The CHN/ China thread

[ET2SN]

This is mostly a follow-on to my last post in the Ukraine thread. I like Dr. Paine and her presentations, but you need to be careful. She'll fling a bunch of nuggets onto the floor and its up to you to keep up.
This is a good over-view of what's going on in Asia and the South China Sea but its an over-view from 50,000 feet up. Its up to you to not get lost.



Enjoy.

[Jimbuna]

US labor official calls on companies to exit China's Xinjiang

WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) - International companies cannot responsibly operate in Xinjiang and should leave the western Chinese region due to forced labor concerns, a U.S. Labor Department official said on Tuesday.
The U.S. government says Chinese officials continue to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, and rights groups have pressured Western companies there to audit their operations over forced labor concerns.

China's government vehemently denies allegations of abuses.
Thea Lee, deputy undersecretary for International Affairs at the Labor Department, told a U.S. congressional hearing that Beijing had made it "essentially illegal" to conduct independent human rights audits in Xinjiang.
"If it is impossible to do that, then the only responsible thing to do is not to operate in that atmosphere," Lee told the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, without naming individual companies.

China's embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to an emailed request for comment.
Chinese officials have acknowledged "vocational training centers," in Xinjiang, but say were intended to curb terrorism, separatism and religious radicalism. They have also said the "Sinicisation" of Islam in the country is inevitable.
On Feb. 9, German chemicals giant BASF (BASFn.DE), opens new tab said it would sell its stakes in two joint ventures in Xinjiang, after rights groups documented abuses including forced labor in detention camps.

Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), opens new tab too has said it was in talks with its joint venture partner in China over the future direction of its business activities in the region.
Beijing in 2017 launched a harsh security crackdown in Xinjiang. Some experts say that alleged mass internment of Uyghurs peaked in 2018, but that abuses have continued with labor transfers becoming more prominent.
Still, China's government has sought to make Xinjiang a heavy industry hub, and it is important for the processing of aluminum and for producing auto parts, solar components and other goods that make their way into global supply chains.

The U.S. Congress has passed laws to pressure China over its Xinjiang policies, including the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act that bars imports from the region. The Department of Labor does not set rules on how U.S. companies can operate in China.
Lee said China's transfer of Uyghur laborers to other parts of the country had been growing, but that it was difficult to verify the extent of the program.
"I have not seen an effective way to address the challenges of monitoring the labor transfer program of workers outside of Xinjiang," Lee said.
She said data on Chinese websites is periodically removed, and that there is no free access to workplaces to assess workers' origins.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/...ng-2024-04-30/

[Jimbuna]

China preparing to launch 'war without limits' against West as WW3 fears explode

Xi Jinping is preparing to launch a "war without limits" against the West in his quest to retake Taiwan, according to a China expert.

President Xi Jinping has made no secret of his ambition to annex the island state across the Taiwan straits, as he seeks to make his mark on history.

In preparation for the grand event, the Chinese dictator is closely observing events in Ukraine, and in particular the West's response.

And one of the key lessons he appears to have learned is the need to create a firewall that would protect China's economy from punitive Western sanctions.

Evidence this process is already underway can be seen in China's almost unprecedented purchase of gold in recent times, according to Matthew Henderson.
In the last 17 months alone, Beijing's declared gold reserves have soared by 17 percent to nearly 73 million troy ounces, currently worth $170bn (£135bn).

At the same time Xi has built up China's foreign exchange reserves to their highest level since 2015.

In an article for the Daily Telegraph, he wrote: "All in all this looks like a war chest, intended to be proof against harsh Western sanctions which, following the Ukraine model, would likely follow a Chinese invasion of Taiwan."

He points out that Xi is also "doubling down on trusted foreign suppliers of vital raw materials for industry, energy and food, while continuing unchecked to plunder endangered natural resources across the world."

The Chinese President is concurrently aiming to double his nuclear stockpile from 500 to 100 warheads by 2030, as well as sow havoc and confusion across the West using hybrid espionage, disinformation, influence and cyber conflict.

Mr Henderson describes all these measures as part of Beijing's military concept of "war without limits".

Referred to as "combat readiness" by Xi, the concept incorporates the idea of China's eventual victory against all its rivals and enemies, heralding in the dawn of a new age of Chinese world hegemony.

In conclusion, the China expert writes: "That is why this war chest matters. It is there, like Beijing's hypersonic missiles and nuclear weapons - not to enable an attack on Taiwan at a chosen date, but to ensure that with the balance of power changing in China's favour, it will not be needed.

"Xi is betting on political disarray and disunity among the US and his Western allies - as displayed in Ukraine.

"And if his plans go ahead unchecked, he will be able to absorb Taiwan without a fight."
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...cc290698&ei=40

[ET2SN]

Meanwhile, The West are also the customers who write checks for goods that don't bounce.

"Save this week on kitchen appliances...or we'll bomb you."

[Skybird]

The Western naivety towards China puts Western government to shame. Some more than others, Germany amongst these.


It is not just a pathetic phrase when I think and sometimes say that we live in a time now where we must witness the - self-inflicted - demise of the West.



The others outlive us due to their determination that we lack. And for shortsighted greed we made them this strong and big, and us so dependent.



TSCM has carefull made sure that despite its opening to building production plants in some Western countries now, it snot the latest and newest stuff they isntall poverseas, but relatively old and "clumsy" chip stuff. They try to make themselves indispensable for thew West, as a security guarantee. But I do not see us havign the military capacity to prevent Taiwan from either getting industrially destroyed, of falling to Bejing. What we actually do - and could do - in preparation for that war leaves too much to be desired.

[Jimbuna]

A war around Taiwan would make Gaza look like a picnic, says James Woudhuysen

On the other side of the world, tensions are growing. The flashpoint is the South China Sea.

There, ships and planes amassed by the Chinese Communist Party fire water cannon against vessels belonging to the Philippines and, for a long time but daily, harass Taiwanese jets.

In these disputes, Beijing can muster nearly 800 surface ships and submarines – the largest navy in the world – and 2,400 combat aircraft.

The Philippines, though, possesses only three patrol boats, four corvettes, two frigates and 26 attack jets. Still, the government in Taipei has more than 90 boats and 750 planes at its disposal.

So a war around Taiwan would make Gaza look like a picnic.

Apart from the borders between China and India, and the formally unfinished war between North and South Korea, hostilities in Asia are maritime in nature. But that won’t make their effects any less dangerous.
The region is not just the world’s main population centre, but the crucible for 21st century innovation and wealth.

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s top chip foundry, supplies America’s top dog in AI, Nvidia. It set up a factory in Japan this year, and plans to open another there.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk has just agreed a deal with China’s digital search and mapping experts Baidu.

That should help him launch semi-autonomous Teslas into the world’s largest market for cars.

Britons know too little about the geography of Asia, let alone the geopolitics. The Japanese island of Okinawa, after all, is a modest 466 miles from Taiwan, and is home to substantial US forces.

Last year South Korea, home to brands such as Samsung and Kia, strengthened military ties with Japan and the US to contain China.

Adding to instability, governments in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are unpopular lame ducks.

Which brings us to President Biden in 2024, this election year. Since Barack Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ in 2011, the US, a declining global power, has been at pains to contain China, a rising but still regional one.

But while Beijing likes to go back to 1947 to legitimise a ridiculous U-shaped claim – now known as the Nine Dash Line – over most of the South China Sea, Biden is very much in there now with his own brand of recklessness.

Indeed, the gesture politics of his Democratic Party ally Nancy Pelosi, in conducting a narcissistic visit to Taipei in 2022, was so incendiary, Sleepy Joe himself worried about how she prompted fury in Beijing.

It is difficult to imagine how lethal, across the slender Taiwan Strait, a confrontation could be between marines, drones, aircraft carriers, hypersonic missiles, cyber techniques, electromagnetic blasts and even space weapons.

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has said his forces must be ready to invade by 2027; even more dangerously, Joe Biden does not even appear to know what his basic posture around Taiwan should be.

Moreover, the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better.

What can fans of GB News do about any of this? First, get familiar with what is going on, for we could be talking about the origins of World War Three.

Second, discard any idea that, in the South China Sea, Britain, France or Germany can have any of the influence wielded by Beijing or Washington.

Finally, recognise that the Philippines and Taiwan, oppressed by Japan and the US in the past, face the cynical manipulations of both an arrogant, nuclear-armed Chinese Communist Party and a virtue-signalling, nuclear-armed Pentagon in the present.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...cf5366d2&ei=35

[Skybird]

https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/...en&_x_tr_hl=de

[mapuc]

I can see two reasons to his visit in Europe.

1. Divide Europe even more.
2. Drag Hungary and Serbia closer to Russia.

For the Germanies and the rest of EU it must have felt like being smacked in the face by a soaking wet towel.

Markus

[em2nought]

Chyna is really messing with my retirement plans. Just more bad results from a stolen election.

[ET2SN]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The Western naivety towards China puts Western government to shame.

It isn't naivety, its greed. If you really want to drive your returns, you farm out the labor to where it costs pennies on the dollar. This is what hollowed-out the labor pools in the western countries. If the PLA was also stealing your intellectual property, as long as it produced cheaper goods, that was OK as long as you maintained your profit margins.

Cheap over seas labor became part of doing business.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by ET2SN

It isn't naivety, its greed. If you really want to drive your returns, you farm out the labor to where it costs pennies on the dollar. This is what hollowed-out the labor pools in the western countries. If the PLA was also stealing your intellectual property, as long as it produced cheaper goods, that was OK as long as you maintained your profit margins.

Cheap over seas labor became part of doing business.

Thats the company logic behind it, but especially European and here especially the German governments also had high flying idealistic ambitions, thinking that change in China (and before: Russia) to democracy could be boostered, even enforced by close economic cooperation. The Germans even have a term for it and are damn proud of it, both regarding Russia and regarding China: "Wandel durch Handel", translating into [political and social] "change by trade". Germany until today pays China over 80 millions in non-declared development aid!!! Although the defenders of this misconception argue that this has no longer been the case since 2010, China is still officially listed by the authorities as a developing country, this status nevertheless results in unilateral financial transfers that are de facto equivalent to development aid, even if they no longer have to be formally identified as such. In a sense, they are "inclusive".

[Skybird]

I like to read that they have movedf towards investing into what I suggested: missiles and drones, drones and missiles.

https://www.dw.com/en/can-taiwan-def...ina/a-69163219

But one should have no illusions about Xi's willingness to slaughter as many of his own people as Putin slaughters his. And China probably has the ability to interrupt any resupply deliveries into Taiwan once the war broke out. Different to Ukraine.



So: lets get even more missiles an drones to Taiwan. Why leave numbers where they are if for twice as many items you can double the total numbers?

[mapuc]

Markus

[mapuc]

Markus

[Jimbuna]

China says its spacecraft lands on Moon's far side

China says its uncrewed craft has successfully landed on the far side of the Moon - an unexplored place almost no-one tries to go.

The Chang'e 6 touched down in the South Pole-Aitken Basin at 06:23 Beijing time on Sunday morning (22:23 GMT Saturday), the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said.

Launched on 3 May, the mission aims to collect precious rock and soil from this region for the first time in history.

The probe could extract some of the Moon's oldest rocks from a huge crater on its South Pole.

The landing was fraught with risks, because it is very difficult to communicate with spacecraft once they reach the far side of the Moon. China is the only country to have achieved the feat before, landing its Chang'e-4 in 2019.

After launching from Wenchang Space Launch Center, the Chang'e 6 spacecraft had been orbiting the Moon waiting to land.

The lander component of the mission then separated from the orbiter to touch down on the side of the Moon that faces permanently away from Earth.

During the descent, an autonomous visual obstacle avoidance system was used to automatically detect obstacles, with a visible light camera selecting a comparatively safe landing area based on the brightness and darkness of the lunar surface, the CNSA was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency.

The lander hovered about 100m (328ft) above the safe landing area, and used a laser 3D scanner before a slow vertical descent.

The operation was supported by the Queqiao-2 relay satellite, the CNSA said.

Chinese state media described the successful landing as an “historic moment”.

The state broadcaster said “applause erupted at the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center” when the Chang’e landing craft touched down on the Moon early on Sunday morning.

The lander should spend up to three days gathering materials from the surface in an operation the CNSA said would involve "many engineering innovations, high risks and great difficulty".

"Everyone is very excited that we might get a look at these rocks no-one has ever seen before," explains Professor John Pernet-Fisher, who specialises in lunar geology at the University of Manchester.

He has analysed other lunar rock brought back on the American Apollo mission and previous Chinese missions.

But he says the chance to analyse rock from a completely different area of the Moon could answer fundamental questions about how planets form.

Most of the rocks collected so far are volcanic, similar to what we might find in Iceland or Hawaii.

But the material on the far side would have a different chemistry .

"It would help us answer those really big questions, like how are planets formed, why do crusts form, what is the origin of water in the solar system?" the professor says.

The mission aims to collect about 2kg (4.4lb) of material using a drill and mechanical arm, according to the CNSA.

The South Pole–Aitken basin, an impact crater, is one of the largest known in the solar system.

From there, the probe could gather material that came from deep inside the lunar mantle - the inner core of the Moon - Prof Pernet-Fisher says.

The Moon's South Pole is the next frontier in lunar missions - countries are keen to understand the region because there is a good chance it has ice.

Access to water would significantly boost the chances of successfully establishing a human base on the Moon for scientific research.

If the mission succeeds, the craft will return to Earth with the precious samples on board a special return capsule.

The material will be kept in special conditions to try to keep it as pristine as possible.

Scientists in China will be given the first chance to analyse the rocks, and later researchers around the world will be able to apply for the opportunity too.

This is the second time China has launched a mission to collect samples from the Moon.

In 2020 Chang'e 5 brought back 1.7kg of material from an area called Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon's near side.

China is planning three more uncrewed missions this decade as it looks for water on the Moon and investigates setting up a permanent base there.

Beijing's broader strategy aims to see a Chinese astronaut walk on the moon by around 2030.

The US also aims to put astronauts back on the moon, with Nasa aiming to launch its Artemis 3 mission in 2026.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxeejp0y2pjo