forces, which was the root cause of the current tension and turbulence across the Taiwan Straits. "They have turned black to white on various occasions and played up the so-called military threat from the mainland," Ma said. "These measures cannot deceive the Taiwan people and the international community." He warned the DPP that its attempts to collude with foreign forces to seek "independence" and even realize it by force would inevitably fail. ^ top ^

Tsai's Double Ten speech a political farce (GT)
2021-10-11
One day after Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Taiwan secessionists and stressed that the Taiwan question will be resolved along with national rejuvenation in his speech on Saturday marking the 110th anniversary of the 1911 Revolution, Taiwan regional leader Tsai Ing-wen continued to deceive the international community and Taiwanese people by hiding the truth that secessionist authorities on the island are the root cause of cross-Straits tensions. Held under the theme "Forming a democratic alliance and collecting friends from all over the world," this year's Double Ten Day, a public holiday in the island of Taiwan originally meant to commemorate the Chinese Revolution of October 10, 1911, has been seen by observers across the Straits as yet another farce staged by the ruling secessionist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its leader Tsai that serves to promote their desinization agenda and daydream of a "two-state theory." In an obvious betrayal of 1911 Revolution leader Sun Yat-sen's idea and unfulfilled mission of Chinese national rejuvenation and reunification, the DPP leaders including Tsai herself and Taiwan's "Legislative Yuan" leader Yu Shyi-kun did not mention Sun's name or spirit even once on Thursday morning, and Tsai referred to the region with the awkward term "Republic of China Taiwan." Sun is the founding father of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Republic of China (1912-1949), and after Sun's death, his successor Chiang Kai-shek betrayed the revolution and Sun's policy of working with the Communist Party of China (CPC), and launched massacres and a civil war against the CPC. Eventually, the KMT was defeated by the CPC and fled to the island of Taiwan in 1949. On Saturday, at a high-profile gathering marking the 110th anniversary of the 1911 Revolution held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Chinese President Xi said the Taiwan question will be resolved along with national rejuvenation and warned that secessionists are a serious threat to that mission, and that those who betray the country will face the trial of history. Xi emphasized that the Taiwan question is a Chinese internal matter that no external forces can interfere with. Nobody should underestimate the Chinese people's determination, will and capability in safeguarding sovereignty and territorial integrity, he said. In Sunday's speech, Tsai didn't state the fact that this year's Double Ten Day mark the 110th anniversary of the 1911 Revolution during her speech on Sunday morning, but only stressed how the "country" had advanced from poverty to prosperity in the past "72 years" (since the Republic of China regime fled to the island of Taiwan in 1949), and it was the faith in "ensuring the sovereignty and guarding the homeland" that was the key to supporting the island of Taiwan's survival and fostering of democracy. […] Tsai's speech advocates "Taiwan secessionism" and incite confrontation between the two sides of Taiwan Straits, distorting facts and holding the Taiwan public hostage in the name of "consensus and solidarity", while colluding with foreign forces to provoke the mainland and seek secessionism, Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said in a statement on Sunday night. "Our crackdown against Taiwan secessionists is targeting the DPP and secessionist forces, rather than Taiwan compatriots. The DPP cannot fool the Taiwan public or the international community by creating bad blood and obscuring the facts," the spokesperson said. Ma slammed the DPP authority, saying that ever since taking power, it has shown no political ability other than creating conflicts between people and dividing Taiwan society. Trying to package secessionist populism as so-called democracy and freedom, and claiming Taiwan is becoming better and better, the DPP has greatly underestimated the intelligence of the Taiwan public. The future of Taiwan should be decided by all Chinese people including the 23 million Taiwan compatriots. The DPP cannot abduct the will of 23 million Taiwan people, let alone stop the major trend of historical development, Ma concluded. The self-deceiving Tsai and other DPP leaders repeatedly hailed the so-called support from the "great democratic allies" and lauded the "helping hands" from countries including the US, Japan, Australia, Czech and Lithuania. Tsai's failure to handle cross-Straits relations properly is the root cause of the current tense situation and labeling the island as the frontline of the so-called democratic world is self-deceiving and a desperate attempt to fool the 23 million compatriots living on the island so she can extend her political life and benefit the DPP, Chang noted. How many of the 23 million people living on the island would blindly follow Tsai to fight a war with the Chinese mainland, on what grounds, and how many of its so-called allies could Taiwan really rely on if a cross-Straits war breaks out, said Yang Lixian, a research fellow at the Beijing-based Research Center of cross-Straits Relations. As part of the Sunday event, the armed forces on the island of Taiwan showcased some of its weapons in a parade, including Apache helicopters, F-16V fighter jets and Hsiung Feng III missiles. Also on Sunday, aircraft of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) approached the island of Taiwan again, media outlets on the island reported, citing open radio broadcasts and flight path records. Three PLA aircraft - two J-16 fighter jets and a Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft - entered Taiwan's self-proclaimed southwest air defense identification zone on Sunday, the island's defense authorities said later in the day. The defense authorities on the island have reported 150 PLA aircraft flying into the island's self-proclaimed air defense identification zone between October 1 and Thursday, the National Day holiday in the Chinese mainland, breaking the record in terms of scale three times in the process. Also on Sunday, the mainland's China Central Television published a report introducing a recent PLA amphibious landing exercise. The drill, organized by the PLA 73rd Group Army in a sea area south of East China's Fujian Province, which is close to the Taiwan Straits, featured troops conducting beach assaults with charge boats, drones and laser engagement systems, with the aim of comprehensively honing the forces' skills in carrying out such tasks. The PLA activities again demonstrated the overwhelming advantages the PLA has over the armed forces on the island of Taiwan, which is now also being acknowledged by many on the island, a Chinese mainland military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Sunday. The island's display of its warplanes, armored vehicles and missiles in the Sunday event, on the other hand, exposed the fact that its best weapons are no match for the Chinese mainland's, when people compare them to what the PLA has displayed in events such as the Airshow China 2021 and the National Day military parade in 2019, the expert said. Resisting reunification by force will only bring doom more quickly to Taiwan secessionists, the expert said.  ^ top ^

Evergrande crisis: Beijing not likely to let developer collapse even as it gets tough, analysts say (SCMP)
2021-10-14
Beijing will not likely allow property giant China Evergrande Group to collapse as the government devises a way to get tough on the company without inducing sectorwide turmoil, market analysts said at a conference on Wednesday. Evergrande, saddled with more than US$300 billion in debt, has missed three rounds of interest payments in three weeks and will default on its debt if it fails to pay the combined US$119 million in interest before October 23. "What the government is doing is this kind of a managed reconstruction" that is trying to "scare the property market" away from any further debt-fuelled growth by not bailing out Evergrande, said Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research. Collier's remarks came during the China Institute Executive Summit (CIES) on Wednesday. The South China Morning Post is a strategic partner of the event. "They are desperate to avoid a central government bailout," Collier continued, adding that he didn't think China's central bank "wants to have its face on the picture of helping out the property market". On the other hand, Beijing is also trying to contain the potential fallout that an Evergrande failure might cause, he said. The government is "actually telling the banks to start to release a little bit of cash to the property market to soften the blow". Beijing is signalling it is serious about reining in the worsening debt problems in a property market that has for decades been a main engine of the country's growth. But it is also trying to ease rising investor fears that Evergrande's struggles will infect the entire sector and drag down an economic growth that is already showing signs of slowing. In the last few weeks, several more developers have either missed interest payments on their bonds or warned they may not be able to make them. Shenzhen-based Fantasia Holdings Group missed its debt payment on October 4. Modern Land (China), a Beijing-based developer, this week asked investors for permission to defer repaying a US$250 million bond due later this month. And on Monday, Shanghai-based developer Sinic Holdings Group said it did not expect to pay a US$250 million bond due next week. "Regulators need to be very careful not to allow this potential contagion effect to become quite serious," said Li-Gang Liu, a Hong Kong-based China economist at Citigroup, during the same discussion. "The government doesn't want to see a major property market downturn," Liu said. "For China's property market to experience a 10-20 per cent price decline, it will create a lot of social issues. "Not only banks will see rising non-performing loans, but consumption will be affected quite negatively." The most likely scenario, Liu said, is that "the government will engage in managing the restructuring. It will continue to ask banks to lend to the developer" and "try to keep the financial, economic and social issues at the minimum". Property markets in China contribute more to the country's GDP than they do in many other economies. Its real estate and related industries account for about 30 per cent of China's GDP, compared with 22 per cent in the US. That outsize role was partly caused by Beijing's back-pedalling on market economy reforms that dried up other nonproperty investment options, Daniel Rosen, a founding partner of investment consultancy Rhodium Group, said during a separate CIES panel. "For want of the kind of productivity that market reform opens up, the nation and the economy have had to fall back on that same overreliance on the property sector," Rosen said. This overreliance "has created a situation in the property sector and debt in general, from which there is no elegant, safe, manageable exit now and we move into a phase that's quite uncharted", he added. As Beijing navigates Evergrande, it is determined to crack down on the growth fuelled by unsustainable amounts of debt. China's debt ratio, a measure to gauge a country's overall leverage, stood at 290 per cent of GDP; that is comparable to the US debt ratio and less than Japan's ratio of more than 400 per cent, Fred Hu Zuliu at Primavera Capital said at CIES. However, Hu noted, more of China's debt is held by corporations as opposed to governments – the reverse of the situation in the US, Japan and most European countries. "Evergrande is the most notorious example," he said. "It is challenging and, you know, people have to be vigilant about what this means and how this will play out." ^ top ^

China's foreign trade maintains robust growth, reports improved quality (Xinhua)
2021-10-14
China's total imports and exports expanded 22.7 percent year on year to 28.33 trillion yuan (about 4.38 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first three quarters of 2021, official data showed Wednesday. The figure marked an increase of 23.4 percent from the pre-epidemic level in 2019, according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC). Both exports and imports continued double-digit growth in the first nine months of the year, surging 22.7 percent and 22.6 percent from a year earlier, respectively. The fundamentals of China's long-term economic growth have not changed, GAC spokesperson Li Kuiwen told a press conference, noting stable domestic production and consumption demand provided strong support for the growth of China's foreign trade. As the pace of the global economy and trade picked up, demand in the international market contributed to China's foreign trade expansion, Li said, adding that price hikes of international commodities also pushed up China's imports. China has taken a slew of measures in 2021 to ramp up foreign trade growth, including accelerating the development of new business forms and modes, further deepening reform to facilitate cross-border trade, optimizing its business environment at ports, and promoting reform and innovation to facilitate trade and investment in pilot free trade zones. These measures have led to the continuous growth of China's foreign trade, said Li, and they not only boosted business confidence but also injected strong vitality into China's opening-up. In the January-September period, China's trade with its top three trading partners -- the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the European Union and the United States -- maintained sound growth. During the period, the growth rates of China's trade value with the three trading partners stood at 21.1 percent, 20.5 percent and 24.9 percent, respectively. The rapid growth of trade between China and the United States reflects great complementarity in industrial and trade structures as well as the trade potential between the two countries, said Wen Bin, chief analyst at China Minsheng Bank. China's trade with countries along the Belt and Road rose 23.4 percent year on year during the same period, while the country's trade with members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership climbed 19.3 percent, customs data shows. In the first three quarters, China's foreign trade volume increased quarter by quarter and took an increased share in the international market, Li said. Statistics show that China's exports and imports accounted for approximately 13.2 percent of the global total in the first half of the year, up 0.8 percentage points over a year earlier. Private enterprises saw imports and exports increase 28.5 percent to 13.65 trillion yuan in the first nine months, accounting for 48.2 percent of the country's total. The imports and exports of state-owned enterprises rose 25.1 percent to 4.35 trillion yuan in the period. To highlight the improved quality of China's foreign trade in the first three quarters, Li cited thriving new business forms and modes as well as more coordinated regional development as examples. The country's imports and exports in cross-border e-commerce soared 20.1 percent year on year in the period. The foreign trade of China's central and western regions surged 27.2 percent year on year, 4.5 percentage points higher than the growth rate for the whole country during the same period. Li also warned that China's foreign trade continues to face a number of unstable and uncertain factors as the global economy struggles to recover and the external environment becomes more complicated. Considering the high base of 2020, China's foreign trade growth may be slower in the fourth quarter, but the overall positive trend will not change, and the country's foreign trade is expected to log steady growth throughout the year, Li said. ^ top ^

Several Private Banks Hit With Record Fines for Playing Fast and Loose With Loans (Caixin)
2021-10-11
Several privately owned Chinese banks have been fined at unprecedented levels for misconduct such as failing to properly control risks and manage how their loans are issued, China's banking regulator said, as it steps up supervision over the industry. Chongqing Fumin Bank Co. Ltd. was fined 8.5 million yuan ($1.3 million) by a branch of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality, according to a statement released on the regulator's website on Sept. 30. It is the heaviest fine that regulators have ever levied against a privately owned bank. Fumin Bank was punished for 17 transgressions that violated the country' s banking laws and regulations, including the failure of its leadership to fulfill management responsibilities for online lending, according to the statement. The bank was also accused of illegally outsourcing some core risk management tasks to its business partners, and unfairly pricing transactions with its related parties to provide them with benefits. In addition to the 8.5 million yuan in fines, bank Chairman Zhang Guoxiang, President Chu Longchun, and Vice President Zhong Ziming were fined 500,000 yuan, 300,000 yuan and 200,000 yuan, respectively. In response to the penalties, Fumin Bank said it has taken measures to rectify its business, according to a Sept. 30 statement released on the company's website. Separately, Shanghai HuaRui Bank Co. Ltd. was fined 5.2 million yuan by the CBIRC's Shanghai branch, the second-highest fine ever imposed on a privately owned bank, according to a statement on Sept. 7. The bank was accused of improper information disclosure, illegally lending money to related parties, as well as illegally issuing loans to fund real estate projects. In addition, the CBIRC's Liaoning branch slapped NewUp Bank of Liaoning Co. Ltd. with a 1.4 million yuan fine, the first the bank had ever received, according to a Sept. 17 statement. Founded in 2017, the bank was accused of improper management over major related-party transactions, as well as lax approval and management over personal loans. The penalties are a sign that China is increasing its scrutiny on privately owned banks. Unlike the country's long-dominant state-owned lenders, privately owned banks weren't created until 2014, when the government allowed them as it sought to groom a new class of lenders to cater small and midsize businesses in the internet era. As of the end of June, China had granted 19 licenses for privately owned banks. Big players in the sector include some of the country's major online banks, such as WeBank Co. Ltd., whose founders include Tencent Holdings Ltd., and MYbank, operated by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s Ant Group. Co. Ltd. Many privately owned banks cooperate with internet platforms to issue loans online — the latter try to attract as many customers as possible in return for a cut of the profits. Some banks also outsourced the entire lending process to these platforms, leading to a loose assessment of borrowers' creditworthiness and allowing risk to pile up in the country's financial system. ^ top ^

North Korea's Kim Jong-un blames US for being 'root cause' of tensions (SCMP/AFP)
2021-10-12
The leader of nuclear-armed North Korea, Kim Jong Un, has blamed the United States for tensions on the peninsula, state media reported Tuesday. The US is the "root cause" of instability, he said in an opening speech at a defence exhibition, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. Pyongyang is under multiple international sanctions over its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, which have made rapid progress under Kim. In 2017 it tested missiles that can reach the whole of the continental US and carried out by far its most powerful nuclear explosion to date, and Pyongyang says it needs its arsenal to protect itself against a US invasion. The Biden administration has repeatedly stated that it has no hostile intent towards the North, but Kim told the "Self-Defence 2021" exhibition: "I am very curious if there are people or countries who believe that." "There is no basis in their actions for believing that it is not hostile," he added, according to KCNA. Kim's address came after the North in recent weeks tested a long-range cruise missile and what it said was a hypersonic weapon. In 2018, Kim became the first North Korean leader ever to meet a sitting US president at the headline-grabbing Singapore summit. But the talks process has been largely at a standstill since a second meeting in Hanoi the following year collapsed over sanctions relief and what Pyongyang would be willing to give up in return. The Biden administration has said it is willing to meet North Korean officials at any time or place, without preconditions, in its efforts to seek denuclearisation. Washington and Seoul are security allies and Washington stations around 28,500 troops in the South to defend it against its neighbour, which invaded in 1950. The South and the United States held joint military exercises in August. The war games always infuriate Pyongyang, which decries them as preparations for invasion. The South has been stepping up its own military capabilities, successfully testing its first submarine-launched ballistic missile in September and revealed a supersonic cruise missile. Seoul is itself on a multibillion-dollar drive to step up its military capabilities, successfully testing its first submarine-launched ballistic missile in September – putting South Korea among an elite group of nations with proven SLBM technology – and revealing a supersonic cruise missile. Last week, Pyongyang and Seoul reconnected their cross-border hotline in a sign of thawing ties, with only a few months left in office for South Korea's pro-engagement President Moon Jae-in. But Kim accused Seoul of "reckless ambition" and a "two-faced, illogical" attitude. Their "unrestricted and dangerous attempts to strengthen military power are destroying the military balance on the Korean peninsula and increasing military instability and danger", he added. "Under the absurd pretext of suppressing our threats, South Korea has openly expressed its desire to gain an edge over us in military power on various occasions," he added. South Korea's national security adviser, Suh Hoon, is expected to meet his American counterpart Jake Sullivan in Washington on Tuesday to discuss North Korea. When he arrived in Washington on Monday, Suh told reporters he planned to discuss Moon's proposal for a formal declaration ending the 1950-1953 Korean war – which ended in an armistice, not a formal peace treaty – and for possible easing of sanctions on North Korea, Yonhap news agency reported. The exhibition is part of the commemorations for the anniversary of the foundation of the ruling Workers' Party, and included aerobatics flights and martial arts displays. Pyongyang closed its borders early last year to protect itself against the coronavirus pandemic that first emerged in neighbouring China, its key diplomatic ally and main provider of trade and aid. North Korea insists it has had no cases of Covid-19 – experts doubt the claim – but the self-imposed blockade has isolated it more effectively than any sanctions regime and has hit its economy badly. Kim referred to the "grim situation" in a lengthy speech at the weekend to mark the party anniversary, calling for discipline and loyalty. A United Nations expert panel said this month that the North had continued to pursue its weapons development despite its economic travails. ^ top ^

China, Mongolia pledge to enhance cooperation (Xinhua)
2021-10-13
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met with Mongolian Prime Minister Luvsannamsrai Oyun-Erdene via video link on October 12. Noting that China and Mongolia are close neighbors with sound relations, Li said both countries face tasks of handling the COVID-19 pandemic, developing their economies and guaranteeing people's livelihoods. Enhancing cooperation between the two countries benefits not only China and Mongolia, but also the region, he added. Li said China stands ready to enhance cooperation with Mongolia to strengthen development strategy synergy, explore cooperation in key areas, expand bilateral trade, and facilitate port clearance and increase port throughput under the premise of effective pandemic prevention and control. China hopes the two countries will further implement cooperation in preventing and curbing desertification to jointly build a clean and beautiful environment, the premier said. China will, as it always has, support Mongolia to develop its economy, improve its people's livelihoods and fight COVID-19, Li said. He stressed that energy security is a matter that concerns national interests and people's livelihoods. Though possessing abundant coal resources, China is willing to carry out diversified energy cooperation, Li said, adding that China welcomes a larger volume of coal trading between the two countries to achieve win-win results. Li said China encourages and supports enterprises from the two countries to actively carry out cooperation in line with market principles and business rules, and ensure a smooth and safe energy supply chain with reasonable and stable prices in the long term. Noting that Mongolia and China have a shared future, Oyun-Erdene commended China's neighborhood diplomacy of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness. Oyun-Erdene thanked China for providing COVID-19 vaccines to Mongolia and said the cooperation between the two countries in the fight against the pandemic has set a model for the international community. He expressed the hope that the two sides will strengthen cooperation in the fields of minerals, infrastructure construction, and desertification prevention and control, and that the two sides will increase their port clearance volume and promote the greater development of bilateral relations. ^ top ^

Mongolia, Belarus express interest to strengthen political ties (Montsame)
2021-10-13
Minister of Foreign Affairs B.Battsetseg held a meeting with her counterpart of Belarus Vladimir Makei, on the sidelines of the 6th meeting of Foreign Ministers of CICA. At the meeting, Minister B.Battsetseg said that the Government of Mongolia is paying attention to expanding Mongolia - Belarus relations. Mongolia's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Belarus has recently presented his Letter of Credence to the President of Belarus, added the Minister. Expressing his satisfaction with the opening of the Embassy of Mongolia in Belarus, Minister V.Makei noted that there is an opportunity to further expand bilateral trade and economic cooperation aside from cooperating in the educational sector and involving Mongolian students in scholarship programs. The two sides expressed their interests in strengthening political relations, increasing frequency of high-level visits and bolstering cooperation in agriculture and transport. During the meeting, they reaffirmed that the sides would continue focusing on agricultural and road transport projects being implemented in accordance with the General Export Loan Agreement between the Governments of Mongolia and Belarus. Mongolia and the Republic of Belarus established diplomatic relations on January 24, 1992. The Ministers also exchanged views on the events to be organized for the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations in 2022. ^ top ^

Ambassador T.Badral visits Inner Mongolia (Montsame)
2021-10-12
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Mongolia to the People's Republic of China T. Badral is paying a working visit to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region between October 11 and 14. Yesterday, Huang Jinjiang, Vice Chairman of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China received Ambassador T.Badral. Exchanging views on the bilateral trade and economic relations, humanitarian exchanges and fight against desertification, the sides discussed the cooperation issues including combating the Covid-19 and improving operations of border checkpoints of the two countries. Ambassador T.Badral stressed the significant role of the IMAR in deepening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership relations between Mongolia and People's Republic of China, noting that the IMAR is an important region for bilateral economic, cultural and humanitarian cooperation between two countries, as main border checkpoints of bilateral trade are located here as well as the region has a capacity to strengthen and further develop the bilateral relations. Establishing terminals for container shipping and strictly following the infection control regimes at the border crossing checkpoints with China are effective measures in preventing from spread of COVID-19 infection across the borders and leading to increase trade, the Ambassador said. Huang Jinjiang highlighted that IMAR attaches great importance to the trade and economic cooperation with Mongolia, and that joint implementation of effective measures for prevention from the infection spread at the border checkpoints creates a basic condition for ensuring normal operation of the border checkpoints and increasing freight turnover. Also he noted that the actions currently being taken by the Chinese side at the border checkpoints are requirements that set as a part of the Chinese policy adhering all over the country to prevent Covid-19 pandemic. The sides should intensify the cooperation further and exchange information promptly, he said. During the working visit to the IMAR, Ambassador T.Badral will visit Mandal, Gantsmod, Ulzii and Sehee border checkpoints and meet its authorities. ^ top ^

Embassy of Switzerland