You can always count on the Chinese to bust international sanctions:
China has provided rice and fertilizer to North Korea, Chinese data showed Sunday, amid U.N. Security Council (UNSC) sanctions against the North that prohibit any large-scale economic assistance.
According to data from China’s customs office, Beijing provided 1,000 tons of rice, worth about US$1 million, to the impoverished North between May and October of 2018. The data showed Beijing also provided 162,000 tons of fertilizer, worth more than $55 million, to the North.
The shipments of what appears to have been free assistance followed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s visit to China in March 2018, when he held his first summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The Chinese government must be feeling some economic pain if they are now resorting to pushing nationalism to defend themselves:
Among China’s most surprising responses to the trade war has been its reluctance to use its vast state media empire to rally the home front. That’s changed since U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest tariff barrage.
In recent days, the once-banned phrase “trade war” has roared back into widespread use in Chinese media. Meanwhile, official news outlets gave high-profile play to commentaries urging unified resistance to foreign pressure, including an editorial from the nationalist Global Times calling the trade dispute a “people’s war” and threat to all of China.
Such sentiments have found an eager audience, with a state television video vowing a “fight to the end” attracting more than 3 billion views since Monday. The clip was the most-read piece on China’s Twitter-like social media platform Weibo earlier Tuesday.
The rhetorical shift underscores the risks that China’s Communist Party veers toward a more nationalistic position as the trade war drags on and weighs on economic growth. Chinese President Xi Jinping, like Trump, has promised to rejuvenate his country and can’t afford to look weak in the face of foreign power. So far, China’s state media have sought to tamp down the kind of patriotic passions that fueled a backlash against Japanese interests when a territorial dispute flared in 2012. Even now, state media commentaries focused the blame on the U.S. government, rather than the country as a whole. For instance, a commentary published in the Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily newspaper, avoids any mention of Trump’s name and refers only to “certain people in America who brood over the so-called massive trade deficit,” said David Bandurski of the China Media Project, an independent research program affiliated with the University of Hong Kong.
The notion that #China is the source of all civilization is dangerous as it provides justification for Beijing to do whatever it wants. In this case, bad history will lead to bad futures. https://t.co/gDucVgqTqY
….of additional goods sent to us by China remain untaxed, but will be shortly, at a rate of 25%. The Tariffs paid to the USA have had little impact on product cost, mostly borne by China. The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!
Is China trying to protect local businesses from international competition or does Amazon just suck at selling goods in China as Chinese critics claim?:
Amazon says it is curtailing business operations in China, the world’s biggest retail market, after struggling against better entrenched local players for more than a decade.
The company announced recently that as of July 18, it will no longer provide services through its Chinese website, Amazon.cn. The decision means Amazon will stop selling goods from China-based vendors to domestic consumers on the portal. Although it is moving out of the e-retail business in China, Amazon will continue with its cross-border business, bringing foreign brands and goods to China, the company said.
“Their demand for high-quality, authentic goods from around the world continues to grow rapidly, and given our global presence, Amazon is well-positioned to serve them,” the company said.
The announcement has raised questions about the extremely thin presence of foreign companies in internet-related businesses in China, while Chinese companies like Alibaba create market space for themselves across the world.
This cancer in the US will be removed, one #China spy after another. Until we can stabilize the critical situation, we should disengage from China as fast and as completely as we can. This will be unfortunate and will cost our society, but Beijing is leaving us no choice. https://t.co/4AQNDhVNmc
We don't know what #China spends on its military, but we do know Beijing is using the profits from #trade with the #US to expand its military so that it can attack us. Its senior officers publicly express their venomous desire to kill Americans. We're funding our own destruction. https://t.co/QC3QZ97pjx
