China Brief

[haunting]

http://www.jamestown.org/china_brief/article.php?articleid=2374162

China is leading the new wave of regional cooperation in Southeast Asia, and China-driven mechanisms for regional cooperation look set to overwhelm all possible areas of economic and political cooperation. For economic, security, diplomatic and military reasons, China has been developing stronger relationships with Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. China’s “charm offensive” has become an integral part of its overall strategy to shape a new regional structure, which is more conducive to China's evolving strategic interests in the region. China-ASEAN cooperation has spearheaded a new type of intra-Asian regional cooperation with China at its apex. The new Asian regionalism stimulated by the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) would dominate the future economic landscape of Asia, in which the United States may not have a substantial role to play under a multilateral environment. With CAFTA taking effect for China and six ASEAN countries in 2010 and expanding to all ASEAN countries by 2015, China is now laying the bricks of its foundation through the construction of multiple economic corridors in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), particularly the North-South Economic Corridor. This effort will involve water transport along the Upper Lancang/Mekong River covering China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam; and rail and road links that will stretch down from Yunnan Province of China to Chiang Rai of Thailand and eventually connect to ASEAN’s Singapore-Kunmin Rail Project [1]... (more)

 

[wildkactus]

China, a very interesting place.
Just returned from a visit to Qingdao, Shandong in northern china. this city will host the sailing events for the Olympics, the investment in this city and the hole province is enormous a lot of Middle Eastern and European money as well as local money being invested in new factories and property, as well as the local infurstructure. This is also ture for most of the country.

They are out to be the leader in the asian region that's for sure. They have moved quickly with agreements for investment and trade with most of their neighbours. So watch out world as they have only just started.

Some more info sites for anyone.

China Biz www.cbiz.cn

China.org www.china.org.cn

China Daily (newspaper) www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[haunting]

http://www.jamestown.org/news.php

- An Assessment of China's Deepening Ties to Latin America

http://www.jamestown.org/china_brief/article.php?articleid=2374191

- Smoke and Mirrors in China’s Oil Statistics

 

[rederob]

Too many China threads, but none really related to this post.
Yesterday Meng Wanzhou returned to China after having been arrested by Canadian authorities on the basis of an extradition order.
There is so much that can be said on this matter, but I will stick to key points only.

• An NY court issued an arrest warrant on 22 August 2018 based on U.S. charges of committing fraud by misleading the HSBC bank on her company’s dealings in Iran.
• Canadian police, abiding by the extradition request, arrested Meng on 1 December 2018 while she was changing planes at Vancouver airport.
• China made their concerns about her arrest known, and when Canada did nothing China made a tit for tat arrest of 2 Canadian citizens on equally flimsy grounds.
• On 11 December Meng was released on bail and placed under house (read Mansion) arrest.
• Lots of legal argy-bargy took place in the interim with zip being resolved to this day.

What's unusual about this case?

• Meng is the only individual ever arrested for a violation of the US' Iran sanctions. Until her arrest, companies were only fined, occasionally massively and also for pattern behavior over many years, eg most large international banks including UBS ($100M), Lloyds TSB ($350M for 12 years of cover-ups), Credit Suisse ($536M), Barclays ($298M), ING Bank ($619M), HSBC ($1.26B), BNP Paribus (8.9B); plus lesser fines to Companies such Amazon and even Berkshire Hathaway.
• The DoJ had no actual evidence that could incriminate Meng, aside from the fact that the issues related to events as far back as 2007 and were well known.
• The coincidence that Canada was most affected by US Tariffs in 2018 (including an proposed additional tariff on Canadian made cars several days after the NY arrest warrant was issued), and that these were dropped in 2019 just before Canada began hearings on Meng's case. That's hand in glove with the coincidence of the US-China trade war getting underway a month prior to Meng's arrest warrant being issued.
• There is little doubt that Huawei, as a company, has a past history of IP theft, but linking Meng to this is drawing a very long bow, and this was never the original basis for her arrest.

Meng's release remains conditional.

The USA will continue to go after Huawei, but their actions are ill placed. Huawei lead in IP on 5G and 6G and will now pursue a stronger home grown approach rather than international collaboration. It's never a good idea to give a competitor a reason to beat you rather than play with you.

 

[divs4ever]

a couple of years back i did some research on Qualcomm and was amazed on how many patents Qualcomm had taken out in China ,

one might wonder if Huawei and Qualcomm might form strategic partnerships since Qualcomm has been the target of various claims by Apple , Samsung , Intel and others .

i suggest if the CCP permits it Huawei will grow bigger and stronger ( and the CCP would be delighted if it improved self-reliance )