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Category: Americas
Vietnamese garment manufacturers struggle to comply with U.S. ban on Xinjiang cotton
Vietnam’s heavy reliance on cotton imports from China could lead it to fall foul of a U.S. ban on cotton produced by forced labor in Xinjiang province. Vietnamese manufacturers say it is hard to prove where the fabric in their garments comes from. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) came into force on June 21, after being signed into law by U.S. President Joe Biden last December. The move has reportedly led fashion chains such as Japan’s United Arrows to stop selling clothes made from Xinjiang cotton. According to the Business and Human Rights Resource Center (BHRRC) countries such as Vietnam and Bangladesh, the world’s second and third largest garment exporters, still depend heavily on imports of Chinese fabric and yarn, particularly high-end materials. “As a result, campaign groups and some Western politicians have accused manufacturers of “cotton laundering” in places such as Vietnam and Bangladesh, for serving as intermediaries in cotton garment production,” the center said. Last month the Bangladesh Garment Buying House Association asked its members to be careful where they sourced their raw materials to avoid falling foul of the new U.S. regulations. Last year Bangladesh’s garment exports to the U.S. earned it $7.18 billion. Vietnam’s garment exports to America brought in more than double that, at $15.4 billion, according to the U.S. Office of Textiles and Apparel. The BHRRC said that one Chinese garment manufacturer who owns a factory in Vietnam said proving the origin of fabrics and threads involved a lengthy due-diligence process. “It is hard to distinguish the cotton products entering Vietnam from different sources because they may have been mixed together while being transported at sea. Suppliers may do this so they can deceptively label Xinjiang cotton as coming from elsewhere, to circumvent the US law,” the manufacturer told the center. RFA spoke with the director of an apparel firm in Vietnam’s northern Nam Dinh province. “My company is producing apparel products for a China-based company which uses materials from its country and exports to the U.S.,” he said. “Due to the UFLPA it has ordered less from us. It seems that our Chinese partner cannot sell its products so it has stopped ordering [so much] from us.” The Vietnam Cotton and Spinning Association referred RFA to comments given by Vice President Do Pham Ngoc Tu to China’s Global Times. He told the newspaper that Vietnamese garment manufacturers will have to ‘wean themselves off’ raw materials produced in Xinjiang if they want to continue exporting to the U.S. One fifth of the world’s cotton comes from Xinjiang, making it hard for manufacturers to find adequate supplies from countries that do not use forced labor. Ignoring the ban would mean falling foul of the world’s biggest garment importer. The U.S. ships all but 5% of its apparel from overseas.
China arrests Taiwanese man for ‘separatism’ as Pelosi departs democratic island
As U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left Taiwan Wednesday after a stopover that angered China, authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang announced the arrest of a Taiwanese man under its national security law, accusing him of engaging in “separatist” activities and supporting formal independence for the democratic island. Yang Chih-yuen was arrested by state security police in Zhejiang’s Wenzhou city, state broadcaster CCTV cited a police statement as saying, accusing Yang of having founded the pro-independence Taiwan National Party, with the aim of “promoting Taiwan to join the United Nations as a sovereign and independent country.” “For some time, a very small number of ‘Taiwan independence’ die-hards have colluded with external forces, tried to split the country … [and] tried their best to incite cross-strait confrontation,” the report said. “State security police will make resolute use of legal weapons like the Anti-Secession Law and the National Security Law to severely punish ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists … [who] reject unification,” it said. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly said that Taiwan must be “unified” with China, and refused to rule out the use of military force to annex the island. Taiwan has never been ruled by the CCP, nor formed part of the 72-year-old People’s Republic of China. But Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen, who was re-elected in a 2020 landslide after vowing to stand up to China on the issue, has repeatedly said that Taiwan’s 23 million population have no wish to give up their sovereignty, a view that is borne out by repeated opinion polls. Beijing has a track record in making political arrests as a form of diplomatic statement, in what has been termed “hostage diplomacy,” and Yang’s arrest appears to be a way for China to register its displeasure with Pelosi’s trip, during which she reaffirmed U.S. support for Taiwan’s “flourishing democracy.” Taiwanese democracy activist Lee Ming-cheh, who served a five-year sentence in China for “incitement to subvert state power,” said during a meeting with Pelosi that the Chinese government shouldn’t use “national security” as an excuse to jail political prisoners. Lee, who may not have read the news of Yang’s arrest at the time of speaking, called for an end to “residential surveillance at a designated location,” which enables the authorities to deny visits from lawyers or family members for six months where the person has been accused of a “national security” offense. A man watches a CCTV news broadcast about joint military operations near Taiwan by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command, at a shopping center in Beijing, China, August 3, 2022. Credit: Reuters ‘Unnecessary’ China reaction Pelosi said during her meeting with Tsai on Wednesday that Taiwan, which made a transition to full democracy in the 1990s from authoritarian rule under the Kuomintang (KMT), that the island had “created a flourishing democracy” out of its challenging history. “Now more than ever, America’s solidarity with Taiwan is crucial,” Pelosi said. “America’s determination to preserve democracy here in #Taiwan and around the world remains ironclad.” China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) stepped up military exercises in the vicinity of Taiwan ahead of and during Pelosi’s trip, a move that both Pelosi and Tsai termed “unnecessary.” “Facing deliberately heightened military threats, Taiwan will not back down. We will… continue to hold the line of defense for democracy,” Tsai said during the meeting. “Military drills are unnecessary responses. Taiwan has always been open to constructive dialogue,” she said. Tsai also presented Pelosi with a Taiwanese honor: the Order of Propitious Clouds. Pelosi said she wasn’t sure why Beijing “made a big fuss” over her Taipei trip, though she speculated it may have been because she was the House speaker, Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) reported. The military drills could also be the result of “certain insecurities on the part of the president of China as to his own political situation that he’s rattling the saber,” the agency quoted her as saying. Pelosi said in an official statement that her trip in no way represented a shift in U.S. policy on Taiwan, which involves not offering the island formal diplomatic recognition while pledging to help it defend itself from the CCP. “Our visit is one of several Congressional delegations to Taiwan – and it in no way contradicts longstanding United States policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, U.S.-China Joint Communiques and the Six Assurances,” the statement said. “The United States continues to oppose unilateral efforts to change the status quo.” But it added: “America’s solidarity with the 23 million people of Taiwan is more important today than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy.” Pro-China supporters tear a U.S. flag during a protest against U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan outside the Consulate General of the United States in Hong Kong, China, August 3, 2022. Credit: Reuters Important regional message Lo Chih-cheng, a member of the foreign affairs and defense committee at Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, said the meaning of Pelosi’s trip was largely symbolic. Coming as it did under pressure of Chinese threats and warnings, Pelosi’s trip sent an important message to the entire Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific region that “the United States and democracies will not yield to Chinese threats and pressure,” Lo told RFA. Taiwanese military analyst Chieh Chung said the PLA exercises had made deep incursions into Taiwan’s territorial waters during Pelosi’s visit. The exercises are taking place east of the central line of the Taiwan Strait, further diluting the tacit understanding of the median line formed by the military on both sides of the strait since 1999, Chieh told RFA. Soong Kuo-cheng, a researcher in international relations at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, said China’s response had made the international community more aware of the island’s importance of Taiwan, and placed it in the international spotlight. “The CCP displayed a highly violent and irrational reaction to this visit by Pelosi, which has woken the rest of the world up to Taiwan’s…
U.S. House Speaker meets Taiwan’s president and praises the island’s resilience
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen presented U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a special award on Wednesday, calling her “one of Taiwan’s most devoted friends” who helped strengthen Taiwan-U.S. relations. Tsai met Pelosi in the morning after the U.S. House Speaker visited the Legislative Yuan, or Taiwan’s parliament. Pelosi praised the island for its success in battling the COVID pandemic and called Taiwan “one of the freest societies in the world.” “Taiwan has been an island of resilience,” Pelosi said in a brief speech during her meeting with President Tsai. “America’s determination to preserve democracy here in Taiwan and around the world remains ironclad,” the U.S. House Speaker stated, adding that her visit made it unequivocally clear that the U.S. “will not abandon our commitment to Taiwan.” In response, President Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan “will firmly uphold our nation’s sovereignty and continue to hold the line of defense for democracy.” “Facing deliberately heightened military threats, Taiwan will not back down,” Tsai said, referring to the latest developments across the Taiwan Strait. Locations of Chinese live-fire military drills around Taiwan on Aug. 4-7. CREDIT: Xinhua As Pelosi touched down on Tuesday evening in Taipei, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) announced unprecedented live-fire drills at six locations around Taiwan, some overlapping the island’s sovereign territorial waters as defined in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. On the same day, 21 Chinese military aircraft, including 10 J-16 fighter jets and two reconnaissance airplanes, flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). ‘Unprecedented military drills’ The PLA’s Eastern Theater Command is to “conduct a series of joint military operations around the Taiwan Island from the evening of Aug. 2,” said Sr. Col. Shi Yi, the Command’s spokesperson. Naval and air joint drills will be carried out in the northern, southwestern and southeastern waters and airspace off Taiwan, while long-range combat fire live shooting will be conducted in the Taiwan Strait and conventional missile firepower test-launched in the waters off Eastern Taiwan, according to Shi Yi. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense on Wednesday condemned what it calls “the reckless behavior by Communist China of conducting live fire drills in waters and skies close to Taiwan, some of which are in the neighboring waters.” The drills will essentially seal off Taiwan’s airspace and violate its territorial waters, the ministry said. The Ministry’s spokesperson Sun Li-Fang said China “threatens international aviation routes, challenges the international order, damages the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and destroys regional security.” Activities around Taiwan’s territory are closely monitored, the Defense Ministry said, vowing “appropriate responses when needed.” China dismissed Taiwan’s criticism of the military drills. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday Chinese military actions were legitimate and meant as a deterrent to Taiwan. Taiwan’s Ministry of Transportation and Communications is coordinating with Japan and the Philippines to plan alternative cargo flight routes for goods as the Chinese planned drills amount to an air blockade, the official Central News Agency (CNA) reported. Washington officials said China’s announced military drills were an “overreaction.” “There’s no reason … for Beijing to turn this visit, which is consistent with longstanding U.S. policy into some sort of crisis or use it as a pretext to increase aggressiveness and military activity in or around the Taiwan Strait now or beyond her travel,” national security council spokesman John Kirby said. Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine colonel turned political analyst, said prior to Nancy Pelosi’s visit he did not expect China to launch attacks on the U.S. or Pelosi herself. But, he said, they could lash out at Taiwan. “The Chinese Communists are now willing to apply serious pressure–including possible military force–against America’s friends and partners, and dare the United States to respond,” he told RFA. “That’s what I think we are most likely to see and most likely directed against Taiwan. In other words, making the Americans have to take the ‘first shot’ against the PRC,” added Newsham. “Taiwan’s government needs to do what is necessary to ensure Taiwan can defend itself,” said the analyst. “It needs to increase defense spending, show its military some respect and improve terms of service, re-institute national service, create an effective reserve defense force and create an effective civil defense scheme.” Taiwanese fighter jets at Taipei Songshan Airport on the last day of Han Kuang military exercise, July 29, 2022.. CREDIT: Taiwan Defense Ministry A new crisis? Beijing considers Taiwan “an inalienable part of China” that must be reunited with the mainland at all costs. Analysts say, however, despite the noisy saber-rattling by Beijing, a new crisis may not happen as “nobody wants war.” “While China has said Pelosi’s visit would challenge its “red line” for Sino-U.S. relations, it’s unlikely that Beijing will do something risky in the Taiwan Strait during her visit,” said Baohui Zhang, Professor of Political Science at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. “Beijing has no interest in triggering scenarios that may lead to miscalculations by all sides and inadvertent military conflicts,” Zhang said, adding: “As a rising power, war is the last thing China wants now.” During the most recent virtual meeting between Xi and Biden, the two leaders both confirmed the need for bilateral efforts to contain and manage crises. In Zhang’s opinion, Pelosi’s visit will have little practical implications for U.S.-China relations, as its trajectory of strategic rivalry has already been set. The Taipei-based China Times cited leaked diplomatic cables from Taiwan’s representative office in Washington DC, saying they showed both the White House and the Pentagon sought to discourage the House Speaker from visiting Taiwan. “The Biden administration is not in favor of the visit and China knows that,” said Baohui Zhang. “So the visit is largely a symbolic event showing rising Congressional support for Taiwan. It will not redefine U.S.-China relations.” Nancy Pelosi is set to meet with Taiwanese human rights and democracy activists before flying out on Wednesday afternoon to continue her Indo-Pacific tour.
Taiwan military on alert for China threats on reports Pelosi may visit
The Taiwanese military has stepped up its combat readiness to prepare for threats from China ahead of the U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s potential visit to the island, local media reported. At the same time, the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group is operating near Taiwan, a Chinese think-tank said. Taiwan’s official Central News Agency (CNA) quoted anonymous “reliable sources” as saying that from 08:00 a.m. on Tuesday until 12:00 noon on Thursday the military will “strengthen combat readiness” of troops and make adjustments in accordance to the threats from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Taiwan’s armed forces operate at two levels of combat readiness for peacetime and wartime, each level comprises several stages. It is understood that the current stage of preparedness is still within the peacetime level but could change. The island’s Ministry of National Defense has yet to make any comment on the news that comes as China announced more live-fire exercises in the South China Sea and Bohai Sea. On Tuesday morning several Chinese military aircraft and warships came close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait – the tacit maritime border between Taiwan and the mainland – Reuters said, quoting an anonymous source. This move is “unusual” and can be seen as “very provocative,” the source was quoted as saying. Taiwan’s defense ministry said the island’s military has a “full grasp” of activities near Taiwan and “will appropriately dispatch forces in reaction to enemy threats.” Aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan conducted a replenishment-at-sea in the Philippine Sea on July 31. CREDIT: U.S. Navy 7th Fleet. USS Ronald Reagan in the Philippine Sea Meanwhile on Tuesday the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan has been sailing in the northern Philippine Sea, east of Taiwan, China’s South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI) think-tank said, tracking the latest flight trajectory of the carrier-borne C-2A Greyhound cargo aircraft. On Monday and Tuesday China announced four more live-fire drills on top of four exercises that ended at the weekend. The first one is being held in the South China Sea near Hainan Island on Aug. 1 until Aug. 6, the same period of Pelosi’s Asia tour. The other three live-fire drills are in the Bohai Sea, the first from Aug. 1 to Aug. 4, the second on Aug. 3, and the third from Aug. 4 to Aug. 6. On Sunday, just one day before Pelosi began her Asia trip, the PLA also conducted mock air combat training after midnight “with the aim of improving the pilots’ ability to quickly enter combat status for abnormal situations at any time,” the state-supported Global Times reported. RFA sources, and sources cited by local media and America’s CNN, said Nancy Pelosi would make an unofficial trip on Tuesday evening to the island, which is not on her official four-nation itinerary. China issued fresh warnings that the visit “would lead to serious consequences.” “If Pelosi visits Taiwan, the Chinese side will respond resolutely and take strong countermeasures to defend our sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Zhao Lijian told a press conference in Beijing on Monday. “As for what those measures will be, let’s see what happens if she actually goes,” Zhao added. In Washington, the White House and the top U.S. diplomat said Pelosi’s travel plans were up to her, but urged China not to turn any such visit to Taiwan into a diplomatic crisis. Pelosi’s right to visit Taiwan “The speaker has the right to visit Taiwan, and a speaker of the House has visited Taiwan before, without incident, as have many members of Congress, including this year,” said national security spokesman John Kirby. “There is no reason for Beijing to turn a potential visit consistent with long-standing U.S. policy into some sort of crisis or conflict, or use it as a pretext to increase aggressive military activity in or around the Taiwan Strait,” he told reporters. Kirby said Washington would not be moved by any Chinese effort to raise tensions over Pelosi. “We will not take the bait or engage in saber rattling. At the same time, we will not be intimidated,” he said. Taiwan’s presidential office and foreign ministry have both declined to comment on any visit by Pelosi, although premier Su Chen-chang has said the island’s government, which still uses the name of the 1911 Republic of China, will welcome any foreign VIP guests. The United States does not recognize Taiwan diplomatically, but retains close unofficial ties with Taipei and is obligated by law to provide it with defense capabilities. Beijing considers the self-ruling, democratic island a breakaway province, to be united with the mainland by force if necessary, and objects strongly to high-level U.S. visits.
The Relentless & Powerful South Korean Hallyu
Hallyu means “Korean Wave”. It is a collective term used to refer to the unprecedented expansion of Korean culture and popular culture encompassing everything from music, movies, dramas, online games, and Korean cuisines and cookery.
China announces three exercises in S. China Sea as Taiwan issue raises tensions
In a regional show of strength China announced three almost-simultaneous military exercises in the South China Sea between July 27 and 31, just as reports emerged that the U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi may embark on her Asia-Pacific tour on July 29. The Guangdong Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) issued three navigation warnings GD70/22, GD71/22, GD73/22 advising ships against entering three designated areas in the South China Sea during time slots starting July 27 and finishing July 31. A navigation warning is a public advisory notice to mariners about changes to navigational aids and current marine activities or hazards including military exercises. Coordinates provided by the Guangdong MSA show three areas close to China’s mainland but one of them lies only some 240km from Pratas Island, claimed by both the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan but controlled by Taipei. Prior to these drills, the Chinese military held two exercises back to back from July 16-20 and July 20-22, also in the South China Sea. One of them covered an area of nearly 100,000 square kilometers (38,610 square miles). China often holds military exercises at short notice as a form of protest in response to U.S. naval activities and political developments that Beijing deems “hostile.” The unusually high frequency of drills this month shows China-U.S. tensions have been raised by Pelosi’s reported Taiwan visit and the presence of the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group in the South China Sea. Six warnings China has responded strongly against the rumored trip which, if confirmed, would be the first visit by a U.S. House Speaker to Taiwan since 1997. In his telephone conversation with U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Washington against “playing with fire” over Taiwan. “Playing with fire will only get you burnt. I hope the U.S. is clear on this,” state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying during the phone call. Before the Xi-Biden meeting, different Chinese government agencies had already issued at least six official warnings against the visit, with the Defense Ministry on Thursday threatening that “actions are the best answer.” Countries in the region are watching these latest developments closely, said Shahriman Lockman, Director of Malaysia’s Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS). “The concern here is how China would seek to retaliate if Pelosi were to visit Taiwan,” Lockman said. “If that retaliation took place in the South China Sea, perhaps in the form of a deployment of combat aircraft to the Spratlys [a disputed island chain], it would underscore to other countries the growing risks of US-China rivalry,” he said. U.S. media reported that Nancy Pelosi, the third most senior figure in the American political system, would depart for an Asia-Pacific tour on Friday. Both Bloomberg and NBC quoted anonymous sources as saying that the tour would take Pelosi to some U.S. allies in the region, including Japan and Singapore, but whether she would make a stop in Taiwan remained “unclear.” Some leading American China experts have called on the U.S. House Speaker to postpone any Taiwan visit. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks at the Capitol in Washington on July 21, 2022. U.S. officials say they have little fear that China would attack Pelosi’s plane if she flies to Taiwan. CREDIT: AP Avoid confrontation Bonnie Glaser, Director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Zack Cooper, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in the New York Times that the event would be seen by Beijing as “a serious provocation.” “Chinese leaders might be willing to risk an escalation such as challenging Ms. Pelosi’s plane or flying military aircraft directly over Taiwan for the first time,” they said. “Leaders on all sides must wake up and find off-ramps to avoid a dangerous confrontation that neither side wants,” the two analysts said, arguing that a crisis in the Taiwan Strait would put the island in a very difficult situation. Shahriman Lockman from Malaysia’s ISIS suggested that, should Pelosi decide to skip Taiwan, the Americans “could attempt to present this as a demonstration of restraint and maturity.” “I think there is a good middle ground here which is for Pelosi to telephone Tsai Ing-wen from Japan so she won’t need to visit Taiwan but at the same time, be able to show her support,” Lockman said. The U.S. does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a Chinese province, but it is obligated by law to provide the island with defense capabilities. During his conversation with the Chinese leader on Thursday Biden made clear that Washington “strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” according to a White House press release. The office of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday thanked Biden for his continuous support, the official Central News Agency reported. “The Presidential Palace expresses its gratitude … and looks forward to China’s shared responsibility” in maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” the report said.
China angry at reported Pelosi Taiwan visit as plan questioned in US
China has once again lashed out at the reported plans by the U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to visit Taiwan, warning Thursday of countermeasures even after President Joe Biden said the U.S. military thinks such visit is “not a good idea.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a news conference in Beijing that China holds a “stern position on firmly opposing” the visit. “If Speaker Pelosi visits Taiwan, it would seriously violate the one-China principle and harm China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and the political foundation of China-US relations,” Wang said. “If the U.S. insists on going its own way, China will take strong measures to firmly respond and take countermeasures. We will walk the talk,” the spokesperson stressed. On Wednesday, when asked about Pelosi’s prospective trip, President Biden said “I think that the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now.” “But I don’t know what the status of it is,” he added. Pelosi’s office meanwhile declined to comment on Pelosi’s international travel in advance due to longstanding security protocols, according to the Associated Press. Britain’s Financial Times newspaper reported earlier this week that Pelosi is to make a trip to Taipei in August after failing to visit the island in April because she had COVID. If Pelosi makes the trip it would be the first time since 1997 that a U.S. House speaker visited the island, which is democratically ruled but claimed by China as its own territory. One-China policy Taipei has been quiet on talk about Pelosi’s visit with the island’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou insisting that her ministry has not received any information about a planned visit. Taiwan, however, “always welcomes visits by American congresspersons to the country,” she told reporters on Thursday. Meanwhile, the former U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who has been visiting Taiwan since Monday said that China should not be allowed “to dictate the travel schedules of American officials.” Esper, who held office from 2019 to 2020 under former U.S. President Donald Trump, said that he believes that Washington’s one-China policy has “run its course” and should be “updated and modernized.” It is important that the U.S. government develops a fresh perspective regarding its cross-Taiwan Strait policy, Esper said at a press conference in Taipei. Beijing has long reacted strongly to any sign of support given to Taiwan but the U.S should not allow China to arbitrarily expand “the scope of activities translated as supporting Taiwan independence, and by that defining the scope of the U.S. one-China policy,” said Norah Huang, associate research fellow at the Prospect Foundation, a Taiwanese think-tank. “If applying over-generous self-restrictions as it has been the case, it also would encourage the Chinese government to play the nationalist card. This is not helpful for nurturing an understanding civil society which may grow as China develops,” she added.
Parliamentarians call for sanctions on Chinese firms over sales to Russia
An international alliance of lawmakers has called on more countries to blacklist Chinese companies accused of providing military-industrial support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The cross-party Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), whose members hail from 25 parliaments in North America, Europe and Australia, have called on their governments to replicate sanctions made by the U.S. Department of Commerce on Hong Kong World Jetta Logistics, Sinno Electronics, King Pai Technology, Winninc Electronic and Connec Electronic. China claims it doesn’t extend military assistance to Russia, but Chinese customs data showed increased exports of raw materials for military use to Russia. In the first five months of 2022, Chinese chip shipments to Russia more than doubled from a year earlier to U.S.$50 million, while exports of components like printed circuits also recorded double-digit percentage growth. China also exported 400 times more alumina — an important raw material for weapons production and the aerospace industry — to Russia compared with the same period in 2021. “The signatories call for an export control and scrutiny mechanism to target [Chinese] entities providing support to Russia’s military efforts in Ukraine,” the IPAC said in a July 15 statement on its website. “Technologies produced on our shores cannot be allowed to further aid Russia’s senseless war in Ukraine,” they said in a joint letter to their foreign ministries. “As [China is] Russia’s largest single trading partner, ensuring the [its] entities do not act to weaken the impact of international sanctions on Russia is of critical importance,” said the letter, which included U.S. Representatives Congressman Mike Gallagher and Congresswoman Young Kim, German Green MEP Reinhard Bütikofer, and former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine comes amidst a deepened ‘no limits’ friendship between Moscow and Beijing,” IPAC co-chair Bütikofer said. “The Chinese government is working around the clock to push the Kremlin’s lies and disinformation on Ukraine across the globe, while Chinese companies continue to supply the Russian military with crucial technologies. Companies which service Putin’s senseless war in Ukraine must be named, shamed and face the consequences.” Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose for a photograph during their meeting in Beijing, Feb. 4, 2022. Credit: AFP China Poly Group The Wall Street Journal quoted the Center for Advanced Defense (C4ADS), a Washington-based security threat research organization, as saying that between 2014 and January 2022, it had tracked down 281 undisclosed shipments of goods that could be used for military purposes made by a subsidiary of China Poly Group, to the Russian authorities. China Poly Group is controlled by the Chinese central government and its subsidiaries include a major Chinese arms maker and exporter of small arms, missile technology and anti-drone laser technology. In late January, its subsidiary Poly Technology Group exported a batch of antenna parts to the sanctioned Russian defense company Almaz-Antey. Russian customs records show that antenna parts are used exclusively for radar and are used in Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile system, which, according to Russian media reports, has been used in Ukraine. However, the Center for Advanced Defense Research said it hadn’t detected further China Poly shipments to Russian defense companies since the war began. The Commerce Department announced the targeted companies on June 29, saying they had supplied items to Russian “entities of concern” before the Feb. 24 invasion, adding that they “continue to contract to supply Russian entity listed and sanctioned parties.” The agency also added another 31 entities to the blacklist from countries that include Russia, UAE, Lithuania, Pakistan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. “Today’s action sends a powerful message to entities and individuals across the globe that if they seek to support Russia, the United States will cut them off as well,” Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez said in a statement quoted by Reuters. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman rejected the claim that the companies were exporting goods to aid Russia’s war effort. “China and Russia carry out normal trade cooperation on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit. This should not be interfered with or restricted by any third party,” Zhao told reporters in Beijing in response to the announcement. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
The secretive world of TikTok
Tiktok has been making the headlines since its inception for all the wrong reasons. But the biggest concern surrounding TikTok has been the misuse of TikTok to breach the internal security of countries. The secretive world of Tiktok is abusing the residents of other countries through various techniques in the name of “Entertainment”.
Belt and Road becomes ball and chain for Chinese construction workers
They signed up at job fairs to work as carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers and painters at a housing project in the North African country of Algeria and were promised round-trip air fare, room and board, and better wages than they’d earned in China. They thought working for companies serving China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was a safe bet. When the migrant workers from Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Henan, and Hebei–China’s relatively poorer inland provinces–arrived in the country, however, they soon found themselves living in sheds without air conditioning in desert heat and facing a nightmare of withheld wages, mysterious extra fees, confiscated passports, and dismal food. Many are trapped in Algeria. Chinese labor lawyers say their treatment not only besmirches China’s reputation, undermining the goals of the nearly 10-year-old Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of infrastructure projects aimed at boosting Beijing’s global profile, but also constitutes human trafficking under international conventions China has signed. The BRI is seen as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature international policy. Following up on tips received from workers who’ve been stranded some 6,000 miles (9,200 km) from home, RFA Mandarin interviewed numerous workers employed in Algeria’s Souk Ahras Province, Chinese diplomats, labor lawyers and an executive of Shandong Jiaqiang Real Estate Co. Ltd, the eastern China-based company the laborers accuse of luring them to Algeria under false pretenses. “When I came here through an agent, I realized the situation is not good. It is worse than in China,” said Worker A, whose name has been withheld to protect him and his family from retaliation. “The contract is good for two years, and the pay listed on the contract is more than 10,000 yuan ($1,480) per month––between 15,000 ($2,220) and 20,000 yuan ($2,960). After landing here, I made less than 10,000 yuan ($1,480) a month,” he told RFA. “The pay is far from what was promised,” said a second man, identified as Worker B. “It is worse than what we earned in China. Here the monthly pay on average is 3,000 yuan ($444).” When he and fellow workers “arrived here and found out that the situation was far from ideal, we wanted to go home,” said Worker A. “We spoke with the company, and the company said ‘no.’ They said ‘Because you already signed the contract, if you go home now, that is a breach of contract.’” According to Worker A, Shandong Jiaqiang Real Estate Co. Ltd. told the workers to “ask your family to wire 28,000 yuan ($4,145) over to pay for the penalty. After you pay the penalty, then you can go home.” He told RFA wages were only paid every six months, with 70 percent paid, and the other 30 percent withheld until the workers fulfilled their two-year contracts. That pay arrangement meant the workers “usually have no money to live on” and had to borrow advances against their wages. “In the process, the workers were ripped off by other costs,” added Worker A, who said the company profited by loaning money to them at an exchange rate to the local Algerian Dinar currency that was about half the actual rate. A Chinese worker walks by a building at a construction site in Algeria’s Souk Ahras province. Credit: A Chinese worker. ‘Pig food’ and hot sheds Worker B said it took a strike by workers in September 2021 to get the company to pay the 70 percent they were due in the middle of that year. He said the workers were told by the company: “Feel free to sue. We’re not afraid. Just sue us, go back to China to sue us.” But a third worker involved in the dispute said that path was impossible for poor workers to take “The lawsuit costs money. To hire someone costs money. If you file a complaint in China, you’re dragging your family in too. Who can afford to sue? said Worker C. A chief reason the workers had to borrow money was to cook their own meals because the three daily meals they were promised under their contracts was inedible. “To say it bluntly, the food was worse than those given to pigs. Sometimes the food was just impossible to eat,” said Worker B. “In the winter, they gave you marinated cucumber salad or marinated tomatoes, plus two eggs per person. That’s it. Or two eggplants each person,” he said. “The food we ate was mixed with sand and gravel. The noodles were black,” added Worker B. “Workers in many construction sites that this company operates received the same treatment. Why? The company does not want to cook the food well, because if it’s delicious, you’d eat more. By offering lousy food, you’d pay out of pocket to buy your own food and cook your own meals,” Worker A surmised. The make matters worse, Worker A said, the workforce had to “live in regular sheds, with no air-conditioning, no matter how hot it is.” “In the summer, the temperature goes as high as 41 or 42 Celsius (105 or 107 Fahrenheit),” he added. Food provided to workers by Shandong Jiaqiang Real Estate Co. Ltd. ay its construction site in Algeria. Credit: A worker Overpriced plane tickets, improper visas Another grievance shared by the workers in Algeria who spoke to RFA in recent months was the failure to provide return airfare to China as promised. After checking with the Chinese Embassy in Algiers, workers who were trying to go home were told that tickets to China ran about 22,000 yuan. “The boss has told them that a flight ticket costs ¥42,000 yuan, and we have to pay our own ticket. He wanted us to pay by ourselves,” said Worker D. “It seemed that the ticket was around ¥22,000 yuan, and he charged you more than ¥30,000, said Worker E. “’Immigration clearance fee,’ they said,” he added. Worker D explained that because the company applied for business visas for the workers, when the workers return to China, they have to go through departure procedures at the…
