Official China Discussion Thread

Interesting video, thx.

Money Is Not Power is apperently the CCP's motto.

I'm looking for it. I may (or may not) have found a way though.

Financial Times: China hit by surge in Belt and Road bad loans. About $78.5 billion of BRI loans had to be renegotiated or written off over the past three years, because so many of these projects were logistically kind of hare-brained and basically only served to channel money into the pockets of corrupt local elites.

Tale as old as time

Song as old as rhyme

Guardian: China ramps up coal power despite carbon neutral pledges.

You mean the CCP lied!?

Who could have seen this coming!

(heavy heavy Sarcasm Mode)

Going by the article, it seems they were working on keeping their pledge but then suffered a huge power outage in 2021 that made them change their priorities

Seems like less a case of malicious lying and more a case of giving over-ambitious pledges which then predictably crashed and burned against ground political and administrative realities of their country.

Also i recall this part of China not keeping its promise came before too and i asked whether they had problems with grid infrastructure and other things like India had which prevented it from transitioning smoothly away from coal. So they have some kinds of issues with their grid infrastructure after all.

Edited by xyzt on Apr 24th 2023 at 1:36:07 PM

No, the surprise is that the CCP tried.

I still laught on the idea of "we should be nicer to china because they can combat climate change" was throw around as sensible thing

In case you are wondering if China still shoots itself in the foot diplomatically speaking, this story got you covered.

Last Friday, the chinese ambassador of France, Lu Shaye, dismissed the legitimacy and sovereignty of Ukraine and of the other ex soviet states when he was asked about the matter of Crimea.

Today, the Chinese foreign ministry had to come out and say that Lu Shaye's opinion is not the same as of the CCP and that they recognise the sovereignty of the former USSR nations, still the fact that they kept quiet until now speaks for itself.

Chinese officials did seem to be in a panic after this, going by the article. I wonder if Lu will get fired or "mysteriously disapeared" after this. If this really isn’t the CCP’s official stance, that means he basically spoke against the Party line.

Plus he made them look bad to potential markets. China is still trying to present itself as a 'peacemaker' (in favor of Russia) in Ukraine.

Speaking of diplomacy, I find it amusing that the only place where Macron could go without being booed lately was "Communist" China of all countries.

Edited by Lyendith on Apr 24th 2023 at 2:29:19 PM

There's a small but vocal subset of Little Pinks who believe that Kyrgyzstan is historically rightful Chinese territory because Li Bai was born there. China also had a minor diplomatic row with Kazakhstan a couple years back after an anonymous article popped up on Sohu claiming that the country was "eager to reunite with China".

And yeah, if there's one thing that the Chinese MFA excels at, it's pampering foreign politicians who don't feel too welcome at home and making them feel special for having a unique understanding of China that nobody else has (cc Paul Keating, Bob Carr).

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Apr 24th 2023 at 6:02:34 AM

Or its even worse cousin, "We should let China commit all the blatant war crimes they want for the chance of them combatting climate change".

Well, when it comes to climate change we’ll have to work with China somehow. We’re talking about the 2nd biggest economy that hosts 20% of the world population here. That doesn’t mean we can’t call them out on human rights violations.

Do countries have climate change anywhere even near the list of main reasons why they need to work with China? After all, most countries are rightly blamed for not giving climate change the importance it demands, and not doing enough to meet the required goals. Despite its critical nature, it is usually given the importance of a major side project at best than a critical goal with dire consequences if not met.

Edited by xyzt on Apr 25th 2023 at 9:35:18 PM

Podcaster and YouTuber Asianometry (who works in the Taiwanese semiconductor industry) released a new video covering China's burgeoning electric vehicles exports. Long story short, the government has intensively cultivated the domestic EV industry with a round of incentives that began in 2010, including massive subsidies on EV purchases (often with further subsidies from regional governments on the top).

The Chinese EV industry massively benefits from vertical integration, as the country holds an effective monopoly on many related industrial operations (e.g. battery manufacture and the refining of lithium, cobalt sulphate and nickel sulphate).^* With the obvious caveat that aggressive work culture, low wages and dodgy environmental practices also helped keep the costs down. One of the industry's vanguards, CATL, supplies all of Tesla's batteries and is on track to become the first company to commercially produce sodium-ion EV batteries. Its main rivals, BYD and Wuling, have also been raking impressive domestic sales figures at home — although China's EV exports are still dominated by locally-built models of foreign brands like Tesla and VW at the moment.

The industry isn't a risk-free place to be: competition often force manufacturers to sell at razor-thin margins, which will only get worse as long-running government subsidy programs start to peter out. The Biden admin has also been shoring up the US EV industry's competitiveness with a similar incentives package, while also strong-arming South Korean and Japanese auto manufacturers into building EV plants in the US (which they haven't been too happy with). But for now, the global market remains wide open for Chinese EV expansion, and Chinese manufacturers keep on reinforcing their competitive advantages by acquiring more and more of the global supply chain, as well as investing into new technologies (like the aforementioned sodium-ion battery).

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14898523

Jack Ma surfaced once again in Japan. He's given tenure as a visiting prof in Tokyo College.

You know, a few months ago I had stumbled upon a CGTN show on Youtube about Tibet, and I was surprised at how well done it was. The (Chinese-American?) host went to a Tibetan bar, dressed in local atire for a big Tibetan festival with a huge tapestry and a theater show, he talked with students doing traditional paintings, talked a bit about the Tibetan empire and so on…

Really, watching this you wouldn’t suspect there’s anything wrong. It just looked like something you’d see on National Geographic or something. Are all CGTN shows like that?

I’m honestly surprised the guy’s still alive.

Seems like Xi's tolerating tech companies once again. Didi, from what some employees have said, are having some stuff they submitted to government, approved of.

Variety: Pema Tseden, Tibet New Wave Film Director, Dies at 53. He's perhaps best known internationally for his 2019 TIFF entry Balloon, which as you might've guessed from the title, deals with the One-Child Policy and contraceptives:

Pema Tseden had previously been hospitalised in 2016 after being detained by the police in Xining, Qinghai, allegedly over an altercation at the airport's baggage claim.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on May 8th 2023 at 10:03:26 AM

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/cicc-capital-bans-consulting-firm-capvision-after-china-crackdown-sources-2023-05-10/

A lot of risk management companies are being investigated in China under context of national security reasons.

Wonder if China's got something to hide...

What doesn't it have to hide.

https://www.ft.com/content/05b57a69-5edf-4426-a4f7-1e5b6c215a7e

FT has more details on the "investigation" into risk management firms.

Edited by Ominae on May 11th 2023 at 1:06:41 AM