CHINAwatch

Ruling party candidate Lai Ching-te emerges victorious in Taiwan's election - implications

Exclusive live TV interview on TRT World based in Istanbul. 

China's "global ambitions" according to two prominent Western sinologists

In Daring to Struggle: China's Global Ambitions Under Xi Jinping (10 June,2022), Bates Gill, Chair of the Department of Security Studies at Macquarie University and Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Insitute in London, focuses on China's six perceived strategic interests: Legitimacy; Sovereignty, Wealth, Power, Leadership and Ideas.

The Ideas consist of four strands - (a) a new global era with dynamic "changes not seen in a hundred years" as backdrop for the struggle to realize the China Dream of national renaissance; (b) an aim to build a "Community of Common Destiny" for mankind beset with interconnected and inter-dependent challenges like Climate Change and global security; (c) achieving global "unity with diversity" in international relations, relying on China's ancient adage of "harmony despite differences" (和而不同); and (d) seeking "Chinese Solutions" for global challenges instead of blindly following a superficial, one-size-fits-all Western hymnbook.  

In The Final Struggle: Inside China's Global Strategy (2022), Ian Eason, Senior Director of the Project 2049 Institute, based in Arlington, Virginia, USA, tries to turn President Xi's concept of "Common Destiny" on its head, hyping it as a sinister plot to achieve global dominance by shaping a panopticon "world government" bent to his will. Understandably, to veteran China-bashers and those otherwise infected with Sinophobia, every curved shadow would look like a snake, as the Chinese saying goes. (杯弓蛇影)

Eason's overhyped narrative and wafer-thin understanding of China notwithstanding, eye-catching infographics by Louis Martin Vezian are perhaps the most interesting parts of the book, showcasing at a glance how much national progress and global influence China has achieved over recent decades under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The following reproduced infographics may come in handy by way of reference or reminder. 

Download China's One-World Government (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download Taking Over International Institutions (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download Wall Street PRC (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download PRC Owned IoT in America (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download Compromised Container Ports (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download We Surround You (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download China is the Future (Louis Martin-Vezian)

Download Buying Global Influence - (Louis Martin-Vezian)

 

 

Most of what the Western media says about China is wrong.

A YouTube blog of 7 January 2023 by retired Australian social-media commentator based in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province, China.

China: Time of Xi - a 3-part TV documentary introducing President Xi's vision of the China Dream

Produced by Meridian Line Film and invested by Discovery Channel, the 3-part TV documentary was aired in the United States in 2017 before the latest Sinophobic tsunami. 

Suspicions of rose-colored spectacles aside, the documentary offers a useful introduction to what defines President Xi's concept of the China Dream.

The TV documentary is divided into three parts:

Part 1 Poverty alleviation, medical reforms, investment in education, and high-speed train network.      

Part 2 Supply-side reform, technological innovation, and environmental protection. 

Part 3 The Belt and Road Initiative and the concept of "Community of Common Destiny"

Understanding China's Innovative Development

PowerPoint presentation on 10 June to the Innovation Network, United Kingdom. 

Download Understanding China's Innovative Development - Innovation Network

Why the world needs China

Keynote presentation by Cyrus Janssen, an American digital entrepreneur living in China, at Thompson River University, Canada, on 21 November, 2020. For those who think that (a) "There is no freedom in China" (b) "There is no safety in China" (3) "China is the biggest threat to democracy" (4) "China is trying to take over the world", the video clip may be an eye-opener. 

The above also resonates with my earlier piece on World Strategic Insights - The New China Scare - Why America Shouldn’t Panic About Its Latest Challenger

Thanks to Covid-19, are we facing a turning point in history?

No, says Richard Haass, President of US Council on Foreign Relations. The Pandemic Will Accelerate History Rather Than Reshape It , he writes in Foreign Policy on 7 April, 2020, reminding us that "not every crisis is a turning point", harking back to his earlier tome A World in Disarray (Penguin Press, New York, 2017).

Outlined in The Global Analyst of June 2020 are Ten Reasons Why the Coronavirus Crisis Will Spawn a Brave New World of Discord.

An epochal rivalry for global dominance between the US and China will intensify whoever is in the White House. While the US retreats from obligations as global leader, China remains ill-fitted and unwilling to usurp America's role.

In face of mounting headwinds, China is emerging from Covid-19 with a more sober view of its geo-economic and geopolitical trajectory. Nevertheless, as China is the first to recover from the pandemic while the US tops the world with total Covid-19 cases approaching 3 million, China may well be able to overtake the US economy sooner than expected, before 2030. Click here 

What is more, obscured by demonization, the legitimacy of China's development model is gaining global ascendancy. This is supported by Washington D.C.-based research institutions like the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer (page 7) and PEW Center people's satisfaction ratings . These consistently show that China's people trust their government much more compared with Western democracies.

With Covid-19, China's draconian city lockdown measures are now copied by many countries, Western democracies included. With long-established systemic racism in the United States highlighted by the George Floyd tragedy, the universality of capitalistic democracy is beginning to be questioned. Huntington's Clash of Civilizations is coming home to roost. 

Nevertheless, nationalism in on the rise across the globe. With a pervasive "China Scare", national security in personal protective equipment (PPE) and high-tech services such as 5G is likely to drive a global wave of decoupling from China, causing trade flow disruptions.

However, as China has already been intricately embedded in the global multi-faceted supply and value chain, meaningful decoupling is easier said than done. Challenges as described in Strategic US-China decoupling in the tech sector (Hinrich Foundation) and China dominates medical supplies, in this outbreak and the next (New York Times) are instructive. 

Meanwhile, as contagion risks remain, more and more business interactions are being conducted using Zoom or equivalents. With the advent of 5G, big data, and the Internet of Things, how businesses are transacted and how people live and work are migrating to a new normal. Robots and virtual experiences are becoming commonplace. A lot more will work from home. The quantity and features of offices and housing are likely to be transformed. There will be a paradigm shift in urban and global connectivity.

As Henry Kissinger opined in the Walls Street Journal on 3 April, 2020, The Coronavirus Pandemic Will Forever Alter the World Order.

The world will never be the same!  

"The China Mirage" - Timely revisit of America's tragic misreading of China

Author James Bradley's 2015 eloquent introduction to his seminal book The China Mirage is a timely reminder of the critical need for Americans to really understand what China, a fifth of humanity, is all about as a nation, and what its people and leaders want, if only to avoid misjudging China again to the detriment of all, America included. 

As a follow-up, award-winning journalist John Pilger's documentary The Coming War on China is a dark revelation of the dangerous paranoia and inhumanity into which the world's most powerful democracy can sink with a twisted narrative of China inflamed by American pride and prejudice. 

China in a New Era of Global Disruptions (including Covid-19 pandemic)

PowerPoint presentation to a Joint Meeting of the EGN Founding Chairmen’ Group and the CEO Pioneers Group on 20 March, 2020. 

Download China in a New Era of Global Disruptions

For additional perspective on China's development model, click here.

China has created tech ‘new world order’ in Big data and AI

The Future Today Institute, a US think tank, released its 2020 Tech Trend Report on 16 March, 2020, highlighting China's "prolific dominance" in multiple areas, despite unprecedented headwinds. In particular, it calls attention to China's creation of a "new world order" in cutting-edge technologies like Big Data and AI.

Download 9-Key-Takeaways

Download 2020-Trend-Highlights

Download FTI_Trends_2020 (Full Report)