Information is power, and information, to most people of the world is the internet. For most, this starts with a Google Search. In 2010 Google exited China, due to a massive hack by the Chinese government into Google servers. Now, beckoned by the call for making money, Google is again rethinking China. Can Google stand by its ethics of “Do no Harm” while working with the Chinese Government? There will be some compromizes required.
In the recent 2018 Web Summit interview has Tim Berners-Lee, father of the Internet, lamenting the sorry state of the internet. TimBL has set up the World Wide Web Foundation, which espouses openness, freedom of speech and democracy. I just do not see the web this way. The internet is a communications tool that allows access to information, very much like a library. Who gets to enter the library and what information the library houses is controllable. I do not see TimBL’s lofty internet objectives coming to fruition. In China Xi jinping XJP has asked all its people for total loyalty to the Communist Party. As a communications tool the Internet can and does serve XJP’s purpose, and more. In the view of the CCP the Internet is also a tool to benefit society.
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson spoke about China-US relations at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, 2018 Nov 06. He had some very sage advice for both the Chinese and US governments. He hit all the key pain points, and warned of an impending “Economic Iron Curtain” and de-integration.
Astounded I am. I would have never thought that I would be studying Xi Jinping Thought 习近平思想 but here we are. This document was released on 2017 Oct 18 at the 19th Communist Party Congress (CPC), and is the roadmap China will use going forward. I usually do not read much Chinese propaganda, but this one seems to be repeatedly referenced, forcing me to come back and review this in greater detail, from the Chinese source through to translation. The implication of the first point, “Ensuring Party leadership over all work”, has strong implications for international trade, espionage and foreign relations.
China is using its access to the North American internet system to route traffic to Beijing, rather than the shortest point of travel. Packets can then be stored, analyzed and changed before they are sent on to its destination. This exploits the openness of the West, to China’s advantage. Yuval Shavitt of Tel Aviv University and Chris Demchak of the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I., published a paper recently in Military Cyber Affairs, called China’s Maxim – Leave No Access Point Unexploited: The Hidden Story of China Telecom’s BGP Hijacking. It is a really good read.
Problem: China and Russia are eavesdropping on Trumps’s private calls. China specifically wants to know who influences Trumps so they can influence the influencers. This is standard practice for many countries and not just China.
The US, Canada and Mexico have signed the USMCA, to be ratified by all, but pretty much done. One of the more controversial sections is Articles 32.10: Non-market Country FTA, designed to seemingly limit all three countries from having a free trade agreement with non-market countries, unnamed but specifically China. How does this work?
The actual Article 32.10 section is below in its entirety, quoted verbatim from the USMCA. Let us get to the important points.
Summary: If any USMCA country enters into a free trade agreement FTA with a non-market economy, the other USMCA countries could turn the USMCA into a bilateral agreement.
Has China’s short run of small and medium sized SME private companies come to an end? Greed has pushed private companies to over-leverage themselves, but the catalyst to this movement is the Chinese government’s tightening of credit.
China Reins in Credit
China has built huge new infrastructure, mainly financed by state and city government borrowing. This is, in part, to goose growth, jobs and therefore social harmony at any cost. This borrowing has steadily increased as the Chinese economy has slowed down. China wants to rein in and reduce this borrowing.
China is expanding its reach with its Belt and Road Initiative. This has been going on for a number of years.
Advantages
Where third world countries could not get financing for large infrastructure projects, China is willing to provide financing and building of these huge projects. These projects are of great benefit to the host country
Host countries get financing for large infrastructure projects that they would not normally be able to afford
China has projects that employ Chinese workers and use Chinese products such as steel and equipment. This keeps Chinese workers in China employed.
Art exhibition at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, a small liberal arts college. The exhibition shows modern Chinese life.
To say that there is little open discussion on certain aspects of life within China is an understatement. China is and has always been heavily censored. Even online, the rebuttals are censored. It is as if the discussion did not ever take place. This is very unfortunate.
No country has a perfect past. History is made in the context of the times, where decisions at the time are justified. Today we can look back and disagree, but we should hold our tongues and think about their context.
