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.
Image copyright AFPImage caption Beijing’s proposed security law has sparked protests in Hong Kong
Seven former UK foreign secretaries have urged Boris Johnson to form a global alliance to coordinate the response to the China-Hong Kong crisis.
China is facing mounting criticism over a planned security law for Hong Kong which would make it a crime to undermine Beijing’s authority.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the UK would not turn a blind eye.
Hong Kong was handed back to China from British control in 1997 but under a unique agreement.
The former British colony enjoys some freedoms not seen in mainland China – and these are set out in a mini-constitution called the Basic Law.
But there are fears the proposed law, which has sparked a mass of anti-mainland protests in Hong Kong, could compromise some of the freedoms guaranteed by the Basic Law.
In their letter to the prime minister, the cross-party group of former cabinet ministers says the UK government must be seen to lead the international response, as many countries take their cue from Britain over its former colony.
Jeremy Hunt, David Miliband, Jack Straw, William Hague, Malcolm Rifkind, David Owen and Margaret Beckett all expressed their concern at what they call China’s “flagrant breach” of Sino-British agreements by imposing tough national security laws on Hong Kong.
They urged Mr Johnson to set up an “international contact group” of allies to coordinate any joint action, similar to that set up in 1994 to try to end the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
A Downing Street spokesman insisted the government was already playing a leading role with international partners in urging China to think again.
Mr Raab said the new security legislation “very clearly violates” the autonomy that is guaranteed under Chinese law as well as that in the 1997 agreement.
He confirmed the UK will allow those who hold British National (Overseas) passports to come to the UK and apply to study and work for an extendable 12-month period.
This will in turn “provide a path to citizenship”, he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.
Mr Raab said up to three million people registered as a British national (overseas) in Hong Kong could be eligible for UK citizenship if China presses ahead with the law.
Meanwhile, the chairman of Commons foreign affairs committee, Tom Tugendhat, said the government must realise that China has a “very, very authoritarian system of government” and should rethink the partnership between the two.
As China prepares its 14th five-year plan, researchers at one state-affiliated think tank predicted a more hostile global situation
Beijing urged to strengthen home-grown innovation and use vast domestic market to power economy post-coronavirus
A think tank linked to China’s State Council has encouraged Beijing to focus on home-grown technology and its vast consumer market over the next five years. Photo: Xinhua
China’s will face an increasingly hostile world over the next five years, meaning its policy plan should be focused on its vast domestic market, home-grown technological innovation and improving its citizen’s welfare, according to recommendations in a new paper.
The report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a think tank affiliated with the State Council, foresees the next five years presenting “major changes unseen in a century” for China, as “the strategic game between superpowers has intensified, while international systems and orders are reshuffled”.
While the report does not mention the coronavirus specifically, its recommendations suggest that China should become more self-reliant in response to the pandemic. This view represents one side of a lively debate among policymakers and scholars in China, ahead of the next five-year plan, which will come into place next year.
Between 2021 and 2025, the globalised economy which helped China grow into an economic power will be radically different, the report said, meaning it must adapt if it is to continue to thrive.
“The disadvantages of economic globalisation have increasingly stood out. Populism has risen as the global economy weakens, while countries are divided as imbalances expand. The old multilateral [trading] system is under pressure,” read the paper, part of a wave of preliminary studies offering advice ahead of China’s 14th five-year plan, a blueprint for economic and social development.
China is the only major economy that publishes a five-year policy plan and has been doing so since 1953, in a tradition borrowed from the Soviet Union. China’s own plans are broad strategic guidelines, rather than Moscow’s previously detailed command economy production worksheets.
China is currently in the final year of its 13th five-year plan, the stage during which the Soviet Union collapsed. The 14th plan is expected to be published in early-2021, but brainstorming about challenges and policy options is well under way among academics and state planning officials.
That debate is expected to feature prominently in the coming meetings of the “Two Sessions,” the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress, which is due to meet in Beijing on May 21, and the National People’s Congress, which will begin to meet a day later.
A common point in the debate is that the lessons of the past few years have shown the need to be more self-reliant. Even before the coronavirus outbreak, the US-China trade war and the growing superpower rivalry have made many think that Beijing can no longer rely on the goodwill of trading partners to continue the expansion it has enjoyed since the late-1970s.
Coronavirus pandemic creates ‘new Cold War’ as US-China relations sink to lowest point in decades
In December 2017, US President Donald Trump declared China a “strategic competitor” in anticipation of the Chinese economy reaching two-thirds the size of America’s, which happened in 2018. Since then, the two have engaged in a tit-for-tat tariff battle, while the coronavirus has served to sharpen tensions and fuel arguments for further decoupling.
“Uncertainties and instabilities are clearly increasing,” read the analysis published in the academic journal Economic Perspectives this week.
Without citing coronavirus directly, the CASS researchers suggested that China should “stick to its developmental direction and concentrate on doing its own things well”.
China now has a middle income group of between 500 and 700 million people and that alone can be a source empowering China’s economic growth for the next five years, the report said.
However, China must also attempt to smooth out a major weakness, namely unbalanced growth, including the yawning wealth gap between urban and rural groups.
In terms of innovation, the researchers led by Huang Qunhui said China should rely less on foreign technologies. “China’s innovation capacity is still lagging behind developed countries. Breakthroughs in core technologies are in urgent need,” read the report.
The Made in China 2025 plan, published in 2015, stated Beijing’s ambitions to dominate future technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence. However, after loud complaints from the US and European Union, China has been forced to play down such bold innovative goals.
BEIJING, May 2 (Xinhua) — A Chinese health official on Saturday urged people to wear masks correctly and avoid travel during peak hours over coronavirus concerns in the May Day holiday.
Travelers are encouraged to reserve visiting slots in advance, and pay attention to their temperatures, said Mi Feng, a spokesperson for the National Health Commission, at a press conference in Beijing.
Some tourist attractions have seen large crowds of tourists not wearing masks Friday, the first day of the five-day May Day holiday, Mi said.
China recorded more than 23 million domestic tourist trips Friday, with the domestic tourism revenue reaching over 9.7 billion yuan (about 1.38 billion U.S. dollars), according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Image copyright AFP
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 