Category: Thinking About China

Just How Far Will Beijing Go to Hunt Down Overseas Dissidents?

Commentary The revelation that Hong Kong police have placed a bounty on eight people, including two Australians, is further confirmation of the authoritarian intent of the Chinese regime since absorbing the former British colony into China. The Hong Kong police announced a bounty of HK$1 million (US$127,627) for the arrest of eight people, including three…


China’s Military Intelligence Presence in Cuba: What’s Next?

Commentary With growing evidence of communist China’s expanding intelligence operations against the United States, this may be a good time to learn something about Beijing’s military intelligence agency that is planning and directing those activities—the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (PLASSF). Established in December 2015 as one of the first steps in Chinese leader…


Foreign Business Looks Less Favorably on China

Commentary Rhetoric—whether from corporate executives or government officials—seldom comports with reality. And seldom is the gap as wide as on the subject of foreign investment in China. Beijing says that it is open for business and welcomes foreign investment when, in reality, it has made doing business in China more difficult than ever. Corporate executives…


Has Africa Abandoned Hope for Democracy?

Commentary The declining prestige and influence of Western powers have been occurring in direct proportion to the abandonment of Western theories of “liberal democracy” by most states on the African continent. The latest example was the implosion of stability in the West African state of Sierra Leone following its June 24 presidential election debacle. The…


End US Funding for China Research

Commentary The U.S. Select Committee on the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) sent a letter on June 27 to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, calling on the Biden administration not to renew the Science and Technology Agreement (STA) with communist China, which is set to expire on Aug. 27 on the grounds that the CCP is using U.S….


Beijing Stokes America’s Next Cuba Crisis

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently visited China, seeking to restore high-level dialogue between Washington and Beijing. But some pundits, such as Alexander Ward and Jonathan Lemire for Politico, have commented that Mr. Blinken’s trip was overshadowed by news that China and Cuba are in talks to establish a joint military-training facility on the island,…


Looking Back at Blinken’s Trip to Beijing

Commentary Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently completed a “chief supplicant” mission to Beijing on June 19. The Cambridge Dictionary defines a supplicant as “a person who asks a god or someone who is in a position of power for something in a humble way.” Who could argue that Blinken acted otherwise? During the brief trip, he apparently made no “big asks” in representing U.S. interests and…


Ban Shein, China’s Fast-Fashion Company

Commentary Shein, China’s fast-fashion company, moved its headquarters from Nanjing to Singapore last year, apparently in an attempt to globalize and escape the bad reputation of its parent country. Yet most of its business operations, including almost all its factories and warehouses, remain in China. Shein apparently tried to rehabilitate what’s left of its China…


New Zealand Beware of Complying With Dictatorship Demands

Commentary It seems that Chinese leader Xi Jinping is particularly sensitive to being described as a “dictator.” When U.S. President Joe Biden used the description, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was outraged, with its mouthpiece, the Global Times calling it a vicious attack. If Biden had said that Xi was the “leader of a dictatorship,”…


Hong Kong Students to Study Poorly Presented National Security Questions During Summer Vacation

Commentary In early June, Hong Kong’s Education Bureau (EDB) issued a circular to the primary and secondary schools about the third anniversary of the national security law. Apart from recommending relevant online games and teaching resources, it advises the use of a “summer self-learning kit” so that students can make good use of the summer…