Tag: China

I doubt Raytheon and Lockheed are selling any military equipment to China so it seems these sanctions are just symbolic:

China said Monday it will impose new sanctions on U.S. defense contractors Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin due to their arms sales to Taiwan, stepping up a feud with Washington over security and Beijing’s strategic ambitions.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin announced the move at a daily press briefing, citing a newly passed Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law that took effect in 2021. It was in response to a $100 million deal approved by the U.S. for maintenance of Taiwan’s missile defense systems by the two companies. 

“China once again urges the U.S. government and relevant parties to . . . stop arms sales to Taiwan and sever military ties with Taiwan,” Wang said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

At this point corruption and Olympics should be considered synonyms. Has anyone seen the Netflix series Icarus? At least this Olympics appears so far to not reach any where near that level of corruption:

 The Chinese Embassy in Seoul expressed “grave concern” Wednesday over the accusations of favorable judging for the Chinese team in a short track speed skating competition of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Two South Korean skaters — Lee June-seo and Hwang Dae-heon — were disqualified in the semifinals of the men’s 1,000-meter race Monday night, with Chinese competitors reaching the finals.

It caused an uproar among many South Koreans, as they regard the short track speed skating judges as having been biased in favor of the Chinese team.

In a statement posted on its social messaging account, the embassy took issue with criticism by “some South Korean media outlets and politicians.”

“We can’t help expressing grave concern and proclaim a strict position,” its spokesperson stated.

Now that it is a “technical” issue, it should be handled by a professional and authoritative institution, the official noted.

“However, some South Korean media and politicians have criticized the Chinese government and Beijing Olympics as a whole, even instigating anti-Chinese sentiment, worsening the public sentiment of the two countries and drawing a backlash from Chinese online users,” read the statement.

It stressed that China can never accept such “irresponsible” behavior.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

One South Korean speed skater claims that China is getting home town refereeing during the Winter Olympics:

As disappointed as he was that his team crashed out early in the mixed team relay in short track speed skating in Beijing over the weekend, South Korean short tracker Kwak Yoon-gy seemed even more upset that China won gold thanks to what he claimed was biased judging.

In a scrum with South Korean reporters Sunday, a day after China won the inaugural Olympic gold in the mixed relay on home ice, Kwak said it was difficult to describe the mixed bag of feelings he had about China’s path to the title.

“Looking at the way China won the gold medal, I felt bad that my younger teammates had to watch something like that,” Kwak, 32, said. “I thought to myself, ‘Is this really what winning a gold medal is all about?’ Things all just felt very hallow.” (……)

“I was watching that race unfold. I figured China, ROC and the U.S. would get penalized,” said Kwak, who didn’t compete for South Korea in the new relay event. “The Dutch skaters who were watching it with me said the same thing. But as the review dragged on, I figured China was going to be allowed to progress. And when the call was finally made, I found it difficult to accept it.”

Kwak, who is competing in his third and final Olympics in Beijing, said he had never seen a case where a relay team was let off the hook after missing an exchange entirely.

“If it had been any other country than China in that situation, I wondered if that team would still have been allowed to reach the final like that,” Kwak added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

China does have a point that in northeastern China there is a large Korean minority group present that they were trying to represent during the opening ceremony:

South Korea plans to continue global efforts to publicize hanbok, the traditional Korean attire, as its signature culture, a government official said Sunday, as people here are in an uproar over China’s use of hanbok during the winter Olympics opening ceremony.

One woman clad in hanbok appeared among those representing 56 ethnic groups across China during the event held in Beijing last Friday.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but clearly the CCP was trying to stick it to the West and their diplomatic boycott of the Olympics over human rights abuses of the Uighurs. This ceremony was intended to make it look like all the ethnic groups in China are happy and content and the West is wrong about repression of minority groups. I doubt this had anything to do with stealing Korean culture.

I don’t think anyone would be surprised that China would be upset to see Yoon Suk-yeol win the Korean Presidency:

The Chinese Embassy in Seoul has denied the allegation that China tried to meddle in Korea’s upcoming presidential election.

In a statement released to Korean journalists on Monday, the embassy expressed regret that a JoongAng Ilbo newspaper column published on the same day accused China of trying to intervene in the presidential election based on several Chinese officials’ remarks. 

“China, like many other countries in the world, is watching the South Korean presidential election, but it has never intervened in it and will never do it,” the press release reads. “China’s announcing of its position and argument on China-related issues is aimed at protecting its interests and the overall development of Sino-Korea relations, and has nothing to do with the so-called interference in the Korean presidential election.”

The Chinese Embassy’s reaction came as the JoonAng Ilbo published a column titled, “China’s attempt to ‘intervene’ in Korea’s presidential election regretful.” In the article written by its chief Beijing correspondent, the journalist cited former Chinese Ambassador to Korea Qiu Guohong’s “inappropriate” comments about Korea during an online international academic conference held Jan. 20.

“I hope presidential candidates of Korea would not mention any sensitive issues related to China,” Qiu was quoted as saying, adding he believes the bilateral relations between China and Korea should not be ruined by some politicians’ remarks.

The JoongAng Ilbo column presented Qiu’s remarks as being disrespectful to Korea, pointing out that the former ambassador was indirectly criticizing recent remarks made by Yoon Suk-yeol, the presidential candidate of Korea’s main opposition conservative People Power Party (PPP).

The article also mentioned several other Chinese scholars’ remarks about how some conservative politicians in Korea tried to China-bash as a campaign tactic.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but Yoon should use this as one of his campaign slogans that he is the candidate that China does not want to see elected.

The resilience that Australia has shown against China’s economic retaliation has likely been a major surprise for the CCP. Instead of weakening Australia it has actually strengthened and embolden the country to stand up even more against CCP human rights violations, economic coercion, and territorial expansion:

If the scale of China’s trade coercion against Australia is unprecedented, it also offers an intriguing experiment: What does a sudden economic decoupling from China look like? With China accounting for nearly 40 percent of Australian exports, one might assume the costs of Canberra’s defiance would be grave.

But in fact, the effects have been surprisingly mild. The reason is trade diversion: When a trade barrier is erected, businesses seek alternate outlets for their products. In open international markets, the outcome is rarely the destruction of export industries. Most of the time, trade flows adjust around the barrier.

Coal provides an illustrative example. Once China banned imports of Australian coal in mid-2020, Chinese utilities had to turn to Russian and Indonesian suppliers instead. This, in turn, took Russian and Indonesian coal off the market, creating demand gaps in India, Japan, and South Korea—which Australia’s stranded coal was able to fill. What’s more, the global energy crunch has pushed up the price of coal, leading Australian coal producers’ export earnings to rise this year—not exactly the effect China had in mind. 

Foreign Policy

You can read more at the link, but for a commodity based economy like Australia has, it is easier to decouple from China. However, for countries that have tech and manufacturing relationships with China it will be harder to decouple because new factories have to be built and new skilled workers have to be trained elsewhere. This would likely be a multi-year process. However, if countries don’t start this process now they could find their economies compromised if China threatens to close them as part of economic pressure to coerce governments to side with them during any future conflict over the South China Sea for example.