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CONTENTS

Economy

Electric cars were 10% of May auto sales and won global first-mover advantage for China. The production and sales volumes of new energy vehicles has ranked first in the world for six consecutive years. Read full article $→

CATL, the world’s leading battery maker and Tesla supplier, announced that the global EV boom has forced it to ramp up production. Its newly opened battery plant in Sichuan Province will produce an annual battery capacity of 15 gigawatt hours (GWh) and will be upgraded to 30 GWh. Read full article $→

Microsoft plans massive China expansion, will build four data centers in China by 2022, capitalizing on a pandemic driven surge in demand for online business-facing services. Read full article $→

Beijing reduced debt to 248% of GDP in Q1, down from 270% in 2020, but up from 181% in 2010. Corporate domestic debt-to-GDP was 162% (up from 121%), household 62% (up from 27%), government 45% (up from 33%). Read full article $→

Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region set a target of 66,000 hectares (163,000 acres) of vineyards, 300 million bottles of wine, and $16 billion in annual revenue by 2026 and 100,000 hectares of vineyards, 600 million bottles $14 billion in revenues by 2035. That amount of wine would equal the current output of all of China, and the vineyard coverage would put Ningxia on par with Bordeaux. Read full article →

Wu Fang Zhai is a century-old zongzi maker headquartered in Zhejiang (zongzi are triangle-shaped rice ball are traditionally consumed during the Dragon Boat Festival). According to its IPO prospectus, it sold 365 million zongzi last year, and had $375 million in sales. CRRC estimates 124 mln passenger trips during this year's Dragon Boat Festival holiday. Read full article →

Airlines had 418 million passenger trips last year, 63% of the 2019 number. By Q4 2020, trips were back to 95% of 2019 levels. Industry investment in fixed assets was S$24.49 billion, a record high, and the number of airports reached 241. Read full article →

Financial institutions' assets grew 9% YoY to $57 trillion. Securities sector assets stood at $1.5 Tn, for a YoY rise of 22.1%, while insurance assets reached $3.3 Tn., up 11.7% YoY. Read full article →

New Foreign Invested Enterprises in China Rise 50% YoY. 18,497 foreign invested enterprises were established in China during the period from January to May. Read full article →

Trade & Travel

China grows 92% of the world's spinach, 88% of its asparagus, 81% of its green beans, and 80% of its cucumbers. Glass greenhouse acreage grew 28% in 2020. Built within city limits to reduce distance to buyers, they sell directly to e-commerce platforms and supermarkets and bypass middlemen. Read full article →

Chinese companies are the largest source of sponsorship for the UEFA European Football Championships, which kicked off Friday in Rome. Read full article →

The $62 billion dairy sector will add 200 farms and 2.5 million cows to meet growing thirst for milk. The world's third largest producer generated 34 million tonnes of milk last year, meeting 70% of domestic demand. Annual per capita consumption is 6.8 liters, vs. 50 liters in USA. Read full article →

The new law countering Western sanctions will target foreign and Chinese businesses, forcing them to “pick sides”. Organisations and individuals who enforce or assist foreign sanctions could be taken to court, and forced to “stop the infringement and pay compensatory losses”. Those on the countermeasure list may be denied entry into China or be expelled from the country. Their assets within China may be seized, distrained, or frozen. Further, they could be prohibited or restricted from doing business and other activities in China. Read full article →  

35 million tourists visited Tibet last year, 10 times its entire population. They spent $70 billion, persuading herders to become hoteliers as their culture becomes a tourist attraction. Read full article $ →

Asia’s convenience, reliability, and cost mean US hopes that American companies can reshore production from the region is “overblown” and any such shifts will “remain an exception to the rule”, according to a report from the The Economist. Companies and investors will be deterred by North America’s comparative lack of competitiveness. Read full article $ →

In the first five months of 2021, China’s BRI investment grew 13.8% YoY, to US$7.43 billion, or 17.2% of China’s total ODI, which rose 2.6% US$43.29 billion. Read full article $ →

Technology & IP

Three astronauts floated into the Tiangong space station Thursday to start a three-month mission. Astronauts Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo followed Nie into Tianhe module through hatches leading from their Shenzhou 12 spaceship as the complex soared 235 miles above Earth. Read full article $→

U.S. satellite imaging capabilities were once the best in the world. Today, they are officially behind China in video and persistence in both visible and radar imaging, and doesn’t even get a medal in hyperspectral imaging, where China took home both gold and the bronze. Read full article →

80% of the world's commercial drones are made by Chinese companies, which transformed drones into consumer entertainment and photography, and tools for architects, builders, farmers, filmmakers, game rangers, and other professionals. Applications now range from aerial photography and ecommerce deliveries to power line inspection and surveillance. There are 70,000 registered drone companies. Here are the top 22.. Read full article $→

The world’s seventh-largest hydroelectric station, the $18.7 billion Wudongde Dam, is generating 39 billion kWh a year, saving 30 million tonnes of CO2 and meeting the energy needs of 300,000 people. Read full article $→

Kaiser Kuo chats with Andrew Jones, the journalist covering China’s space program. Andrew gives the history and the latest on China’s outer-space ambitions, including planned missions to Jupiter’s outermost Galilean moon, Callisto, and beyond the edge of our solar system. Listen now →

China will be self-sufficient in 28nm chips this year and in 14nm chips next year. Most devices use 28nm or 14 nm chips. TSMC’s chairman said that China’s design capability is just one year behind the US. “If China can provide the local manufacturing capability as well, then it will be able to establish a healthy local supply chain.” Read full article →

At the start of 2020 CITIC Bank successfully launched its “Xiong’an New District Construction Funds Blockchain System Platform”, becoming the first “on-chain” lender in the region. CITIC uses the platform to facilitate payments to the accounts of thousands of builders and materials suppliers for local construction projects in the Xiong’an New District, involving local government authorities, construction companies, contractors, sub-contractors and building staff. Read full article →

The first wage payouts in digital yuan went to workers on a project in Xiong'an. Engineering subcontractors made payments directly to the workers' digital wallets through a "blockchain payment platform" that stores their personal and salary information. Read full article →

Collaboration on peer-reviewed academic papers between China and the UK has increased from less than 100 co-papers in 1990 to 16,267 papers in 2019, 11% of UK output, compared to US and German co-authorship of 19% and 10.5%. Strategically important areas like telecommunications, nanotechnology and biochemistry, are likely to produce new, economically beneficial  technologies, products and services. Read full article →

China and Russia released the International Lunar Research Station Roadmap and Guide for Partnership. It outlines scientific objectives, implementation approaches, cooperation domains and opportunities of ILRS to interested countries, international organizations and international partners in planning, demonstration, design, development, implementation, operation and scientific research. China and Russia welcome international partners to participate in all above phases and all-hierarchy levels of each phase, the agency added.Read full article →

China has overhauled its entire corpus of intellectual property law in the past two years. Listen to this UC Berkeley Law School podcast in which world IP expert explain the changes. Listen now →

Health

Conspiracy? Moderna had a vaccine ready for clinical manufacture the day after China released the Covid-19 genetic sequence.  Extrapolating from US deaths and the CDC's paper, the virus began circulating in the US in 2015. The CDC, which knew that, and warned Big Pharma, "Keep this quiet, but we've got a highly infectious, low lethality coronavirus going around. We'll wait until it reaches China then, when it devastates them, we'll be protected”. Nancy Pelosi crowed that it would devastate China's economy and set the country back years. But, as the timeline reveals, Chinese researchers (in every American lab) detected it and smuggled samples to Beijing, which turned the tables with a demonstration of government competence and social cohesion unequalled in history.

After 200 days without a locally transmitted case of COVID-19, Taiwan has had 9,000 cases and 300 deaths, a shock to a public that thought it had defeated the virus. With only 1% of the population vaccinated–the lowest rate in the industrialized world–critics claim the Tsai government has failed to protect citizens’ health and passed a law banning vaccines from the mainland. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office invited “Taiwanese compatriots” to come to the mainland and get vaccinated, indicating that 62,000 have done so. Read full article  →

28 Taiwanese died after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine Over the past four days. The recipients experienced coughing, fever, vomiting, a drop in blood pressure, dizziness, nausea, coma, sputum, delirium, shortness of breath, and foaming at the mouth before their deaths. Five patients went into a coma before their vital signs ceased. Health Minister head Chen Shih-chung emphasized "the advantages outweigh the disadvantages" and called on the public to continue to get vaccinated. [MrNA Vaccines have caused almost 60,000 deaths to date. Traditional vaccines have caused none]. Read full article  $→

Between 2016-2020, the market capitalization of Chinese biopharma companies increased from $1 billion to $200 billion. China saw over $28 billion invested in its life sciences sector in 2020, double the previous year. Returns on the investment are already arriving. In 2019. the FDA approved a drug developed in China for the first time ever. Read full article  →

China will administer its billionth Covid vaccination this weekendRead full article  → 

Guangzhou is straining to stop an outbreak of the “Delta” variant of COVID-19, first identified in India. One of the most alarming flare-ups in China since last summer, it has a shorter incubation period, faster transmission speed, and higher viral load. The outbreak has raised concerns that it may take many months before China loosens its border quarantine measuresRead full article  $→

Society

Above: Ateliers Jean Nouvel's mixed-use building in Shanghai's Huangpu district is a covered shopping street flanked by bright red offices adorned with earthenware planters. Read full article  →

Bao Yinan, a legal researcher at the prestigious East China University of Political Science, has been suspended after posting entries on WeChat saying that authorities “should give university professors special treatment, for example allowing them to have multiple spouses and provide them permanent subsidies”. Read full article  →

Leslie settled on a ski resort called Wanlong, which means “Ten Thousand Dragons,” emphasizing that reviews were generally positive. But positive isn’t always something that makes you feel better. “If you have an accident and maybe break your right arm snowboarding, then I can tell you that you will be well taken care of,” one woman gushed (five stars!) on the Tripadvisor page for Wanlong. “I was in good hands at the hospital in Chongli, because they mainly deal with injuries from skiing.” Read full article  →

Beijing added more gaokao choices: 37 new undergraduate majors, including law, education and history, to give students 12 subject combinations, instead of two before. Eight regions adopted a 3-1-2 program: three compulsory tests, Chinese, math and a foreign language; one quasi-elective test, a choice between physics and history; and two elective tests picked from four subjects–politics, geography, chemistry, and biology. Read full article  →

Ethnic minority populations have grown 14.2% since 2010 in Xinjiang. The combined population of all Chinese ethnic minorities in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region stood at nearly 15 million as of October 2020. Read full article  →

Hong Kong singer and actress Karen Mok apologized after a backlash on Chinese social media over her new music video, in which she wears Dolce & Gabbana, a brand that has drawn ire over racist advertising and offensive messages.  The furor gained momentum after fashion bloggers and journalists pointed out that Mok was the first Chinese celebrity to wear D&G clothes since 2018. Read full article  →

Beijing is targeting the $15.6 bn fanclub culture, fan quan, for adversely affected the mental health of children. “Fan circle groups have hurled online verbal abuse, cheated the rankings of their idols on charts, spread rumors, and destroyed the online environment, adversely affecting the physical and mental health of minors. The clubs involve big movements of money through donations, campaigns, or drives to buy products related to the celebrity. They frequently campaign for votes for their idol in entertainment competitions". Read full article  →

Siyuan Meng on Twitter: “I was denied a gynecological exam during my annual physical exam this morning at a Shanghai public hospital just because I am not married. ‘You are not married so you are a virgin, therefore you don’t need a gynecological exam,’ said the doctor unimpressively…” Read full tweet  →

Statistics

Governance

The Department of Off-campus Education will address the problem of overburdened students, manage off-campus education and training for kindergarten, primary and secondary school students, and draft standards on content, training hours, personnel qualifications and fees. The scuttlebutt is that coaching during school holidays could be banned, devastating the coaching industry. Read full article →

Two of 15 new, first-tier cities have 20 million people, while 11 have more than 10 million. The 15 new Tier One cities are Chengdu, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Xi'an, Suzhou, Wuhan, Nanjing, Tianjin, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Dongguan, Foshan, Ningbo, Qingdao and Shenyang. Chongqing, with 32 million, took the top spot among 15 new first-tier cities, followed by Chengdu with 21 million and Tianjin with 14 million. Read full article →

China will invest $15.6 trillion by 2060 to achieve carbon neurality, says Liu Liange, PBOC Chairman.  “Domestic financial institutions, and in particular large-scale institutions, must formulate plans as soon as possible, accelerate implementation, and strive to achieve their own peak carbon and carbon neutrality targets in advance.” Read full article →

A  pharmaceuticals owner got 12 years jail for trading pangolin scales and other wildlife products. Beijing Xicheng District Court sentenced Chen Xiangyin, of Beijing Sanhe Pharmaceutical Co., and his employees to prison terms, fined the company $312,500, and fined Chen $20,000. Read full article →

China steps up protection on $1 trillion bank wealth products. “Banks and wealth managers can no longer use money invested in so-called cash management products to buy long-term debt or bonds rated below AA+, according to long-awaited rules published on Friday.” Read full article $→

Humor

Hitler learns of Zhurong Mars rover's success
Chinese Cartoon Mocking The G7 Goes Viral
(But Not In The West)


Satirical tables Turned

Chris Devonshire-Ellis 

At Silk Road Briefing Mansions, we always feel a bit of humor is required when dealing with today’s political problems. While we usually stick to serious subject matters, satire can be a useful way to describe events, and can be funny whether or not one agrees with the content. Accordingly, we feature, as it is related to the Belt and Road Initiative, a Chinese cartoon mocking the Group of Seven (G7) members that has gone viral on Chinese social media.

Titled The Last G7, the illustration above, published by “Bantonglaoatang” on Sina Weibo, was based on the renowned mural The Last Supper. The G7 summit has been widely seen as an attempt by the US to rally allies against China, and has been described, even in Western media, as out of date and anachronistic.

Like the final meal Jesus shared with his apostles before his crucifixion that The Last Supper depicted, Bantonglaoatang painted a vivid picture of nine animals – respectively representing the US, the UK, Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Australia, and India – sitting around a table with a Chinese-map-shaped cake on it. On top of the painting is the words in quote: Through this we can still rule the world.

These animals have different facial expressions and gestures, implying that each side of the G7 has its own axe to grind on the common theories of suppressing China and upholding Western ‘values’.

Wearing a bowler hat with an American flag on it, a bald eagle sits in the middle like Jesus in The Last Supper, obviously the convenor of the meal. In front of the bald eagle, there is a small banknote printing machine and a bill on the table. The machine is printing toilet paper into dollars, and the number on the bill gets bigger and bigger – from $2 trillion to $8 trillion.

There is also an iron hook under its feet, and two pieces of cotton with blood near its hands on the table, suggesting “the US’ capital accumulation was built on racial oppression.

The bald eagle image shows today’s aggressive, US is trapped in its growing debt crisis and racial conflicts, but still points fingers at China.

Sitting on the left of the bald eagle is a grey wolf, wearing a cap with an Italian flag on it. The wolf waves its hands as the apostle Andrew in The Last Supper, as if saying “No” to the US’ suggestions of jointly cracking down on China. The grey wolf image shows Italy, the first European country that joined the Belt and Road Initiative as reluctant to collaborate with the US in suppressing China.

Next to the wolf is an Akita dog that represents Japan. Without a seat, it is busy serving the others a “drink” – pouring green radioactive water into the glasses of the other animals. That represents the contaminated water that Japan plans to release to the Pacific from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant.

Sitting next to the dog is a kangaroo, which is stretching its left hand to the banknotes that the US is printing, while grasping a bag in its right hand. The kangaroo symbolizes the two faces of an Australia which actively cooperates with the US in containing China but is also eager to earn money from China.

On the left corner stands a black hawk, representing Germany: its pose is similar to that of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Germany, similar to the rooster (representing France) sits in silence on the right side, apparently more interested in its own European issues than in the US.

On the right side of the table also sits a lion and a beaver, respectively representing the UK and Canada, both close US Five Eyes allies. The beaver, wearing a red coat with images of marijuana on it, holds a doll in its hand, representing Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, still detained in Canada.

On the right corner of the table sits an elephant (representing India) that is on an IV drip, representing the country as seriously ill – both in terms of covid and its economy.

Under the table there is a frog holding banknotes in its hands, trying to jump as high as possible to reach the table and give the money to the US. The little frog symbolizes Taiwan.

Readers can make up their own minds as to the humor involved, which evokes the great American and British cartoonists of the previous century, many of which poked fun at China. 100 years on, the tables, even in satire, have turned. We reproduce a selection below.

Silk Road Briefing is written by Dezan Shira & Associates. The firm has 28 offices throughout Asia, and assists foreign investors into the region. For strategic advisory and business intelligence issues please contact the firm at silkroad@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com

Propaganda

G7 and NATO leaders criticized Chinese as damaging to military stability, human rights, international trade and global health. NATO members vowed Monday to counter “systemic challenges to the rules-based international order” posed by China. Read full article →

U.S. ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told Congress she is working to monitor and rein in China's "malign influence”. "China has been aggressive and coercive in using its power at the United Nations," told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She said Beijing promotes an "authoritarian approach to multilateralism." Read full article →
 
WhatsApp Quiz:
  1. Which countries invaded and occupied Indonesia? Netherlands for 350 years and Japan for 3.5 years.
  2. Which country was once the colony master of Malaya & India? Britain.
  3. Which countries invaded and occupied Vietnam? France 1857-1940 & 1946-1954, Japan 1940-1945 and USA (in Southern Vietnam) 1955-1975.
  4. Which countries were responsible for colonisation of the African continent? Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy.
  5. Which occupied China in early 20th century? Britain, US, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Italy & Austria-Hungary.
  6. Which countries almost annihilating the American Indians in northern America? France & Britain.
  7. Which country colonised and almost annihilated Aborigines in Australia and New Zealand? Britain.
  8.  Which are the member countries of G7?  United Kingdom/Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan & USA.
  9.  Why do G7 members see China as a threat? China is the only major nation on earth that has never invaded or occupied another country?
Kendra Schaefer comments: Not saying that govt control isn't a goal here. It is. But there is also a strong push to prevent companies from over-collecting personal info. We applaud this in EU regulations. We demand it in US regs. We focus only on the negatives when China does it. Balance, please.

Does the New York Times Prohibit Its Reporters from Mentioning China’s Vaccines? That seems to be the case. A few weeks ago it ran a major piece on vaccinating the world. The article never once mentioned China’s vaccines (or Russia or India’s). It had another piece today on the topic, which again did not mention China’s vaccines. Read full article →
British State Media Attacks Chinese State Media ... It Doesn't Go Well

In 2012, of 3,196 white Americans surveyed in the American National Election Study, 28% believed that China posed a “major” military threat to the US, 53% saw China as a “minor” threat and 19% did not see China as a threat. A much higher percentage of Americans viewed China as a threat in 2016 than 2012. Read full article →

Geopolitics

The East Micronesia Cable was designed to improve communications in the islands of Nauru, Kiribati and Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), but the US-controlled World Bank declined to award a contract to  Huawei Marine Networks submitted a bid 20% below rivals Alcatel, Nokia, and NEC, because it posed 'a security threat'. Read full article →

China hailed the arrest of five executives from Taiwan-funded Hong Kong Apple Daily as “an act of justice,” after police detained them Thursday for allegedly breaching the national security law and the freezing of HK$18 million in assets. Hong Kong’s Security Minister John Lee called them “criminals” and accused them of using journalism to endanger national security. Read full article →

Chinese scientist's trial ends in hung jury after FBI testifies that federal agents had: Falsely implicated him as an operative for the Chinese military in meetings with Hu’s bosses; Used false information to put Hu on the federal no-fly list; Spurred U.S. customs agents to seize Hu’s computer and phone and spread word throughout the international research community that Hu was poison; Used false information to justify putting a team of agents to spy on Hu and his son, a freshman at UTK, for nearly two years; Used false information to press Hu to become a spy for the U.S. government. Read full article →

China is subject to 34% of Australia’s ongoing anti-dumping actions and 67% of Australia’s anti-dumping measures in force. The current barley and wine tariffs are the first two PRC anti-dumping actions against Australia. The PRC has been unhappy with Australia’s anti-dumping practices for years but has not resorted to the WTO.  Read full article →

Australia’s national science agency will end its research partnership with the Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science after Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, warned that ocean temperature modelling partnerships with foreign scientists could be used to support submarine operations against Australia. Read full article →

The 5G-specific part of America's cunning plan known as ‘Build Back Better World’ was unilaterally added to the agenda by the US, which is offering to ‘train’ foreign politicians and regulators to see the world its way and will offer a handy book full of top tips to augment it.  Read full article $→

Taiwan has four major structural issues that urgently require solutions, including population decline, power generation, political polarization, and parochialism. If they are not successfully addressed, a marginalized and divided Taiwan may find itself falling deeper into China’s orbit. Read full article →

On Russia–China cooperation:

  • Chinese tourists make up 30% of tourists in Russia.
  • Joint moon space station prepared by Russia/China.
  • Russia builds nuclear power plants in China.
  • China is building massive $14 billion chemical plant near SP.
  • Russia-China trade set to double by 2024, to $200 Bn. 
  • New bridges being built between Russia and China.
  • Russia prepares Power of Siberia 2 and 3 pipelines to China.
  • Russia works to replace Australia for coal exports to China.
  • Russia increases food exports to China.
  • China produces russian vaccines.
  • Russia and China work on Meridian Pan-Asian highway.
  • Huawei to work on 5G in Russia.
  • Russia joins BRI.
  • Yuan to reach 30 % of Russian reserves, replace US dollar.
  • Russia – China trade mostly bypasses dollar.
Nigeria on Thursday officially started the full commercial operation of a China-assisted railway linking the southwestern cities of Lagos and Ibadan, to ease public transportation and fuel goods movement in the west African country.

Defense

The US Marine Corps has abandoned armored warfare in favor of missiles and drones to “confront China in the Indo-Pacific region". The Marine Corps is getting into the ship-killing business, aimed at making their dreams of harrying the PLAN a reality. The Marines are being specifically tailored to fight a war of aggression thousands of miles from American shores, in a specific theater, against a specific opponent, in a war the US has lost before ever beginning. Read full article $→

A PLAAF fighter ace, Fang Guoyu, was "shot down" by an AI adversary during a combat simulation. Flt. Guoyo said it was easy to defeat the AI aircraft in the early stages of training, but the AI learned from each battle. "It's like a digital 'Golden Helmet' pilot that excels at learning, assimilating, reviewing, and researching," Fang said, "The move with which you defeated it today will be in its hands tomorrow." He praised its "skill at handling the aircraft and makes flawless tactical decisions”. Read full article →
LONG READS

China? Communist?

How Communist is China?


The Communist Manifesto’s ten-point test for a communist country.

Godfree Roberts


1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. Land reform was completed in 1953. All land is owned in common.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. Individual Income Tax runs from 3 percent to 45 percent. Until a property tax–which is meeting stiff resistance–becomes law, there are no plans to change income tax rates.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. There is no inheritance tax at present and the PRC is continuing to follow Confucius’ recommendation, “First enrich the people, then educate them”. Once a property tax is legislated, we can expect an inheritance tax to follow.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. This is not a priority. Beijing remains the most popular domicile on earth for billionaires.

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. Mao founded the world’s richest bank, the People’s Bank of China, whose new digital RMB will allow it to deal with its citizen-owners individually, just as Ant Financial has been doing.

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. China’s government owned media are the most trusted on earth. 
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of wastelands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. The Chinese people own every strategic asset–including financial, energy, infrastructure, and commodity trading companies. Soil improvement has been ongoing for seventy years and crop yields continue climbing steadily.

8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. Used effectively in the early years, it has been phased out in favor of mechanised agriculture. 

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country. The combination of agriculture and manufacturing was successfully implemented during the Cultural Revolution and the dispersion of manufacturing is still prioritized. Urban hukou have been issued to those who want them since 2014 and the population is being redistributed.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c. The OECD’s Andreas Schleicher says of China’s PISA results, "Even in rural areas and in disadvantaged environments, you see a remarkable performance. The test results showed the resilience of pupils to succeed despite tough backgrounds - and the high levels of equity between rich and poor pupils”.

Neighborhood Auntie

Above: A community worker on the job in Wuhan. Zhang Chang /CNS/ People Visual

The Millennial Cadres Running China’s Neighborhoods

Highly educated and professional, the new generation of low-level officials is stressed out and frustrated about their limited career prospects.


Wang Defu, Sixth Tone


ZHEJIANG, East China — Party Secretary Hu is your typical “neighborhood auntie,” who works in the neighborhood in the eastern Shaoxing where 20th century writer Lu Xun was born, now aptly named Lu Xun Native Place Community. Having worked in local neighborhood committees for two decades, she proudly claims that she can recognize any resident just by their voice, and that she knows every house and its inhabitants. Now close to retirement, she’s finding a new and vastly different crop of community workers is coming to take her place.

Neighborhood committees sit at the bottom of China’s state structure, hierarchically the urban equivalent to a village. They are officially “self-governing,” but in practice receive “guidance” from the subdistrict office. Committee cadres have a range of responsibilities, from mediating disputes to assisting government agencies with, for example, distributing welfare subsidies or enforcing family-planning limits. The past year or so, one of their main tasks has been COVID-19 prevention and control, at various times enforcing lockdowns and promoting China’s vaccination campaign.

Hu’s successor is Zhang, a woman in her 30s who has served as the new director of the neighborhood committee for a year and a half. Though most neighborhood committee directors double as community party secretaries, the subdistrict office persuaded Hu to stay for another term as party secretary to guide Zhang in her new role. Whenever we asked Zhang detailed questions about the community, she would turn to Hu for help.

It’s easy to understand why Zhang thinks highly of her mentor. During our visit, several residents came to Hu’s office to report certain issues or simply to have a chat. Their conversations exuded a sense of intimacy that usually only exists between old friends — there was no sense whatsoever of a distinction in authority. Hu recalled fondly: “When I walked down the road, people would greet me and invite me to eat at their house. When it would rain, someone would voluntarily hand over an umbrella. These memories give me the most happiness.”


From “auntie” to “community worker”

Generally speaking, urban neighborhood committees in China have undergone three major generational transitions.

The oldest generation, mainly middle-aged and elderly women who worked part time, were quintessential “neighborhood committee aunties.” They were even sometimes called the “small-feet detective squad” as some once had their feet bound when young and were engaged in detecting suspicious activities in the neighborhood. Outside of their committee duties, they were mainly homemakers or worked in labor unions and women’s federations.

Although paid in subsidies rather than wages, committee positions afforded a political and social status that attracted new recruits. Urban residents had limited mobility at the time, so neighborhood cadres were able to establish close relationships within a society of acquaintances. However, they had minimal authority, as neighborhood committees in those days performed only basic functions, and employers played the dominant role in residents’ lives.

This generation gradually withdrew from the stage in the 1980s. The second generation emerged in the mid to late 1990s as the first full-time cohort. As state-owned enterprise restructures laid off tens of millions of workers, neighborhood committees offered some people a new avenue of employment. At the same time, because employers no longer intervened in every aspect of residents’ lives, neighborhood committees suddenly had to assume a number of new functions, which in turn created job opportunities.

These neighborhood cadres were far more professional than their predecessors. They virtually all had to pass through formal recruitment procedures and sign employment contracts. No longer paid in living subsidies, they received actual wages. They could also work in other communities in the city instead of staying in their own neighborhood. Twenty years later, most of this generation have already retired, or, like Hu, are on the verge of retirement.

We’re the only ones left from our cohort. When we retire, all will be passed down to the younger generations. - Zhu, community party secretary

During our fieldwork in Shaoxing, we met others like her. Secretary Zhu from Huayuan Community and Secretary Wang from Shenyuan Community were also the oldest community cadres in their respective subdistricts. They have more than a few things in common: They are all women, they were once laid-off workers, they joined neighborhood committees during the city’s development of new residential communities around the turn of the millennium, and all will retire after their current term. Secretary Zhu said: “We’re the only ones left from our cohort. When we retire, all will be passed down to the younger generations.”

The phenomenon is not limited to Shaoxing — community cadres in cities throughout China are passing on the baton. Of the cities we visited, Hangzhou, also in Zhejiang, and Shenzhen have essentially completed this generational turnover, with millennials forming the bulk of community workers. In other cities this change is still underway, with some elders continuing to work as community cadres in old city districts and rural townships.

The generation of “neighborhood aunties,” once a signature of urban life in China, is collectively withdrawing from history’s stage. A generation of educated and professionally trained young “community workers” has arrived. They joined these committees as early as the beginning of the 21st century, while more were recruited in the last decade.

In 2005, the government issued a document encouraging college graduates to pursue grassroots work. Through incentives related to salaries, promotions, as well as civil service and postgraduate study opportunities, the proposal aimed to ensure that at least one college graduate would work in every rural village and every urban community within three to five years.

Over the past decade, cities have raised the threshold for community workers, to the point that being young and having a college degree are now standard requirements. This period also roughly corresponds to a massive influx of college graduates on the job market as the result of increased enrollment.


Prime or plateau?

Community work is now considered a decent job in cities around China. In Shangcheng District, Hangzhou, we found that the vast majority of community secretaries and directors were almost all college graduates born in the 1980s. Having worked for about 10 years, a considerable number of them have received promotions and are in the prime of their working lives.

But this is when they hit a bottleneck. During our fieldwork in Hangzhou, a community secretary born in 1984 said anxiously of his peers: “Many of the talented ones have left ... Among those who stayed, about seven or eight really good ones are quite resentful.”

Many find the space for professional growth limited. Once they make it to the role of secretary or director, they have essentially reached the top of the hierarchy. Should they wish to rise to subdistrict offices or other administrative departments, they must compete for the few available places via strict examinations. In a subdistrict office we visited in Foshan, in south China’s Guangdong province, only two staff members had been promoted from community secretaries in the past five years. 

In Hangzhou, the neighborhood cadres who transfer to a subdistrict office still get the same salary, benefits, and job status as community workers unless they pass the civil service examination. A former neighborhood committee director, for example, had recently been appointed to oversee estate management in old communities in a certain subdistrict. He didn’t consider this to be a promotion, as his salary hadn’t increased at all — unlike his workload.

A community worker takes a break in an office in Beijing, June 2020. He Guanxin/People Visual
A community worker takes a break in an office in Beijing, June 2020. He Guanxin/People Visual

For those who stay on within the neighborhood, they also have little hope of earning a higher salary. Despite their accumulating work experience, their wage increase is usually limited to between 100 and 200 yuan ($15 and $30) every few years. Cadres and those with intermediate social work accreditation tend to earn more than ordinary workers, but few can obtain such certification. A community cadre in Hangzhou earns about 5,000 yuan in post-tax income, which is relatively high compared with the other cities we visited. But there is scarcely any room for further increases, and the average college graduate in Hangzhou earns nearly 50% more.

Nor do they find satisfaction from honorary incentives. As the Hangzhou community secretary born in 1984 told us, by the time they assume a leadership role, most talented workers have obtained honors at all levels — municipal, provincial, and national. Any other honor is of limited significance, because they bear little relation to their wages or promotions. The only mobility for top performers is to move between different neighborhoods, like transferring from an old and complex community to a new and simple one.

However, the reality is usually the opposite: The more skilled a community worker is, the more likely it is they’ll be assigned to a difficult neighborhood. In Hangzhou, we encountered a community secretary in his early 30s who had just transferred to a challenging community. While he was top-ranked at his original job for many years, within a year of being transferred, he found himself under tremendous pressure. On the day of our fieldwork, he had been chastised to tears by his superior because of a mistake. He confided various grievances in us, and was already considering throwing in the towel.

In the cities where the generational turnover happened relatively early, the first cohort of community workers to be recruited after graduation have already hit their professional bottleneck. Unless we introduce better policies soon, the outstanding talents of this group may soon be lost. Moreover, there are many other places where community workers still have limited job security and meager compensation.

As residential communities continue to evolve, well-rounded community workers capable of specialized services are indispensable for meeting the public’s ever-changing needs. These workers enter their prime and become invaluable resources after several years on the job, so it is of the utmost importance to improve their employment system and facilitate their growth. Sixth Tone

Editor’s note: Wang Defu is an associate professor of sociology at Wuhan University, whose current research focuses on urban and rural lower-level governance. A version of this article was originally published by Industry Study. It has been translated and edited for length and clarity, and is republished here with permission.

The Summit

The Biden-Putin Summit: A Geopolitical Analysis 

Chris Devonshire-Ellis

 
 

Preamble: Badly Behaved Journalists

Scuffles? People being pushed to the ground? General mayhem, havoc, and chaos? Bad language? Such was the media scrum trying to take photos of the US and Russian Presidents together. Both Biden and Putin looked on with some amusement. But its ok, media blamed it all on Russian security afterwards, even though the event was actually held in Switzerland.

 

Meanwhile: The China Context

Before the summit, I felt it interesting how the US President believed that Russia wanted to come to the table to talk with the United States in the context of the rise of “Russia’s huge neighbor China, and the 3000-mile border Russia shares with China, a country which has set its sights on becoming the world’s largest economically and militarily”.

Clearly this was a classic piece of divide and conquer juxta positioning aimed directly against the Chinese. However, all the problems Russia faces have largely come from an incrementally aggressive American policy. This was pretty lame brinkmanship, and the Russians will think so too.


Points Disclosed In The Press Conferences

One: Diplomatic communications to be restored and enhanced in various sectors

The principal constructive outcome of the summit was that of re-establishing communication between Russia and the United States. As such, there was an agreement to return their respective ambassadors to their diplomatic posts, which President Putin said could happen the day after the summit or day after that.

The speed of this re-posting serves as a sure sign of both sides’ consideration of the importance to re-engage with each other for the relationship to become “stable and predictable” in accordance with Biden’s stated objective, and to establish cooperation where it is in each other’s mutual interest. Putin, though, made the point that the deterioration in relations between the two sides was not initiated by the Russians, but by the United States, something he has stated consistently since the events in Georgia in 2008 and the subsequent fallout with the administration of George W. Bush.

As examples of American unpredictability in foreign policy towards Russia, Putin cited how the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and the Open Skies Agreement.

Nevertheless, Biden stated there was no substitute for face-to-face dialogue between leaders and that both share a responsibility to manage a unique relationship between two powerful and proud countries. According to Putin, the meeting took place in a constructive spirit and that the talks were efficient, substantive, specific and aimed at achieving results. He also said that a two-hour meeting, where both presidents looked each other eye-to-eye, was not something that can be done with many politicians and that the positive backdrop was set by Biden assuming responsibility for prolonging START 3 for another five years. Both sides also expressed their intentions to understand each other and seek common ground on three so-called “red lines”, namely strategic security, cybersecurity, and the Arctic region.

Two: Strategic weapons stability dialogue

Discussions on diplomatic issues included an agreement on launching, from the day of the summit, a ‘bilateral strategic stability dialogue’.  This would entail military experts and diplomats establishing a mechanism that can lead to control of new and sophisticated weapons that are being introduced and which reduce the time of response to an incident thereby raising the prospects of accidental war.

The summit went into some detail on what those weapons systems were and that both Russia and the US will be looking for solutions in resolving the potential of conflict in this area. Both leaders also asserted their desire to achieve strategic stability in the world, given as President Putin put it, ‘the two countries are the world’s biggest nuclear powers along with the highest quality of modern nuclear weaponry.’

Consultations will begin on an interagency level between the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US State Department.  Details of the consultation will be hammered out by delegates at diplomatic missions and will talk about the structure and agenda of consultations in due course, according to Putin.

Three: Cybersecurity dialogue

Both sides agreed to begin consultations on cybersecurity which they feel are “very important”. According to Putin, various sources provide evidence that most cyber-attacks in the world arose from three countries, being the United States, Canada, and the UK.  Putin also stated that Russia received ten requests from the United States about cyber-attacks on US sites, with just two such requests in 2021.

In contrast, Russia filed 45 requests with the United States concerning cyber-attacks on Russian sites in 2020, and 35 the year before, but received no response from the American authorities despite there being reporting structures and protocols in place to do so.

Putin gave as an example, a cyber- attack on Russia’s health system and how Russia encounters these types of cyber-attacks every year.  However, Putin added that the United States has not been particularly interested in looking into cyber-attacks on Russia but has been very interested in making insinuations.

Both however agreed that cyberspace is critical for each of them.  Biden stated that certain critical infrastructure should be off limits to attack, whether by cyber or any other means. The US President said he supplied Putin with a list of 16 entities, defined as critical infrastructure under US policy.

Biden went on to say that in practice responsible countries should act against criminals conducting ransomware activities on their territory. As a result, both agreed to engage experts to work on specific understandings about what is off limits and follow up on specific cases where it originates in either of their countries.
 

Foreign policy

One: Ukraine

Putin said that the United States is placing a large amount of military equipment up to the Russian border, through Ukraine, and so emphasized that it was important to look at what the US military is carrying out in Ukraine, rather than what Russia’s activities have been near to Ukraine’s border. However, Putin also stated that Biden agreed that the situation in Ukraine can only be settled in accordance with the Minsk Agreements and that both supported pursuing diplomacy through these agreements. That said, the US has made concessions to Russia concerning Ukraine - the country was not invited to separate meetings earlier as part of a NATO dialogue, and neither was Georgia. 

Two: Afghanistan, Syria, Libya & Iran

According to Biden, Putin offered to help the US in its withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan to avoid a resurgence of terrorism there.

In return, Biden said the United States wanted to provide economic and physical security to people in Syria and Libya. They also agreed to work together on Iran not acquiring nuclear weapons as being equally in both countries’ interests.

Three: The Arctic

On the Arctic, where Russia and the United States share borders, both countries want to see the region is an area of cooperation rather than conflict.

Putin talked about the need for Russia and the US to jointly work with all interested parties in developing the Arctic, particularly under the auspices of the Arctic Council, currently chaired by Russia.  Accordingly, he reiterated the importance for international standards and norms to be adhered to and that preservation of the region’s natural environment was paramount.  Even so, climate change was likely to give rise to an opening of the Northern Sea Passage and he suggested that the modus-operandi would be for the creation of a “free zone” in respect of which, the details will be discussed by both sides.

 

Other Commentary

Russia’s Global Trade & Diplomatic Expansion

Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank, set the bar for Wednesday’s talks low. “The principal takeaway, in the positive sense, from the Geneva meeting would be making sure that the United States and Russia did not come to blows physically, so that a military collision is averted,” he said.”

Given that Russia is building a small-scale military presence, at the invitation of governments in many developing world countries under American and European sanctions, alongside years of disintegrating communications and diplomatic channels, the prospect of a potential military clash has been growing.

For instance, in 2019, Russian forces set up in Venezuela, where a reported 100 military advisers have been stationed. Similar patterns of low level Russian military presence are evident in other developing countries out of favor with Washington including many in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Biden has recognized the risks arising from this ongoing Russian military expansion, hence the impromptu talks where no agenda, for first time ever in such summits, was laid out. Clearly, both the Americans and Russians seem interested in not placing the issue of Russian conventional military expansion across key strategic countries in the developing world, at the center of the public eye or global media glare.

Africa

On geopolitics, the Russian military advance in Africa mirrors that of South Asia. As the United States withdraws troops from the region, this is creating a power vacuum which Russia and China are speedily capitalizing on. This is particularly true in Southern Africa where Putin concluded military cooperation agreements recently with Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and others. These defense and security agreements go hand in hand with trade agreements and especially on diamond and metals mining, oil, and gas deals.

 

From CNN:

“Russia sees big opportunities across Africa as the US military presence there is scaled back and as cash-strapped governments seek security assistance. Moscow has signed more than 20 defense agreements with African governments, and last month Putin welcomed 43 heads of state or government from Africa to a summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. In return, the Kremlin gains strategic influence and preferential access to the continent’s vast natural wealth, from gas to gold.”
 

Space Cooperation

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, present during part of the Geneva talks has previously made pro-Russia remarks and held talks with the Russian space agency RosComsos chief Dmitry Rogozin last week, stating “Despite the politics, and some of the rather less than soft statements you hear that sound more political, nevertheless if you talk to the Russian space workers, they want this cooperation to continue with the Americans. So I talked to Rogozin about this. I’ve said, ‘This is unique, the kind of relationship where we can be at peace cooperating with each other, no matter what our rivalries are on terra firma. We are partners in space, and I don’t want that to cease.”

Russia and the US have been working together on projects such as the International Space Station (ISS) for decades. While until Elon Musk’s SpaceX vehicle was recently able to reach the ISS, service flights carrying astronauts, equipment, and supplies have all been sent by Russian rockets since 2011.

Nelson also stated that “We’ve seen, for example, just recently Russia developed a new module that they are going to launch to the International Space Station, which I think is a pretty good indication that they’re not going to abandon it. Our politics have become very strained. But where is the one area that we have been able to cooperate? It’s been ever since 1975 when an American spacecraft in the middle of the Cold war rendezvoused and docked with a Russian spacecraft, and the crews lived together for nine days. Ever since we have been cooperating.”

A sticking point for continued NASA cooperation however is US sanctions on Russia, a point Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin made after his discussions with Nelson, saying that “We have nothing against cooperation with NASA, but the only way to do it is lifting the sanctions against Roscosmos enterprises.”

The US needs a domestic, unifying grand project and calls for a US return to the moon and NASA already working on the Artemis project indicate this is going ahead. Getting there though may need some Russian assistance – as Moscow has kept up its technological space development during a period where the United States has taken a back seat. Washington will also be motivated into action by the joint Russian and Chinese plans to build a permanent lunar base and deflect any future US domestic feeling that America is being left behind.


Russia sanctions

Lifting sanctions against Russia will meet with resistance from the EU, where a vociferous anti-Russian lobby made up from ex-Soviet Union states retains a noisy anti-Russian presence. Lifting some sanctions on Russia will also aid the United States in fostering alternative supply chains to those controlled by China. A warming of trade and technical ties with Russia to allow the US Artemis Moon shot a better chance of success, however a need to diversify supply chains from China also requires the assistance of Moscow.
 

President Biden Tells CNN Journalist To Be Negative

In a rare insight illustrating how US media is directed by the State, US President Biden, frustrated by a question from CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins at the end of his press conference, told her she was ‘in the wrong business’. Biden later stated “To be a good reporter, you’ve got to be negative. You’ve got to have a negative view of life … you never ask a positive question.”

Kaitlan Collins obtained a degree in political science and journalism from the University of Alabama and was a White House correspondent from January 2017, prior to joining CNN six months later. She has extensive experience in White House and political journalism.
 

Summary

Summits such as these are never as direct as they possess a multi-faceted approach: A joint appearance, high-level discussions, global security, China, a US domestic political angle to appeal to voters, a Russian domestic political angle to appeal to citizens, and all the content that needs to be squeezed in. Then there are the discussions held in private, not intended for public consumption but which must have been on the agenda given their immediate and strategic importance, such as the NASA projects. They will now filter down to be dealt with at respective levels. but not without having first received Presidential approval.

However, although much remains behind closed doors in terms of details, the summit can be considered some success as the two leaders have now met. A push back against Washington hawks appears to have occurred, with respective Ambassadors now being permitted to return to their respective posts.

Nonetheless it does appear apparent from Biden’s G7 discussions and the roll-out of the ‘Built Back Better World’ (B3W) initiative, promoted as being an antidote to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, that Washington is in fact conceding large amounts of territory to joint Chinese and Russian influence. We say this because the B3W, despite talk of huge amounts of infrastructure spend – US$40 trillion – is unlikely to ever amount to much as no G7 state funding is being put into it – hardly a sign of confidence to the private sector, who in Biden’s introduction of the B3W stated would be footing the bill. We imagine that went down well in boardrooms across the largest economies in the world.

We have also heard from Biden talking about the US investing in Latin American infrastructure as part of the B3W, which would be a useful counterpoint to China’s global infrastructure build. The United States has long ignored the region, which is right on its doorstep and can be developed as a supply chain source on its own terms. After all, the United States has its eyes set on developing alternatives to Chinese supplies.

Additionally, as the United States is pulling out of a hugely expensive, 20-year military campaign in Afghanistan, that money can now be diverted to build back better projects closer to home. Central Asia, where Afghanistan occupies a central connecting point, thus becomes under Asian, rather than American influence and direction for the first time in thirty years, and this time with a far stronger Russian military and the massive economic might of China to see put right.

Overall, then, I see the Biden-Putin summit and the recent G7 summit as the signs, despite the public consumption rhetoric, that the United States is in retreat from parts of the global stage and is handing over – albeit reluctantly and not without some barbs attached – to a partnership of China and Russia. This appears especially true in Asia and Africa as well as Ukraine and NATO expansion east. 

The United States will wish to keep the EU as its exclusive market and will develop Latin America. Eurasia will combine Central and North Asia with South. Southeast and East Asia, with a significant presence in the Middle East and Africa. There will be the occasional ripples of discontent, and sabre-rattling as tempers occasionally fray, however I feel this past few days have given rise to a new geo-political era, and one in which it is the United States who withdraws back to the America’s, keeps the European Union, but effectively devolves the rest of the world.
 

Chris is the Founding Partner of Dezan Shira & Associates and has a 30-year career advising foreign investors in Asia. He may be contacted at chris@dezshira.com. His new book, "Identifying Opportunities Within the Belt & Road Initiative" has just been published and may be downloaded for free from the Asia Briefing bookstore here.
 

Further Reading:

Genocide Politics

Genocide Politics: The Zenz-Xinjiang Case

By Dr Dan Steinbock

[Above: Adrian Zenz] Recently, the Trump and Biden administrations have initiated a genocide case against China. Like during the Cold War, some European leaders have joined the White House, despite the flimsy case that mocks real genocide survivors.

In July 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for “using forced sterilization, forced abortion, and coercive family planning against Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.”

Stunningly, Pompeo based the charge on just one source: “German researcher Adrian Zenz’s shocking revelations.”
 

Odd bedfellows

Except for the darkest days of McCarthyism, reliance on a single external source is rare at the top of the State Department. But so was the haste in Pompeo’s “global press statement.” Since Zenz’s report had been released barely a day or so before, the subsequent chorus fosters a perception of orchestration.

Despite Pompeo’s willingness to use lies as a tool for foreign policy, his statement resulted in a set of likeminded condemnations by international media. Oddly, the latter, too, embraced Zenz’s allegations without slightest source criticism, even though Zenz has never even been in Xinjiang. The suspension of all skepticism is even stranger taking into consideration the publisher of the report. As an ultra-conservative think-tank launched by CIA Director William J. Casey in the ‘80s, the Jamestown Foundation is known for its far-right ideology.

Furthermore, according to the UN Genocide Convention (1948), genocide is defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such.”[2]         

In contrast, what Zenz claimed was that the fall of Uyghur birth rates and birth control measures in Xinjiang province was a proof of genocide. In the process, genocide was associated with family planning and modernization (which US agencies and foundations have implemented across the world since the postwar era).

Oddly, unlike Zenz, Xinjiang records a positive overall population growth rate, with the Uyghurs growing faster than the non-Uyghur population.
 

Pandemic ploys  

In the White House, genocide accusations served a useful political function. In June 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic, which the Trump administration had disastrously mismanaged, entered its second wave.[4] That’s when Pompeo delivered his first accusation, while the Biden campaign followed in the footprints later.[5] Neither resorted to the g-word, yet.

In early January 2021, the United States, with some 300,000 new daily cases, witnessed the peak of the third pandemic wave, which the White House continued to mismanage (Figure 1). Meanwhile, the Capitol was swept by the white supremacists’ mob riot that Trump had effectively stirred. [Figure 1: Uses of Genocide Politics]
 

Uses of Genocide Politics 

That’s when Pompeo, on his way out from the White House, charged China of “the systematic attempt to destroy Uyghurs in Xinjiang.” As Antony Blinken replaced Pompeo as Secretary of State that very same day, he agreed with Pompeo’s designation. Distressingly, these actions reflect conflicts-of-interest by both administrations and their secretaries of state. In each case, material benefits trumped over integrity.

To the Trump administration, genocide politics served as a distraction from pandemic mismanagement and the white supremacist riot. To the Biden administration, it offers a perceived bipartisan enemy that can be exploited to unify the divided nation and Capitol Hill.

Disturbingly, the genocide allegation was made against explicit legal opposition. Prior to Pompeo’s January statement, the State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor had concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prove such genocide. So, both administrations simply over-ruled their own legal experts.

Disturbingly, the genocide allegation was made against explicit legal opposition.
In April, economist Jeffrey Sachs and William Schabas, a leading international legal scholar of genocide, warned that “the Xinjiang genocide allegations are unjustified.” They noted that the State Department’s 2021 Human Rights Practices report made similar genocide accusation, but also without evidence. As they conclude, “unless the State Department can substantiate the genocide accusation, it should withdraw the charge. It should also support a UN-led investigation.”

Who is the primary source of the genocide allegation that the leaders of the world’s most powerful nation prefer to their top-notch legal experts and a leading international scholar?
 

God, anti-China Aussies, US defense contractors  

Adrian Zenz graduated from the hyper-Christian Columbia International University, headquartered in South Carolina, where teachers can lecture only if they affirm the Second Coming of Jesus. As Wall Street Journal once put it, Zenz feels “led by God” in his struggle against the Chinese communists.

In his first book, Zenz sought to explain Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation (2012). As a born-again Christian, Zenz associates biblical truth as the truth, which may or may not be identical with earthly truth.

In 2014, the German crusader became a secular overnight “Tibet expert” who wrote two years about Tibet “under the threat” of CCP assimilation. In 2016, he suddenly became a “Xinjiang expert” after a Foreign Affairs essay.[11] Co-author James Leibold, another Jamestown analyst, opened the door to the prestigious American journal.

Leibold is a sinologist in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), which has been credited as the think-tank behind Australia’s rock bottom ties with China. According to reputable financial observers, “the Department of Defense-backed ASPI has become a flashpoint in the breakdown of consensus in Beijing.”

Usually, think-tanks refuse external financing. ASPI is more flexible. It is funded by Australia’s Defense Department and US State Department and Pentagon’s big contractors, including BAE, Northrop Grunman, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon’s local subsidiary, and American cyber-giants, such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, as well as Japan and Taiwan.

Yet, ASPI did not publish Zenz’s Xinjiang revelations. 
 

Compromised think-tanks and NGOs

In effect, by 2017, Zenz’s publications were released mainly by China Brief, one of Jamestown’s flagships journals. Yet, his Xinjiang pieces were published by Journal of Political Risk, published by Anders Corr who has a track-record of fake predictions and whose clients comprise mainly Pentagon agencies and defense contractors.

Oddly, Zenz did not turn to the world’s most prestigious academic journals with peer reviews to ensure quality and accuracy. Nor did he approach the journals of America’s leading think-tanks, which also do a fair amount of fact-checking. Even Jamestown and Corr’s Journal, both of which often prefer ideology to facts, stayed further away from Zenz’s “shocking revelations.”

Instead, the Christian crusader opted for two very different organizations. In December 2020, his Coercive Labor in Xinjiang was published by the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy (NISP), in collaboration with the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights.

Founded conveniently right in time for Zenz’s report, Newlines Institute is portrayed as “nonpartisan”, yet its leadership features mainly US State Department officials, military and intelligence analysts who used to work for Stratfor (which the financial journal Barron’s once called the “Shadow CIA” agency). The Institute has touted the views of the hyper-anti-China hawk Robert Spalding, Trump’s ex-strategy advisor, another Newlines expert, who is on the board of Jamestown as well.

The Newlines Institute’s organizational parent is Fairfax University of America (FXUA), which has been the target of state regulators ever since its founding in 1998, due to numerous academic scandals, lack of didactic credibility, and noncompliance with state educational standards.

To make things even more confusing, Zenz’s “report” mixed his old allegations with questionable data sources.

Zenz’s report featured mainly his old materials, but also those of Uyghur separatists, including the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) backed by the U.S. government.
How NED came to sponsor far-right Uyghur separatists  

Zenz’s report featured mainly his old materials, but also those of Uyghur separatists, including the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) backed by the U.S. government; Radio Free Asia owned by the U.S. government; and the Newlines “Uyghur Scholars Working Group” (whose core member is Zenz himself).

The WUC regards Xinjiang as “East Turkestan” and its Uyghur Muslims as members of a mythic pan-Turkic nation stretching from Central Asia to Turkey. Dedicated to separatist objectives, it seeks to destabilize Xinjiang and ultimately regime change. Portrayed as a bottom-up movement, the WUC is actually a top-down umbrella for its Washington-based affiliates – e.g., Uyghur American Association (UAA), Uygur Human Rights Project, and Campaign for Uyghurs – reliant on US funding.

Historically, the Uyghur separatists’ money and arms ties with the US (and Taiwan) go way back to the 1930s and ‘40s.[20] The WUC has been supported since 2004 by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), whose recipients tend to operate in countries targeted for regime change. Since 2016 in particular, the NED has provided the WUC and its affiliates with millions of dollars (Figure 2).
 

Figure 2: A Separatist Dream Come True:

Above: In a 2020 NED tweet, Xinjiang is portrayed as separated from the Chinese mainland as sovereign East Turkestan.

Here’s how the pro-democracy/destabilization machine works: NED transfers monies to the WUC, which uses them for its affiliates, public PR and reportedly not-so-peaceful covert operation, while lobbying the Congress, which in turn funds the NED.

In the past, NED was led decades by Carl Gershman, who was recently succeeded by Damon Wilson, former executive VP of the Atlantic Council, which has intimate ties with US government and the NATO. Wilson interests are in security and military affairs. Though both Wilson and Gershman share a penchant for regime change.

The Raoul Wallenberg Centre (RWCHR) was the other sponsor of Zenz’s genocide report. Despite its name and young Wallenberg’s portrait on the home page, the NGO has nothing to do with either Sweden or the Swede who saved thousands of Jews during World War II. RWCHR is based in Montreal and led by former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler.

Under Cotler’s leadership, the RWCHR positions have converged with those of US State Department (and Gershman is now a senior fellow at RWCHR). The Center cooperates with the anti-China cult Falun Gong and its far-right Epoch Times (“the leading purveyor of right-wing misinformation,” as the New York Times has put it).
 

The Xinjiang shakedown

In an in-depth review of the Xinjiang report, the Grayzone Project has demonstrated that “Zenz’s assertion of genocide is concocted through fraudulent statistical manipulation, cherry-picking of source material, and propagandistic misrepresentations.”

Zenz’s factual and methodological fallacies are one thing. What is alarming is that the White House and international media portray such fake facts and data as real truths, without elementary source criticism.

In the US, the key role in the Zenz-fueled campaign against China belongs to the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), which seeks to pressure US companies to leave Xinjiang and whose steering committee members have been funded by NED.

WRC, too, relies mainly on Zenz’s report. Its conduct is reminiscent of the Cold War AFL-CIO agencies that were created to battle against workers in developing countries.[26] Worse, the WCR campaign has forced Uyghur workers out of their jobs, while compelling US apparel company Badger Sport to pay $300,000 to Uyghur exile groups rather than the workers. These extremist groups include the WUC US affiliate (UAA), which in March organized a car caravan to disrupt a gathering against anti-Asian racism in Washington. The message? “Wipe out China!”

Under its president Kuzzat Altay, the UAA’s anti-China fanaticism has escalated, while the far-right gun club Altay Defense drills combatants with ex-members of U.S. special forces. The club is led by Altay’s brother who is the nephew of Rebiya Kadeer, the veteran head of the US-sponsored Uyghurs. Hence the two sides of Uyghur separatism: public diplomacy and darker covert operations (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Two sides of Uyghur separatism  Kadeer and Pres. Bush (2007)     

Uyghurs, Gray Wolves and Washington          

Alarmingly, Uyghurs’ Turkey branch has ties with the far-right pan-Turkish Grey Wolves, a designated terrorist organization, which is usually characterized as ultra-nationalist, neo-Fascist and Islamophobic. It has been linked with political violence, death squads, heroin, CIA, and drugs trade. More recently, the Wolves have focused on Uyghurs and Xinjian pushing for a more militant East Turkestan Independence movement and a Greater Pan-Turkic nation (Figure 4).
 

Figure 4: Pan-Turkic Aspirations:

Pan-Turkic Aspirations


These activities led to their affiliates’ 2009 attacks against Chinese tourists in the Netherlands and to the 2015 Bangkok bombing. Together with a rival ultra-nationalist group, the Wolves also targeted Chinese in politically-motivated “revenge” assaults in Turkey, attacked Chinese restaurants in Istanbul, tried to break into Ankara’s Chinese embassy and assaulted Koreans whom they mistook for Chinese.

After half a decade of attacks and friction, Chinese government believes that the far-right anti-Communist Uyghur separatists via their umbrella WUC have been funded and trained by U.S. government agencies.

In effect, the far-right links extend to Zenz and his prestigious new host as well.
 

Far-right exploitation of genocides

After the Australian ASPI, Jamestown and his Xinjiang reports, Zenz was recruited as a senior fellow in China studies by the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), a fiercely anti-Communist NGO founded in 1993.[32] VOC is the successor of the National Captive Nations Committee (NCNC), which was created during the Cold War and led by Ukrainian-American Lev Dobriansky and the Ukrainian nationalist and notorious anti-Semite Yaroslav Stetsko.

In turn, the NCNC was the successor of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) that Stetsko claimed to have founded in 1946 and headed until his death in 1986. In reality, Stetsko’s Ukrainian nationalists took over ABN only after World War II. ABN had been founded in late 1943, at the instigation of Alfred Rosenberg, the chief Nazi race ideologue and Minister of the East. Stetsko organized militia, which butchered Jews in pogroms in 1941 and cooperated with Nazi leaders who in turn used Stetsko and his nationalists in “political warfare” against the Soviet Union.

In the mid-1950s, the ABN was linked the Asian People’s Anti-Communist League (APACL), which was created in South Korea and in which Taiwan’s Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek played a central role. During the height of the Cold War, both the ABN and the APACL were linked with the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). In the ’90s, the latter was renamed ss the World League for Freedom and Democracy (WLFD), to “sanitize” its link with Cold War anti-Communism. But WLFD’s headquarters remains in Taiwan.

That’s the long historical chain of organizational reincarnations Zenz’s anti-Communist VOC to Nazi ideologues’ ABN. It is these controversial origins of Zenz and his background forces that cast a long dark shadow over his allegations today.
 

Afghanistan 2.0 scenario would be Xinjiang’s nightmare

Chinese activities in Xinjiang aim at stopping the terrorism of militant Islamic groups, as did America’s foray into the Middle East and Central Asia after the September 2001. America’s flawed response to 9/11 led to repeated US violations of international law, massive bloodshed and unwarranted wars.

Similarly, between 1990 and 2001, Uyghur extremists committed over 200 acts of terrorism with over 160 deaths.[34] In July 2020, the United Nations noted the presence of thousands of Uyghur fighters in Afghanistan and Syria, where the White House has occasionally supported “moderate Jihadists.” And until late 2020, the US still classified the Uyghur East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a terrorist group, battled Uyghur fighters in Afghanistan, and held many as prisoners. Nonetheless, the Chinese and American approach have their differences.

Since 2000, Xinjiang has been included in the development strategy of China’s West. Between 2014 and 2019, Xinjiang’s economy increased annually by 7.2 percent and nearly 3 million residents were lifted out of poverty. Urbanization rate climbed from 37 percent to 50 percent, which is at par with that of Thailand, while GDP per capita (PPP) rose to the level of Indonesia. Beijing has pushed for economic development in Xinjiang to foster growth and prosperity, in part to pre-empt radicalization through cross-border infiltration via Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Externally, the key role belongs to the massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was launched in 2013. The BRI, which Washington opposes, has entailed a long preparation in the region, which serves as the Chinese gate to the West.

What seems to motivate Zenz’s background forces is an Afghanistan 2.0 scenario. In the 1980s, CIA chiefs who later joined the Jamestown Foundation were influential in the Operation Cyclone, which armed the Islamic Mujahideen against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, while funding and training the founders of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. One of them is Michael G. Wickers who is on the board of Jamestown and BAE Systems, a global defense contractor hoping to cash on South China Sea friction.

These Cold Warriors tend to see contemporary Xinjiang as Afghanistan 2.0. Since the 1980s and again after September 11, 2001, Afghanistan has been the prime recipient of billions of dollars of U.S. economic and military aid. Between 1950 and 2020, the US has sold almost $16 billion worth of weapons to Afghanistan, two thirds of which were exchanged since 2016.

Yet, US aid has not enrichened ordinary people. Afghan GDP per capita (PPP) remains $1,900, at par with Yemen and Sierra Leone; and only 15 percent relative to Xinjiang. Worse, since the 1990s Afghan inequality has remained high with the wealthy 10 percent of the population owning 45 percent of national income.

Even worse, since 2001 some 241,000 people have been killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan (more than 71,000 were civilians). In turn, the US has suffered over 22,000 military casualties, including 2,400 fatalities in Afghanistan, even as Congress has appropriated a whopping $143 billion for reconstruction and security forces there. As a recent congressional report concluded, “future prospects of gains remain mixed.”
 

Uyghur genocide allegations over Holocaust history

The lessons of the Zenz debacle are many. The ultra-religious and hyper-ideological motivations of the old-new Cold Warriors are not surprising but have potential to result in major conflict. Perhaps a new Cold War is precisely the strategic objective, despite the enormous costs to global economic prospects and particularly to the most vulnerable nations.

The unsubstantiated genocide allegations by the Trump and Biden administrations seem not just hypocritical but outright bizarre in the light of US history, starting with the native American Indians, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and extending to series of atrocities in almost every major world region.

What’s highly distressing is the way the leading international media has allowed itself to be used, with little regard to public trust. The erosion of credibility and its long-term consequences are alarming, though something that did occur during the Cold War when science, culture and unions were weaponized. Today, even Wikipedia has fewer web pages dedicated to the facts of the “Holocaust” than to the allegations of the “Uyghur genocide.”

Like the “infodemic” in the early days of the COVID-19, misinformation associated with social media trolls and conspiracy theorists blurs the distinction between realities and fantasies. With the pandemic, the ensuing divisions and delays cost millions of lives, and so could the erosion of media credibility in future genocides.

As Sachs and Schabas warn, the charge of genocide should never be made lightly. Washington’s rejection of top legal experts for a far-right ultra-religious crusader is a frightening precedent. When the word “genocide” is exploited without a solid legal basis, the very designation is politicized and diluted.

As real genocides are exploited and trivialized for genocide politics, even the banality of evil is trivialized. That is an insult against the real victims of the Holocaust and other genocides. All China Review

Dr Dan Steinbock is the founder of Difference Group and has served as research director at the India, China and America Institute (USA) and visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more..
 

References

Unless otherwise stated, all data is from World Development Indicators (WDI), by World Bank.

[1] Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, 2020. “On China’s Coercive Family Planning and Forced Sterilization Program in Xinjiang.” Press Statement, Global Public Affairs, Department of State, Jun. 29.
[2] Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide art. 2, 78 U.N.T.S. 277, 9 Dec. 1948.
[3] Most recent data is for 2010 to 2018. See Sachs, Jeffrey and Schabas, William. 2021. “The Xinjiang Genocide Allegations Are Unjustified.” The Project Syndicate, Apr. 21.
[4] On the politicization of the COVID-19 in America and Europe, see Steinbock, D. 2020. The Tragedy of More Missed COVID-19 Opportunities. SIIS, Aug. 16.
[5] Most likely to attract the Reagan Democrats that Senator Hillary Clinton had lost in 2016, the Biden campaign condemned China for the “unspeakable oppression that Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have suffered.” See “Trump administration weighs accusing China of ‘genocide’ over Uighurs.” Politico, Aug. 25, 2020.
[6] “US: China ‘committed genocide against Uighurs’,” BBC, Jan. 20, 2021.
[7] Due to campaign finance, both Trump and Biden lean on to the Pentagon’s defense contractors, just as Blinken made his first $1 million through an advisory firm with similar clientele amid alleged conflicts of interests. On the conflict-of-interest issues, see Lipton, E. and Vogel, Kenneth P. 2020. “Biden Aides’ Ties to Consulting and Investment Firms Pose Ethics Test.” New York Times, Nov 29; Wong, Edward and Jakes, Lara. 2020. “Pompeo Quietly Visits Conservative Donors and Political Figures on State Dept. Trips.” New York Times, Jul. 21, 2020.
[8] See Lynch, Colum. 2021. “State Department Lawyers Concluded Insufficient Evidence to Prove Genocide in China.” Foreign Policy, Feb. 19.
[9] The two add, “the UN experts are rightly calling for the UN to investigate the situation in Xinjiang. China’s government, for its part, has recently stated that it would welcome a UN mission to Xinjiang based on ‘exchanges and cooperation,’ not on ‘guilty before proven.’“ See Sachs and Schabas 2020, op. cit.
[10] Chin, Josh. 2019. “The German Data Diver Who Exposed China’s Muslim Crackdown.” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 19. Zenz supports scriptural spanking and anti-gay policies. He lectures at the European School of Culture and Theology, but that’s part of Columbia’s German campus.
[11] Leibold, James and Zenz, Adrian. 2016. “Beijing’s Eyes and Ears Grow Sharper in Xinjiang: The 24-7 Patrols of China’s ‘Convenience Police’.” Foreign Affairs, Dec. 23.
[12] Two years later, Leibold declared the treatment of Uyghurs a “cultural genocide.” See Leibold, James. 2019. “Despite China’s denials, its treatment of the Uyghurs should be called what it is: cultural genocide.” The Conversation. Jul. 24.
[13] Robin, Myriam. 2020. “The think tank behind Australia’s changing view of China.” Financial Review, Feb 15.
[14] On ASPI’s funders, see https://www.aspi.org.au/sponsors
[15] Like Edward Snowden during his covert years, Corr had worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, but his main employer is US military-industrial complex. See https://www.jpolrisk.com/about/leadership/ In 2017, Corr predicted that by 2022 the Philippines would default under China’s debt slavery. His projection of debt-to-GDP ratio proved wrong by 200-250 percent. See Steinbock, Dan. 2019. “Whatever happened to PH debt slavery?” The Manila Times, Oct. 7.
[16] Laing, Jonathan R. 2001. “Shadow CIA,” Barron’s, Oct. 15.
[17] Spalding’s anti-China views were too much even for Trump’s National Security Council. See Rogin, Josh. 2018. “Air Force general behind 5G memo leaves White House.” Washington Post, Feb. 3.
[18] Redden, Elizabeth. 2019. “Virginia Regulators Move to Shut Down University.” Inside Higher-Ed, Mar. 20.
[19] Zenz, Adrian. 2020. Coercive Labor in Xinjiang: Coercive Labor in Xinjiang: Labor Transfer and the Mobilization of Ethnic Minorities to Pick Cotton. Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, Dec.
[20] Benson, Linda K. 1990. The Ili Rebellion: Muslim Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944-49. Routledge. On the pre-US legacies, see Ke, Wang. 2018. The East Turkestan Independence Movement: 1930s–1940s. Chinese University of Hong Kong.
[21] Wilson had had previous stints at the State Department’s China desk and US Embassy in Beijing the NATO, US National Security Council and US Embassy in Baghdad.
[22] See Katz, Bruce. 2020. “Irwin Cotler as a False Humanitarian: Cotler supports terrorists while befriending dictators.” The Canada Files, Dec. 27; Norton, Ben. 2020. “Washington’s favorite Venezuelan opposition leader exposes links to Colombian death squads and narco networks.” Grayzone Project, Dec. 26; Abunimah, Ali. 2019. “Canada activists disrupt top supporter of Israeli war crimes.” The Electronic Intifada, Jun. 5.
[23] Matas, David and Cotler, Irwin. 2020. “Legal steps must be taken against China for initial inaction.” Policy Options, May 25.
[24] In 2019, Zenz speculated that 1 million Uyghurs were detained in Xinjiang since late 2016, on the basis of extrapolations from food allowance subsidy figures of the Chinese government. Though the claim was accepted in the West, Newsweek Japan discovered that Zenz’s figures originated from Istiqlal TV, which often hosts leaders of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) terrorists. In another study, Zenz charged China for running a forced birth control surgery program in Xinjiang. While public health analysts found major flaws in his study, Zenz only interviewed 8 women, who were all living in the US and had ties with various Uyghur groups. See Singh, Ajit. 2021. “’Independent’ report claiming Uyghur genocide brought to you by sham university, neocon ideologues lobbying to ‘punish’ China.” The Grayzone Project. Mar. 17.
[25] The WRC dismissed Badger’s own assessment, which rejected the allegations of “forced labor,” and the certification that its Xinjiang supplier received following an on-site inspection by Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production. See Blumenthal, Max. 2021. “Xinjiang shakedown: US anti-China lobby cashed in on ‘forced labor’ campaign that cost Uyghur workers their jobs.” The Grayzone Project, Apr 30.
[26] See Scipes, Kim. 2010. AFL-CIO’s Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage? Lexington Books.
[27] For some scenes, see https://twitter.com/NicXTempore/status/1373691318208245764
[28] See Uzer, Umut. 2016. An Intellectual History of Turkish Nationalism: Between Turkish Ethnicity and Islamic Identity. University of Utah Press; Gingeras, Ryan. 2018. Heroin, Organized Crime, and the Making of Modern Turkey. Oxford University Press.
[29] After the 1980s, the Wolves’ violence has occurred against Kurds, Armenians, in multiple Western European countries, as well as Greece and Syria. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Wolves grew active in Eurasia (Azerbaijan, Russia), while failing to radicalize youths in Central Asia.
[30] As their party chairman said, there’s no difference really: “They both have slanted eyes.” In a coordinated campaign, both groups hung banners with lyrics by an ultranationalist singer: “We miss the smell of Chinese blood.” See Shimatsu, Yoichi. 2009. “Behind the China Riots: Oil, Terrorism & ‘Grey Wolves.'”. New America Media, Jul. 13; Cunningham, Susan. 2015. “Thailand’s Shrine Bombing: The Case For Turkey’s Grey Wolves.” Forbes, Aug 24. On the Turkish attacks, see Erdemir, Aykan, and Tahiroglu, Merve. 2015. “Turkish Grey Wolves target ‘Chinese’.” Politico EU, Jul. 30.
[31] See for instance “Unmistakable US hand in Xinjiang.” China Daily, Mar. 20, 2020.
[32] On the inflated estimates of the victims of Communism, see Ghodsee, Kristen R. et al. 2018. “The merits of taking an anti-anti-communism stance” AEON, March 22.
[33] Burke, Kyle (2018). Revolutionaries for the Right: Anticommunist Internationalism and Paramilitary Warfare in the Cold War. Hill: University of North Carolina Press, p. 21.
[34] ” ‘East Turkistan’ Terrorist Forces Cannot Get Away With Impunity.” Information Office of State Council, Jan. 21, 2002.
[35] Cappelletti, Alessandra. 2020. Socio-Economic Development in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region: Disparities and Power Struggle in China’s North-West. Palgrave Macmillan, esp. Chapter 2.
[36] ” Historical Sales Book: Fiscal Years 1950-2020.” Historical Sales Book. Security Cooperation Agency, US Dept. of Defense 2020.
[37] Inequality data from World Inequality Database.
[38] “Afghan Civilians.” Costs of War, Watson Institute, Brown University, April, 2021; and Thomas, Clayton. 2021. Afghanistan: Background and U.S. Policy: In Brief. CRS. Updated March 25,
[39] Wilford, Hugh. 2009. The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America. Harvard University Press; Saunders, Frances Stonor. 2013. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. The New Press.

Xi's Foreign Policy

Why the CPC’s Foreign Policy is Crucial, 
not Only for China but for Humanity

 

By John Ross

_____________________________________

The 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) comes as not only China but humanity faces a fundamental crossroads – as will be seen this is not a rhetorical exaggeration but a literal reality.  

On the one hand, with the CPC’s leadership, China’s national rejuvenation has proceeded at an unprecedented pace. Taking simply the economic dimension of this, in 1949 China was almost the world’s poorest country – only two Asian and eight African countries had lower per capita GDPs than China.[i] By 2020 China had not only eliminated absolute poverty and achieved “moderate prosperity” by its own domestic criterion, but it was on the brink of becoming a “high-income economy” by international World Bank standard. For a major country to go in only just over 70 years, a single lifetime, from such poverty to a high-income economy is historically unparalleled.

But simultaneously various international forces are attempting to block China’s development – as seen graphically in the new “cold war” launched against China by powerful US circles. And the international context is that humanity today faces a series of great crises which will inevitably affect billions of people – and the worst of which are capable of eliminating a large part of humanity.

Neither China, nor any other individual country, can by themselves escape the consequences of this. Scientists estimate that well within a decade decisive action must be taken to deal with climate change or humanity faces uncontrollable risks which at a minimum would gravely affect the condition of life of billions of people and in the most extreme developments would gravely threaten human civilization. The threat of nuclear war, devastating human civilisation, still exists. In the shorter term, internationally the Covid19 pandemic is not under control and, in addition to its large-scale loss of life globally, this has produced the greatest international economic downturn since the Great Depression – the World Bank estimates this will push around 100 million people into poverty globally and hundreds of millions will suffer falls in incomes or loss of jobs.

Xi Jinping has repeatedly underlined the inevitable interrelation of China’s domestic situation with this international context in referring to: “this global village of ours, where countries’ interests and future are so interconnected.”[ii]Therefore, from the positive angle: “The Chinese people are well aware that China’s development has benefited from the international community.” [iii] The reverse equally applies – China would be unable to escape the consequences of serious adverse international developments. China’s interaction with the rest of the world, its foreign policy, is therefore of critical importance both globally and for China’s own progress.

In this situation China’s foreign policy shows the continuing development of the CPC. As will be analysed, the CPC’s concept of a community of “common destiny for humanity” is fundamental for dealing with the critical challenges of the coming period of international relations. That this foundation of China’s foreign policy is both based in Marxism, but is also a development of it, shows the dynamic and creativity of the CPC itself.
 

The scale of China’s achievement

Before dealing directly with foreign policy, in order to situate this in the general development of the CPC, it is useful first to summarise China’s domestic achievements – as doing so makes possible an adequate scale of assessment of the overall position of the CPC. These domestic developments, in turn, are of such a large scale that they help shape the overall global situation.

The CPC has not only led the rejuvenation of China. – which is, naturally, the focus of its domestic development. In terms of international comparisons, China during the period of the CPC’s state leadership, has been responsible for the greatest improvement in the conditions of life of by far the greatest proportion of humanity in any country in all human history. This statement is not that of an overheated patriot, or a dogmatic and blinkered adherent of Marxism, but a simple issue of fact.

As already noted, between 1949 and 2020 China was lifted from almost the world’s poorest country to the brink of a high-income economy by international definition – by World Bank criteria China will achieve such a rank in 2022 or 2023. Since the launching of “Reform and Opening Up”, China’s economy between 1978 and 2020 expanded at an annual average 9.2% growth rate, its economy grew in size more than 40 times. No other country in history has achieved such a high growth rate over such a sustained period.

To understand the global impact of this it is simply necessary to note that China has a bigger population than all other countries with high income economies put together – China is nearly 18% of the world’s population, while all existing high-income economies are 16%. China entering the ranks of high-income economies will therefore more than double the number of people in the world living in high income economies – a globally transformative event.

China’s rapid economic expansion also benefitted, by a huge margin, a greater proportion of humanity than any other country which has experienced rapid economic development. The first country in human history to experience rapid economic growth was Britain at the time of the Industrial Revolution – this was 2% of the world’s population. The US, after its Civil War, experienced rapid growth that affected 3.2% of the world’s population. The Soviet Union’s rapid growth after 1929 was with 8.4% of the world’s population. But China at the beginning of its rapid economic growth was 22% of the world’s population. China’s economic growth therefore benefitted an almost three times greater proportion of humanity than any other country which had ever experienced rapid economic development.

In terms of the benefit to the population in average living standards, between 1978 and 2020 China’s household consumption grew by 1,800 percent – average household consumption in China  increased 18 times. The next large country after this was Indonesia, at a 920% increase in the same period. China improved household consumption more than twice as much as any other large country.

China since 1981 has lifted 853 million people out of World Bank internationally defined poverty – three out of four people lifted out of poverty in the world.

Beyond the direct effects of economic development, economists know that the best index of overall social conditions is average life expectancy. By far the most important factor in this is per capita GDP – statistically it accounts for 73% of life expectancy. However, 27% is not accounted for by per capita GDP. Therefore, it is possible to measure the effect of other social conditions by whether life expectancy is above or below that which would be expected for a country with that level of per capita GDP.

The US population, for example, on average lives two years less than would be expected from US  per capita GDP. In China, the average life expectancy is over two years more than would be expected from its per capita GDP. Therefore, for China non-directly economic factors (health, schooling, the environmental situation, etc.) are even better than the economic growth development.

These data confirm that the aim of development is not to have the economy grow rapidly as an end in itself. The aim is to improve the conditions of the people – and the data shows that the lives of the Chinese people were improved even more than was indicated by China’s literally unparalleled economic data.

Therefore, to return to the starting point, international comparisons shows that China under the CPC’s leadership has achieved the greatest improvement in living conditions of the greatest number of people in human history. Or as Xi Jinping stated in his speech on 95th anniversary of the CPC’s founding: “The largest developing country in the world has escaped poverty in just over 30 years and has become the second largest economy in the world… creating an earth-shattering development miracle in the history of human social development, and bringing new and vigorous vitality to the Chinese nation.”[iv]
 

The basis of the CPCs success

Turning now directly to foreign policy itself, and its relation to domestic policy, what is the origins of this extraordinary success of the CPC?

The fundamental reason for the CPC’s success, as President Xi Jinping has stressed, is the ability of the CPC to integrate Marxism with China’s reality: “In 1921, after the May Fourth Movement, the Chinese Communist Party was born in the process of integrating Marxism-Leninism with the Chinese labour movement under the background of the Chinese nation’s internal and external troubles and social crisis.

“The Communist Party was born in China, which was a great event that broke new ground. This ground-breaking event has profoundly changed the direction and process of the development of the Chinese nation in modern times, profoundly changed the future and destiny of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation, and profoundly changed the trend and pattern of world development.” [v]

This ability of the CPC to fuse Marxism with Chinese reality enabled the simultaneous defeat of the   century long direct foreign aggression against China and opened the way for China’s socialist modernisation. Securing of real national independence formed the CPC’s original great foreign policy goal. As Xi Jinping put it: “This great historical contribution is that our party united and led the Chinese people in a 28-year bloody battle to defeat Japanese imperialism, overthrow the Kuomintang’s reactionary rule, complete the new democratic revolution, and establish the People’s Republic of China. The significance of this great historical contribution was to completely end the history of the semi-colonial and semi-feudal society of old China, to completely end the situation of the fragmentation of old China, and to completely abolish the unequal treaties imposed on China by the great powers and all the privileges of imperialism in China. China made a great leap from the feudal despotism which had existed for thousands of years to people’s democracy.” [vi]

The conclusion Xi Jinping drew from this, which forms the basis of both the CPC’s domestic and foreign policy, was therefore clear. The ongoing success of the CPC depends on its continuing adherence to Marxism: “we must adhere to the guiding position of Marxism, adhere to the close integration of the basic principles of Marxism with the reality of contemporary China.” [vii]

Therefore: “Marxism is the fundamental guiding ideology for our party and nation. If we deviate from or abandon Marxism, our party will lose its soul and lose its direction. On the fundamental issue of upholding the guiding position of Marxism, we must be firm and unwavering, and we must not waver in the slightest at any time and under any circumstances.” [viii]

In summary, as Xi Jinping stated: “what we want to build is socialism with Chinese characteristics, not any other ideologies.” [ix]


Common destiny of humanity

While Xi Jinping stressed that Marxism was the CPC’s foundation, he simultaneously noted that Marxism had to develop not only in terms of its integration with Chinese society but also in line with the overall new unfolding development of Chinese and global society: “in the face of the characteristics and practical requirements of the new era, Marxism is also facing the problem of further Sinicization, modernization, and popularization. Marxism does not end truth but opens up the road to truth. Engels had said long ago: ‘Marx’s entire worldview is not a doctrine, but a method. What it provides is not a ready-made dogma, but a starting point for further research and a method for such research.’” [x]

Therefore, as Xi Jinping put it: “We must examine the practical basis and practical needs of the contemporary development of Marxism with a broader perspective, adhere to the problem-oriented approach, insist on focusing on what we are doing, listen to the voice of the times, and further promote the development of Marxism in contemporary China. The combination of reality has continuously opened up a new realm for the development of Marxism in the 21st century, allowing contemporary Chinese Marxism to radiate a more brilliant light of truth.” [xi]


The CPC’s theoretical analysis

The concept of a “common destiny of humanity”, the core principle guiding the CPC’s foreign policy in the present world situation, is a clear expression of this process that the CPC is both rooted in classical Marxism and  is a development of it – as is readily demonstrated.

Regarding the Marxist origins of the concept of a “common destiny for humanity” the origins of this in the foundations of Marxism are clear. Marx took from Adam Smith the understanding that division of labour, which Marx more accurately designated as “socialisation of labour”, was the most fundamental force of economic development. Smith himself noted that without social division of labour humanity, that is if it had remained resting on individual production, would have remained in an extremely primitive state of underdevelopment – more precisely non-development.

But Marx drew out far more profound implications than Smith had understood from this reality. From the first formulation of the theory of historical materialism, in The German Ideology, Marx stressed that the development of society was based on the increasing division/socialisation, of labour. As Marx noted: “How far the productive forces of a nation are developed is shown most manifestly by the degree to which the division of labour has been carried. Each new productive force… causes a further development of the division of labour.” [xii]

Humanity, starting with small scale localised production, had progressed via increasing division/socialisation of labour to culminate in modern globalisation production – in which humanity is linked with a planetary scale of interconnected production. It is this globalised scale of division/socialisation of labour which makes possible the colossal development of modern production and therefore the enormous material advancement of humanity. But this division/socialisation of labour also produces a “common destiny of humanity” because every country’s development in such a globalised system becomes increasingly interconnected, directly and indirectly, with the development of other countries.

This reality is, therefore, certainly a clear implication of Marxism, but it was first explicitly formulated and conceptualised by the CPC and is a cornerstone of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.

As a consequence of this analysis, as Xi Jinping put it on the 95th anniversary of the founding of the CPC: “The purpose of China’s foreign policy is to maintain world peace and promote common development… China is willing to expand the intersection of interests with other countries, promote the construction of a new type of international relations with cooperation and win-win at the core, and promote the formation of a community with a shared future for humanity.” [xiii]


The coming period for humanity

To understand how crucial this foreign policy foundation of the CPC is for the coming period of humanity it is necessary to examine the present and developing global situation.

Marxism analyses that eventually the entire world will make the transition to socialism – as socialism is a superior system of social organisation. But to deal with concrete problems of the coming period the issue of time scale must be considered – otherwise this abstract truth can lead to errors regarding the actual situation.

In Marxist analysis the global transition to socialism will be prolonged. The appropriate unit of measurement for this process is centuries – it is 150 years since the working class first took power in the Paris Commune, it is 104 years since a socialist society was first consolidated in Russia in 1917, it is 72 years since the creation of the People’s Republic of China, it is over 60 years since the Cuban people achieved socialism etc.

But key problems which are a great threat to humanity, in some cases an extreme threat, must be solved in a far shorter period of time that this – in some cases they must be solved in a few years. Science concludes for example, as already noted, that decisive steps must be taken to limit carbon emissions, within the next half decade to the next decade, or climate change will embark on a course threatening the situation of life of billions of people or even the present organisation of civilisation. The threat of nuclear war, similarly, threatens the existence of human civilisation in its present form. Less cataclysmic, but nevertheless affecting billions of people, the threat created by Covid19 must be contained – not only in terms of its direct effects on health but in terms of the scale of global economic downturn it has created.

Given that these problems must be solved in a far shorter period of time than it will take to make an international transition to socialism this means that they must be solved while capitalism still exists – indeed during a period when capitalism will be the dominant global system.

This does not mean that China and other countries cannot continue to develop. Or that other countries cannot embark on a struggle to create socialism. Or that mass pressure is not required on the capitalist class within capitalist countries. But it means that a situation has to exist which has some similarities to World War II, in which countries with different social systems came together to fight a grave threat to humanity – at that time fascism, and today threats such as climate change, nuclear war, the Covid19 pandemic and global economic downturn.

Facing this situation, while the most advanced political forces in every country are able to act on the basis of an understanding of the general interest of humanity, truly mass politics is only moved on the basis of the self-interest of those involved. It is to this reality that the CPC’s concept of the common destiny of humanity provides the key to how to confront and deal with this reality.

The interconnected character of modern society and production literally means that the most fundamental interests of humanity are also interconnected. It also means that China’s national rejuvenation, and the path of the CPC, corresponds to that of the overall interests of humanity. Xi Jinping stated this relation of China’s national rejuvenation and the interests of humanity very clearly at his first press conference after become CPC General Secretary: “Our responsibility is… to pursue the goal of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, so that China can stand firmer and stronger among the world’s nations, and make new and greater contributions to mankind.”[xiv] Or as Xi Jinping put it at the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties meeting in 2017: “The CPC is a political party dedicated to the wellbeing of the Chinese people and to the progress of human society.”[xv]
 

The marginalist/neo-liberal analysis

As the concept of a common destiny of humanity accurately corresponds to this reality of an interconnected economy and a world founded on division/socialisation of labour, why is it not immediately accepted – in particular in the US? Instead in the US, the accurate concepts in the CPC’s analysis are actively attacked by the alternative promoted by US neo-cons/neo-liberals.

The highest-level attempt to present an explicit alternative to the CPC’s concept  of international relations was in a reply to Xi Jinping’s speech to the 2017 Davos World Economic Forum by the then US National Security Adviser McMaster and then Director of the US National Economic Council Cohn. They authored a Wall Street Journal article – which could not have appeared without sanction from the highest US authorities. In this they proclaimed: “the world is not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage.[xvi]

This analysis that there is no “global community”, a clear counterposition “a community of common destiny”, is directly based in marginalist/neo-liberal economics. In the marginalist concept the fundamental unit is not the division/ socialisation of labour analysed by Smith/Marx but the concept that economy and society is simply composed of individual units. McMaster and Cohn’s starting point is a restatement, an attempt to defend on the international field, exactly what the similarly neo-liberal Margaret Thatcher declared on the national terrain: “there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women.[xvii] This marginalist concept of economics, and its conclusions, is therefore fundamentally counterposed to the analysis of Smith, Marx and the CPC.

Because this marginalist analysis fails to identify the mutual advantages of division/socialisation of labour it leads not to the correct concept of “a common destiny for humanity”, that is the mutual interests of an international community, but to the concept of international relations as a zero-sum game. In this analysis not cooperation but competition/conflict is considered as the fundamental framework of foreign policy.

But this analysis is fundamentally false. In reality, first, in innumerable key features, humanity is interdependent – to take merely the most pressing contemporary examples, as already noted, it is impossible to deal with climate change in a single country, Covid19 pays no attention to national boundaries and as long as it exists in any country it poses a potential threat to all countries. In terms of the economy, just as an individual would be incapable of creating any advanced system of production, so also a country cut off from global division of labour would be incapable of the most advanced economic development.

In short, the development of each is interlinked with the development of all – and from that interaction all can benefit. As President Xi stated it in popular terms in economics: “one plus one can be greater than two.[xviii] Or put precisely: “a global community of shared future means that the future of each and every nation and country is interlocked.” [xix]This concept of a “common destiny of humanity”, which follows directly from the analysis of socialisation/division of labour, therefore necessarily destroys the concept that international relations are a “zero sum game”. Instead of a “zero-sum” situation, by engaging in division/socialisation of labour both or many sides can gain.

Naturally this concept of a common future for humanity does not mean that there are no conflicts between countries. But it means that they have more fundamental mutual interests, in that the prosperity and wellbeing of each country depends on international division of labour and mutual interaction – the prosperity of each country depends on other countries. This creates the reality of the international community – the “shared destiny for humanity”.

It is for this reason that, as Xi Jinping put it: “China… opposes the Cold War mentality and zero-sum game” and “the Communist Party of China will develop exchanges and cooperation with political parties and organizations in various countries and regions to promote the development of state-to-state relations.” [xx] It is the reality of this “community of the common destiny of humanity” which gives the ability of China to appeal to numerous forces in the world.


Social basis of different foreign policy concepts

The fundamental reason that US neo-liberals and neo-cons refuse to acknowledge this reality, however, is because these two different analyses have different social bases. The basis of the CPC is the working class. As Xi Jinping noted: ‘The working class is China’s leading class; it represents China’s advanced productive forces and relations of production; it is our Party’s most steadfast and reliable class foundation.’[xxi] The working class is the bearer of socialised production so, therefore, the reality of the interrelated character of humanity’s development is most evident to it. The capitalist class, in contrast, is divided into different competing units. It, therefore, sees the world as “not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage.” In summary, Marxism and the working-class basis of the CPC enables it to see reality whereas the capitalist basis of neo-liberalism, expressed in marginalist economics, hides the truth regarding social reality.

The different social bases of these concepts of international relations, therefore, means that while the CPC’s concept of a shared destiny of humanity is objectively correct, it is not automatically accepted as true. An active struggle has to be waged for it to be understood. In regions where the capitalist class has the greatest power and influence, for example in the US, the idea of “zero sum games”, of “conflict”, or “extreme competition” etc., will be dominant. Where the working class has greater influence the concept of the “common destiny of humanity” will have greater influence – while in socialist countries, such as China, this concept will be dominant. Therefore, the struggle between different foreign policy ideologies accompanies the material development of different social forces and the different character of societies. It requires not only production of ideas but material forces, political parties and states, which are capable of embodying and struggling for these ideas.

This clash between totally different conceptions, of the accurate analysis of the CPC and the false conceptions of the neo-liberals, underlines how important the CPC’s conception is not only for China but for the world. Indeed, the CPC’s concept of a common destiny of humanity, the clearest concept of international relations, must necessarily play an increasing international role if the various threats to humanity which exist are to be successfully dealt with. As Xi Jinping put it: “Our country will move closer to the center stage of the world and make a greater contribution to humanity.” [xxii]


Global North and Global South

These realities also explain the different relation of forces around these international issues in different parts of the world. The concepts that there is no international community, of “zero sum games” etc are strongest where the capitalist class is strongest. This is in the advanced capitalist, more precisely imperialist, countries – the “Global North”. The capitalist class is weaker in developing countries, the “Global South”, and support for the ideas of a common destiny of humanity are therefore stronger there. The capitalist class is weakest of all in the socialist countries – where it is no longer the ruling class and where, therefore, the CPC’s ideas were developed.

This social reality is clearly reflected not only in general foreign policy relations but very precisely in votes at the United Nations – where there is frequently an alignment of China with the forces of the Global South against the forces of the Global North. Nevertheless, because it corresponds to the real interests of social forces the concept of a “common destiny of humanity” is also the best strategic guide to winning forces in the Global North.

Conclusion

The conclusion is therefore clear. The CPC’s analysis of a common future for humanity is an outstanding example of the creative development of Marxism – firmly rooted in fundamental Marxist concepts, and classical Chinese and Western thought, but developing this in striking new ways that directly relate to and reflect contemporary realities.

The statement by Xi Jinping that: “Our country will move closer to the center stage of the world and make a greater contribution to humanity” therefore has a precise meaning. It means that the CPC plays an increasing role not only in the fate of China but in the fate of humanity. The historically unparalleled achievements of the CPC in the domestic development of China, in the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, has now built China into a country playing an increasingly decisive role in the world.

In all very serious matters there is no virtue in exaggeration in any direction – no virtue in optimism, no virtue in pessimism, only a virtue in realism. The fate not only of China but in large part the fate of the world depends on the decisions which will be taken over the coming years by the CPC. The fortunate reality is that the CPC in the 100 years of history has shown that there is no political party in the world better equipped to undertake this task.

This is not an idealisation it is a sober political reality. It did not “descend from the skies” and it is not a “miracle”. It is a product of the stupendous historical struggle of the Chinese people. For over 180 years, since the beginning of foreign intervention in China with the first Opium War, the Chinese people had to fight for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. From 1839 to 1949 as a result of the direct and indirect effect of this foreign intervention, around 100 million Chinese people died – this is the largest struggle for national and human liberation in history. For the first 80 years of that struggle the Chinese people sought for but could not find a leading force that could deliver them from this struggle. In 1921, with the foundation of the CPC, the Chinese people did forge such a leadership. Now the CPC, founded 100 years ago by a handful of people, will play a decisive role in deciding not only the fate of China but the fate of the world.  That is not an exaggeration, it is just a fact.

. This article was published by New Cold War and originally in Chinese by Learning From China, June 11, 2021


Bibliography

Maddison, A. (2010). Statistics on World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1-2008 AD . Retrieved January 23, 2011, from Angus Maddison (1926-2010): http://www.ggdc.net/MADDISON/oriindex.htm

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1845). The German Ideology. In K. Marx, & F. Engels, Marx and Engels Collected Works (1976 ed., Vol. 5, pp. 19-539). London: Lawrence and Wishart.

McMaster, H. R., & Cohn, G. D. (2017, May 30). America First Doesn’t Mean America Alone. Retrieved June 4, 2017, from Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-first-doesnt-mean-america-alone-1496187426

Smith, A. (1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations(1981 ed., Vol. 1). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc.

Thatcher, M. (1987, October 31). Epitaph for the eighties? “there is no such thing as society’. Women’s Own. Retrieved from http://briandeer.com/social/thatcher-society.htm

Xi, J. (2014). Hard Work Makes Dreams Come True (28 April 2013). In J. Xi, The Governance of China (Kindle Edition)(2014 ed., pp. Location 749-819). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

Xi, J. (2014). The People’s Wish for a Good Life is Our Goal (15 November 2012). In J. Xi, The Governance of China (Kindle Edition) (pp. Location 127-162). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

Xi, J. (2014, 23 March). Follow the Trend of the Times and Promote Global Peace and Development. In J. Xi, The Governance of China (Kindle Edition) (pp. Location 3972-4094). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

Xi, J. (2016, 07 01). 建党95周年大会举行 习近平发表重要讲话. Retrieved from guancha.cn: https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2016_07_01_366032_s.shtml

Xi, J. (2020). Carry Forward the Shanghai Spirit; Build a Community of Shared Future (10 Jun 2018). In J. Xi, The Governance of China (pp. 510-515). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

Xi, J. (2020). China’s Diplomacy in the New Era (28 December 2017). In J. Xi, The Governance of China III (pp. 489-492). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

Xi, J. (2020). Meet the People’s Expectations for a Better Life (1 December 2017). In J. X, The Governance of China III(pp. 503-509). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.


[i] Calculated from Maddison, A. (2010). Statistics on World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1-2008 AD . Retrieved January 23, 2011, http://www.ggdc.net/MADDISON/oriindex.htm

[ii] Xi, J. (2020). Carry Forward the Shanghai Spirit; Build a Community of Shared Future (10 Jun 2018). In J. Xi, The Governance of China (pp. 510-515). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

[iii] Xi, J. (2016, 07 01). 建党95周年大会举行 习近平发表重要讲话. 11:21:00 Retrieved from guancha.cn: https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2016_07_01_366032_s.shtml

[iv] Xi, J. (2016, 07 01). 建党95周年大会举行 习近平发表重要讲话. 10:29:16Retrieved from guancha.cn: https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2016_07_01_366032_s.shtml

[v] Xi, J. (2016, 07 01). 建党95周年大会举行 习近平发表重要讲话. 10:22:46 Retrieved from guancha.cn: https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2016_07_01_366032_s.shtml

[vi] Xi, J. (2016, 07 01). 建党95周年大会举行 习近平发表重要讲话. 10:26:30 Retrieved from guancha.cn: https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2016_07_01_366032_s.shtml

[vii] Xi, J. (2016, 07 01). 建党95周年大会举行 习近平发表重要讲话. 10:42:42 Retrieved from guancha.cn: https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2016_07_01_366032_s.shtml

[viii] Xi, J. (2016, 07 01). 建党95周年大会举行 习近平发表重要讲话. 10:43:03 Retrieved from guancha.cn: https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2016_07_01_366032_s.shtml

[ix] Xi, J. (2016, 07 01). 建党95周年大会举行 习近平发表重要讲话. 10:59:31 Retrieved from guancha.cn: https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2016_07_01_366032_s.shtml

[x] Xi, J. (2016, 07 01). 建党95周年大会举行 习近平发表重要讲话. 10:43:03 Retrieved from guancha.cn: https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2016_07_01_366032_s.shtml

[xi] Xi, J. (2016, 07 01). 建党95周年大会举行 习近平发表重要讲话. 10:48:45 Retrieved from guancha.cn: https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2016_07_01_366032_s.shtml

[xii] Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1845). The German Ideology. In K. Marx, & F. Engels, Marx and Engels Collected Works (1976 ed., Vol. 5, pp. 19-539). London: Lawrence and Wishart P32 (Section ‘PRODUCTION AND INTERCOURSE. DIVISION OF LABOUR, AND FORMS OF PROPERTY—TRIBAL, ANCIENT, FEUDAL]

[xiii] Xi, J. (2016, 07 01). 建党95周年大会举行 习近平发表重要讲话. 11:20:29 Retrieved from guancha.cn: https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2016_07_01_366032_s.shtml

[xiv] Xi, J. (2014). The People’s Wish for a Good Life is Our Goal. 15 November 2012. In J. Xi, The Governance of China (Kindle Edition) (pp. Location 127-162). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

[xv] Xi, J. (2020). Meet the People’s Expectations for a Better Life (1 December 2017). In J. X, The Governance of China III (pp. 503-509). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

[xvi] McMaster, H. R., & Cohn, G. D. (2017, May 30). America First Doesn’t Mean America Alone. Retrieved June 4, 2017, from Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-first-doesnt-mean-america-alone-1496187426

[xvii]  Thatcher, M. (1987, October 31). Epitaph for the eighties? “there is no such thing as society’. Women’s Own. Retrieved from http://briandeer.com/social/thatcher-society.htm

[xviii] Xi, J. (2014, 23 March). Follow the Trend of the Times and Promote Global Peace and Development. In J. Xi, The Governance of China (Kindle Edition) (pp. Location 3972-4094). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

[xix] Xi, J. (2020). Meet the People’s Expectations for a Better Life (1 December 2017). In J. X, The Governance of China III (pp. 503-509). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

[xx] Xi, J. (2016, 07 01). 建党95周年大会举行 习近平发表重要讲话. 11:22:18 Retrieved from guancha.cn: https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2016_07_01_366032_s.shtml

[xxi] Xi, J. (2013 April 28). Hard Work Makes Dreams Come True. In J. Xi, The Governance of China (Kindle Edition) (2014 ed., pp. Location 749-819). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

[xxii] Xi, J. (2020). China’s Diplomacy in the New Era (28 December 2017). In J. Xi, The Governance of China III (pp. 489-492). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

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