China's GDP will grow 9% this year and fourth-quarter profits will surge by the most in a decade. Retail sales, industrial production and fixed-asset investment all surged by more than 30% YoY and the world’s biggest maker of shipping containers said it can’t keep up with demand due to Chinese exports. Read full article →

China Construction Bank in Suzhou is opening digital RMB accounts for local merchants. These accounts are typically used for retail transactions with customers. Read full article →

China is investing US $13.3 billion creating 5.6 million ha of high standard farmland and 1.6 million ha of  irrigation systems. "High standard" is flat and contiguous arable land with complete agricultural facilities, reliable electricity supply, ecological protection, disaster resistance, and high and stable yields in floods or droughts. Read full article →

Financial industry assets rose 10.7% YoY to $54.3 trillion 353.2 trillion yuan at the end of 2020, while total liabilities increased 10.8% to $50.1 trillion: both growth rates higher than each of the previous two years, according to the People’s Bank of China. Read full article $→

Shanghai Clearing House has launched a bond index tracking carbon-offset bonds. At the end of 2020, Chinese firms had RMB 1.4 trillion worth of green bonds outstanding. RMB 278.7 billion worth of green bonds were issued in 2020. Read full article →

Bad debt ratios fell in most provinces in 2020 despite the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey of regional banks by Diyi Caijing found that out of 20 Chinese provinces only three saw a rise in the NPL ratios of their local banking sectors in 2020. Read full article →
 
China seeks self-sufficiency in genetic technology, seed supply, and livestock breeding to reduce high import dependence. Country’s corn and soybean (non-GMO) production is half of the US’s (GMO) and 70% of pigs are foreign breeds; new national and world’s largest bank for germplasm – “chips of agriculture” – starts operating this year. Read full article →

China's airline capacity is (mostly) back, but passenger volumes haven’t followed. Desperate sales promotions are widespread among Chinese carriers. Third quarter 2020 financial reports show grave revenue losses. Fourth quarter traffic isn’t materially better – and early 2021 is worse. Continued excess capacity appears to be driven by politics, not demand. Read full article →

Tencent (WeChat) and ByteDance (TikTok) are fighting an all-out war for control of traffic, the backbone of their growth. WeChat has 1 billion active users, and ByteDance's Douyin, the domestic version of TikTok, has more than 600 million. Read full article →

Of the 900 global cities ranked in the latest Global Cities Index, Shenzhen ranked 19th, based on factors like environment, economy, innovation and transportation. The top five are London, San Francisco, Boston, Paris, and New York. [Having lived in all six cities, I find the ranking non-credible–ed.] Read full article →

Some of China's US$4 trillion BRI investments will be repurposed as Real Estate Infrastructure Investment Trusts (REITs) whose sales will support fresh digital infrastructure construction. The REITs will be pilot tested and may become a $300 billion-$735 billion market within a decade, driven by new infrastructure and e-commerce assets. Read full article →

Local governments in China are required to update their minimum wages at least every few years but have the flexibility to adjust wages according to local conditions. Most provinces set different classes of minimum wage levels for different areas depending on the given region’s level of development and cost of living. Read full article →

ZTE’s 2020 revenue rose 11.8% to $15.6 billion due to a rise in government and corporate business and the recovery of its consumer business from of US sanctions. It expects net profit to rise 130%-208% this quarter. Read full article $→

Chinese companies are expanding microchip capacity and creating special research teams to relieve the shortage in the auto industry, which drives to 90% of innovations. Read full article →

Another 500 million Chinese, for a total of 40% of the population (560 million out of 1.4 billion), will be inoculated by the end of June, thanks to a fifth vaccine just approved for public rollout. It was developed jointly by Anhui Biopharm and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Final clinical trial data have not been published in any peer-reviewed scientific journal. Read full article →

7% of Wuhan residents developed coronavirus antibodies during outbreak, but 82% of the people with antibodies were asymptomatic, suggesting that ‘symptoms in many infected individuals might be too mild for them to need medical attention,’ according to a new paper published in The Lancet. Read full article $→

Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico are the leading recipients of Chinese vaccines. Indonesia has purchased 125 million doses, with 38 million delivered. Brazil has purchased 120 million doses, with 18.2 million delivered. Mexico has purchased 55 million doses, with 10.5 million delivered. Read full article →

Pretrial detention is down to 53% from 2000, when 97% of suspects were kept in custody through trial. This is from the annual report of the Supreme People’s Procurate (SPP), China’s top prosecutors’ office, which is also responsible for ‘legal oversight’ of judicial and administrative action.  Read full article $→

Government revenue rose 18.7% to $642.9 billion in January and February and expenditure rose by 10.5% to 3.57 trillion yuan, focusing on key fields like education, social security, employment and healthcare. Read full article $→

Anti-corruption chief Zhao Leji’s promises: "We will crack down on ‘elegant bribery,’ ‘shadow shareholders,’ and other forms of hidden corruption. We will deepen anti-corruption work in the financial sector and strengthen financial supervision and internal governance. Efforts will be made to solve the problems of supervision over ‘top [government and Party] leaders.  Read full article $→

Guangdong clamped down on $42.6 million of bank loans that illicitly financed real estate transactions as a part of a broader campaign to cool the overheated housing market. Violators are on the hook for millions they have probably already spent, and face foreclosure if they are unable to repay. Read full article $→

"Court hearings for Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig are scheduled to take place on March 19 and March 22, respectively,” said Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau. [China has shown the Canadian Ambassador proof that both men–employees of George Soros–were engaged in espionage on the China-DPRK border–ed.] Read full article $→

Something interesting is happening in Southeast Asia, above, a combination of China and the agglomeration effect—a function of the general clustering of supply chains and product demand in Asia–which is why nearby Bangladesh is thriving. Read full article $→ 

Drawing from declassified US Government Intelligence reports, historian Wen-qing Ngoei concludes: "The key principle of U.S. Cold War policy toward [Asia] was to harness the interconnectedness of Southeast Asia’s Chinese so that Beijing could not. From mid-1954, U.S. planners began seeking ways to ‘encourage the overseas Chinese’ to ‘organize and activate anticommunist groups and activities within their own communities.’ Beyond this, Washington aspired to ‘cultivate’ overseas Chinese ‘sympathy and support’ for the GMD [Kuomintang]-dominated Taiwan as a ‘symbol of Chinese political resistance,’ to forge one more ‘link’ within the United States’ broader ‘defense against Communist expansion in Asia.’" Read full article $→

1. China has no geopolitical ambitions in the Asia-Pacific region. China's development is driven by the desire of more than 1 billion people to pursue a better livelihood. Further satisfying this desire is the fundamental focus of China's political governance. China does not believe that it has the ability, or that it is necessary, to pursue development by imperialist expansion. It has been proven by history that cooperation based on mutual benefit with other countries is more reliable and effective.
2. China has explored a set of domestic governance methods that suit its national conditions. There are some ideological differences between China and the West, but China has no hostility toward the West. China has, since ancient times, always been an exponent of keeping harmony in diversity. The US initiated the strategic containment of China, which has deteriorated China' s security environment, forced China to speed up the development of its military power and carry out tit-for-tat ideological struggle. However, China has been maintaining its defensive strategy toward the West.
3. China will never accept US interference in its internal affairs. How the US consumes the so-called human rights domestically is its own business. China will never give foreign forces a window to exercise long-arm jurisdiction on its internal affairs. What China can do is to help the US understand China's political logic and the moral basis for all its governance measures. Such a dialogue does not mean that China is likely to yield to any US pressure.
4. It is true that China has territorial disputes with some of its neighbors, but China's consistent position on these disputes is to resolve them peacefully. China has always advocated that territorial disputes should not become the dominant aspect of bilateral relations and should not interfere with cooperation between China and other countries. China is firm in its position of managing territorial disputes.
5. It is China's sacred right to develop. China has never contemplated as a geopolitical goal the possibility of overtaking the US in economic growth in a few years, nor has China ever considered replacing US hegemony with "Chinese hegemony." It is Beijing's sincere hope that the 21st century will be a century of win-win results for China, the US and other countries. China's development will not be a zero-sum victory only for China, but should become shared benefits worldwide. 
6. The Chinese are confident that they are capable of defending their own national security, and no matter how hard the US tries, it cannot contain China. If the US is willing to coexist and cooperate with China in peace, China welcomes that and will work hard to make that relationship work. If the US is determined to engage in confrontation, China will fight to the end. Read full article $→ 

"An unstable Southeast Asia is Washington's goal," says Brian Berletic. "A destabilized Southeast Asia denies China access to stable and prosperous political, economic, and military partners along its peripheries. If out of the chaos the US can create viable client regimes – the region can even be turned against China.

"As is common with US-backed color revolutions around the globe, Western media will attempt to cover up opposition violence for as long as possible until shifting the narrative toward a “reluctant civil war” in which opposition groups were “given no choice” but to take up arms. Of course, in every example – from Libya and Syria to Yemen and Ukraine – violence was part of US-backed political subversion from the beginning.

"This is no different in the Southeast Asian state of Myanmar where US-backed protesters are in the streets fighting with Myanmar’s police and military.

The “Activists Say” School of Journalism

The Western media is once again relying on the “activists say” method of reporting – absolving themselves from actual, objective and factual journalism and instead reporting on the conflict from the point of view of Western-backed opposition groups who have every motivation to depict themselves as victims and Myanmar’s new government as being brutal and repressive.

Reports are based almost entirely on information from local media funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – outlets like The Irrawaddy, Mizzama, DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma), as well as “monitoring groups” like the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

A glance at any Western media report will include at least one of these sources.

Far from journalists or actual monitoring groups – these are components of the opposition who have every motivation to relay a narrative that serves to advance their own political agenda rather than  reporting the truth.

Similar “activists say” reporting was used by the West for years during the Syrian conflict with the Western media attempting to cover up opposition violence up to and including junctures where militants began operating tanks, artillery, and anti-tank missiles.

Crumbling Facade

As in Syria and Ukraine – where Western attempts to cover up violence and brutality among the opposition eventually gave way to the fact that both opposition groups were violent extremists – the truth about violence used by protesters in Myanmar is also beginning to emerge.

An article from the Bangkok Post titled, “KNU vows protection for Karen protesting Myanmar coup,” would admit that the Karen National Union – an armed group who has waged a bloody insurrection against Myanmar’s central government for decades – has vowed to “protect” anti-government protesters.

Images of heavily armed militants travelling in convoys allegedly on their way to protest sites were circulating in media across Asia – but these reports are still being deliberately omitted from Western media coverage.

Similar scenes had played out in Libya and Syria in 2011 – with the public’s confusion and genuine belief that the Libyan and Syrian governments were brutalizing “peaceful protesters” owed wholly to the Western media’s deliberately misleading coverage.

US-funded fronts providing misinformation to the Western media, and the Western media’s reports themselves are being used to pressure the United Nations and the governments of countries around the globe to  in turn put pressure on Myanmar and restore the US client regime of Aung San Suu Kyi to power.

Efforts by Myanmar’s new government to tell its side of the story have been hampered by US-based social media companies that have shut down official accounts of Myanmar’s military and government, as well as Myanmar state media services – leaving literally only opposition media’s accounts for the global public to read.

AFP in its article, “Facebook shuts down Myanmar army ‘True News’ page,” would claim:

A Facebook page run by the Myanmar junta’s “True News” information service was kicked off the platform Sunday after the tech giant accused it of inciting violence.

Revealing is Facebook’s inaction toward opposition groups, including the KNU, who are clearly armed and engaging in violence, and using the US-based social media giant to coordinate their activities within the country and to spread misinformation abroad.

Carefully Manipulated Misinformation 

Carefully edited videos show only the moment security forces respond, with no context provided as to why Myanmar’s police and military are using force. A similar tactic is being used by US-backed protesters in neighboring Thailand – however the government and alternative media in Thailand have done a slightly better job showing the other side of the story – mainly to the Thai public and is likely one of several factors behind the protests finally fading there.

In the days, weeks, and months to come – if Myanmar’s government cannot manage this crisis and it continues to grow – the Western media will find it increasingly difficult to ignore the armed, violent nature of the opposition – an opposition – supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi – the Western media itself had noted were violently storming Rohingya communities in past years, killing locals and burning homes and businesses to the ground.

It is very unlikely that these same excessively violent opposition groups suddenly adopted peaceful protesting tactics since then – and even pictures in the media show them wearing body armor, holding shields, and in some cases advancing on the position of police and soldiers with clubs and metal rods – an act that would provoke violence from security forces anywhere in the world.

Evidence has already emerged that the opposition depicted as “peaceful protesters” by the West are using violence and further evidence will eventually emerge of deadly violence that is prompting an escalation across the country.

With reports of militant groups already mobilizing amid the protests – armed clashes are inevitable – and likely are already taking place. But – just as in Libya and Syria – the Western media will only report one side of the conflict for as long as possible – and alternative media, including state media from non-Western nations appear to have no presence in Myanmar and are instead – unfortunately – merely repeating Western reports – reports these alternative news sources should know better than to trust.

US-backed regime change succeeding anywhere, emboldens it everywhere.

If more voices are not raised in regards to Myanmar, demanding both sides of the story be told – the nation risks falling victim to the same chaos that consumed nations targeted by the US elsewhere – with the possibility of the violence and instability crossing over the border into Thailand and beyond.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.  

Says Caitlin Johnson: You can understand the establishment China narratives by grasping just two points. One, we are in a slow-motion third world war between the US and its allies and the nations which have resisted absorption into this alliance. Two, propaganda moves this slow-motion war along. Now you understand why the western political/media class is behaving as it does: China has resisted absorption into the imperial blob. Follow Caitlin here.  

China made some significant changes to its economic direction and overall investment policy during the course of 2020, with profound implications, both, for foreign investors in China and for overseas funds and investors looking for Chinese money.

These have occurred at just the same time that Western media has been beating up on China’s Belt & Road Initiative again, which has been in the spotlight recently with opinionated articles suggesting debt re-negotiations and a lack of money is putting pressure on Beijing. While it is true that Beijing’s Overseas Direct Investment (ODI) has slowed, this is also because after seven years, and a spend of US$4 trillion, many of the BRI’s 3,176 projects are coming to completion. There is simply no further need for additional spending on the scale previously seen. Media comments, such as China’s BRI spend slowing, although true, fail to understand the reasons why. It is not dissimilar to the media attention “bubble bursting” comments on China’s GDP growth slowdown a few years ago, it being fiscally impossible for any economy to sustain rates of 10 percent per annum. Such it is with the Belt & Road Initiative.

As for debt renegotiations, these amount to some US$28 billion still requiring attention, mainly from poorer or less-well managed countries that have seen already frail fiscal revenues take a battering due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That US$28 billion sounds a lot but is less than 0.5 percent of China’s total loans.

Among all this negativity, the World Bank is projecting China’s 2021 GDP growth to be about 7.9 percent, significantly more than nearly any other country as the world recovers from the COVID virus.

So, what is really going on?

Rather than the knee-jerk “the belt and road is failing” and “China is running out of money” rhetoric, the nuances are far more subtle but well known. I describe important policy developments that impact would-be foreign investors into China in 2021 as follows:

China’s New Foreign Investment Law

Changes to this had first been mooted back in 2015, with apparently competing versions of this doing the rounds between MOFCOM and the NDRC. President Xi then stepped in, and a draft was made ready by the end of 2018 and made available for public consultation. It was passed into law in Q1 2019, unusually fast for China, and took effect in January this year. Among many other provisions (we gave a background here and published a complete issue of China Briefing Magazine dedicated to the subject here) the new law opened China Government procurement tenders to foreign companies.

This is of relevance to the Belt & Road Initiative as many projects are quasi-sourced, or originate from China’s diplomatic channels, and almost immediately fall into the remit of their SOE’s. However, faced with challenges in certain constructions and other technological areas, and in need of the technology themselves, China allowed overseas partners to bid for projects. We discussed the implications of this in the article Understanding China’s New Foreign Investment Law as Concerns Belt & Road Procurement.

Change One: Foreign companies can now bid for China Government Procurement Contracts.

China’s 2020 Amended Negative List: China’s ‘Negative List’ is a detailed description of which industrial and service sectors in China are open, partially open, or closed to foreign investors in China. The ‘Negative’ title reflects the off-limits sectors. The 2020 amendment significantly increases market access for foreign companies in China. We can see an example of the impact that has had in the above graphic concerning Germany, courtesy of China Investment Research and the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management.

How China companies are investing  

Tencent has invested in 800 companies, of which 160 are unicorns with a valuation in excess of US$1 billion, and 70 are listed. Alibaba has invested in 312, gone through 676 funding rounds, and made 50 exits. These are Chinese investors and growing their businesses in being such.
China IPOs 2020 

This strategy is also showing up in the performance of Chinese IPOs this year. The three Greater China stock exchanges, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Shenzhen accounted for 45 percent of total global IPOs between Q1 and Q3 this year. By mid-October, 308 Chinese companies had raised US$73.5 billion.

In the United States, 29 Chinese companies raised US$9 billion, and in the UK, two IPOs realized US$3.9 billion, all between Q1 and Q3.
 

Overseas funds 

Increasing overseas funds are turning to hold Chinese sovereign debt, with 2020 showing an increase of US$66 billion in Q3 alone, the faster pace ever. Chinese securities have a 10-year yield of 3.9 percent, an attractive bet when US$16 trillion of global debt is yielding less than zero. Foreign institutional funds now hold nine percent of Chinese bonds, up from four percent in 2017.

Chinese overseas direct investment 

Although several big-ticket BRI projects will continue to be funded in the coming years, China is taking a more strategic view – exiting investments to realize a set RoI, or building companies through investment. Increasingly, these take the form of strategically placed minority investments.

While the Financial Times might point out and suggest China ODI is slowing, which is correct, more research and less rhetoric might have shown them that China is now both concentrating on developing itself into a consumer-based economic model and that Belt & Road Initiative investments are being more strategically thought through

China’s Health Silk Road 

An example here is China’s involvement in the Health Silk Road. China has exponentially increased its ODI investments in global healthcare, equity investments, and licensing during 2020. According to China Investment Research, China’s spending in Q3 alone included 48 outbound investments in joint ventures and drug research for a July-September total of US$2.503 billion, with an average investment size of US$52 million. China’s acquisition or buying into overseas medical companies included businesses in Canada, Germany, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, the UK, and the US.

It is a trend that will continue. China is putting its money where its mouth is in terms of partnering overseas in healthcare and this can be expected to be a major driver of future BRI and global healthcare development.

Summary 

The policy changes I have pointed out are in place and are being acted on now. There is no doubt that China is very serious when it means it is open for business and that there are 400 million consumers it needs to have products delivered to. The changes COVID-19 has brought, especially in the digital arena, will further change the way in which tomorrow’s consumers will buy products – just look at how Amazon’s stock price and Jeff Bezo’s personal wealth have rocketed due to home deliveries this year.

China’s opening up – a new “Negative List” was issued last week, we explain the implications of that here – the easing of both China’s Foreign Investment Laws and the Dual Circulation Strategy are all combining to make China the consumer economy it wants to be. This is excellent news for manufacturers overseas – China wants your products. In China’s own ODI, this is being managed along with Chinese State Planning, and is slowing down from the heady days of multi-billion dollar infrastructure deals to more considered M&A. This represents a rather more mature China that is now emerging onto the world stage.

China still has money and is still making money. The three China bourses raised nearly half of the global money raised – outstripping the US as institutional investors raising capital for new businesses and developing them. China’s innovations are now being determined by the type of businesses that people are prepared to part with money for – and increasingly, almost exclusively, they are in hi-tech.

The way to China is to sell via hi-tech means going digital and online. We examined how to do that here.

Alternatively, foreign investors can establish operations in China, and sell directly from there – as well as export duty-free to markets in ASEAN and RCEP and elsewhere. We examined the manufacturing and trading establishment options for China here. 

Or, if China costs are not quite your thing, you can do the same from ASEAN and sell to China from there – again that Free Trade Agreement applies. Our complimentary 2021 Guide to Doing Business in ASEAN can be downloaded here.

This is all occurring just at the same time that China is exiting its Belt & Road Initiative, or at least the major infrastructure part. There, too, are opportunities. China built Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port, Airport, Free Trade Zone, and the road and rail infrastructure. It has now invested another US$300 million to set up a tire manufacturing facility utilizing those exact same facilities. Sri Lanka provided a tax sweetener just as China used to do for foreign investors back in the mid-1990s. China’s investment though will boost the local rubber industry, will, directly and indirectly, employ thousands, gives Sri Lanka technology access, and helps move forward the island nation’s desire to be a regional Asian tire manufacturer. You can bet that other BRI investments will also be used as springboards for Chinese companies. I discussed how non-Chinese companies can take advantage of China’s Belt & Road build here.

That BRI build completion means opportunities for local investors – exploiting the infrastructure. With over 3,000 Chinese-funded projects coming to fruition there is a lot to look at. We explored some of the key Eurasian hubs along the China-Europe rail freight routes here, some of the European BRI projects to watch here, and other developments in ASEAN here, South America here, and Africa here. We even discussed how US investors can take advantage of Central America’s BRI projects now coming to completion, while not leaving out our Russian friends either.

As you can see, there are plenty of options, and what China has accomplished in 2020 for 2021 foreign investors is just that – increased our options, and increased the available scope for involvement, investment, and returns on that. China’s future is here, and it is looking increasingly profitable.

Fear of Liberals

Cato's Trip to Shanghai

Zhao's Demise

Friedman Returns to China

Whither Reform?

Shi explains to Chinese foreign policy elites that U.S. national security policy has the following five characteristics:

1. Focuses on maintaining global hegemony
   While other countries think of national security strictly in terms of policies and behaviors designed to protect one's own borders and to maintain domestic security, the United States takes a much more expansive view, Shi writes. He argues that the United States’ national security agenda is also based on maintaining its global hegemonic status. 

2. National security also means economic security, political security, and promoting American values
   Shi explains that the US definition of national security goes well beyond considering physical security, intelligence, and counterintelligence issues alone, as most countries do. The U.S. definition also includes commercial interests and the promotion of American values. The definition is ever-widening, too, Shi adds, noting that the 2010 National Security Strategy (NSS) included cybersecurity, along with national security, public security, and economic security objectives.

3. It assumes moral superiority
   American policymakers also think it is important to promote American “morality and ideology”, Shi writes, adding that U.S. policymakers think that American-style liberal democracy is the “highest achievement” in the history of human development. This leads “most” American policymakers to believe that “history will be on [their] side,” contributing to a tendency to favor interventionism and unilateralism to solve problems. 

4. Emphasizes military and technology superiority
   U.S. policymakers want to see decisive victories, which can be secured as long as the US can maintain technological and/or military domination over its rivals. As a result, U.S. policymakers promote policies that support U.S. technology firms and contain foreign technology rivals like China.

5. Promotes the international system in its current form
   In the past, other hegemonic powers conquered territories or enslaved populations to maintain global dominance. The U.S. has taken a different approach, Shi writes. He explains that the U.S. forms alliances with other countries and promotes international organizations as a way to benefit and “borrow” from others’ power.

National security policymaking structure and process

After spending some time explaining the legal framework that establishes America’s national security apparatus — he discusses the National Security Act of 1947, which created organizations like the National Security Council (NSC) and CIA — Shi details specific concepts that he concludes are important to understanding how U.S. policymakers develop and execute national security policy. These include:

1. Promulgation of the annual National Security Strategy
   Shi explains that the Goldwater-Nichols Act requires that every White House publish and transmit to Congress an NSS, which is typically written by the NSC with input from other national security agencies.
   
   While there are formal processes for national security agencies to provide input to and to review the NSS, there is also considerable informal back-and-forth between the agencies, too. The NSC’s job is to help resolve conflicts, Shi writes. For example, he says that the Department of State and Department of Defense (DOD) frequently have competing goals and the NSC must intervene to make final decisions in those cases.

   Shi observes that outside political forces also try to influence the NSS. For example, the White House and other national security agencies meet with outside groups to seek their consultation in the development of the NSS. Congress will also opine. Although Congress does not have the formal authority to approve or restrict elements of the NSS, Congress does carry influence because many elements tied to the NSS, such as DOD acquisition, are subject to Congressional approval, Shi writes.
   
   Following publication of the NSS, Shi explains that other agencies develop their own derivative strategies, such as the Nuclear Posture Review, National Intelligence Strategy, National Cyber Strategy, and others. 

2. The US president sets the tone on American foreign policy
   Shi writes that US foreign policy can change significantly depending on who is the American president. The NSC sits inside the White House and acts as the “imperial center” of the American national security system, Shi explains, adding that its proximity to the president gives it more influence than other national security agencies. As a result, Shi writes that it is often through the NSC that the president will direct the administration’s most important policies or highly controversial policies or programs. For example, the Reagan Administration ran the Iran-Contra program through the NSC, Shi notes.
   
   The strength of the NSC depends on who is president and the relationships that president has with other cabinet heads, he explains. For example, Nixon directed much of his foreign policy through the NSC whereas Kennedy leaned more heavily on his Secretary of State, Shi writes.   
   
   American presidents tend to enjoy more widespread public support for their foreign policies than for their domestic policies, so the U.S. Congress tends to support presidents’ foreign policy agendas, Shi explains. He adds that, during times of conflict, presidents also tend to enjoy a “rally around the flag” effect in support of their policies, especially at the beginning of armed conflict, however this public support can wane over time.

3. Other agencies have increasing influence in US foreign policy
   Shi writes that as the American definition of national security has evolved over time, a corresponding and increasing number of U.S. government agencies have also started to play a role in setting America’s foreign policy agenda. In addition to agencies like the Department of State, DOD, and the CIA, which have been the traditional actors in American foreign policy, agencies like the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Department of Treasury are increasingly influential, he writes. 

4. National security policymaking is not always transparent
   While the U.S. government has formal processes for developing national security policies, policies can also take shape in informal ways, too, Shi writes. The president may have conversations with friends and advisers that inform his thinking, for example, Shi explains. However, given that the rule of a law is a foundational principle in the United States, presidents are unlikely to operate outside of what is legally permissible, he notes. 

5. The CIA is a strong intelligence agency, but it is not Washington’s only spy shop
   Shi writes that in addition to the CIA, other government agencies have their own intelligence offices and/or agencies, including DOD, and the Department of State, among others. Shi explains that the intelligence community (IC) operates under the direction of the Director for National Intelligence (DNI). 
   
   As a global power, the United States is “keen on overseas intervention, and its external covert actions are unparalleled in frequency, cases, and influence,” Shi argues. One of the reasons why the CIA is so strong is that it is able to work through networks and partnerships with other countries’ intelligence agencies, he adds.
   
   He also comments on U.S. laws governing the IC. This includes rules and regulations that protect the identities of intelligence officers, promote information sharing and coordination among IC agencies (an outgrowth of the 9/11 attacks), and laws that prohibit the CIA from domestic spying. Shi writes that Congress has oversight over the IC, but has relatively little control over the IC’s activities, especially regarding covert actions.

6. The U.S. is willing to do what it takes to win the battle over technology
   Shi writes that the U.S. national security community sees technology superiority as its next major challenge and that it is willing to circumvent “market forces” to ensure that America maintains a technological edge over other countries, including by investing in areas such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence. He adds that this also includes adopting policies to contain Chinese companies, especially those active in sensitive sectors like 5G.  

7. The U.S. military is in a “crisis” but generally enjoys public support
   Shi writes that the U.S. military is in the midst of a “crisis” relative to the broad public support that it has historically received because of a string of military sexual harassment cases and past news about U.S. military involvement in torture cases, among other issues. However, he explains that the U.S. military generally receives strong public support because the U.S. economy (and jobs) is so tied to defense spending. The U.S. government also has many education and scholarship programs that are supported by the U.S. military, so this further increases the public’s contact with and support for a strong national defense, Shi comments. 

8. The national security agenda will likely expand over time, but there are limits
   Shi concludes that the U.S. national security agenda will likely continue to expand over time and will include new areas. However, even the United States has limits. He says that the U.S. will still be constrained by budget realities, so spending and expansion of the national security agenda will wax and wane over time. Subscribe to the Chinese Journal Review.

The Indian government has done the right thing by sending an advisory to the four northeastern states — Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh — to be vigilant about preventing large scale influx of people from across the border with Myanmar where the internal situation is deteriorating. 

Authorities in Myanmar extended martial law in more areas of the main city of Yangon Monday amid reports of more killings of protesters at the hands of security forces. Authorities had earlier imposed martial law in a suburb of the city after several Chinese-owned factories were set on fire and about 2,000 people had stopped fire engines from reaching them. 

The Chinese Communist Party daily Global Times has alleged in an editorial that “The violent attacks were apparently well organised and planned”. The editorial hinted that the protests in Myanmar and the arson against Chinese establishments are being coordinated from abroad. Beijing traced the twitter account of Founder and Executive Director of Burma Human Rights Network, operating out of London since 2015, for inciting the unrest in Myanmar. 

The BHRN is known to be linked to the British intelligence. An established pattern of colour revolution stirred up through the social media is repeating — as had happened in Hong Kong, Thailand and Belarus recently. For the past several weeks, BBC, Radio Free Asia (US-funded), Voice of America, etc. have been on overdrive regarding Myanmar closely coordinating with the young revolutionaries in Yangon. 

The Global Times disclosed that the US asked China to condemn the Myanmar military and impose sanctions against it. But, “China will certainly not accept it. Actually, none of ASEAN members has the same attitude as the US and the West. Myanmar’s neighbouring countries have coincidently held the same stance with profound, realistic reasons. This is in line with the moral principles of independence and autonomy of each country. The West has no right to point an accusing finger at them.” 

The Russian assessment is also that the West’s motivation in stirring up the Myanmar situation is “cynical” — with a view to “make problems for China.” A commentary in the Sputnik said, 

“Western powers sense they have China over a barrel with Myanmar due to its strategic economic interests. If China doesn’t condemn, then the anger of Myanmar protesters can be directed at ripping up infrastructure. If China does condemn, then it is being put in to sour relations with Myanmar’s military rulers. The Western powers appear to be ratcheting up the vice-like position.” 

“The Biden administration has made it abundantly clear that it is ramping up the geopolitical rivalry with China even more than the previous Trump administration. Washington wants to clamp down on China’s rise as a global power. By targeting Myanmar, the United States and its Western allies calculate that they can damage a key node in China’s new Silk Routes for its lucrative global trade and economic expansion.”

Chaos in Myanmar, which has a strategic location on China’s periphery, suits the West. It will block China’s access to the Indian Ocean from Yunnan via Bay of Bengal. Creating instability in the peripheries of Russia and China is a template of the US’ containment strategy. The intention is to stir up colour revolution, instal pro-US regimes via local proxies and encircle Russia and China in an arc of hostility. The colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine met with success. The attempts by the western intelligence to create turbulent conditions to undermine the established order in Hong Kong and Belarus failed. Thailand and Myanmar are work in progress.

However, from the Indian perspective, what matters most is not the geopolitics of Myanmar but that this is all about a neighbouring country with which it has a 1600 km border. A chaotic situation in Myanmar ensuing from the geopolitical struggle would have serious consequences for the security of India’s northeastern region, which has historical, cultural and ethnic links with the tribes inhabiting the border regions of Myanmar.

A large scale influx of these tribes into India due to the chaos in Myanmar and the breakdown of state power, is becoming a high probability. It must be prevented at all costs. Global Times was spot on in forewarning that “Various ethnic groups live in Myanmar, resulting in complex contradictions within the country. An active interference in Myanmar’s domestic affairs will bring unbearable consequences.” 

The heart of the matter is that the current unrest is restricted mainly to the cities and towns of the central region of Myanmar inhabited by the Burmans — principally, the cities of Yangon and Mandalay. The other regions (borderlands) are inhabited by various ethnic groups comprising nearly 50% of the population who are not involved at all in the current unrest.

Alas, outsiders are largely unaware of the complex inter-ethnic equations in Myanmar. Broadly, there are more than 20 different ethnic armed formations in Myanmar who are estimated to have around 70000 fighters operating mostly in remote jungle mountain areas where some of them control territory which is notionally under the central govt, while others are waging guerrilla war for decades. 

Any notion that these non-Burman ethnic groups could team up with the protestors (Burmans) in Yangon or Mandalay and form a unified force is pretty fanciful. In fact, the Burman politicians drawn from the central region (Aung Saan Suu Kyi’s NLD) have hardly any moorings in the peripheral regions. 

For good reasons, today, these non-Burman ethnic groups are not receptive to the appeal by the NLD for unity to confront the military. They harbour a strong sense of disillusionment / resentment that the “benefits” of democratic rule under the NLD headed by Suu Kyi through the past decade never really percolated to them. In fact, in a lot of those ethnic areas, the conflict actually increased and more human rights violations took place during the past 10 years than before. Suu Kyi and her government were also silent about these human rights violations. They didn’t condemn them or try to stop them. They even branded some of the ethnic groups as terrorist organisations. 

Herein lies the paradox. The heart of the matter is that the NLD is a staunchly (Burman) nationalist party. Now, Suu Kyi’s father had founded the Burmese military as a symbol of Burman nationalism — and the military became the bulwark for the newly created state after independence with the Burman as its ethnic base. Suu Kyi herself has been mindful that the military as an institution must remain as the “steel frame” without which Myanmar, a mosaic of over 135 ethnic groups, would disintegrate into countless fiefdoms locked in warlordism or civil war. 

Inevitably, India’s northeastern region will be sucked into the tribal wars and ethnic strife inside a chaotic Myanmar. The population in India’s northeastern region have a strong sense of kinship with the ethnic groups across the border. Christianity is the second largest religion in Myanmar, making up close to 10% of the population already. It was no coincidence that in 2017, the Pope undertook an evangelical mission to Myanmar.

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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.