China
Satellite Hack Attempt Shows U.S. Blind Spot
Associated Press/U.S. Navy A U.S. Navy satellite launched in Kodiak, Alaska, in September. The commander of U.S. military space operations says he lacks sufficient data to determine who interfered with two U.S. government satellites through a ground station in Norway, as revealed in a report on China sent to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday. “The best information that I have is that we cannot attribute those two occurrences,” the Reuters news agency quoted General Robert Kehler, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, as saying in a teleconference. “I guess I would agree that we don’t have sufficient detail,” he said. Gen. Kehler was speaking on the same day that Australian authorities said they had not consulted the U.S. before allowing China to use a ground station in Western Australia that is run by a Swedish state-owned company and is also used by NASA. The bipartisan U.S.-China Economic Security and Review Commission, which was created by Congress, said in its 2011 annual report that at least two U.S. environment-monitoring satellites were interfered with four or more times in 2007 and 2008. It didn’t say how, but earlier drafts of the report that were made public said the interfence was conducted through the Svalbard ground station in Spitsbergen, Norway. The ground station is owned and run by Kongsberg Satellite Services, which is owned 50/50 by a Norwegian state company and a private Norwegian defense company. Kongsberg Satellite Services has denied there was any such interference through its ground station. The 12-member commission said in the report released on Wednesday that the interference had not been traced directly to China, but that the techniques used “appear consistent with authoritative Chinese military writings” that have advocated disabling an enemy’s satellite control facilities on the ground in a conflict. “If executed successfully, such interference has the potential to pose numerous threats, particularly if achieved against satellites with more sensitive functions. For example, access to a satellite’s controls could allow an attacker to damage or destroy the satellite. The attacker could also deny or degrade as well as forge or otherwise manipulate the satellite’s transmission,” it said. The report also said that China’s military continued to play a central role in civil space activities, and directly controlled the manned space program, noting that “ground-based infrastructure enables all space operations.” It recommended that Congress mandate that the Pentagon and other government space operators to assess and report on their “preparedness for potential Chinese counterspace activities.” “To the extent that commercial entities provide essential services, assessments should also cover their systems,” it said. China has maintained that its space ambitions are peaceful and that it is often a victim itself of such intrusions. China’s embassy in Washington said in response that it was “obvious that the commission is entrusted with the mission of vilifying China’s image and spreading China threat theory by patching up unwarranted allegations against China,” according to Reuters. “We urge the commission to stop issuing such reports for the good of increasing mutual trust between our two countries while China will continue to play a responsible role in both the realistic and the virtual worlds,” the agency quoted Wang Baodong, the embassy spokesman, as saying in an email. – Jeremy Page
- Associated Press/U.S. Navy
- A U.S. Navy satellite launched in Kodiak, Alaska, in September.
The commander of U.S. military space operations says he lacks sufficient data to determine who interfered with two U.S. government satellites through a ground station in Norway, as revealed in a report on China sent to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday.
“The best information that I have is that we cannot attribute those two occurrences,” the Reuters news agency quoted General Robert Kehler, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, as saying in a teleconference.
“I guess I would agree that we don’t have sufficient detail,” he said.
Gen. Kehler was speaking on the same day that Australian authorities said they had not consulted the U.S. before allowing China to use a ground station in Western Australia that is run by a Swedish state-owned company and is also used by NASA.
The bipartisan U.S.-China Economic Security and Review Commission, which was created by Congress, said in its 2011 annual report that at least two U.S. environment-monitoring satellites were interfered with four or more times in 2007 and 2008.
It didn’t say how, but earlier drafts of the report that were made public said the interfence was conducted through the Svalbard ground station in Spitsbergen, Norway. The ground station is owned and run by Kongsberg Satellite Services, which is owned 50/50 by a Norwegian state company and a private Norwegian defense company. Kongsberg Satellite Services has denied there was any such interference through its ground station.
The 12-member commission said in the report released on Wednesday that the interference had not been traced directly to China, but that the techniques used “appear consistent with authoritative Chinese military writings” that have advocated disabling an enemy’s satellite control facilities on the ground in a conflict.
“If executed successfully, such interference has the potential to pose numerous threats, particularly if achieved against satellites with more sensitive functions. For example, access to a satellite’s controls could allow an attacker to damage or destroy the satellite. The attacker could also deny or degrade as well as forge or otherwise manipulate the satellite’s transmission,” it said.
The report also said that China’s military continued to play a central role in civil space activities, and directly controlled the manned space program, noting that “ground-based infrastructure enables all space operations.”
It recommended that Congress mandate that the Pentagon and other government space operators to assess and report on their “preparedness for potential Chinese counterspace activities.”
“To the extent that commercial entities provide essential services, assessments should also cover their systems,” it said.
China has maintained that its space ambitions are peaceful and that it is often a victim itself of such intrusions.
China’s embassy in Washington said in response that it was “obvious that the commission is entrusted with the mission of vilifying China’s image and spreading China threat theory by patching up unwarranted allegations against China,” according to Reuters.
“We urge the commission to stop issuing such reports for the good of increasing mutual trust between our two countries while China will continue to play a responsible role in both the realistic and the virtual worlds,” the agency quoted Wang Baodong, the embassy spokesman, as saying in an email.
– Jeremy Page
Annual inflows of foreign direct investment rose to nearly $108 billion in 2008.
The Chinese government seeks to add energy production capacity from sources other than coal and oil, and is focusing on nuclear and other alternative energy development.
China has emphasized raising personal income and consumption and introducing new management systems to help increase productivity.
Some economists believe that Chinese economic growth has been in fact understated during much of the 1990s and early 2000s, failing to fully factor in the growth driven by the private sector and that the extent at which China is dependent on exports is exaggerated.
China is the world’s largest producer of rice and is among the principal sources of wheat, corn (maize), tobacco, soybeans, peanuts (groundnuts), and cotton.
A report by UBS in 2009 concluded that China has experienced total factor productivity growth of 4 per cent per year since 1990, one of the fastest improvements in world economic history.
Over the years, large subsidies were built into the price structure, and these subsidies grew substantially in the late 1970s and 1980s.
On top of this, foreign direct investment (FDI) this year was set to “surpass $100 billion”, compared to $90 billion last year, ministry officials predicted.
“The growth rate (for ODI) in the next few years will be much higher than previous years,” Shen said, without elaborating.
China is aiming to be the world’s largest new energy vehicle market by 2020 with 5 million cars.
In large part as a result of economic liberalization policies, the GDP quadrupled between 1978 and 1998, and foreign investment soared during the 1990s.
Despite initial gains in farmers’ incomes in the early 1980s, taxes and fees have increasingly made farming an unprofitable occupation, and because the state owns all land farmers have at times been easily evicted when croplands are sought by developers.
In terms of cash crops, China ranks first in cotton and tobacco and is an important producer of oilseeds, silk, tea, ramie, jute, hemp, sugarcane, and sugar beets.
Sheep, cattle, and goats are the most common types of livestock.
Oil fields discovered in the 1960s and after made China a net exporter, and by the early 1990s, China was the world’s fifth-ranked oil producer.
There are also deposits of vanadium, magnetite, copper, fluorite, nickel, asbestos, phosphate rock, pyrite, and sulfur.
In addition, implementation of some reforms was stalled by fears of social dislocation and by political opposition, but by 2007 economic changes had become so great that the Communist party added legal protection for private property rights (while preserving state ownership of all land) and passed a labor law designed to improve the protection of workers’ rights (the law was passed amid a series of police raids that freed workers engaged in forced labor).
Although a British crown colony until its return to Chinese control in 1997, Hong Kong has long been a major maritime outlet of S China.
Rivers and canals (notably the Grand Canal, which connects the Huang He and the Chang rivers) remain important transportation arteries.
China
China’s November 2024 Economy: Navigating Mixed Signals and Ongoing Challenges
In November 2024, China’s economy exhibited mixed results: industrial production rose by 5.4%, while retail sales grew only 3%, below forecasts. Fixed asset investment also faltered. Policymakers are anticipated to introduce measures to stimulate domestic demand and combat deflation.
China’s economy showed mixed performance in November 2024, with industrial production and exports showing resilience, while retail sales and fixed asset investment underperformed, amid ongoing challenges in the property sector. Policymakers are expected to implement targeted fiscal and monetary measures to boost domestic demand and address deflationary pressures.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has released China’s economy data for November 2024, revealing a mixed performance across key indicators. Retail sales grew by 3 percent year-on-year, a significant slowdown from October’s 4.8 percent growth and well below the 4.6 percent forecast. Industrial production, however, showed resilience, rising by 5.4 percent and exceeding expectations of 5.3 percent growth.
The property sector continued to drag on the broader economy, with real estate investment contracting by 10.4 percent for the January-to-November period, further highlighting the challenges in stabilizing the sector. Fixed asset investment also fell short of expectations, growing by 3.3 percent year-to-date, down from 3.4 percent in October.
In November, China’s industrial value added (IVA) grew by 5.4 percent year-on-year (YoY), slightly accelerating from the 5.3 percent recorded in October. This modest improvement reflects continued recovery in key industries, supported by recent stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing the economy.
The manufacturing sector led the growth, expanding by 6.0 percent YoY, while the power, heat, gas, and water production and supply sector grew by 1.6 percent. The mining industry posted a 4.2 percent YoY increase. Notably, advanced industries outpaced overall growth, with equipment manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing rising by 7.6 percent and 7.8 percent YoY, respectively, underscoring the resilience of China’s innovation-driven sectors.
Key product categories showed robust output gains in November:
From January to November, IVA increased by 5.8 percent YoY, maintaining steady growth over the year despite headwinds from a slowing property market and external uncertainties.
| This article was first published by China Briefing , which is produced by Dezan Shira & Associates. The firm assists foreign investors throughout Asia from offices across the world, including in in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, and India . Readers may write to info@dezshira.com for more support. |
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China
Ukraine war: 10% of Chinese people are willing to boycott Russian goods over invasion – new study
Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, some Chinese citizens express dissent through potential boycotts of Russian goods, reflecting a complex relationship despite government support for Russia.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Chinese government has been criticised for its refusal to condemn the war. In 2024, the economic and diplomatic relationship between the two nations appears stronger than ever.
Because of strict censorship and repression imposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it is difficult to know the extent to which the general public shares their government’s support of Putin’s regime. But a newly published study I carried out with colleagues found that more than 10% of Chinese people surveyed were willing to boycott Russian goods over the war in Ukraine.
This is a surprisingly large figure, especially since existing surveys indicate that Chinese people hold a broadly positive view of their neighbour. We used a representative sample of 3,029 Chinese citizens for this research, to dig into public attitudes to Russia. The survey was done in 2022 after the Ukraine invasion.
We were aware that due to widespread censorship, our participants might not be willing to give honest answers to questions about Russia’s actions in Ukraine. They might also not feel safe to do that in a regime where disagreement with the CCP’s position is often met with harsh punishment. This is why we asked them to tell us if they would be willing to boycott Russian products currently sold in China.
We felt this question was a good indicator of how much the participants disapproved of Russian foreign policy in Ukraine. More importantly, we were also curious to find out whether Chinese citizens would be willing to take direct political action to punish Russia economically for its aggressive behaviour.
In our study, we split respondents into the three different ideological groups in China: “liberals”, who support the free market and oppose authoritarianism; “the new left”, who sympathise with the policies pursued in China under Mao Zedong; and “neo-authoritarians”, who believe the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is an extension of the rivalry between authoritarian China and the liberal United States. These groups were based on the main political beliefs in China.
We found that liberals were most likely to say they were willing to boycott Russian products. Liberals believe that China should work with, rather than against, western democracies. They also place a high value on human rights and democratic freedoms. Because of their beliefs, they are likely to think that Russia’s actions against Ukraine were unprovoked, aggressive and disproportional.
Chinese and Russian economic and diplomatic relations seem closer than ever in 2024.
American Photo Archive/Alamy
The new left and neo-authoritarians we surveyed were more supportive of Russian products. The new left see Russia as a close ally and believe that Nato’s expansion in eastern Europe was a form of aggression. Neo-authoritarians, on the other hand, believe that supporting Russia, an allied autocracy, is in China’s best interest.
Boycotting Russian goods
Asking Chinese participants if they are willing to boycott Russian products might seem like a simple matter of consumer preferences. However, our study reveals a great deal about the way in which regular citizens can express controversial political beliefs in a repressive authoritarian regime.
Boycotting products of certain companies has long been studied in the west as a form of unconventional political action that helps people express their beliefs. However, in the west, boycotting certain products is simply one of many ways people are able to take political action. In a country such as China, boycotting a Russian product might often be the only safe way to express disagreement with the country’s actions.
This is because citizens do not have to tell others they chose not to buy a product, and their actions are unlikely to attract the attention of the authorities.
Since Russian goods are readily available to Chinese consumers and China is encouraging more Russian exports to reach its market, the Russian economy could be significantly affected by an organised boycott campaign in China. The considerable level of support for a boycott expressed by some of our participants, as well as previous acts of solidarity with Ukraine in China, suggest that such a campaign could already be taking place in the country.
This could harm Russia because it regularly exports a number of different products such as meat, chocolate, tea and wine to China. These goods made up 5.1% of China’s total imports in 2023 – and this figure is likely to increase if Russia becomes more isolated from the west, and therefore more dependent on China for its trade.
While 5.1% of the Chinese market might seem like a low figure, China is home to over 1.4 billion people. In this context, even a small boycott could result in a serious loss to Russian companies.
Our research shows that Chinese citizens don’t always support the official position of the communist party. It also shows that many people there will express even the most unpopular political opinions – if they can find a safe way to do it.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
China
Australia Can Enhance China’s Credibility in the CPTPP
In early 2024, China sought to join the CPTPP, potentially offering modest economic benefits to Australia. Key reforms include limiting state-owned enterprise subsidies, enhancing data flows, and banning forced labor.
China’s Interest in the CPTPP
In early 2024, China expressed a keen interest in joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a trade agreement involving eleven Pacific Rim economies and the United Kingdom. This move is anticipated to yield modest economic benefits for Australia. However, it also opens the door for vital reforms in areas such as the control of subsidies for state-owned enterprises, allowing free cross-border data flows, and prohibiting forced labor practices.
Economic Implications for Australia
A May 2024 report from the Australian Productivity Commission indicated that China’s accession to the CPTPP might raise Australia’s GDP by only 0.01%. This modest gain isn’t surprising, given Australia’s existing preferential trade arrangement with China through the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Nonetheless, the CPTPP encompasses more than just tariff reductions, focusing on broader trade principles and standards.
Reform Commitments Required from China
For China to become a CPTPP member, it must demonstrate adherence to high-standard rules initially developed with the country in mind. This commitment will help alleviate concerns among member nations like Japan and Canada, particularly regarding China’s economic practices and geopolitical tensions, such as those with Taiwan. Membership would necessitate reforms, including limiting SOE subsidies, enabling freer data flows, and banning forced labor, with significant penalties for non-compliance.
Source : Australia can encourage China’s credibility in the CPTPP
- China’s November 2024 Economy: Navigating Mixed Signals and Ongoing Challenges
- Ukraine war: 10% of Chinese people are willing to boycott Russian goods over invasion – new study
- Australia Can Enhance China’s Credibility in the CPTPP
- Gordonstoun Severs Connections with Business Led by Individual Accused of Espionage for China
- China Dismantles Prominent Uyghur Business Landmark in Xinjiang – Shia Waves
- China Expands Nationwide Private Pension Scheme After Two-Year Pilot Program
