Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
BEIJING, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) — The Chinese Spring Festival gala will be broadcast live at 8:00 p.m. on Jan. 24, the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year, as the last dress rehearsal wrapped up late Wednesday, the production company China Media Group said.
The gala, which usually runs for more than four hours, will feature pop songs, crosstalk and sketch comedies, as well as other art forms, all of which mirror trending stories of common Chinese people over the past year, the media conglomerate said.
Crosstalk is a traditional Chinese comic performance featuring jokes and funny dialogue. Together with sketch comedies, such performances are widely-anticipated by audiences.
The performance will be presented worldwide via close to 600 media platforms, it added.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addresses a Chinese Lunar New Year reception at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 23, 2020. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council held the reception on Thursday in Beijing. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)
BEIJING, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday stressed racing against time and keeping abreast with history to reach the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.
“Time and history wait for no one as they are both on the side of hard workers,” said Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission.
Xi made the remarks while addressing a Chinese Lunar New Year reception held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Under the strong leadership of the CPC, all members of the Party, armed forces and people of all ethnic groups must fear no wind or wave, rise up to challenges and keep marching toward the glorious goal of national rejuvenation and the great prospect of building a community with a shared future for humanity, Xi said.
At the reception, held by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, Xi extended Lunar New Year’s greetings to Chinese people of all ethnic groups, compatriots in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and overseas Chinese.
Party and state leaders Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng and Wang Qishan were among the more than 2,000 people attending the reception. Li Keqiang chaired the event.
Xi noted in his speech that new and significant progress has been made in the past year toward building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
He mentioned major events during the year, including the fourth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of Macao’s return to the motherland and resolute efforts to safeguard the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and Macao, as well as celebrations marking the 70th founding anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.
A campaign themed “staying true to our founding mission” was also carried out to demand the more than 90 million Party members remember to always stay with the people.
“In the new year, we must secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and fighting poverty,” Xi said, adding that achieving this first centenary goal is a milestone in the process of realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.
The results, Xi said, must be recognized by the people and stand the test of time.
Xi said the Chinese nation, with a civilization stretching back over 5,000 years, has made indelible contributions to the civilization and progress of mankind. But the nation was held back for too long by various internal and external troubles in modern times.
That is why, Xi said, the Chinese people have always had an extraordinary sense of urgency and appreciation of the underlying trend of the times.
From now to the middle of this century, the Chinese people will strive to build China into a great modern socialist country. It will be a great era in which a new splendid chapter of the Chinese civilization will be written, he said.
Every Chinese person must feel proud of living in such a great era, Xi said.
“We must maintain strategic direction and resolve, stay united, work hard and forge ahead against all odds,” Xi said.
on Thursday, just a week after President Tsai Ing-wen angered Beijing by saying the island was an independent country.
According to Taiwan’s defence ministry, the formation, which included a KJ-500 early warning and control aircraft and an H-6 bomber, passed through the Bashi Channel near Taiwan’s Orchid Island en route to the western Pacific Ocean.
It did not say how many aircraft were involved but said they had taken off from different airbases in southern China.
“They returned to their airbases from their morning flight path after a long-haul exercise,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry urged the public not to be alarmed by the aircraft’s presence, saying it constantly monitored the activities of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), both in the air and at sea.
Taiwan’s armed forces would also remain on high alert over the Lunar New Year
holiday, which starts on Friday, it said.
“There is no holiday for national security,” it said.
The PLA exercise came just a week after Tsai said on January 15 that Beijing needed to face the reality of Taiwan’s independence.
“We don’t have a need to declare ourselves an independent state,” she said in an interview with the BBC. “We are an independent country already and we call ourselves the Republic of China, Taiwan.”
Tsai urges mainland China to review strained ties
21 Jan 2020
Tsai’s comments came just days after she secured a second term as president with a record 8.2 million votes.
In her victory speech, she promised to continue to stand up to Beijing’s intimidation, while also strengthening Taiwan’s defences, partly by developing more home-grown military equipment, including submarines.
US-made F-16V fighters took part in a show of Taiwan’s military might last week. Photo: AFP
In response to Tsai’s “independent country” comments, Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said: “We firmly attack and counter various forms of Taiwan independence and separatist activities to maintain overall peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
Beijing regards Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary. Official ties between the two sides have been suspended since Tsai took office in 2016 and refused to accept the one-China principle – the political understanding that there is only one China with ambiguity over whether it is governed by Taipei or Beijing.
Over the past four years Beijing has ramped up the pressure on the island, by poaching its diplomatic allies and staging military drills.
Taiwanese Minister of National Defence Yen Te-fa said earlier that the mainland staged about 2,000 bomber patrols a year near the Taiwan Strait.
For their part, Taiwan’s army and air force last week gave two demonstrations of their readiness to defend the island against attack.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits the former site of the National Southwest Associated University (NSAU) in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, in the afternoon on Jan. 20, 2020. The NSAU was a coalition between Peking and Tsinghua universities in Beijing, and Tianjin’s Nankai University during the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Xi visited the museum commemorating the university, and learned about the history of the institution when its teachers and students dedicated themselves to the country during the war. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)
KUNMING, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) — Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Monday afternoon visited the former site of the National Southwest Associated University (NSAU).
The NSAU was a coalition between Peking and Tsinghua universities in Beijing, and Tianjin’s Nankai University during the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
Xi visited the museum commemorating the university, and learned about the history of the institution when its teachers and students dedicated themselves to the country during the war.
BEIJING (Reuters) – With millions of Asians travelling on Tuesday for the Lunar New Year holiday, authorities in China confirmed that a new virus could be spread through human contact, reporting 15 medical staff had been infected and a fourth person had died.
The chilling update on the coronavirus outbreak that began in the central city of Wuhan sent shivers through financial markets, as the World Health Organisation called a meeting for Wednesday to consider declaring an international health emergency.
By the end of Monday the number of confirmed cases in China had climbed to 291, the National Health Commission said. Some 270 were in Hubei province. Wuhan, a city of 11 million people is the provincial capital.
The outbreak was also spreading to other cities, with 15 cases in southern province of Guangdong, five in the capital Beijing and two in Shanghai.
RELATED COVERAGE
WHO says expects further spread of new coronavirus in China
Death toll from coronavirus outbreak in China’s Wuhan rises to six – state TV
“Information about newly reported infections suggest there may now be sustained human to human transmission,” WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific Takeshi Kasai said in an email statement.
The scare brought back bad memories of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), another coronavirus that broke out in China in 2002/2003, resulting in the death of nearly 800 people in global pandemic.
Health authorities around the world have begun to step up screening of travellers arriving from China. Two cases have already been identified in Thailand, one in Japan and one in South Korea, while the Philippines reported on Tuesday its first suspected case.
Wuhan Municipal Health Commission confirmed a fourth fatality on Tuesday, disclosing that an 89-year-old man who had underlying health issues, including heart disease, died on Jan. 19.
Chinese authorities also confirmed for the first time that the virus could spread through human contact and said 15 medical staff had been infected.
The mounting anxiety was transmitted to regional markets. China’s onshore yuan CNY= fell 0.6%, its biggest daily drop since Aug. 26, 2019, while airline and travel stocks fell across the region.
European shares also slipped on mounting concerns about the impact of the outbreak, with luxury goods firms particularly hard-hit on worries about weaker demand from Chinese consumers.
The virus can cause pneumonia, with symptoms including fever and difficulty in breathing. As those symptoms are similar to many other respiratory diseases, extra screening is needed.
AIRPORT SCREENING
The origin of the virus has yet to be identified, but the primary source is most likely animal, according to WHO. Chinese officials have linked the outbreak to a seafood market in Wuhan.
“The outbreak of a SARS-like coronavirus in Wuhan is developing into a major potential economic risk to the Asia-Pacific region now that there is medical evidence of human-to-human transmission,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia Pacific Chief Economist for IHS Markit, in an email statement.
So far, the WHO has not recommended trade or travel restrictions but such measures could be discussed at Wednesday’s emergency meeting.
China’s National Health Commission will also give an update on the outbreak at a press briefing at 10 a.m. (0200 GMT) on Wednesday.
Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China will attend the WHO meeting and share relevant information.
“China is willing to deepen its global cooperation and work with the international community to work together to deal with the epidemic,” Geng told reporters at a regular daily briefing.
Airport authorities in the United States as well as most Asian nations also are screening passengers from Wuhan.
Australia on Tuesday said it would screen passengers on flights from Wuhan, while Singapore announced it would quarantine individuals with pneumonia and a history of travel to Wuhan within 14 days prior to the onset of symptoms.
QUEUES FOR MASKS
Wuhan officials have been using infrared thermometers to screen passengers at airports, railway stations and other passenger terminals since Jan. 14.
Zhong Nanshan, head of the National Health Commission’s team of experts investigating the outbreak, said in footage shown by state television on Monday there was no danger of a repeat of the SARS epidemic so long as precautions were taken.
Images of long lines of people queuing to buy face masks were circulating widely on Chinese social media, where the outbreak was one of the top trending topics.
Some online vendors were limiting sales of masks and hand sanitizers as demand surged.
And Shanghai’s market regulator warned on Tuesday that it will punish speculators who hoard masks and other products used for preventing diseases, according to the Shanghai Observer – a web publication backed by a Communist Party newspaper.
Trip.com, China’s top online travel booking platform, said it would refund customers who cancel bookings in Wuhan this month, or whose travel plans are disrupted by quarantines or other regulatory efforts to prevent the spread of the virus.
BEIJING (Reuters) – An outbreak of a new coronavirus in China has spread to more cities, Chinese authorities said on Monday, as the number of patients tripled and a third person died, stoking concerns about containment of the illness.
The Daxing health commission in the capital Beijing said it had confirmed two cases of coronavirus, while the southern Guangdong province’s health commission confirmed one case in Shenzhen. They mark the first cases in China beyond the central city of Wuhan where the virus first emerged.
The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission said 136 new cases of pneumonia caused by the coronavirus strain had been found in the city over the weekend, adding to 62 already known cases. A third death occurred on Saturday, the authority said in a statement.
RELATED COVERAGE
Masks on, Chinese start holiday travels as alarm mounts over mystery virus
South Korea confirms first case of new coronavirus in Chinese visitor
This brings the total number of known cases worldwide to more than 200, underscoring the challenge for health authorities seeking to contain the outbreak. South Korea on Monday reported its first confirmed case of the coronavirus, a 35-year-old female Chinese national who had travelled from Wuhan, the fourth patient to be reported outside China.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese tourists will be traveling domestically and abroad during the Lunar New Year holiday period that starts later this week.
A report by London Imperial College’s MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis estimated that by Jan. 12 there were 1,723 cases in Wuhan City with onset of related symptoms. Chinese health authorities have not commented directly on the report.
CONTAINMENT EFFORTS
Authorities around the globe, including in the United States and many Asian countries, have stepped up screening of travellers from Wuhan. Last week, two cases were reported in Thailand and one in Japan. All three involved people from Wuhan or who recently visited the city.
The virus belongs to the same family of coronaviruses as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed nearly 800 people globally during a 2002/03 outbreak that also started in China.
Its symptoms include fever and difficulty in breathing, which are similar to many other respiratory diseases and pose complications for screening efforts.
China’s National Health Commission said on Sunday it will step up prevention efforts, but acknowledged it still doesn’t know the source of the virus.
Shares in pharmaceutical firms and mask makers in China surged Monday because of the outbreak.
The outbreak was one of the top trending topics on Chinese social media platform Weibo, where many users expressed concerns about their safety.
“Who knows how many people who have been to Wuhan may be unaware that they have already been infected?,” one user said.
China’s Global Times, published by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper, said in an editorial the government needs to disclose all information and not repeat the mistakes made with SARS. Chinese officials covered up the SARS outbreak for weeks before a growing death toll and rumours forced it to reveal the epidemic.
“Concealment would be a serious blow to the government’s credibility and might trigger greater social panic,” the editorial said.
President Milos Zeman says Beijing has not fulfilled its promises and he will not attend this year’s 17+1 summit
He had hoped the country would be an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ for Chinese investment in Europe, but now Zeman has changed his tone
Czech Republic President Milos Zeman has voiced disappointment over China’s lack of investment in the country. Photo: AFP
Czech President Milos Zeman’s decision to skip China’s summit with European leaders in April shows the “honeymoon is over” between Prague and Beijing, analysts say, as it tries to shake up the relationship to push for more investment.
And China could face similar trouble with other nations looking for more at this year’s “17+1” summit with Central and Eastern European nations in Beijing.
Top leaders usually attend the gathering, but Zeman on Sunday said he would not be going, and that China had not “done what it promised” by failing to invest more in his country. He would instead send Deputy Prime Minister Jan Hamacek, which he said was “adequate to the level of cooperation”.
At last year’s summit in Croatia, Prague was represented by Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who was diplomatically on par with the Chinese representative,
But it is China’s turn this year, and President Xi Jinping will be the host – meaning heads of state are expected to attend. The 17+1 grouping was launched by Beijing in 2012.
Deputy Prime Minister Jan Hamacek will represent Prague at the 17+1 summit. Photo: Twitter
Zeman was a strong advocate for deepening economic ties with China and investments were on the rise, for a time. But Zeman and other Czech leaders have increasingly questioned the nature of the relationship, especially as the economic benefits have dwindled.
Relations with China grew after Zeman, who is in his second term as president, took office in 2013. The peak came in 2016, when Xi visited the country and promised more Chinese investment. That year, Zeman said he hoped his country would be an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for Chinese investment in Europe.
But since then, the investments have faltered, not just in the Czech Republic, but across Central and Eastern Europe, and Zeman has changed his tone. In April, he called the lack of investment in his nation a “stain on the Czech-China relationship”, in an interview with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
Chinese President Xi Jinping meets his Czech counterpart Milos Zeman during a visit to Prague in 2016, when he promised more investment. Photo: AFP
“I suppose he feels that promises made to him personally were not fulfilled, since he has had personal contact with Xi Jinping on a number of occasions … he surely feels that his commitment to China has not been reciprocated,” said Jeremy Garlick, assistant professor of international relations at the University of Economics, Prague.
Zeman has visited China five times and was the only EU leader to attend a Chinese military parade in 2015 to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
I suppose he feels that promises made to him personally were not fulfilled, since he has had personal contact with Xi Jinping on a number of occasions Jeremy Garlick, University of Economics, Prague
Rudolf Furst, a senior researcher at Charles University in Prague, said Zeman had given up his unequivocal support for a pragmatic pro-Chinese agenda.
“Chinese investments flow in Czechia have remained low, and not matching the Czech structural needs for stimulating the GDP growth,” he said.
Most of the 17+1 member states, except for Hungary and Greece, were now “perceiving the Chinese investment promises as merely virtual”, Furst said. “The 2012 new wave of China’s honeymoon is over.”
Rhodium Group has tracked Chinese foreign direct investment data in Europe since 2000. Its data shows that while total Chinese investment in the Czech Republic had grown to about €1 billion (US$1.1 billion) by 2018, growth has been slow, while neighbouring countries like Italy and Germany had some 15 to 20 times more investment in their economies.
Cumulative Chinese foreign direct investment in the Czech Republic between 2000 and 2017 sat at about €600 million, and grew to €1 billion in 2018, while that in neighbour Germany grew from €20.6 billion to €22.2 billion over the same period.
The picture is much the same for Eastern Europe as a whole – Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia received just 2 per cent of China’s overall investment in Europe in 2018, according to the data.
Countries like France, Germany and Britain meanwhile received 9, 12 and 24 per cent, respectively.
Czech Republic becomes unlikely front line in China’s soft power war
14 Dec 2019
Other Czech politicians have also taken a tougher line on China. Babis warned of a “considerable” trade deficit with China in 2018. The country exported US$1.8 billion of goods to China in the first nine months of last year, down 4.3 per cent from a year earlier. But it imported US$11.7 billion of products from China – by far its largest source of imports.
And after Zeman’s announcement this week, the Green Party, which holds a handful of seats in the Czech Senate, called for Prague to pull out of the 17+1 platform altogether.
Prime Minister Andrej Babis warned of a “considerable” trade deficit with China in 2018. Photo: AFP
Richard Turcsanyi, director of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies at Palacky University in the Czech Republic, said both Prague and Beijing were expecting too much.
“I see the current sharp downturn of Czech-China relations being related to very high and unrealistic expectations which existed perhaps on both sides, driven to a large extent by the ignorance of each other,” he said.
“Due to the impressive economic growth of China and also its international economic expansion, many expected that China could quickly become a significant economic actor in the Czech Republic,” he said.
“In reality, the Czech Republic and China are not natural trading or investment partners. They are more of competitors when it comes to moving up the value chain, rather than complementary economic partners – contrary to what has been claimed for years as part of the diplomatic exchanges.”
Political tensions with China have also increased, including over security allegations about Huawei Technologies, and sensitive issues like Taiwan and Tibet.
This week, Shanghai suspended official contact with the Czech capital Prague after it signed a sister city agreement with Taipei – following Prague cancelling its deal with Beijing in October over a “one China” pledge. Shanghai was also a sister city with Prague.
And although Zeman has been critical of the US-led campaign against Huawei, Babis ordered Czech government institutions to stop using products from the Chinese tech giant last year.
“There has been a breakdown of trust in China, at the level of the public, the media, and now even the president,” Garlick said.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption There were six coronaviruses known to infect people before the latest discovery
The number of people already infected by the mystery virus emerging in China is far greater than official figures suggest, scientists have told the BBC.
There have been more than 60 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, but UK experts estimate a figure nearer 1,700.
Two people are known to have died from the respiratory illness, which appeared in Wuhan city in December.
“I am substantially more concerned than I was a week ago,” disease outbreak scientist Prof Neil Ferguson, said.
The work was conducted by the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, which advises bodies including the UK government and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Singapore and Hong Kong have been screening air passengers from Wuhan, and US authorities announced similar measures starting on Friday at three major airports in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.
How were the numbers calculated?
The crucial clue to the scale of the problem lies in the cases being detected in other countries.
While the outbreak is centred on the central Chinese city of Wuhan, there have been two cases in Thailand and one in Japan.
“That caused me to worry,” said Prof Ferguson.
He added: “For Wuhan to have exported three cases to other countries would imply there would have to be many more cases than have been reported.”
It is impossible to get the precise number, but outbreak modelling, which is based on the virus, the local population and flight data, can give an idea.
Wuhan International Airport serves a population of 19 million people, but only 3,400 a day travel internationally.
The detailed calculations, which have been posted online ahead of publication in a scientific journal, came up with a figure of 1,700 cases.
MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis@MRC_Outbreak
Size of Wuhan outbreak of a novel #coronavirus estimated from the three cases detected outside China: Likely to be over 1000 cases. @imperialcollege @mrc_outbreaks report released today
Prof Ferguson said it was “too early to be alarmist” but he was “substantially more concerned” than a week ago.
Chinese officials say there have been no cases of the virus spreading from one person to another.
Instead they say the virus has crossed the species barrier and come from infected animals at a seafood and wildlife market in Wuhan.
Prof Ferguson argues: “People should be considering the possibility of substantial human-to-human transmission more seriously than they have so far.
“It would be unlikely in my mind, given what we know about coronaviruses, to have animal exposure, be the principal cause of such a number of human infections.”
Understanding how a novel virus is spreading is a crucial part of assessing its threat.
The WHO’s China office said the analysis was helpful and would help officials plan the response to the outbreak.
“Much remains to be understood about the new coronavirus,” it said. “Not enough is known to draw definitive conclusions about how it is transmitted, the clinical features of the disease, the extent to which it has spread, or its source, which remains unknown.”
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption The outbreak occurred in the city of Wuhan, south of Beijing
What is this virus?
Viral samples have been taken from patients and analysed in the laboratory.
At the mild end they cause the common cold, but severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) is a coronavirus that killed 774 of the 8,098 people infected in an outbreak that started in China in 2002.
Analysis of the genetic code of the new virus shows it is more closely related to Sars than any other human coronavirus.
The virus has caused pneumonia in some patients and been fatal in two of them.
What do other experts say?
Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome medical research charity, said: “There is more to come from this epidemic.
“Uncertainty and gaps remain, but it’s clear that there is some level of person-to-person transmission.
Media caption Coronavirus feared to have infected more than initially thought, according to scientists
“We are starting to hear of more cases in China and other countries and it is likely, as this modelling shows, that there will be many more cases in a number of countries.”
Prof Jonathan Ball, from the University of Nottingham, said: “What’s really important is until there has been widespread laboratory testing it is very difficult to put a real number on the cases out there.
“But this is a figure we should take seriously until we know otherwise, 41 animal-to-human ‘spillovers’ is stretching it a bit and there probably is more underlying infection than has been detected so far.”
Photo taken on Dec. 28, 2019 shows the automatic ticketing office of the Badaling Changcheng Railway Station in Beijing, capital of China. The high-speed railway line connecting Beijing and Zhangjiakou in north China’s Hebei Province will go into service on Monday, China Railway Corporation said Saturday. (Xinhua/Peng Ziyang)
BEIJING, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) — The high-speed railway line connecting Beijing and Zhangjiakou in north China’s Hebei Province will go into service on Monday, China Railway Corporation said Saturday.
The railway line is a major project for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. It will reduce the travel time between Beijing and Zhangjiakou, the co-host city of the 2022 Olympics, from currently over three hours to 47 minutes.
The railway is 174 km long, with a maximum design speed of 350 kph.
Ten stations are along the railway line, namely Beijing North, Qinghe, Shahe, Changping, Badaling, Donghuayuan North, Huailai, Xiahuayuan North, Xuanhua North and Zhangjiakou.
Chongli railway, a branch line of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway, will also come into service on Monday. It is 53 km long, with a maximum design speed of 250 kph.
Construction of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway began in the first half of 2016. The railway underwent test runs earlier this month.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s largely rubber stamp parliament revised a law on Saturday to simplify investment procedures for Taiwan companies, in another attempt by Beijing to show goodwill to the Chinese-claimed island ahead of elections there on Jan. 11.
China, with its 1.3 billion people, is Taiwan’s favourite investment destination with Taiwan companies investing more than $100 billion there since China began landmark economic reforms in the late 1970s, drawn by a common culture and low costs.
China has extended what it views as olive branches to Taiwan in the run-up to the election, including opening further sectors to Taiwanese investors, with the ultimate goal of enticing the island to accept Beijing’s control.
Taiwan’s government has warned against falling for China’s inducements and has called on China instead to grant its own people democracy and freedom of speech. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.
The revised law removes several layers of bureaucracy to simplify procedures for investment from Taiwan, with the aim of encouraging more of it.
Chinese commerce ministry official Jiang Chenghua told reporters the central government “paid great attention” to protecting and encouraging Taiwan investment and it had support from the highest levels, including President Xi Jinping.
“Although the revised clauses are not many, they are of great significance and are conducive to optimising the investment environment for Taiwan compatriots in the mainland and to further expand economic and trade exchanges and cooperation between the two sides,” Jiang added.
The revision is designed to dovetail with a new foreign investor law which comes into force on Jan. 1. Chinese Commerce Minister Zhong Shan said this week he wanted “our Taiwan compatriots to share the benefit of this great change”.
Taiwan says China has been stepping up its efforts to sway electors and is planning an anti-infiltration law to counter Chinese influence efforts, which could pass next week.
Next month’s elections pit President Tsai Ing-wen of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party against Han Kuo-yu of the main opposition party the Kuomintang, which favours close ties with China.
China is Taiwan’s top trading partner, with trade totalling $226 billion in 2018. Taiwan runs a large trade surplus with China.
Taiwan has been trying to wean itself off its reliance on China and to encourage Taiwan companies to come back home or to shift their investments to other parts of the world, notably Southeast Asia.
Taiwan’s economy has benefited from its firms moving manufacturing back to the island to escape higher tariffs from the China-U.S. trade war, though the dispute has also caused some disruption for Taiwan’s economy.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 