End of the China bull?

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Notice how you did not hear a squeak out of China (North Korea) for the few days leading into the Chinese Dictators Congress.

As soon as The Chinese Dictatorship finishes it's psychopath fest - China (North Korea) resumes hostilities......

North Korea accuses US of 'criminal moves' as three Navy carriers operate in Asian waters

 

[Uncle Festivus]

Congress over, begin the unwind. Credit pulse fading, ripples around the world.

 

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'Beijing is picking up pace in its efforts to export ideological conformity by coercing Western publishers to block content perceived as politically sensitive. In recent days, two more incidences have surfaced in the wake of the uproar over Cambridge University Press, which first agreed and then demurred to remove 300 papers from its archive inside China. In a case first reported by the Financial Times, Springer Nature has now blocked access in China to at least 1000 articles containing words deemed sensitive such as 'Taiwan', 'Tibet' and 'Cultural Revolution'. Springer told the FT that the censored articles constituted less than 1% of the company's content.

Another case has emerged regarding work published in Critical Asian Studies by two Italian scholars, Claudia Pozzana and Alessandro Russo, on the prominent Chinese intellectual Wang Hui. Two articles were published without permission in Chinese volumes, one of which was edited by Wang Hui himself. Among the material removed was a large chunk of a paper discussing the protest movement of 1989 and Wang Hui's own analysis of the movement. 'The censors' zealous hand has struck not only the most critical points from our papers but, in doing so, has removed the basis of our intent,' a statement from the Italian academics read. It is notable that they refrained from blaming Wang Hui, even though his actions whitewashed the past, as if the events of 1989 had simply not happened.'

 

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If all goes to CCP plan 10 years after 2040 China will rule the world

Which means your grandchildren etc will be being worked to death in a factory or having their organs harvested for a few Communist Party Dictators.

 

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Some substance or just retoric? -

President Donald Trump pushed for freedom and economic openness in a Friday speech that portrayed Washington as a more respectful trade partner to Asian nations than China has been.

Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam, the president also warned against mistreating his country, accusing some countries in the region of "product dumping, subsidized goods, currency manipulation and predatory industrial policies."

"We can no longer tolerate these chronic trade abuses and we will not tolerate them," Trump said.

Additionally, Washington will "no longer tolerate the audacious theft of intellectual property, we will confront the destructive practices of forcing businesses to surrender their technologies to the state and forcing them into joint ventures in exchange for market access," he said.

Many U.S. firms operating in China have complained of such policies.

Those who play by the rules will be Washington's closest economic partners, Trump said. "Those who do not can be certain that the United States will no longer turn a blind eye to violations, cheating or economic aggression. Those days are over."

"We cannot achieve open markets if we do not ensure fair market access," he said, adding that unfair trade "undermines us all."

The world's largest economy will also ink bilateral trade agreements with Indo-Pacific nations that abide by fair and reciprocal trade, he continued. "What we will no longer do is enter into large agreements that surrender our sovereignty."

Meanwhile - Beijing has a new ship capable of creating artificial islands — potentially the largest of its kind in Asia — raising fears it could be deployed in the tension-laden South China Sea.
China's largest cutter-suction dredger, the Tian Kun Hao, took to the water on November 3, 2017 in Qidong, Jiangsu Province, China. Measuring 140 meters long, the vessel is capable of dredging 6,000 cubic meters per hour. It can dig up to 35 meters deep and boasts a maximum conveyance of 15,000 meters.

China has many land reclamation projects along its coastlines, so the presence of a new dredger isn't unusual. But the nation's track record of territorial aggression has spurred concerns the device will be used to create man-made islands in the South China Sea.

Whilst creating the islands China reassured the world that it would not militarise the islands.
But Beijing blatantly used the dredgers to create seven fortified islands — some of which now house airfields, missile bases and radar systems — in the international waterway. That happened despite contesting assertions of sovereignty from Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. Chinese President Xi Jinping's administration made up a lie to base the aggregation upon the world with a concept they plucked out of their arses called the nine-dash line to mark territorial claims, which extend roughly 1,000 miles from the nation's southern shores.

 

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China’s internet censorship system (nicknamed The Great Firewall of China) is the most sophisticated in the world. Unlike a system such as North Korea’s, which simply blocks access to all content except the few websites established by the regime, China’s firewall in many ways gives the illusion of a free and open internet, while allowing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to remain in control.

Ever since the internet became available in China it has been protected by software that the government calls the “Golden Shield”. This system has both censorship and surveillance capabilities and blocks thousands of websites that the CCP has determined to be too dangerous for public consumption. If you run a newspaper that writes articles about human rights abuses in China, don’t expect anyone in China to be able to visit your website. If you are celebrity that calls openly for a free Tibet, you will now be invisible to Chinese netizens. And of course, Free Tibet’s website is totally unreachable under this system (you can check to see if your favourite website is blocked in China at https://en.greatfire.org/analyzer).

 

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Investors pushed the benchmark gauge down as much as 1.4 per cent amid concern that the government's latest attempt to tighten supervision of $US15 trillion in asset-management products will siphon funds from the market. Developers and brokerages paced losses.

While analysts applauded the plan as an important step toward curbing risk in China's financial system, they also warned of turbulence as markets adjust to outflows from popular shadow-banking products. The government directives, which are set to take effect in 2019, add to signs that President Xi Jinping is willing to sacrifice growth as he tries to put the world's second-largest economy on a more stable financial footing.

This will be interesting. lending 100x over against assets that don't exist to be reigned in.
I like what Xi is doing, not much progress on Human rights unfortunately however.

 

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f^cking awesome

Clive Palmer wins $200m in damages from former Chinese partners

I have a new hero.
Clive smashes the thieving little c*nts

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...lions-in-damages-from-former-chinese-partners

 

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Prominent Australian academic says he has been silenced by Chinese Government



http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-...s-been-silenced-by-chinese-government/9142694

 

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It's not investment it's invasion

"The nature of Chinese economic decision-making has the potential to cause significant downside risks for those countries that become most dependent on the Belt Road initiative," he said. Nations that suddenly fall out of political favor with Beijing, for whatever reason, could subsequently suffer weighty economic consequences.

The Chines now control you with a more or less ruin!

 

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Since Mugabe assumed power in 1980, Beijing has fostered intimate political, military and personal ties with the controversial politician, providing his government with interest-free loans — a relationship that's resulted in hefty Chinese investments within Zimbabwe's tobacco, diamond and power industries.

China has backed Mugabe even as he was slammed in the West for despotic rule — in 2008, Beijing vetoed a United Nations resolution that would have imposed an arms embargo and financial restrictions on the African leader.

North Korea is not developing weapons. It is just re-branding what China gives it and pretends it's made a new advance like this -

Adding to the speculation are reports of the Zimbabwe National Army deploying Chinese-made Type 89 armored vehicles during the coup. Neither the United Nations nor the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute had any record of Type 89s being delivered to Zimbabwe, IHS Jane's said in a recent note, adding that none of the army's other types of armoured vehicles were seen during the operation.

 

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China's trying to gain political influence abroad, and the West isn't happy

• Officials in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Germany are questioning the extent of political interference by Beijing in their home countries
• Experts say China's Communist Party is using education, spying, political donations and people-to-people diplomacy to gain a greater say in decision-making within these countries

"Chinese security forces have reportedly engaged in a campaign to monitor Chinese nationals, including many students — even threatening them not to offer any criticism of Beijing lest their relatives in China be harmed," Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a recent note.

 

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China's using cheap debt to 'bend other countries to its will,'

• China uses sovereign debt to gain political leverage over developing countries, according to Brahma Chellaney from the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research
• Member countries of Beijing's Belt and Road program are being trapped into "debt servitude," he said

China's continents-spanning Belt and Road network threatens to "shackle" partner countries and deprive them of valuable natural assets.

Beijing is financing and executing massive infrastructure projects across the 68 nations participating in the ambitious scheme, which snakes along Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
These recipient countries, many of them emerging economies in dire need of investment, obtain funding in various forms such as sovereign loans from Chinese President Xi Jinping's administration and credit from Chinese state-owned banks.
But concerns of developing countries taking on unrealistic financial obligations have sparked allegations of what's being called 'dept-trap diplomacy.' Earlier this year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration released a statement warning of unsustainable debt burdens being created by Belt and Road.

"Just as European imperial powers employed gunboat diplomacy, China is using sovereign debt to bend other states to its will," according to Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research, who described Beijing's policies as "creditor imperialism."
In a stinging editorial published on Project Syndicate, Chellaney — a former adviser to India's National Security Council — pointed to Sri Lanka as an example. The South Asian state, unable to pay back onerous bills to China, recently handed over its Hambantota port to state owned China Merchants Port Holdings in a $1.1 billion deal that was widely viewed as an erosion of sovereignty.

"As Hambantota shows, China is now establishing its own Hong Kong-style neocolonial arrangements," Chellaney said. "Like the opium the British exported to China, the easy loans China offers are addictive. And, because China chooses its projects according to their long-term strategic value, they may yield short term returns that are insufficient for countries to repay their debts," he explained.


As a result, the world's second-largest economy holds political leverage over governments and can "force borrowers to swap debt for equity, thereby expanding China's global footprint by trapping a growing number of countries in debt servitude."
And it's not just Sri Lanka.
In 2016, heavily indebted Djibouti, also part of Belt and Road, agreed to lease one of its military bases to Beijing for $20 million per year, resulting in the first overseas post for China's armed forces.
"China has also used its leverage over Turkmenistan to secure natural gas by pipeline largely on
Chinese terms," Chellaney said, adding that "Kenya's crushing debt to China now threatens to turn its busy port of Mombasa – the gateway to East Africa – into another Hambantota."

 

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Chinese vessels transferring oil to North Korean

American spy satellites had observed Chinese vessels transferring oil to North Korean ships in the sea between the two countries about 30 times since October, Seoul-based newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported Dec. 26, citing unidentified South Korean government officials. China has denied the reports.

 

[Uncle Festivus]

And.......the scam is exposed.......filtering through the global economy right about now?

http://www.alhambrapartners.com/2018/01/18/the-blatant-dishonesty-of-the-boom/

The smoke & mirrors show of synchronised economic 'growth'?

 

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Chinese flight routes set off military alarms in Taiwan

• Public discussion of a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan has increased of late.
• Beijing's launch of a new air corridor over the Taiwan Strait has contributed to those concerns.
• Experts say the new flights carry defense implications for Taipei.

In self-ruled Taiwan, fears of a military invasion from the world's second-largest economy are growing.

Following Beijing's increased military drills near the East Asian island, which China illegally considers as part of its own, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said in a televised broadcast last week that she did not exclude the possibility of a full-blown attack.

The new routes, which are expected to cross paths with Taiwanese flights, will carry major defense implications for Taipei.

"By opening this new corridor, the Chinese will fly surveillance and reconnaissance operations closer to Taiwan on a regular basis, better monitoring communications and other electronic emissions, Such missions will allow the Chinese to pinpoint radars and associated air defense missile batteries more effectively.

Those activities could hurt Taiwan's ability to monitor its air and sea space, which would be an "essential" step in any Chinese military action against the island, Cheng continued.
A clear majority of Taiwanese — 67.5 percent — said they believed the new Chinese flights posed a threat to national security, local media reported, citing a recent survey from the Cross-Strait Policy Association.

 

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Uyghur Scholar Dies in Chinese Police Custody

A prominent Uyghur Islamic scholar has died in Chinese police custody, some 40 days after he was detained in the Xinjiang regional capital Urumqi, overseas Uyghur organizations said on Monday.

Muhammad Salih Hajim, 82, died “in custody,” about 40 days after he, his daughter and other relatives were detained, the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) said in a brief statement.

“The exact circumstances of his death are unknown, but he was taken into custody approximately 40 days ago, along with his daughter and other relatives,” said the UHRP.

“UHRP calls on the Chinese government to reveal under what conditions he was being kept, and to release his relatives if they are not being charged with any crime,” said the statement, which also called for international pressure on China to release thousands of Uyghurs detained in re-education camps.

 

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Beijing Is Silencing Chinese-Australians

By ALEX JOSKEFEB. 6, 2018

CANBERRA, Australia — On a September night in 2016, I took my seat at a theater in the heart of Canberra for a Chinese national day celebration organized by the pro-Beijing Chinese Students and Scholars Association. There was a commotion and all of the seats around me were suddenly filled by men in black suits communicating with walkie-talkies. They followed me into the bathroom and tried to have the theater’s security staff kick me out.

Earlier, I had reported for a student newspaper on Chinese government ties to the group and its efforts to censor anti-Communist Party material at my university. I later identified the men at the theater as members of the Chinese student association, and it was clear that the attempt to intimidate me was a result of my articles.

Beijing’s reach into Australia goes far beyond groups like the student association. Its interference in Australian society is becoming increasingly bolder. And as Australians debate how to respond, the voices of the Chinese-Australians alarmed by Beijing’s encroachment are being drowned out by an aggressive Chinese government campaign to silence critics here.

With so many Chinese-Australians left unheard, misunderstandings surrounding the Chinese-Australian community are rife. More than one million Australians claim Chinese ancestry, out of a total population of about 24 million.

The Chinese Communist Party is actively fostering in the Chinese-Australian community what the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died while in custody in China last year, called an “enemy mentality”: the idea that the liberal West is China’s enemy and that supporters of freedom are enemies, too. Those objecting to the Communist Party’s oppression, like pro-democracy activists, are widely referred to as “poison” or “hostile forces.”

Fear is among Beijing’s most potent weapons in silencing Chinese-Australians. Like me, other Chinese-Australian critics of Beijing are targets of threats and intimidation. Last year, a Sydney-based university professor, Feng Chongyi, was detained in China for a week. The Chinese-Australian artist Guo Jian was briefly detained in 2014 after creating a diorama of Tiananmen Square to commemorate the 1989 massacre.

China also monitors the social media accounts of dissidents in Australia, and many fear that their private messages and social networks might make them targets of the Chinese government. Badiucao, a Chinese-Australian cartoonist and street artist, has never revealed his face or real name out of fear.

Even those who avoid actively criticizing Beijing are affected. Last month, word spread of a Taiwanese waitress in Sydney who claimed that she had been asked by her boss at a Chinese hot-pot restaurant if she thought Taiwan belonged to China. “Definitely not,” she replied, and a few minutes later found herself without a job.
Beijing’s control of the Chinese-language news media helps to elevate the pro-Beijing voices here, while critics of Beijing find themselves with few public platforms. Prominent supporters of Beijing are rewarded by Beijing with trips to China.

Few Chinese organizations publicly opposing the Chinese Communist Party are left, their rallying power having been stunted by the lack of coverage by Chinese-language news outlets. And some independent organizations have been taken over by pro-Beijing members, who then change the club’s mission.

Beijing’s domination of the conversation in the Chinese community gives the wider public a skewed view of Chinese-Australians. The rest of the country is left with the impression that Chinese-Australians are a unified bloc that supports Beijing. One right-wing commentator even wrote an article titled, “A Million Chinese Here May Not All Be on Our Side.” This mind-set affects Australia’s policymaking process.

Beijing’s agents here are also keen to remind Australians of this country’s shameful history of racism against Chinese. The result is that when a Chinese-Australian is accused of having ties to Beijing, he may cry racism, saying that he’s being tarnished by connections to Beijing only because he’s ethnic Chinese. In the absence of balanced reporting in the Chinese-language media, many Australians are inclined to believe these claims.

A series of new bills in Parliament on foreign interference, including the introduction of a foreign-agents register and a ban on foreign political donations, would weaken Beijing’s levers of control among Chinese-Australians. It may also inspire new confidence among Chinese-Australians that our struggles are being recognized, that we are no longer being left to fend for ourselves in this fight against coercion.

Still, many Chinese-Australians feel frustrated by the way we are viewed and represented. All Chinese-Australians should have the right to voice their opinions without fearing reprisals by Beijing.

So-called Chinese community leaders who do not in fact represent most Chinese-Australians should be forthcoming about their ties to the Communist Party. And those who do not reveal their ties should be called out not just in English-language media but also in the Chinese-language press. Independent Chinese-Australian community groups should be supported.

The Australian government must do its part to put an end to Beijing’s coercive influence on the local Chinese-language news media and the broader Chinese community. Our government should use diplomatic and security channels to push back against pressure on the media and Beijing’s takeover of Chinese community groups. The independence and reach of publicly funded Mandarin and Cantonese news outlets should be ensured and expanded.

Chinese-Australians are not powerless. We need to speak up. But it’s also time for all Australians, regardless of ethnic background, to unite to protect the country’s sovereignty and dignity. If we are truly a nation of tolerance and freedom, all Australians should support Chinese-Australians’ freedom of expression.

 

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You might think that Trumps new tariffs are stupid and ineffective and not targeted at China as claimed - because China is a smaller exporter of steel and aluminum to the US than say Canada or Mexico.

Think again

The sneaky, cheating, thieving evil Chinese are always breaking the laws, screwing with the rest of the world in order to weaken and take over it
- A California aluminum executive commissioned a pilot to fly over the Mexican town of San José Iturbide, to snap aerial photos of a remote desert factory.
He made a startling discovery. - Nearly one million metric tons of aluminum sat neatly stashed behind a fortress of barbed-wire fences in Mexico - By this Chinese Communist billionaire to make it look like it's a NAFTA issue not Chinese dumping.

Aerial photos of a remote desert factory.

The stockpile, is worth some $2 billion and represents roughly 6% of the world’s total inventory—enough to churn out 2.2 million Ford F-150s or 77 billion beer cans—quickly became an obsession for the U.S. aluminum industry.

U.S. executives contend that the mysterious cache was part of a brazen scheme by one of Communist China’s richest men to game the global trade system.

The Chinese do this type of thing with everything they can.

Trump is right about the tariffs. The Chinese have been distorting markets with this kind of cheating and manipulation for decades.

 

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Almost all Chinese made stuff crap -