The CHN/ China thread

[Buddahaid]

Biden and the one China policy.

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

China 'concerned' as North Korea sends millions of rounds of ammo to Russia

China has reason to be concerned as North Korea and Russia build stronger military and political ties, according to an expert.

North Korea has been supplying ammunition for Russian forces to bolster dwindling supplies used up fighting a war in Ukraine.

Pyongyang's Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un, even met with Vladimir Putin in September 2023 to discuss an arms deal.

It was reported that, in return, North Korea could benefit from Russia's technologies, capabilities for satellites, and its nuclear program among other benefits.

A month later, the US tracked more than 1,000 containers of equipment and ammo sent from North Korea and Russia.

South Korea later claimed that there had been 10 such arms transfers since August, meaning Russia may have received over a million shells from North Korea.

Business Insider reported on Tuesday that "the US isn't the only one concerned about Kim and Putin's apparent cosiness."

The outlet's defence reporter, Chris Panella, added: "China, too, has reason to keep an eye on the relationship, particularly if Russia can exercise, to some extent, the kind of influence over Kim that Beijing has long enjoyed - and kept guarded."

He also highlighted that China and North Korea have previously clashed over Kim's nuclear weapons programme, with tests causing concern for Beijing who would rather see stability in the region.

Victor Cha, the senior vice president for Asia and the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told Business Insider that North Korea is now "sitting pretty" while the US has been "sidelined."

He said: "North Korea is sitting pretty right now. They started out with a spectacular failure in Hanoi with the Trump summits, then they went into COVID lockdown for three years.

"Now they've come out and they're in a fantastic position with the Russians courting them, with the Chinese courting them, and with the US on the sidelines."

Kim has this week shocked many by declaring that reunification between North and South Korea is now impossible.

He also called for a change to the constitution to identify South Korea as the "number one hostile state."

Kim added: "We don't want war, but we have no intention of avoiding it."

A decision adopted by the Supreme People's Assembly said: "The two most hostile states, which are at war, are now in acute confrontation on the Korean peninsula. The reunification of Korea can never be achieved with the Republic of Korea."
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...cf6e4f27&ei=46

[Jimbuna]

China says Lai’s win in Taiwan will not change landscape of cross-strait relations

As Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) pulled off a historic win with voters shrugging off China’s concern about presidential candidate Lai Chinge-te, Beijing attempted to downplay his influence.

Taiwan’s current vice president, Mr Lai, issued a defiant message to China as he declared victory on Saturday evening.

“This is a night that belongs to Taiwan. We managed to keep Taiwan on the map of the world,” he said at a rally after the declaration of results. “The election has shown the world the commitment of the Taiwanese people to democracy, which I hope China can understand,” he added.

Mr Lai’s DPP has consistently rejected China’s territorial claims over Taiwan, while he has been denounced by Beijing.

The Chinese government responded to his win by calling Taiwan “China’s Taiwan” and adding that their commitment to “reunification” remained “as firm as rock”.

Following his win, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office issued a statement saying Mr Lai’s win would not change the basic landscape of cross-strait relations.

In a statement carried on China’s state Xinhua news agency, Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for the office, said the results showed the Democratic Progressive Party cannot represent mainstream public opinion on the island.

The electorates were mainly choosing between the governing DPP, which champions Taiwan‘s separate identity and rejects China’s territorial claims, and the opposition Nationalist Party, Kuomintang, which wants to expand trade ties with China.

The result showed that Mr Lai won more than 40 per cent of the vote, while the KMT candidate, Hou Yu-ih garnered 33.49 per cent, indicating support for DPP’s view on Taiwan’s claim for sovereignty, leaving Beijing visibility uncomfortable.
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/c...-b2478346.html

[Jimbuna]

China vows to work with North Korea to protect regional stability as tensions with Seoul escalate

China said it will work with North Korea on regional stability amid escalating tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang.
The Chinese Communist Party’s diplomatic chief Liu Jianchao told North Korean envoy Ri Ryong-nam in Beijing on Friday that China would increase strategic communications and jointly safeguard regional peace with North Korea.
“China is willing to work with [North Korea] … to carry forward our traditional friendship, deepen strategic communication, promote mutually beneficial cooperation, advance bilateral ties and to safeguard regional peace and stability,” Liu said, according to a statement from the International Liaison Department, the Communist Party’s diplomatic arm.

Ri, also quoted in the statement, said North Korea firmly supported China’s defence of its “core interests” on Taiwan, Hong Kong, human rights and other issues. He added that Pyongyang would use the opportunity of the 75th anniversary of its bilateral ties with Beijing this year to implement the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries.

Ri and Liu also agreed to strengthen inter-party coordination to boost bilateral ties.

Liu’s meeting with Ri came after North Korea announced on Friday that it tested its Haeil-5-23 nuclear-capable underwater attack drones in the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, in response to the biggest-ever trilateral drill between the US, South Korea and Japan this week.
Tensions are heightening between North Korea and US allies in the region as the nuclear-capable country ramps up weapons tests and its defiant rhetoric.

On Monday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un officially declared South Korea an “invariable principal enemy” of his country, which will drop its long-standing goal to achieve peaceful unification with South Korea. Earlier this month, he also threatened to use nuclear weapons to “annihilate” the US and South Korea if provoked.

On Thursday, nuclear envoys of the US, South Korea and Japan met in Seoul, agreeing to jointly tackle challenges brought by North Korea.

North Korea has stepped up exchanges with Russia amid speculation that the two countries are providing military support to each other as tensions flare in Ukraine and on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui visited Moscow earlier this week and was received by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin said the two sides agreed to develop relations in “all areas”, including “sensitive” ones, but did not give details.
China has been relatively low-key about Pyongyang’s latest military developments as well as the recent exchanges between North Korea and Russia. Beijing’s close ties with the two internationally isolated nations have been closely scrutinised.

The Chinese foreign ministry on Monday called for dialogue and consultations to promote a political settlement process for Korean peninsula issues after North Korea tested an intermediate-range ballistic missile over the weekend. The missile was equipped with a hypersonic warhead believed to be able to hit US bases in Guam.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...pgtype=article

[Jimbuna]

China defies sanctions to make Russia its biggest oil supplier in 2023

Russia leapfrogged Saudi Arabia to become China's top crude oil supplier in 2023, data showed on Saturday, as the world's biggest crude importer defied Western sanctions to purchase vast quantities of discounted oil for its processing plants.
Russia shipped a record 107.02 million metric tons of crude oil to China last year, equivalent to 2.14 million barrels per day (bpd), the Chinese customs data showed, far more than other major oil exporters such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
https://www.reuters.com/business/ene...23-2024-01-20/

[Jimbuna]

China’s “Query System for Islamic, Catholic, and Christian Clergy,” Another Tool for Repression

Earlier this year, Bitter Winter reported that the “Buddhist and Taoist Clerical Personnel Information Query System” (佛教道教教职人员信息查询系统) had been launched in Beijing. It was presented as a tool to “unmask” false and fraudulent Taoist priests and Buddhist monks. Where frauds are not unknown, the main reason for the creation of the data base was to identify, expose as illegitimate, and persecute Buddhist and Taoist clergy not subservient to the CCP nor part of the government-controlled China Buddhist Association and China Taoist Association.

Not surprisingly, it came out that the project was not limited to Buddhism and Taoism. Religion is controlled in China through the five authorized religions, whose leaders and cadres are selected by the CCP and whose aim is to transmit to religious believers the orders and the ideology of the Party. These are, in addition to the China Buddhist Association and the China Taoist Association, the Patriotic Catholic Church, the China Islamic Association, and the Three-Self Church, to which all legal Christian churches should belong (“Christian” being used in China as a synonym of “Protestant” and excluding Catholics, for whom there is a separate organization). Most Chinese believers do not belong to these organizations, but to independent groups such as the Protestant house churches, the Catholic communities of conscientious objectors rejecting the Vatican-China deal of 2018, and the independent mosques and temples.

Theoretically, all religious communities operating outside the five authorized religions are “illegal,” although Deng Xiaoping in 1982 granted them a limited tolerance. Subsequent CCP leaders restricted this tolerance, until Xi Jinping came and made no mystery of his plan to compel all independent communities to join the five authorized religions. Those stubbornly refusing may be classified as “xie jiao,” the label used for “heterodox teachings” that are completely prohibited, regarded as criminal organizations, and severely persecuted, such as Falun Gong or The Church of Almighty God.

The data bases of clergy are part of this strategy. Only the “legal” clergy of the authorized religions is included there. Citizens are encouraged to look for the name of the clergy they come in contact with in the data bases. If the names are not there, a “false” monk or priest (who in most cases is not “false,” just does not belong to a government-controlled organization) is identified and can be put under surveillance or arrested.
https://bitterwinter.org/chinas-quer...or-repression/

[Jimbuna]

Two key military appointments from China’s naval ranks reflects Xi’s territorial ambitions, analysts say

When Xi Jinping named Adm. Dong Jun as China’s defense minister last week, it marked the first time a naval officer has been elevated to that position, and analysts say it gives a clear indication of the Chinese leader’s priorities – Taiwan tops among them.

Dong’s experience, both as head of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) as well as operational assignments in the Chinese military’s Eastern and Southern theater commands, gives him an “unprecedented background” in the defense minister position, according to a report from the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island.

His resumé “reflects serious joint and naval focus under Xi with growing potential applications to disputed sovereignty claims in the East and South China Seas — none more important than Taiwan,” CMSI analysts Andrew Erickson and Christopher Sharman wrote in their report.

Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, said Dong “has international, joint and extensive naval experience in the two theaters that have been in the forefront of leader Xi Jinping’s most aggressive assertions of Chinese territorial claims.”

Xi, who has made taking control of Taiwan a cornerstone of his broader goal to “rejuvenate” China to a place of power and stature globally, said last month that the “reunification” of Taiwan with China is “inevitable.”

China’s Communist Party claims Taiwan as its own territory, despite never having controlled it. Chinese officials say they aim for peaceful “reunification” but have not ruled out using force to take control of the island.

China’s military has ramped up diplomatic, economic and military pressure on Taiwan under Xi.

Chinese jets now frequently cross into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone as well as over the unofficial, but until recently largely adhered to, “median line” that runs down the Taiwan Strait.

Crossings of the median line by Chinese warships have also become much more frequent.

Beijing is engaged in other sovereignty disputes, too, with Japan over the Senkuku Islands – which China calls the Diaoyus – in the East China Sea and with a handful of governments over contested reefs, shoals and islands in the South China Sea, almost all of which Beijing claims as its territory.

Though the defense minister position in China is a largely ceremonial role, serving as the public face of military diplomacy with other countries, Erickson and Sharman said Dong, with his experience, will make “a potent interlocutor with foreign counterparts.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/03/c...mil/index.html

[Dargo]

[Jimbuna]

^ Already covered a fortnight ago.

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...&postcount=722

[Jimbuna]

China’s human rights record criticised at UN as it faces rare scrutiny of policies

The UK, the US and several other countries criticised China’s human rights record on Tuesday as the country was subjected to rare scrutiny of its policies at the United Nations.

The UK called on China to “cease the persecution and arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and Tibetans and allow genuine freedom of religion or belief and cultural expression without fear of surveillance, torture, forced labour or sexual violence”, while the US said China should “release all arbitrarily detained individuals” and cease the operation of “forcible assimilation policies including boarding schools in Tibet and Xinjiang”.

The UK also recommended that the national security law in Hong Kong be repealed and specifically called for the prosecution of the pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai to be dropped.

The recommendations were made as part of the UN Human Rights Council’s universal periodic review, a mechanism by which the 193 UN member states review each others’ human rights records every five years.

Each country at the UN headquarters in Geneva was given 45 seconds to make recommendations based on China’s human rights records since 2018. In that period, huge protests against the tightening grip of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) in Hong Kong prompted the imposition of a national security law that critics say criminalises dissent, and there has been increased international scrutiny of the human rights situation in Xinjiang, as well as growing concern about transnational repression as activists in the US, the UK and other countries have been targeted by Chinese authorities or agents.

Responding to the recommendations, China’s UN ambassador, Chen Xu, said concerns were caused by “misunderstanding or misinformation”.

Chen said: “A few countries groundlessly accuse and smear China, based not on facts but on ideological bias and unfounded rumours and lies.”

Tuesday’s meeting was the first time China has been through the review process since the UN’s report on Xinjiang was published in August 2022. The long-delayed report, which was written by the outgoing human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet, found China was committing “serious human rights violations” against Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Beijing described it as “disinformation”.

Several countries brought up China’s policies in Xinjiang during Tuesday’s meeting. The region, along with Tibet, has become a byword for Beijing’s repressive human rights policies, particularly towards religious and ethnic minorities.

Human rights activists said that the fact that several countries mentioned Tibet in this year’s review bucked a recent trend of the region not being spoken about on the international stage.

Many smaller countries, or countries that are economically dependent on China, praised China’s rights record, in particular its success at lifting tens of millions of people out of poverty since 2018.

Ethiopia said it “applauds China for improving the criminal litigation system”, while Iran said: “We appreciate the economic programmes implemented by the government of China with the aim of promoting social, cultural and economic rights.”

Bhutan, a small, landlocked country between India and China that has recently been warming its relationship with Beijing, said: “We commend the significant progress in poverty alleviation and the achievement of the poverty reduction target of the 2030 agenda ahead of schedule.”

Speaking after the UN session, Sophie Richardson, a former China director for Human Rights Watch, said: “We increasingly hear Chinese government rhetoric in the recommendations made by governments, I think indicating a level of control over the process or influence over the process, and that’s problematic.”

Zumretay Arkin, the spokesperson for the World Uyghur Conference, criticised central Asian countries for failing to speak out against the abuse of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other minorities in Xinjiang and said: “Muslim-majority countries have failed the Uyghurs.”

China’s foreign ministry has been approached for comment.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ny-of-policies

[Jimbuna]

China's critics and allies have 45 seconds each to speak in latest U.N. review of its human rights

China faces international scrutiny Tuesday over domestic polices in places like Hong Kong, Tibet and the western Xinjiang region as the global power receives its latest U.N.-backed review of its human rights record.

An extraordinarily high number of more than 160 countries — some critics of Beijing, some allies — have registered to take part in a discussion around China's rights record. That means each will have no longer than 45 seconds to speak.

China, whose delegation will be led by its top ambassador in Geneva, Chen Xu, can field a delegation that has up to 70 minutes to make its case.

The “universal periodic review” involves all U.N. member states coming up for scrutiny — at times a sharp one — by other countries roughly every five years. The hours-long discussion aims to offer constructive criticism that underpins a written a report that will offer recommendations, not criticism.

“These are all opportunities for countries to offer congratulations, criticisms and recommendations. Only recommendations expressly formulated as such ... are taken into account in the review report,” said Pascal Sim, the top spokesperson for the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council, which helps organize the reviews.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/c...-b2483054.html

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

China allows Philippines to supply troops at disputed reef

BEIJING/SHANGHAI, Jan 28 (Reuters) - The Chinese coastguard said it had made "temporary special arrangements" to allow the Philippines to deliver supplies to troops at a grounded World War Two-era vessel at a disputed reef.
The Chinese coastguard has previously deployed vessels to block missions by the Philippines to supply troops on the transport ship, which has become a military outpost at the Second Thomas Shoal, 190 km (118 miles) off the Philippine island of Palawan.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...ef-2024-01-28/