This is a pretty significant threat: sanctions of any country that boycotts the Olympics. The ability to threaten democratic countries with significant economic sanctions was not an arrow the USSR had in its quiver in 1980.
Courtesy of
@Maxar
, new Chinese activity can be seen in the Jakarlung Valley, in the north of Bhutan.
Multiple projects are now visible here as well as in the Menchuma valley, suggesting Thimphu may be about to concede the land to Beijing in a border deal.
📸
@Maxar
When people ask me about what changed after Xi Jinping took power, i usually emphasize there was a lot more continuity than often thought. But man, this graph
People who think China's going to cast aside a Russia weakened by war because it has less value as a strategic partner need to take a good, hard look at Beijing's relationship with North Korea.
As we watch what is probably developing into the violent annexation of Ukraine, remember that this is the sword that Beijing holds over Taiwan’s head every single day.
This is a man of determination and action, a man of profound thoughts and feelings, a man who inherited a legacy but dares to innovate, a man who has forward-looking vision and is committed to working tirelessly.
If Peng Shuai's disappearance ends up being what upends the Beijing 2022 Winter Games, I would not blame anyone in the Uyghur community for feeling frustration or even despair.
Yo
@TwitterSafety
this is a powerful PRC state media outlet singling out one single person for abuse because they had the temerity to be one member of a whole team of people who investigated forced labor in Xinjiang. In what world is this use of your platform by GT ok?
Vicky Xu, author of Uyghurs for Sale, fabricates Xinjiang stories, stokes anti-China sentiment in Australia and reduces voices of Chinese community in Australia.
feel like allegations that the PRC consulate in Toronto was covertly directing six-figure donations to federal election candidates in Canada should be bigger news on China Twitter than it seems to have been?
It feels a little weird seeing Australia's government talk about the need to improve the country's relationship with China, without referencing that it was Beijing's active attempt to subvert Australian democracy that tanked the relationship in the first place.
Weird how the "Most Dangerous Place on Earth" takes about Taiwan just treat the fact that the CCP might violently conquer it as a fact of nature, like gravity, with no moral dimension worth commenting on
Despite his consistent brilliance,
@adam_tooze
's newness to the security debate on China shows here. An East Asian security order large enough to accommodate China's rise isn't just a non starter in DC, but in Tokyo, Canberra, and Dehli too.
Can we please stop framing the issue with TikTok as "data"? The root problem is not the minutia of what data is or isn't accessible in Beijing, but that TikTok's parent company has no effective way to rebuff demands by China's intelligence and security agencies, or its military.
This is just saying out loud the quiet part that's been true for 30 years, that Beijing doesn't have to set up a lobbying apparatus in DC like some other countries, because American companies do the work for it
Hope all the folks talking down a 2022 Olympics boycott are ready for the Uyghur performers singing the Party's praises in hymns to ethnic unity at the Opening Ceremonies
People opining on the TikTok bill “we’re like China now”…please stop. Beijing banned all foreign social media platforms it couldn’t control. Congress is taking a reasonable step *because* Beijing is so forthright about its need for control. These two are not remotely the same.
About over Eileen Gu discourse. Think where I come down is: she's 18, and me expressing strong views on her actions probably doesn't help anyone or make the world a better place. The PRC party state is obviously all too happy to use her to score points; doesn't mean I have to too
The way Taiwan allows genuine political space for migrant laborers to advocate for themselves is one of the coolest things about their democracy. In the US or EU countries these ppl might be too scared of retaliation to do this.
For the second time in a row, Indonesian migrant workers took the stage at
@megaportfest
, one of Taiwan's highest-profile independent music festivals in the southern city of Kaohsiung. The punk band Southern Riot sings about human rights and labor issues migrants face in Taiwan.
Getting a little tired of smart, well-meaning folks describing horrific acts of intimidation or violence by the PRC party-state as "counterproductive" or "self-defeating". I might suggest it's time to start thinking of the abuse as a feature, not a bug.
Prime example of how the word "nuanced" is deployed in discussions about China to mean "ignoring clear evidence because the implications are too difficult to deal with"
Not clear why China is being forced to do anything here. If Xi chose to make peace with Taiwan he’d be hailed globally as a brilliant statesman. That he doesn’t has to be put down to the internal politics the CCP has self-consciously cultivated, not a pretty vanilla speech by Lai
I don’t condone China’s military drills around Taiwan. But walk in Beijing’s shoes for a moment. Lai completely ignored “One China” in his inauguration speech—not even a nod to 1992 Consensus like his predecessor. He speaks of Taiwan as already independent. China must react.
Probably worth pointing out here that BRI agreements --particularly those signed with subnational governments -- are not international treaties. Unlike, for example, the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong that the PRC unilaterally abrogated.
Extremely useful overview of how things evolved in Xinjiang since 2018 by
@JimMillward
. Current PRC policies in the region continue to have all the hallmarks of 19th/20th century genocides against indigenous populations in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere.
Really tired of think tanks describing themselves as "independent". Let's all be grown-ups and acknowledge the obvious: we live in a society and the money has to come from somewhere. The real question is whether you're comfortable defending your funding publicly.
As we ponder the role of ICAO--currently led by a PRC citizen--in responding to Belarus's hijacking a jet to kidnap a nettlesome journalist, let us not neglect to factor into our ponderings the fact that the PRC summarily disappeared the head of INTERPOL in October 2018.
At the end of nine years in China, I was exhausted just by having to constantly explain and justify my presence: "I'm American". "Yes, I like China." "Yes, Chinese was hard to learn." Etc etc. Repeat a dozen times a day. 1/
Still blows my mind that up until, like, three months ago, TikTok was running all its U.S. user data through a data center in Virginia run by an arm of the PRC government and the collective response was "meh".
Have seen some folks saying the CCP came out poorly in the Meng Wan/Two Michaels affair because now everyone knows they'll do hostage diplomacy. I would only observe that making sure everyone knows would seem to be a big part of the point.
tbt that time that TikTok's CTO said "yes a PRC state-owned enterprise owns the building where we keep US user data but we totally make sure they can't access it"
Taiwan: growing our international space is a matter of survival
Also Taiwan: all citizens of the countries in red must go through a laborious visa process for the privilege of a visit
Extremely skeptical of the "China can help negotiate the end to the war in Ukraine" messaging now coming from people whose job has been to mislead interlocutors in North America and Europe whilst the internal propaganda system in the PRC is all ahead full on pro-war rhetoric.
BREAKING: TIBETAN AND TAIWANESE HARVARD STUDENTS DISRUPT CHINESE AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S. XIE FENG'S ADDRESS AT HARVARD
They called out his complicity in advocating for the genocide of Tibet and East Turkestan, destroying HK’s freedoms, and a military invasion of Taiwan.
The absolute world shattering arrogance to state that this piece is a "first try" at defining these problems. Extremely good people -- many of whom are my friends -- have been grappling with these problems in exactly these terms for years now.
If you're looking for a Uyghur food fix in DC, Eerkins in Georgetown is a strong "recommend". The lamb kebab and naan were on. point. Get them with the homemade yogurt. Soooo good.
Two things that can simultaneously be true:
1) France complaining about dishonorable behavior in the international arms trade is hilarious.
2) Not communicating forthrightly with an important ally because you're afraid they'll be mad is dumb, dangerous, and self-defeating.
This is one of the things that people don't get about a lot of state controlled media: they often house very good reporters who can do great work. They just aren't allowed to.
Remain confused at how badly major US papers are covering the unfolding PRC election interference scandal in Canada. Compare coverage in American papers against the actual allegations that have leaked out of Candian intelligence
Viewed from Europe I'm sure this whole thing can look like it's all US driven, but many countries in Asia have been souring on China for a decade now. The US is not forcing Japan, Australia, or The Philippines to change their security stance vis a vis China.
The US paper of record is not being well served in its coverage of PRC interference in Canadian democracy. This article handwaves away fairly serious evidence of meddling and casts the whole thing as a political horse race.
Instead of a debate hot take here is a picture I took yesterday when I drove by a McDonald's and saw Pikachu waiting at the drive thru window in the rain
It remains astonishing to me that a country actively engaged in genocide is hosting the premier global sporting event, and it is somehow not the only thing anyone can talk about. The world has changed; just not sure many people have realized it.
As the
#2022Olympics
begin, remember the horrors, family separation, & the irreparable harm
#China
has caused against a unity of
#Uyghur
family. A child was taught that “he has no father” in Chinese when his loving father will do anything to see him again!
Unbelievably proud of my team at
@IRIglobal
that we've gotten this compendium of case studies on PRC influence at the country level out the door. With 12 case studies, it was . . . man, it was a journey.
Anytime you see sensational "news" related to China from a source tied to Falun Gong, your first instinct should be to distrust and wait for additional confirmation
The PRC's use of transnational value chains to erode solidarity within and between democratic counties calls for transnational economic defense mechanisms that do not currently exist.
The German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce has written to the Lithuanian government warning that German investors may close their plants in the country unless a "constructive solution to restore Lithuanian-Chinese economic relations" is found
Lots to dig into here, but see particularly tweet 10. CCP-tied folks trying to position themselves as voices of whole diaspora communities is, by far, the most pernicious, most corrosive part of CCP diaspora policy. Feeds racism/hatred and drives division.
1/20 The news about "Chinese agent" Christine Lee broke today. I've been following her case for some time & in fact she featured in my PhD thesis on UK-China hidden relations. She's appeared in stories by
@thetimes
&
@GuidoFawkes
before. Yet there's still a lot more to this case.
Just got word of first person close to a close acquaintance dying of covid in China. Feels like 2020 again. I don’t want to do 2020 again. Please keep the people of China in your thoughts, this is going to be a scary time.
I don't know who needs to hear this, but do not QT or reply to PRC diplomats you want to beef with. You're just helping them get promoted by upping their engagement numbers. Screenshot if you absolutely must shoot your shot.
A lot of people get confused about the difference between the United Front and the United Front work department -- this is a great question, really glad you asked. So the former is a theory of politics and how the CCP maintains predominance within a diverse society while the latt
One time when I was bored I was like "how big is the east to west line across Africa if you compare it to the United States?" and I found out it goes from DC to *Midway Island*
One of the more shameless examples of the PRC party-state trying to piggyback off of the real, pressing problem of racism against Americans of Asian descent
"It's in Beijing's interest to distance itself as much as possible from Pyongyang, because the potential value in good relationships with South Korea and Japan is so much greater. Beijing will have to choose."
Do we see how silly this sounds?
"This is a sign of my lack of confidence", Xi Jinping muttered to himself as he dissolved free society in Hong Kong and turned Xinjiang into a province-sized prison
Maybe while huge numbers of people are running in terror for their lives we can cool it on the who wins-who loses geopolitical hottakes on Afghanistan. People on here treating other humans' lives like a bad IR 102 term paper.
Reading through these documents, I find myself struck by Xi Jinping in 2014 quoting the foundational words of United Front, spoken by Mao Zedong in 1925: "Who are our enemies, who are our friends? This is the foremost question of the revolution."
BREAKING: the first-ever leak of "Top Secret" remarks by a Chinese head of state shows how Beijing is behind nearly every aspect of the atrocities in Xinjiang:
Internments / forced labor / birth control & reducing Uyghur population shares / big data policing / boardng schools/1
you know you’ve spent too much time staring at pictures of Xi Jinping when you see an overhead shot of him and you get a little twinge of excitement because you’ve never seen what he looks like from that angle before
It's tempting to crow considering how annoying PRC state media and the wolf warrior diplomats have been during the whole epidemic, but this could be a really, really tough setback for the counties that have gone all in on the PRC vaccine
The head of China CDC admitted that Chinese Covid vaccines have low protection rates and China is considering alternative administration methods, such as changing doses.
I strongly encourage everyone speculating as to why the spy balloon showed up right before blinken goes to China to allow for the possibility that the explanation may be something very, very stupid.
Speaking as someone who’s pretty liberal on domestic policy, the notion that the state of US-China relations has a direct correlation with global/multilateral progress on climate is, dare I say, a frustrating and extremely un-nuanced take.
CECC Chairs ask
@NBCUniversal
to objectively cover human rights and
#Uyghur
genocide during
#Beijing2022
Olympics coverage, affirm media freedom, and avoid Chinese propaganda images of "happy minorities." Press release at
This is really amazing. It's like a more articulate version of a PRC foreign ministry press conference. Embarrassing for Professor Sachs and his university.
Just over here, really trying hard to get people in the natsec/foreign policy space to say “prc” instead of “chinese”, not really getting a lot of traction. Think folks need to realize that we’re building up a rhetorical debt that is going to get paid down, some way or somehow.
The fact that companies should be able to check their supply chains for things like forced or child labor, or environmental destruction or the like was, I had thought, fairly uncontroversial. But you learn something new every day!
Imagine writing an article claiming liberal democracy isn't under threat from China when arguably the US's best ally (Australia) is getting hammered economically by the PRC for having the temerity to be a liberal democracy.
This is why better data privacy legislation—which the US needs—is not the solution to TikTok. Beijing can, potentially, do *anything it wants * with TikTok. It’s a different category of problem than Facebook or Twitter, requiring a different category of solution: divestment.
.
@karaswisher
explains why she only uses TikTok on a burner phone: "I feel like every Chinese company I've covered has had the tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party involved in it, whether they like it or not."
Fellow elder millennials, I just realized, telling younger people about how long it took to download things when we were teenagers is our generation's version of walking five miles uphill in the snow both ways
It’s a silly, random thing, but I look at videos like this and hope there’s a day where people in China can do normal stuff like make cool podcasts and movies without constantly looking over their shoulders
Nothing more surreal and more indicative of where Hong Kong is at than one of its public broadcasters literally reporting on its own slow motion dismemberment 👇
Seeing a lot of mockery or surprise about this. But it's a dead serious example of the only criteria that really matters to Beijing, whether a country's leaders openly oppose China's "interests" (as defined by the CCP).
China hopes the Afghan
#Taliban
will put Afghanistan's national interests first, uphold commitment to peace talks, embrace the goal of peace, create a positive image and adopt an inclusive policy.
I wonder how long I will have to keep repeating "Beijing knows the foreign business community is its most powerful ally in shaping perceptions abroad, and this is at its heart a united front tactic" in meetings before people stop looking at me like I've grown a second head
Reupping this because it really was a classic moment in China related internet humor and it was long enough ago that basically no one remembers it. You can still find a lot of it on the wayback machine
Apropos of nothing, just calling people's attention to a ProPublica article last week with allegations by local law enforcement that overseas prc stations in Spain and Italy were established with local members of the Chinese mafia in leadership roles