Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
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Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects the guard of honor during a welcoming ceremony upon his arrival at the airport in Moscow, Russia, June 5, 2019. Xi arrived here on Wednesday for a state visit to Russia. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)
MOSCOW, June 5 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived here on Wednesday for a state visit to Russia as the two countries are expected to bring their comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination to a new era.
Upon arrival, Xi said he would exchange views with Russian President Vladimir Putin on how to deepen bilateral ties and promote practical cooperation, and over major international and regional issues of common concerns.
The two heads of state would plan for the future development of bilateral relationship so as to push forward the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination to a new era of greater development at a higher level, Xi said.
Xi’s visit to Russia, the eighth since 2013 when he was elected Chinese president, comes as the two countries are embracing the historic moment of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.
Thanks to the joint efforts from both sides, China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination is now at its best in history, serving as a model of living in harmony and win-win cooperation between major countries and neighboring countries, Xi said.
China and Russia enjoy strong political trust, maintain sound mechanisms of high-level exchanges and cooperation in various fields, and keep close coordination in global affairs, playing a positive and constructive role in safeguarding peace and stability of the region and the world as well as international fairness and justice, Xi said.
After standing the test of changing circumstances over the past 70 years, the bilateral relations are increasingly mature, stable and resilient, Xi said, noting the ties is at a new historical starting point with a new historic opportunity.
During the visit, Xi and Putin are expected to sign or witness the signing of important cooperation documents, and attend a gathering celebrating the 70 anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties.
Xi will also attend the 23rd St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. He will address a plenary session to expound China’s ideas on sustainable development and call for concerted efforts to safeguard multilateralism and improve global governance for the common development and prosperity of the world.
Xi and Putin, maintaining close friendship, have met nearly 30 times on bilateral and multilateral occasions since 2013. In a meeting with Putin in April, Xi said the bilateral relationship has become a major-country relationship featuring the highest degree of mutual trust, the highest level of coordination and the highest strategic value.
BEIJING, May 30 (Xinhua) — Chinese and Russian military forces have maintained in-depth exchanges in 2019 to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, the Ministry of National Defense said Thursday.
They have engaged in cooperation in high-level exchanges, real-combat training and military competitions, and had sound interaction and collaboration on international multilateral occasions, the ministry’s spokesperson Wu Qian said at a press conference.
Armies of the two countries have provided positive energy for safeguarding world peace and regional stability, Wu added.
Speaking of the joint naval exercise earlier this month in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong Province, Wu said the drill achieved a new high in making China-Russia joint naval exercises more real combat-oriented, information-based and standardized.
The two navies have also strengthened their capabilities of joint command and addressing maritime security threats, Wu said.
President Xi Jinping will meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next month and address economic summit in St Petersburg
Diplomatic flurry will also include regional security forums in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan
Xi Jinping has met Vladimir Putin more times than any other foreign leader since he took power in 2013. Photo: AFP
Beijing is stepping up efforts to seek support from regional and global players such as Russia and Central Asian nations as its geostrategic rivalry with Washington heats up.
President Xi Jinping is expected to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next month, when he will also address the St Petersburg International Economic Summit,
The Chinese president will also visit the Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in June, as well as another regional security forum in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Meanwhile, Vice-PresidentWang Qishan is visiting Pakistan before he heads to the Netherlands and Germany, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan meets Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan in Islamabad on Sunday. Photo: AFP
The latest flurry of diplomatic activity comes as competition between China and the US intensifies on several fronts including trade and technology, the South China Sea and the Arctic, where Beijing’s partnership with Moscow –
It will be Xi’s second time at the St Petersburg forum, and observers expect the Chinese leader will reaffirm Beijing’s commitment to multilateralism and promote the nation as a champion of openness and cooperation.
China-Russia ties unrivalled, Beijing warns before Pompeo meets Putin
It will also be his second meeting with Putin in two months, after talks on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in late April, when the Russian president
for the controversial China-led infrastructure and investment initiative.
With China and Russia edging closer, the latest meeting is likely to see efforts to coordinate their strategies on a range of issues – including Venezuela, North Korea, nuclear weapons and arms control, according to observers. Xi has met Putin more times than any other foreign leader since he took power in 2013.
“This time it is very likely that the latest anti-China moves by the US, such as new tariffs and the Huawei ban, will feature prominently in their conversations,” said Artyom Lukin, an associate professor at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok.
Lukin said Russia’s stagnating economy and sanctions imposed by the West limited its role as a substitute for the foreign markets and technologies China could lose access to because of the US crusade. But he said Putin would “provide political and moral support to Xi”.
“That is also significant as Russia has been withstanding intense US-led sanctions pressure for more than five years already,” Lukin said, referring to sanctions imposed after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Xi and Putin are also expected to talk about Venezuela, where US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido is attempting to oust socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who has the support of China and Russia.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has the backing of China and Russia. Photo: AP
“Moscow and Beijing are not able to seriously hurt Washington by raising tariffs or denying access to high technology. However, there are plenty of areas where coordinated Sino-Russian policies can damage US interests in the short term or in the long run,” Lukin said. “For example, Moscow and Beijing could intensify their joint support for the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro, frustrating Washington’s efforts to dislodge him.”
China and Russia would also be seeking to boost economic ties. Bilateral trade, dominated by Chinese imports of gas and oil, reached US$108 billion last year – falling far short of the target set in 2011 by Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, of US$200 billion by 2020.
China and Russia to forge stronger Eurasian economic ties
Li Lifan, an associate research professor at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said bilateral trade was a sticking point. “This is one of the potential hindrances in China-Russia relations and Beijing is hoping to [address this] … in the face of a possible global economic slowdown,” Li said.
Given the escalating trade war with Washington, he said China would seek to diversify its investments and markets to other parts of the world, particularly Russia and Europe.
“China will step up its investment cooperation with Europe and Russia and focus more on multilateral investment,” Li said.
But Beijing was not expected to do anything to worsen tensions with Washington.
“China is currently taking a very cautious approach towards the US, trying to avoid heating up the confrontation and further aggravation of the situation,” said Danil Bochkov, a contributing author with the Russian International Affairs Council. “For China it is important to demonstrate that it has a reliable friend – Russia – but that should not be done in an openly provocative manner.”
Stephen Blank, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, said Beijing and Moscow would also seek to contain US influence “as far as possible” from Central Asia, where China has increased its engagement through infrastructure building under the “Belt and Road Initiative”.
Leaders from the region will gather in Bishkek next month for the SCO summit, a security bloc set up in 2001 that now comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. Those members account for about 23 per cent of the world’s land mass, 45 per cent of its population, and 25 per cent of global GDP.
Newly re-elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could meet the Chinese president for talks in Bishkek next month. Photo: EPA-EFE
There is growing speculation that Xi will meet newly re-elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of that summit.
Independent analyst and author Namrata Goswami said India would be seeking a commitment to a WTO-led and rules-based multilateral trading system during the SCO talks.
“This is interesting and significant given the current US tendencies under President Donald Trump focused on ‘America first’ and the US-China trade war,” Goswami said.
Counterterrorism will again be a top priority at the SCO summit, amid concerns among member states about the rising number of Islamic State fighters returning from Syria and Iraq. Chinese scholars estimated last year that around 30,000 jihadists who had fought in Syria had gone back to their home countries, including China.
Alexander Bortnikov, chief of the main Russian intelligence agency FSB, said earlier that 5,000 fighters from a group affiliated with Isis had gathered in areas bordering former Soviet states in Central Asia, saying most of them had fought alongside Isis in Syria.
War-torn Afghanistan, which shares a border with four SCO member states – China, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – is also likely to be high on the agenda at the Bishkek summit.
“With the Trump administration drafting plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, the SCO will assess the security situation there and decide whether to provide training for Afghan troops,” Li said.
Eva Seiwert, a doctoral candidate at the Free University of Berlin, expected the security bloc would also discuss Iran after the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and ordered new sanctions against the country.
Iran, which has observer status with the SCO, was blocked from becoming a full member in 2008 because it was subject to UN sanctions at the time. But its membership application could again be up for discussion.
Iran presses China and Russia to save nuclear deal
“The Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 made it easy for China and Russia to present themselves as the proponents of peaceful settlement of conflicts,” Seiwert said. “Discussing the possibility of admitting Iran as a full member state would help the SCO members demonstrate their support of multilateral and peaceful cooperation.
“This would be a strong signal to the US and enhance the SCO’s standing in the international community,” she said.
Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov (right) meets Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bishkek on Tuesday last week. Photo: Xinhua
As well as security, Xi’s visit to Central Asia is also likely to focus on economic ties. Meeting Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov in Bishkek last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing would continue to “provide support and help national development and construction in Kyrgyzstan”.
Li said China may increase investment in the Central Asian region, especially in greenfield projects.
“China will continue to buy agriculture products from Central Asia, such as cherries from Uzbekistan, and build hydropower projects to meet local energy demand,” Li said. “Investment in solar and wind energy projects is also expected to increase too.”
may be a dominant military force in Asia for now but short of going to war, it will be unable to stop its economic and diplomatic clout from declining relative to China’s power.
That’s the view of Australian think tank the Lowy Institute, which on Tuesday evening released its 2019 index on the distribution of power in Asia.
However, the institute also said China faced its own obstacles in the region, and that its ambitions would be constrained by a lack of trust from its neighbours.
The index scored China 75.9 out of 100, just behind the US, on 84.5. The gap was less than America’s 10 point lead last year, when the index was released for the first time.
“Current US foreign policy may be accelerating this trend,” said the institute, which contended that “under most scenarios, short of war, the United States is unlikely to halt the narrowing power differential between itself and China”.
The Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index. Click to enlarge.
. He most recently hiked a 10 per cent levy on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25 per cent and has also threatened to impose tariffs on other trading partners such as the European Union and Japan.
Herve Lemahieu, the director of the Lowy Institute’s Asian Power and Diplomacy programme, said: “The Trump administration’s focus on trade wars and balancing trade flows one country at a time has done little to reverse the relative decline of the United States, and carries significant collateral risk for third countries, including key allies of the United States.”
The index rates a nation’s power – which it defines as the ability to direct or influence choices of both state and non-state actors – using eight criteria. These include a country’s defence networks, economic relationships, future resources and military capability.
It ranked Washington behind both Beijing and Tokyo in terms of diplomatic influence in Asia, due in part to “contradictions” between its recent economic agenda and its traditional role of offering consensus-based leadership.
The spoils of trade war: Asia’s winners and losers in US-China clash
Toshihiro Nakayama, a fellow at the Wilson Centre in Washington, said the US had become its own enemy in terms of influence.
“I don’t see the US being overwhelmed by China in terms of sheer power,” said Nakayama. “It’s whether America is willing to maintain its internationalist outlook.”
But John Lee, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said the Trump administration’s willingness to challenge the status quo on issues like trade could ultimately boost US standing in Asia.
“The current administration is disruptive but has earned respect for taking on difficult challenges which are of high regional concern but were largely ignored by the Obama administration –
illegal weapons and China’s predatory economic policies to name two,” said Lee.
“One’s diplomatic standing is not just about being ‘liked’ or ‘uncontroversial’ but being seen as a constructive presence.”
CHINA’S RISE
China’s move up the index overall – from 74.5 last year to 75.9 this year – was partly due to it overtaking the US on the criteria of “economic resources”, which encompasses GDP size, international leverage and technology.
China’s economy grew by more than the size of Australia’s GDP in 2018, the report noted, arguing that its growing base of upper-middle class consumers would blunt the impact of US efforts to restrict Chinese tech firms in Western markets.
US President Donald Trump with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Photo: Reuters
“In midstream products such as smartphones and with regard to developing country markets, Chinese tech companies can still be competitive and profitable due to their economies of scale and price competitiveness,” said Jingdong Yuan, an associate professor at the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.
“However, to become a true superpower in the tech sector and dominate the global market remains a steep climb for China, and the Trump administration is making it all the more difficult.”
The future competitiveness of Beijing’s military, currently a distant second to Washington’s, will depend on long-term political will, according to the report, which noted that China already spends over 50 per cent more on defence than the 10
stands in the way of its primacy in Asia, according to the index, which noted Beijing’s unresolved territorial and historical disputes with 11 neighbouring countries and “growing degrees of opposition” to its signature
and Myanmar due to concerns over feasibility and cost.
If Trump kills off Huawei, do Asia’s 5G dreams die?
Xin Qiang, a professor at the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said Beijing still needed to persuade its neighbours it could be a “constructive, instead of a detrimental, force for the region”.
“There are still many challenges for [China to increase its] power and influence in the Asia-Pacific,” Xin said.
Wu Xinbo, also at Fudan University’s Centre for American Studies, said Beijing was having mixed success in terms of winning regional friends and allies.
“For China, the key challenge is how to manage the maritime disputes with its neighbours,” said Wu. “I don’t think there is growing opposition to the Belt and Road Initiative from the region, actually more and more countries are jumping aboard. It is the US that is intensifying its opposition to the project as Washington worries it may promote China’s geopolitical influence.”
would persist and shape the global order into the distant future.
“They can still and do wish to cooperate where both find it mutually beneficial, but I think the more important task for now and for some time to come, is to manage their disputes in ways that do not escalate to a dangerous level,” Yuan said. “These differences probably cannot be resolved given their divergent interests, perspectives, etc, but they can and should be managed, simply because their issues are not confined to the bilateral [relationship] but have enormous regional and global implications.”
Elsewhere in Asia, the report spotlighted Japan, ranked third in the index, as the leader of the liberal order in Asia, and fourth-placed India as an “underachiever relative to both its size and potential”.
China’s wrong, the US can kill off Huawei. But here’s why it won’t
Lee said the index supported a growing perception that Tokyo had emerged as a “political and strategic leader among democracies in Asia” under
“This is important because Prime Minister Abe wants Japan to emerge as a constructive strategic player in the Indo-Pacific and high diplomatic standing is important to that end,” Lee said.
, Malaysia and Thailand rounded out the top-10 most powerful countries, in that order. Among the pack, Russia, Malaysia and Thailand stood out as nations that improved their standing from the previous year.
Chinese State Councilor Wang Yong (L) and Igor Komarov, Russia’s Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Volga Federal District, co-chair the third meeting of the Council of Cooperation between the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the Volga Federal District in Cheboksary, Russia, May 23, 2019. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)
CHEBOKSARY, Russia, May 23 (Xinhua) — China and Russia pledged to strengthen cooperation along the Yangtze and Volga rivers as local governments from these areas on Thursday signed an array of cooperation deals.
The third meeting of the Council of Cooperation between the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the Volga Federal District was co-chaired by Chinese State Councilor Wang Yong and Igor Komarov, Russia’s Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Volga Federal District, in the Russian city of Cheboksary.
Wang said that both sides should work to achieve more outcomes from local governments cooperation and make such partnership a new growth area for China-Russia relations.
Komarov said the unique “Volga-Yangtze” mechanism has been fruitful in trade and investment cooperation as well as people-to-people exchanges, and Russia is ready to work with China for more achievements.
Experts win reprieve for two out of three heritage houses but fear their success is only temporary
Authorities plan public cultural facilities for the site
The historic buildings on Shanghai’s Bund in the 1930s. One of the three structures has already been demolished but authorities have temporarily suspended plans to knock down the other two. Photo: Handout
Two historic buildings on Shanghai’s famous Bund have temporarily escaped demolition after a group of experts appealed to the government to conserve the heritage sites, but the intervention was too late to save a third.
About 15 architecture, history and culture experts based in Shanghai banded together to write an article on social media app WeChat last month, calling on the city’s government to “protect the city’s memories” by preserving three houses on Huangpu Road.
A few days after the article was published one of the buildings was demolished as part of a plan to build public cultural facilities on the site. But authorities suspended work on the other two and are considering removing only the interior structure while preserving the external walls, according to the group.
The houses, which date back to 1902, witnessed the city’s boom in the first half of the 20th century when it became one of the world’s most important, and famous, ports, the experts said.
The demolition project on The Bund, Shanghai has been suspended, but not before one of the three historic buildings was demolished. Photo: Urban China magazine
All three of the properties originally belonged to Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen Kaisha Group and were later used as storage facilities for Japan’s military forces during the second world war, according to Yu Hai, a sociologist from Shanghai’s Fudan University.
“These buildings, along with the nearby Yangzijiang port on the Huangpu River, represented Shanghai’s wharf culture and port culture,” Yu said. “They are historically significant as they witnessed Shanghai grow prosperous through shipping and trade industries about a century ago.”
Although the two remaining buildings are safe for now, the experts argue their interiors are also worth preserving.
Liu Gang, an architecture professor at Shanghai’s Tongji University, said the properties featured big wooden beams supported by black iron pillars, which were prominent architectural features of industrial buildings dating back to the 19th century.
“We guess it was hard to move these giant beams with vehicles at the beginning of the 20th century. Quite possibly they were transported on the river. We guess that the wood was chopped down and processed in places across the Pacific [from North America] and shipped to Shanghai.”
In the WeChat article, Liu called for the protection of the interior structure of the buildings. “Without solid research, we cannot simply take them down to be replaced by new ones.”
Yu agreed, saying: “The building with a new inside structure would be a fake and this plan will destroy historical heritage.”
Experts say the interiors of the historic buildings are also worth preserving. Photo: Urban China magazine
Huangpu Road, where these houses sit, is rich with history. It features the Garden Bridge of Shanghai – the city’s first steel bridge, built in 1907 – and was once home to the consulates of the United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, Denmark and the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Other notable landmarks on the road include the Astor House Hotel, built in 1846, where Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein and George Bernard Shaw stayed in the 1920s and 1930s. The hotel is still there.
“History happened here,” Yu said. “But it’s a pity that most of the old buildings in this area no longer exist.”
Despite their success in winning a stay of execution for the two buildings, the experts are cautious in their expectations.
“The demolition work was suspended, but that does not mean they have accepted our proposals. We are not optimistic,” Yu said.
About two weeks ago as part of their effort to save the buildings, Yu and three other scholars approached officials from Shanghai’s Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, the government body behind the demolition project.
“Officials emphasised the difficulties of keeping the completeness of the old buildings and we just pointed out the damage to their historical values,” Yu said.
The Shanghai bureau did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Shanghai nightclub king opens new art space – in disused oil tanks
Appeals by the public to conserve historical buildings have generally not been successful. Shenyuli, a typical Shanghai residential community built in the 1930s, was included in the city’s protected list of historical buildings in 2004.
The listing was not enough to prevent its demolition eight years later to make way for a public green land space.
Three years ago, the Shanghai government announced it was suspending the planned demolition of a former sex slavery station used by Japanese soldiers during the second world war, following media reports and a public outcry.
However, the building was later demolished, according to Su Zhiliang, history professor from Shanghai Normal University and a researcher on sex slavery, who predicts a similar outcome for this latest conservation effort.
“I think the government is just using the same tactic to postpone their plan. After the public’s attention is over, they will continue demolishing,” Su said.
General will spend five days meeting top Chinese leaders including President Xi Jinping
Mission seeks to patch up wounds caused by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-China rhetoric
Hamilton Mourao favours maximising engagement with China. Photo: EPA-EFE
Brazil’s vice-president is expected to land in Beijing on Sunday on a mission to patch up wounds caused by President Jair Bolsonaro’s lacerating anti-China rhetoric.
General Hamilton Mourao will spend five days in China rubbing shoulders with some of the country’s most powerful leaders, culminating in an audience with President Xi Jinping, in an effort to shore up the relationship between the two emerging market giants. Bolsonaro himself is due to visit later this year, while Xi is due to visit Brasilia in November for the BRICS summit.
China – Brazil’s most important trading partner for the past decade – remains a sensitive subject in the Bolsonaro administration. While Mourao and the other business-oriented members of government favour maximising engagement with the Asian giant, Bolsonaro and his more radical appointees view China with a high degree of suspicion, as a predatory economy that wishes not merely to invest in Brazil, but to own it.
“The Chinese can buy in Brazil, but they can’t buy Brazil,” the president said at a breakfast with journalists last month.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said last month that the “Chinese can buy in Brazil, but they can’t buy Brazil”. Photo: AFP
Still, in comparison with his pre-election criticism of China as “heartless”, Bolsonaro in office has dialled down his anti-Beijing sentiment. Mourao’s visit is part of an effort to reset that relationship.
“The Chinese understand that Mourao plays a central role in toning down Bolsonaro’s rhetoric,” said Oliver Stuenkel, a specialist on BRICS – an association of five major emerging economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – at the FGV business school. “They know that the Mourao-China relationship will be fundamental.”
Should China be worried about Bolsonaro’s bromance with Trump?
Speaking to reporters recently, Mourao recognised the need to balance the Bolsonaro administration’s desire to pivot towards the United States with practical considerations of China’s economic significance.
“The US are the champions of democracy and freedom and our government has left it very clear what this represents,” the vice-president said. “But on the other side we have to be sufficiently pragmatic to understand the importance of China for Brazil’s economic development.”
Chinese investment in Brazil reached almost US$134 billion between 2003 and 2018, Brazilian government figures showed.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to meet the visiting Brazilain vice-president. Photo: AP
While the trade war between the US and China may offer Brazil some short-term gains, particularly for its agricultural sector, the downsides outweigh the benefits, according to Renata Amaral, a foreign trade analyst at Barral MJorge consultancy.
“In truth this war is no good for anyone,” she said.
Mourao said that Brazil was monitoring the situation “critically and cautiously”.
Why US-China trade war could be good for Brazil
From the Chinese perspective, Beijing is looking for Brazil’s formal support for its “Belt and Road Initiative” – Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature global infrastructure megaproject. Asked whether Brazil might sign up to the programme, Mourao said that any agreement would have to be approved by Bolsonaro in the second half of the year.
After trips to the Great Wall of China and the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Mourao will meet Xi, in a clear sign of Brazil’s importance to China. “The visit of vice-president Mourao will reinforce mutual political confidence, deepen our friendly cooperation and add new dimensions to our strategic partnership,” according to Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.
With Beijing both uncertain about the direction of Brazilian foreign policy under Bolsonaro and eager to strike deals on infrastructure and food security, it makes sense for the Chinese to roll out the red-carpet for Mourao, according to Hussein Kalout, a specialist in foreign policy and a researcher at Harvard.
China trade vs economic growth: the dilemma for Brazil’s president
While the federal government remains ambivalent about its relationship with China, some of Brazil’s powerful state governors are seeking to develop their own relationship with the Asian country. One of them is Carlos Massa Ratinho Junior, the governor of the southern state of Parana, who travelled to China recently to discuss agriculture and railroad projects.
“We’re open to talk with any country that wants to and understands that the state of Parana is the best to place to invest in Brazil,” the governor said in an interview, adding that his actions did not conflict with the federal government’s stance towards Beijing.
But in a sign of the domestic pressure Bolsonaro is under not to abandon entirely his sceptical attitude to China, Luiz Philippe de Orleans e Braganca, the vice-president of the lower house’s foreign affairs committee and a lawmaker from Bolsonaro’s own party, said the government should set limits to the partnership.
“It’s good to talk to China, but it depends what is being discussed,” he said. “For example, the 5G network set up by China is dangerous because it will give the Chinese more information about Brazilian citizens than the Brazilian government.”
Fusion reactor built by Chinese scientists in eastern Anhui province has notched up a series of research firsts
There are plans to build a separate facility that could start generating commercially viable fusion power by 2050, official says
The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) device – or “artificial sun” – in Hefei, Anhui province. Photo: AFP/Chinese Academy of Sciences
A groundbreaking fusion reactor built by Chinese scientists is underscoring Beijing’s determination to be at the core of clean energy technology, as it eyes a fully functioning plant by 2050.
Sometimes called an “artificial sun” for the sheer heat and power it produces, the doughnut-shaped Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) that juts out on a spit of land into a lake in eastern Anhui province, has notched up a succession of research firsts.
In 2017 it became the world’s first such facility to sustain certain conditions necessary for nuclear fusion for
of 100 million degrees Celsius (212 million Fahrenheit) – six times as hot as the sun’s core.
Such mind-boggling temperatures are crucial to achieving fusion reactions, which promise an inexhaustible energy source.
EAST’s main reactor stands within a concrete structure, with pipes and cables spread outward like spokes connecting to a jumble of censors and other equipment encircling the core. A red Chinese flag stands on top of the reactor.
A vacuum vessel inside the fusion reactor, which has achieved a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius – six times as hot as the sun’s core. Photo: AFP/Chinese Academy of Sciences
“We are hoping to expand international cooperation through this device [EAST] and make Chinese contributions to mankind’s future use of nuclear fusion,” said Song Yuntao, a top official involved in the project, on a recent tour of the facility.
China is also aiming to build a separate fusion reactor that could begin generating commercially viable fusion power by mid-century, he added.
Some 6 billion yuan (US$891.5 million) has been promised for the ambitious project.
EAST is part of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, which seeks to prove the feasibility of fusion power.
Funded and run by the European Union, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the United States, the multibillion-dollar project’s centrepiece will be a giant cylindrical fusion device, called a tokamak.
Now under construction in Provence in southern France, it will incorporate parts developed at the EAST and other sites, and draw on their research findings.
China is “hoping to expand international cooperation” through EAST. Photo: Reuters
Fusion is considered the Holy Grail of energy and is what powers our sun.
It merges atomic nuclei to create massive amounts of energy – the opposite of the fission process used in atomic weapons and nuclear power plants, which splits them into fragments.
Unlike fission, fusion emits no greenhouse gases and carries less risk of accidents or the theft of atomic material.
But achieving fusion is both extremely difficult and prohibitively expensive – the total cost of ITER is estimated at €20 billion (US$22.3 billion).
Wu Songtao, a top Chinese engineer with ITER, conceded that China’s technical capabilities on fusion still lag behind more developed countries, and that US and
Japanese tokamaks have achieved more valuable overall results.
But the Anhui test reactor underlines China’s fast-improving scientific advancement and its commitment to achieve yet more.
China’s capabilities “have developed rapidly in the past 20 years, especially after catching the ITER express train”, Wu said.
In an interview with state-run Xinhua news agency in 2017, ITER’s director general Bernard Bigot lauded China’s government as “highly motivated” on fusion.
“Fusion is not something that one country can accomplish alone,” Song said.
“As with ITER, people all over the world need to work together on this.”
In European countries outside the EU, investment also dropped in 2018.
What and where is China investing?
A large proportion of Chinese direct investment, both state and private, is concentrated in the major economies, such as the UK, France and Germany combined, according to the Rhodium Group and Mercator Institute.
Analysis by Bloomberg last year said that China now owned, or had a stake in, four airports, six maritime ports and 13 professional soccer teams in Europe.
It estimated there had been 45% more investment activity in 30 European countries from China than from the US, since 2008.
And it said this was underestimating the true extent of Chinese activity.
For example, China is financing the expansion of the port of Piraeus in Greece and is building roads and railways in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and North Macedonia.
This could prove attractive to poorer Balkan and southern European countries, especially as demands for transparency and good governance can make EU funding appear less attractive.
Globally, China’s outward direct investment has slowed over the last year or two, after more than a decade of expansion.
“This is mainly the result of stricter controls on capital outflows from China, but also of a changing political environment globally concerning Chinese investment,” says Agatha Kratz of the Rhodium Group.
China’s global investment slows
The Trump administration is taking a tougher line towards China’s economic activities.
Governments elsewhere are more cautious – particularly when it comes to investment in sensitive areas of the economy, such as telecommunications and defence.
But there’s little doubt China is now a significant player in Europe, whether through direct investments or via the new Silk Road project.
QINGDAO, China (Reuters) – Warships from India, Australia and several other nations arrived in the eastern Chinese port city of Qingdao on Sunday to attend a naval parade, part of a goodwill visit as China extends the hand of friendship despite regional tensions and suspicions.
China on Tuesday will mark 70 years since the founding of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, where it will show off new warships including nuclear submarines and destroyers at a major review in the waters off Qingdao.
China says warships from about a dozen nations are also taking part – one diplomatic source with direct knowledge said it was 13 countries in total – and the PLA is putting its best foot forward to welcome them.
India, which has been at odds with China over their disputed land border and Beijing’s support for India’s regional rival Pakistan, has sent stealth guided-missile destroyer the “INS Kolkata” to take part, along with a supply ship.
“We bring to you one of the best ships that we have made. It is the pride of the nation and the navy, and we are very happy to be here,” Captain Aditya Hara told reporters on the dockside after disembarking from the ship in Qingdao.
A source familiar with the situation told Reuters the “Kolkata” had sailed through the Taiwan Strait to get to Qingdao, a sensitive waterway that separates China from self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by Beijing as sacred Chinese territory.
“We headed on a direct route and we are very happy that we were facilitated by the PLA Navy and they ensured that we had a safe passage to Qingdao,” Hara said, when asked if they had sailed via the Taiwan Strait.
Australia, a close U.S. ally, has sent the “HMAS Melbourne” guided-missile frigate to Qingdao, though officials declined to make the captain available for interview.
China and Australia have sparred over Australian suspicions of Chinese interference in the country’s politics and Australia’s banning of China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd from supplying equipment for its planned 5G broadband network.
Japan has also sent a destroyer to Qingdao, in the first visit of a Japanese navy ship to China since 2011, according to Japanese media.
Ties between China and Japan, the world’s second and third-largest economies, have been plagued by a long-running territorial dispute over a cluster of East China Sea islets and suspicion in China about Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to amend Japan’s pacifist constitution.
But they have sought to improve relations more recently, with Abe visiting Beijing in October, when both countries pledged to forge closer ties and signed a broad range of agreements including a $30 billion currency swap pact.
The other countries taking part include China’s close friend Russia, and three countries which have sparred with China over competing claims in the disputed South China Sea: Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Pakistan, a very close Chinese ally, is not on the list of countries officials have provided which are sending ships to the parade.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 