244∆24 China and the new empire - Draft
- News: China in Chinese?
- site: Asia today
- News: voachinese
- substack: pekingnology
- substack: sinocism.com
- epochtimes
28/09‘
Get things done’: China tries to rally risk-averse officials to revive economy South China Morning Post
Moving Bricks: Money-Laundering Practices in the Online Scam Industry Global China Pulse
27/09
China stocks see best week since 2008 on stimulus impact as most Asia markets rise NBC
China caps week of ‘bazooka’ stimulus for ailing economy with rate cut Agence France Presse
China’s industrial profit growth slows, underscoring urgent need for policy pivot South China Morning Post
China’s Market Marred by Glitches as Frenzy Grips Stocks Bloomberg
26/09
China Weighs $142 Billion Capital Injection Into Top Banks Bloomberg
China lifts markets with promise of more support for economy FT
China Gives Rare Handouts to Boost Sentiment Before Long Holiday Bloomberg
Why did China test-fire an ICBM into the Pacific Ocean and what are the likely implications? Channell News Asia
China Puts All Three Carriers to Sea Simultaneously For the First Time: How Powerful is the Fleet Today? Military Watch
China’s warships gift and funding naval base in Cambodia: Could it put regional dynamics in choppy waters? Channel News Asia
24/09/2024
China’s central cuts rate to infuse money into markets as growth slowdown worsens FirstPost
China’s youth unemployment hits fresh high amid economic slowdown and restrictive hiring policies CNBC
Commerce proposes ban on Chinese tech in connected vehicles over national security concerns The Hill
Project 33: US Navy’s plan to beat China by 2027 Asia Times (Asia Times)
South China Sea
China, Philippines clash in South China Sea despite efforts to rebuild trust Channel News Asia
China steps up armed patrols on border as Myanmar conflict deepens Aljazeera
Economy
China US Trade Wars
China Gains Secret Access to Nvdia Microchips by Renting Computers Michael Shedlock One entrepreneur helping Chinese companies overcome the hurdles is Derek Aw, a former bitcoin miner. He persuaded investors in Dubai and the U.S. to fund the purchase of AI servers housing Nvidia’s powerful H100 chips. In June, Aw’s company loaded more than 300 servers with the chips into a data center in Brisbane, Australia. Three weeks later, the servers began processing AI algorithms for a company in Beijing.
South China Sea
Economy
China provides subsidies to boost home appliance trade-ins Xinhua
China US Trade Wars
New technologies
China in Central America: Just a Mirage The Diplomat
New (Green) Colonialism, draft
governments have finally realized that the energy transition is happening—and that the resources needed are mostly in Chinese hands. Transition minerals, by some dubbed the “new oil,” are the key ingredients for renewables technologies like EV batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines that make the transition happen. A large share of those minerals are extracted in the Global South, but China controls their value chains to a large degree. China processes over 90 percent of rare earth elements, almost 100 percent of graphite, over 75 percent of cobalt and over 60 percent of lithium. China also produces around 80 percent of the world’s solar panels and makes between 60-80 percent of the world’s electric vehicles, wind turbines, and lithium-ion batteries. Hardly a week goes by these days without Western governments announcing a new partnership or strategy to gain the upper hand in the minerals scramble. It’s difficult to imagine that just a few years ago an American company sold off one of the world’s biggest cobalt mines to a Chinese company. Resource nationalism has replaced the Western vision of a globalized free market for raw materials." https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/08/26/western-hypocrisy-in-the-global-minerals-scramble/#:~:text=Western%20governments%20have,for%20raw%20materials.
ChinaComputer giant IBM will end research and development work in China, Channel News Asia
Canada slaps 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, Channel News Asia
Troubleshooting revealed that various issues were reportedly contributing to the instability, including power supply problems, heat dissipation problems, and CPU voltage problems. Intel engineers reportedly found the main cause of the instability and reduced the cafe's instability significantly by tweaking "relevant settings."The rigs are about as high-end as it gets. Each Core i9-14900K is manually overclocked to 5.9 GHz, and the system RAM is overclocked to a blisteringly quick 8,533 MHz. The RTX 4090Ds are also overclocked, with speeds of 3.1 GHz on the GPU core and 13 GHz on the memory, respectively. 360mm AIO liquid cooling is employed to keep the CPUs cool.The gaming cafe is about as luxurious as it gets. Each gaming system is paired with a luxurious gaming chair with high-end peripherals that can recline almost entirely flat. The cafe features a full range of services for hardcore customers, including a QR code for ordering food, toothbrushes, showers, laundry rooms, and a self-service supermarket.
China
Foreign Relations
Xi Jinping Holds Phone Call with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer /On the afternoon of August 23rd, Chinese President Xi Jinping had a telephone conversation with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer upon request. / Xi Jinping congratulated Starmer on his appointment as the British Prime Minister. Xi pointed out that currently, the international situation is undergoing complex changes, and both China and the UK, as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and major global economies, should view bilateral relations with a long-term and strategic perspective. He emphasized the importance of maintaining a partnership-oriented approach, enhancing dialogue and cooperation, and fostering a stable and mutually beneficial relationship between China and the UK that benefits both countries and the world. China is committed to comprehensively advancing the building of a strong nation and national rejuvenation through Chinese-style modernization and adheres to a path of peaceful development. China hopes that the UK will view China objectively and rationally. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has made strategic plans for further deepening reform and advancing Chinese-style modernization. China will accelerate the development of new quality productive forces and promote new-type industrialization, which will provide more opportunities for countries around the world, including the UK. China is willing to engage in equal dialogue with the UK on the basis of mutual respect, enhance mutual understanding and trust, align development strategies, expand cooperation in finance, green economy, artificial intelligence, and other fields, deepen cultural exchanges, and make mutual benefit and win-win cooperation the main theme of China-UK relations.
Economy
" China that keeps sinking further into depression, unable or unwilling to stop the onset of post-bubble debt deflation. China's money supply is collapsing" / Xi Jinping is too alarmed by rising debt to let rip with demand stimulus. The People’s Bank is too worried about the exchange rate and mismatches in the Chinese bond market to let rip with serious money. The result is a death spiral in the monetary aggregates. Janus Henderson investors says two of its key measures are now dangerously weak. “True M1” is contracting at a 4pc rate (six-month annualised) and the China corporate liquidity ratio has dropped to unprecedented levels.
Used home prices in the 70-city index have dropped 14pc so far from peak to trough, falling almost every month since mid-2021 in slow torture, grinding away at the stored wealth of the Chinese middle class. Fear of further price falls is in turn leading to extreme precautionary saving and a mood of cosmic gloom. New home starts have fallen 63pc from their peak, a steeper and deeper property bust than Japan saw in the 1990s.
Rather than grasping the nettle at this year’s Third Plenum, the Communist Party has opted to double down on its strategy, aiming to export its way out of trouble and dump its excess capacity on the rest of us. China’s slump is why iron ore prices have crashed. It is a large reason why Brent crude is hovering at two-year lows near $76, even though the OPEC-Russia cartel is withholding three million barrels a day to prop up prices. China rescued the world economy when the West came off the rails in 2008-2009. Fifteen years later it is more likely to compound a global recession.Advanced IC packaging is next front in the chip wars Asia Times- Advanced IC packaging is a hot new source of competition among manufacturers of AI processors and other advanced integrated circuits (ICs), and emerging as the next front in the US government’s efforts to reduce America’s dependence on foreign suppliers and retard China’s technological progress. / Huawei and other Chinese vendors may thus have what is likely to become the world’s largest market for these devices all to themselves without foreign competition. / Alibaba, Baidu, ByteDance, China Mobile, Tencent and other Chinese customers who would have preferred to buy the more advanced US-designed processors will now find it both easier and less risky to use devices designed and made in China.
China Imperialism ? - Myanmar
China has invested heavily in neighbouring Myanmar over the years, especially in its infrastructure – from ports and railways to the oil and gas sector – even after a military coup rocked the country in 2021. Myanmar has also played a vital role in China’s ambitions for direct access to the Indian Ocean, as Beijing seeks to reduce dependence on the narrow chokepoints of the Strait of Malacca for its oil imports.
As Myanmar’s prolonged civil war between the ruling junta and armed ethnic minority groups becomes increasingly violent and destabilising, Beijing has re-emerged as a top mediator for its war-ravaged neighbour, seeking to promote peace talks while protecting its geostrategic and economic interests."
Unlike its recent efforts to facilitate peace in the Middle East and in Ukraine, where China’s limited involvement was largely “strategic and long-term”, Beijing’s push for reconciliation talks in Myanmar is clearly driven by acute security concerns, according to observers. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3275762/does-china-risk-losing-it-all-it-plays-both-sides-myanmars-lengthy-civil-war#:~:text=China%20has%20invested,economic%20interests.
"China atinge recorde de US$ 26 bi em importações de material para chips
As importações chinesas de equipamentos para fabricação de semicondutores atingiram um recorde nos primeiros sete meses deste ano, à medida que as empresas da nação asiática continuam a aumentar suas compras, caso os EUA e seus aliados as bloqueiem ainda mais de comprar."
https://www.ocafezinho.com/2024/08/22/china-atinge-recorde-de-us-26-bi-em-importacoes-de-material-para-chips/#:~:text=China%20atinge%20recorde,mais%20de%20comprar.
Accepting historic nomination, Harris vows ‘America, not China’ will win 21st century South China Morning Post
China’s green panda bonds are ‘reliable’ financing option for Africa, summit hears South China Morning Post
Why the next trade war with China may look very different from the last one, at The Atlantic, By Mrugank Bhusari, In 2018, the United States initiated a series of tariffs against Chinese goods over a trade deficit and trade practices that it believed unfairly disadvantaged US industries. Nevertheless, according to Chinese data, the US deficit has only increased in the intervening years, and the aggregate global goods deficit with China has doubled from $420 billion in 2017 to $822 billion in 2023. As Beijing now prioritizes manufacturing products requiring more complex processes with a higher value added such as batteries, electric vehicles, and solar panels, more tariffs are likely regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election. The 2018 US tariffs primarily targeted Chinese intermediate inputs and capital equipment. In 2025, far more countries will share concerns over the impact of an expansion of Chinese exports. This time, however, they are likely to target final consumer goods to shield domestic industries and avoid imposing costs on their own supply chains. ... Since 2018, the United States has increasingly used tariffs to try to balance its trade with China, and 2025 may well see a new wave of tariffs imposed. The difference this time, however, will be that other advanced economies—and indeed, most of the G20—agree that a response is needed to China’s manufacturing overcapacity. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/sinographs/why-the-next-trade-war-with-china-may-look-very-different-from-the-last-one/
China accounted for 65 per cent of Brazil's trade surplus in 2021, or USD 40 billion – the largest ever registered with an individual partner. Brazil–China Trade Relations - CEBRI https://cebri.org/media/docs/ksspplcipolicypaper0122-brazil.pdf
China says it is ‘seriously concerned’ about US nuclear strategic report Channel News Asia
China’s $70bn property rescue plan limps off starting line Financial Times
China steps up armed patrols on border as Myanmar conflict deepens Aljazeera
China US Trade Wars
China Gains Secret Access to Nvdia Microchips by Renting Computers Michael Shedlock One entrepreneur helping Chinese companies overcome the hurdles is Derek Aw, a former bitcoin miner. He persuaded investors in Dubai and the U.S. to fund the purchase of AI servers housing Nvidia’s powerful H100 chips. In June, Aw’s company loaded more than 300 servers with the chips into a data center in Brisbane, Australia. Three weeks later, the servers began processing AI algorithms for a company in Beijing.
South China Sea
Economy
China provides subsidies to boost home appliance trade-ins Xinhua
China US Trade Wars
China in Central America: Just a Mirage The Diplomat
New (Green) Colonialism, draft
China
Foreign Relations
Economy
China Imperialism ? - Myanmar
China has invested heavily in neighbouring Myanmar over the years, especially in its infrastructure – from ports and railways to the oil and gas sector – even after a military coup rocked the country in 2021. Myanmar has also played a vital role in China’s ambitions for direct access to the Indian Ocean, as Beijing seeks to reduce dependence on the narrow chokepoints of the Strait of Malacca for its oil imports.
As Myanmar’s prolonged civil war between the ruling junta and armed ethnic minority groups becomes increasingly violent and destabilising, Beijing has re-emerged as a top mediator for its war-ravaged neighbour, seeking to promote peace talks while protecting its geostrategic and economic interests."
Unlike its recent efforts to facilitate peace in the Middle East and in Ukraine, where China’s limited involvement was largely “strategic and long-term”, Beijing’s push for reconciliation talks in Myanmar is clearly driven by acute security concerns, according to observers. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3275762/does-china-risk-losing-it-all-it-plays-both-sides-myanmars-lengthy-civil-war#:~:text=China%20has%20invested,economic%20interests.
"China atinge recorde de US$ 26 bi em importações de material para chips
As importações chinesas de equipamentos para fabricação de semicondutores atingiram um recorde nos primeiros sete meses deste ano, à medida que as empresas da nação asiática continuam a aumentar suas compras, caso os EUA e seus aliados as bloqueiem ainda mais de comprar."
https://www.ocafezinho.com/2024/08/22/china-atinge-recorde-de-us-26-bi-em-importacoes-de-material-para-chips/#:~:text=China%20atinge%20recorde,mais%20de%20comprar.
Accepting historic nomination, Harris vows ‘America, not China’ will win 21st century South China Morning Post
China’s green panda bonds are ‘reliable’ financing option for Africa, summit hears South China Morning Post
China accounted for 65 per cent of Brazil's trade surplus in 2021, or USD 40 billion – the largest ever registered with an individual partner. Brazil–China Trade Relations - CEBRI https://cebri.org/media/docs/ksspplcipolicypaper0122-brazil.pdf
China says it is ‘seriously concerned’ about US nuclear strategic report Channel News Asia
Geopolitics (draft)No, the world isn’t heading toward a new Cold War – it’s closer to the grinding world order collapse of the 1930s The Conversation. The past decade and a half has seen upheaval across the globe. The 2008 financial crisis and its fallout, the COVID-19 pandemic and major regional conflicts in Sudan, the Middle East, Ukraine and elsewhere have left residual uncertainty. Added to this is a tense, growing rivalry between the U.S. and its perceived opponents, particularly China. / In response to these jarring times, commentators have often reached for the easy analogy of the post-1945 era to explain geopolitics. The world is, we are told repeatedly, entering a “new Cold War.”But as a historian of the U.S.’s place in the world, I believe these references to a conflict that pitted the West in a decades-long ideological battle with the Soviet Union and its allies – and the ripples the Cold War had around the globe – are a flawed lens to view today’s events. To a critical eye, the world looks less like the structured competition of that Cold War and more like the grinding collapse of world order that took place during the 1930s.
Start-up incubator Y Combinator backs its first weapons firm FT
Y Combinator, the San Francisco start-up incubator that launched Airbnb, Reddit, Stripe and Coinbase, is backing a weapons company for the first time, entering a sector it has previously shunned.
Ares Industries, which launched last week, has pitched its “low-cost cruise missiles” as suited for use in a potential war between the US and China in the Taiwan Strait. The start-up claims that US weapons stockpiles would be exhausted within weeks in such a conflict, and that “recent conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine have shown that our weapons are too large, too expensive for the wars of today”.
Ares’ founders, Alex Tseng and Devan Plantamura, say their $300,000 anti-ship cruise missiles “will be 10x smaller and 10x cheaper” than today’s alternatives. On the YC website, Tseng’s biography consists of a single sentence: “Missiles are cool." ...
Start-up incubator Y Combinator backs its first weapons firm FT
Y Combinator, the San Francisco start-up incubator that launched Airbnb, Reddit, Stripe and Coinbase, is backing a weapons company for the first time, entering a sector it has previously shunned.
Ares Industries, which launched last week, has pitched its “low-cost cruise missiles” as suited for use in a potential war between the US and China in the Taiwan Strait. The start-up claims that US weapons stockpiles would be exhausted within weeks in such a conflict, and that “recent conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine have shown that our weapons are too large, too expensive for the wars of today”.
Ares’ founders, Alex Tseng and Devan Plantamura, say their $300,000 anti-ship cruise missiles “will be 10x smaller and 10x cheaper” than today’s alternatives. On the YC website, Tseng’s biography consists of a single sentence: “Missiles are cool." ...
- news: US sanctions on China
21/08/2024
California Democrats fear US tech firm ‘death spiral’ with more China curbs Reuters. The letter is a sign of growing pushback against Biden's semiconductor policy among Democrats from California, home to the U.S.'s top chipmaking equipment companies LAM (LRCX.O), opens new tab, Applied Materials (AMAT.O), opens new tab and KLA (KLAC.O), opens new tab. In their August letter, Padilla and Lofgren stressed that they were not asking Biden to roll back restrictions on China, but simply opposed the imposition of rules "with questionable national-security benefits" when allies do not follow suit.
“How China acquires ‘the crown jewels’ of U.S. technology” Pekingnology
“U.S. strategists on China” into three broad groups
- “New Cold Warriors” such as Matt Pottinger and Mike Gallagher;
- “Competition Managers” like Jake Sullivan, Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi, and
- “Accommodationists” represented by Jessica Chen Weiss and James Steinberg.
- news: china sanctions on Usa
- China–Taiwan
- china: war and military production
- Why China is becoming a top choice mediator for global conflicts South China Morning Post
The U.S. Defense Industrial Base Is Not Prepared for a Possible Conflict with China, by CSIS
news: China Economy
- news: china exports
- China's development
- industrial policy
- china: strategic emerging industries
- forced deindustrialization of rivals
- Extreme poverty reduction
- unemployment
- China's growth target of 4.5% for 2024.
- recession-fighting
- Central Policy Research Office
- Jiang Ji, director
- “‘seven focuses’ in the overall goal of further deepening reform”. The seven are:
- Building a High-Level Socialist Market Economy System;
- Developing Whole-Process People's Democracy;
- Building a Socialist Cultural Power;
- Improving People's Quality of Life;
- Building a Beautiful China;
- Building a Higher Level of Safe China and
- Improving the Party's Leadership Level and Long-Term Governance Capacity.
