The final 99 million poor rural Chinese are free of poverty, along with 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 villages. China met the United Nations' 2030 Sustainable Development  goal 10 years ahead of schedule. Read full article →

Tesla's Model 3 (137,459 sold) and the Hongguang Mini (112,758) were China's most popular EVs in 2020. Two million will be sold in China in 2021, a 51% YoY increase. Read full article →

Credit Suisse, UBS, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase are  seeking to double staff in China, chasing profits of $47 billion–in investment banking alone–by 2026. Read full article →

The National Energy Administration's 10-year plan requires wind, solar and biomass to deliver 26% of national power in 2030, one-third more than President Xi’s goal. China needs 1,580 gigawatts of cumulative capacity to meet the new target. Read full article →

Tencent's Honor of Kings retains top spot as world’s highest-earning mobile game: Last month, Honor of Kings saw its revenue grow 22% year-on-year to $267 million, about 97% of which came from China, followed by 1% from Thailand. Read full article →

The China-Laos railway is set to open in December, with plans to extend to Thailand and Singapore; China is also easing capital controls to allow citizens to invest in overseas securities and insurance products; and Beijing has increased its rare earth mining quotas by 27.6% YoY. Read full article →

China Three Gorges Corp. will buy 400 megawatts of Spanish wind farms and a solar plant for $486 million. The investment follows Three Gorges’s purchase last year of 13 Spanish solar park assets with more than 500 megawatts of capacity. They will part of GEIDCO, Global Energy Interconnect, which shunts renewable energy around the world with the sun and wind. Read full article →

Purchases of US grain will hit a record $31.5 billion this year. China is “just blowing off the chart,” according to Jason Hafemeister, a USDA trade official. There's also the phase-one trade deal that Beijing signed with the Trump administration. Cargill, the world #1 grain trader, is optimistic Beijing will continue to try to hit those levels. Read full article →

1. General security
2. Terminal security
3. Gateway security
4. Platform security
5. Security management  Read full article →

• Senegal begins vaccinating against coronavirus with doses from China
• China is exporting COVID-19 vaccines to 27 countries
• Zimbabwe embarks on national vaccination drive with Sinopharm
• More Chinese vaccines to Algeria

Above: PLA Staff Command Chain

The PLA's Unique Headquarters Staff System

The PLA system can be referred to as “two CO, three departments”. “Two CO” means that in a PLA unit, there are two commander-in-charge instead of one. One is “military leader”=commander, and another is “political leader”=commissar. The commander and commissar share the same position, power, and (usually) military rank. They cooperate under the principle of the “division of responsibility under the supervision of party committee”.

Unlike the other armed forces, including the Soviet Army, commissars in the PLA are a vital part of the chain of command. If the commander is ineffective or unavailable, it is the commissar, not the deputy commander who is about to take command.

“Three departments” means that the staff of a PLA formation headquarters is divided into three major parts: 
*The Political Affairs Department (政治工作部), whose leader is the Chief of PAD (政治工作部主任)
*The Staff Department (参谋部), whose leader is the Chief of Staff (参谋长)
*The Sustainment Department (保障部), whose leader is the Chief of SD (保障部长)

It was even more confusing before 2017 when there were four departments:
*The Political Department (政治部); leader - Chief of PD (政治部主任)
*The Command Department (司令部); leader - Chief of Staff (参谋长)
*The Logistics Department (后勤部); leader - Chief of LD (后勤部长)
*The Equipment Department (装备部) - Chief of ED (装备部长)

It can easily find out that the Chief of Staff in the PLA is not the head of the staff; instead, he is only a leader of one department of the staff, and even not the most powerful one (which is the Chief of PAD/PD).

Units and elements can be directly subordinated to certain staff departments. For example, the Command Department of a PLA division controls not only its staffs, but also the division’s reconnaissance battalion, the communications battalion, etc, etc. The divisional hospital and automobile battalion belong to the Logistics Department. Therefore, you can see the logistics department of a PLA army unit as a combination of US Army division G-4 and Discom.

Sketch: Chain-of-Command of PLA and US Army divisions

And due to the common structure of other armed forces, the Chinese word “司令部” is usually translated as “headquarters”, which is absolutely wrong for the People’s Liberation Army before 2017. In terms of the PLA, a “headquarter” shall be translated as “总部” or “指挥部”, not “司令部” (which is a subordinate part of the headquarter.)  Nikolai Ezhov

The tide is changing.

Capital.   

Expansion is capital’s basic instinct.

Capital’s class attribute is larger than national attribute.

My core intention is to tell everyone: Jack Ma is fine, Danke Apartment too. 

Apart from the risk of freely expanding, capital has another noteworthy hidden effect: capital warps people’s minds.

One more thing.

I feel fortunate to live in a socialist country.

Last of all

A TV drama set in the Qin Dynasty has recently gone popular.

The barriers are surprisingly mundane.

TH: NDRC is unquestionably the most important ministry. If it decides to block a project, that project will not happen. But this de jure authority is undermined by de facto limitations on personnel and information, as noted above, and also by bureaucratic and intra-party politics. If a project is particularly important for a major SOE, or for CDB, or for a high-ranking provincial leader, the mid-ranking NDRC officials overseeing the approval process would need a very good reason to block it. In practice, their approval is almost always forthcoming by the time a project reaches their desk. MOFCOM also has a formal veto for most projects (it must grant an export license in many instances), but in practice this is rarely denied.

Though it often receives the most attention when it comes to China’s overseas policies, on Belt and Road projects, MoFA is mostly on clean-up duty. Should a project turn sour, it is the MoFA diplomats in-country who will be on the front line of setting it right. This was evident, for example, in the Chinese embassy to Kenya’s proactive engagement with civil society groups after they won a court case calling for the cancellation of the Chinese financed and constructed Lamu coal power plant.

PPDC: The two policy banks, the China Import-Export Banks (EXIM Bank) and China Development Bank (CDB), are the major sources of financing for Belt and Road projects. How does their financing decision making process work, what are their motivations and, to the best of our knowledge, how do they assess financial risk? 

The most under-appreciated aspect of China’s policy banks is their need to make a return on investment.

While ultimately these institutions can rely on China’s sovereign guarantee, no director of CDB or China EXIM Bank wants to break the bank because doing so would end his career (there have not been any female leaders of either institution). So while these institutions can and do take a loss on projects of high political importance, their ability to do so depends on making a return on the vast majority of their lending. CDB, in particular, relies on bonds to finance its operations, and bondholders need to be paid.

However, while the policy banks are very focused on managing financial risk, neither institution plays a particularly proactive role in developing the projects they finance. Instead they rely on large Chinese firms, typically SOEs, to bring them business. Again, this creates an important information asymmetry.

PPDC: You cite one example, China EXIM Bank’s loan for the Myitsone hydropower dam in Myanmar, of policy banks’ loans ending up on the wrong side of risk – political in this case – but suggest that the bank seemed to enjoy “punishment immunity” at annual evaluations. Tell us more about the case and what you mean by this? What are the implications of this for advocacy groups who are trying to highlight the economic, political, environmental and social risks involved in many Belt and Road projects? 

TH: This case is a great example of why information asymmetry in BRI is such a consequential constraint, even if it seems quotidian. The Myitsone dam, which China EXIM Bank financed, was fiercely opposed by local civil society groups, who attracted significant support from international NGOs. When the Myanmar government suspended the project, the bank took the hit. While these dynamics are common in large hydro projects, China EXIM Bank was able to convince regulators that it and the commercial partners had done as much as could be expected of them, and were simply the victims of “anti-China forces.” How could the authorities in Beijing, with little knowledge of the specifics, argue otherwise?

On the one hand, this case demonstrates how decisionmakers in Beijing are sensitive to local opposition, especially when it attracts widespread attention. On the other hand, it also shows that “naming and shaming” alone is unlikely to drive long-term structural change unless the incentives of key bureaucratic actors can be shifted.

PPDC: One issue that comes up in your analysis of all the above mentioned Chinese players is understaffing, particularly in the departments that are tasked with assessing and monitoring Belt and Road projects. For example, you note that though China EXIM Bank has more global assets than the World Bank, it has only 1,000 staff in their Beijing headquarters, compared to the World Bank’s 12,300 staff worldwide. MOFCOM affiliated staff in Chinese embassies who are tasked with finding and assessing commercial opportunities are similarly understaffed. How could this gap be addressed and is Beijing taking moves to do so?

TH: In BRI, the old adage that “personnel is policy” really rings true. In the report we recommend that the Central Organization Department (COD), the Chinese Communist Party’s powerful “HR department,” take a holistic and systematic approach to breaking down some of the silos and staffing limitations that undermine efforts to “green” BRI. For example, COD could bring together officials from policy banks, regulators, SOEs, and in-country embassies. Crucially, they could also make sure that officials across all these entities are building up deep contextual knowledge of BRI countries. We usually think of BRI more as a geopolitical issue, not a question of human resources. But when it comes to re-shaping bureaucratic incentives, the latter is perhaps more important.  Combined with some bureaucratic reshuffling—for example, giving the Ministry of Environment and Ecology (MEE) a substantive role in decision-making—such reforms could substantially improve the quality of BRI projects.

Outside the Chinese policy apparatus, non-governmental actors in China and especially in BRI countries can play an important role. For example, given the information asymmetries, decision-makers in Beijing should see local NGOs as key partners helping them monitor implementation of BRI projects. Such relationships are not easy to establish, but the recently established Belt and Road Initiative International Green Development Coalition (BRIGDC), a loose network of Chinese and international NGOs and policymakers led by the MEE, could play a role in building them.

PPDC: So, where does sustainability come into this complex web of relationships and what suggestions do you have for those advocating for an increased focus on social, economic and environmental sustainability in the Belt and Road Initiative? 

TH: The objective of our report was to look in detail at the actors who actually shape most BRI projects in order to to understand how significantly sustainability figures in their interests and decision-making. Depressingly, the answer is very, very little. In fact the only instances where sustainability attained salience was when civil society groups, courts or other actors in BRI countries (for example, anti-coal campaigners in Kenya) threatened to block or halt BRI projects over sustainability grounds. There are two implications. First, the importance of local sustainability activism in recipient countries cannot be overstated. When such activism threatens the viability of BRI projects, it has real influence. Second, we won’t see a lasting “greening” of BRI until Beijing expends the political capital needed to reshuffle bureaucratic interests in a way that elevates sustainability. This is likely a long-term challenge. 

PPDC: And lastly, in what ways has this turbulent year changed the picture for the “greening” of the Belt and Road?

BRI will be profoundly shaped by the COVID-19 crisis.

There will be even more demand in developing countries for growth-promoting infrastructure projects, but probably less supply of Chinese financing as the policy banks look to their bottom lines and domestic priorities. At the same time, China will be eager to strengthen diplomatic relationships as geopolitical contestation intensifies. In this context, sustainability could be increasingly side-lined by blanket interest in economic stimulus. However, if China sees diplomatic benefits in greening BRI—for example, if a future Biden administration makes this part of the path back to a more stable relationship with the United States, as recently indicated in his climate plan—then sustainability may take on a new importance. Should that happen, the key challenge will be to move from grand bargains to real shifts in the bureaucratic interests that shape BRI projects.

Dr. Thomas Hale is Associate Professor of Global Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. His research seeks to explain how political institutions evolve – or not – to face the challenges raised by globalisation and interdependence, with a particular emphasis on environmental and economic issues. The co-authored report, Belt and Road Decision Making in China and Recipient Countries: How and to what extent does sustainability matter?, is available in full here. Subscribe to Panda Paw Dragon Claw here..

Reductionism and Categorization

IQ

Intentions

Virtue Ethics

Conclusion

The Needham Report

The Report of the International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of Facts Concerning Bacteriological Warfare in Korea and China (the ISC report), published at the height of the Korean War, validated claims by North Korea and China that the US had launched bacteriological warfare (biological warfare, BW) attacks against both troops and civilian targets in those two countries over a period of several months in 1952.
   

The most vilified document of the 20th Century.

The report’s release in September, 1952, brought a withering international attack. It was roundly denounced by American and British politicians of the highest rank, ridiculed by four star generals, accused of fraud by celebrated pundits, misquoted by notable scientists, and scorned by a compliant Western press. Charges were made against the quality and truthfulness of its science. Its “unstated” political agenda was denounced. The ethics of interviewing captured US pilots was excoriated and its authors were publicly flayed as communist dupes. The report was red baited in the US halls of Congress and deemed unpatriotic to read, and therefore went unread and deliberately forgotten over the years, which has been the fate of Korean War history in general. In subsequent decades, volumes placed in American university library collections were quietly and permanently removed from circulation.
   
When the rare copy came up for auction, it was discretely purchased and disappeared from public view. This critical 67 year old truth commission document from the Korean War was slipping towards oblivion. For these very reasons, historians and truth seekers should exalt the wondrous rebirth of the ISC Report from near extinction with the publication of this new electronic edition. We welcome the sunshine that re-publication brings to a shadowy and suppressed chapter of American Cold War history. (from the introduction by Thomas Powell) 800 pages.  $9.99. Amazon.