China Cannot Revise South Korea's Democratic Sovereignty

By Anders Corr

• Year 1948 is the moment when the South Korean people, rather than the Chinese or Korean kings and emperors, began significantly participating in their own governance.
• That is the governance that should serve as the strongest foundation of a contemporary understanding of sovereignty. That is democratic sovereignty

According to Trump on April 12, Xi Jinping told him that Korea used to be a part of China. 

“He then went into the history of China and Korea,” said Trump. 

“Not North Korea, Korea. And you know, you’re talking about thousands of years . . . and many wars. And Korea actually used to be a part of China. And after listening for 10 minutes, I realized that it’s not so easy.”

Xi’s claim, via Trump, that Korea historically belonged to China has South Koreans legitimately nervous. But South Korea’s real and unassailable sovereignty comes not from a history of kings, but from its democratic constitution of 1948.

A White House official on Friday "kindly" confirmed that Korea was independent. 

But a day prior, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lu Kang, shockingly refused to clarify Xi’s comment. 

He replied that, “There is nothing for South Koreans to worry about.” 

There is something wrong when superpowers are looked to by the international community for confirmation of another country’s democratic sovereignty. 

It is too reminiscent of the most hierarchical periods of international relations, such as colonialism or the Cold War.
Contrary to China’s assertion not to worry, South Koreans are doing just that. 

According to one Asian government official who prefers to remain anonymous, “although China has an intention to rewrite the ancient history based on its own nationalistic approach, it has been keeping low profile at least at government level.” 

But, he added that for domestic consumption, “the Chinese government keeps arguing that ancient kingdoms in Manchuria established by ethnic Koreans are parts of their history.”
Academics are also worried, and are not fooled. 

“China may seek to take advantage of it [Trump's comment on Korea] all the way,” said international relations Professor Jae Ho Chung of Seoul National University in an email. 

“Lu Kang’s comment is for that purpose – maximum advantage through ambiguity.”
The Global Times, a Chinese nationalist state-run newspaper, opined on Friday, “So far, the South Korean foreign ministry has not made an official request [for clarity], which, if it does, will be disrespectful.” 

This in itself seems to be an affront to South Korea, implying paternalistically that South Korea has to show “respect” to China.
Pedestrians walk past a newstand in Beijing with the Chinese edition of the Global Times newspaper on May 16, 2011 in Beijing. 

Chinese media was incensed at South Korean media. 

“[T]he South Korean media resorted to nationalism, with some claiming this is ‘a grave challenge to the identity of the Korean people,’” continued the Global Times. 

“History is there, but some South Koreans want to remove any connection their country had with ancient China and request China’s absolute respect for their interpretation of history. This is narrow-minded.” 

South Koreans who know how China warps history for its own territorial expansion are anything but narrow-minded. 

Contrary to those who question whether Xi actually made the remark, Dr. Chung said that such a comment by Xi would “not [be] so surprising given his constant references to China’s past history.”
More concerning is that China could again seek to impose the old tributary relationship anew on South Korea.
“China’s ‘History Project’ with South Korea and elsewhere is not over,” said Dr. Chung, “but, as Chinese refer to it, has been just put aside 搁置 for now.” 

Needless to say, Dr. Chung is highly critical of China’s characterization of the history between China and South Korea.

China’s actions, or more exactly lack of clarifications, has done itself harm. 

The train wreck of events surrounding Xi’s alleged claim caused widespread outrage among South Koreans across the political spectrum. 

“The backlash in South Korea is massive,” said political science Professor Shelley Rigger at Davidson University. 

“I don’t see how it will be possible to avoid this incident having a negative effect on Sino-Korean relations.” 

If Xi’s new history applies to South Korea, it could also apply to other countries. 

“If [Xi] really said so, that is a huge strategic mistake and will destroy the very foundation of the ROK-China relationship,” according to the official quoted previously. 

“It is like saying ‘Vietnam, Mongolia and all the neighboring countries of China used to be a part of China.’”
China’s popularity in South Korea has nose-dived before, but with explosives rather than words, and triggered by North Korea not China. 

In 2010 North Korea sank the Cheonan, a South Korean navy ship, causing 46 deaths. 

Later that year, North Korea killed two South Korean marines in an artillery strike on the island of Yongpyong. 

These North Korean actions, because of the country’s close alliance with, and some would say direction from, China, had a negative effect on attitudes toward China. 

“During 2010-12, South Korea-China relations hit the nadir after the Cheonan sinking and the Yonpyong bombing by North Korea,” said Dr. Chung. 

“Then, the new administration came in, warming up the bilateral relations up to the late 2015.”
China’s adverse reaction to South Korea’s deployment of a missile defense system, called the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD), has further decreased support for China in South Korea. 

“Public opinion in South Korea about China has been worsening since China’s ‘sanctions’ related to the deployment of THAAD but, due to the presidential election fervor (May 9), this particular issue hasn’t quite grabbed the kind of media attention it should have,” said Dr. Chung. 

“At least among intellectuals, however, concerns are growing. I am sure the Chinese are acutely aware of the flammability of the issue given the previous experiences over Kokuryo,” an ancient Korean empire.
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – JULY 13: South Koreans watch a television broadcast reporting the deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense.

Most Korean historians noted that contrary to Xi’s alleged statement, Korea had a subordinate but still independent tributary relationship with China. 

The way Trump phrased the history was Chinese nationalist spin. 

Other pro-China historians have noted as justification that China once treated Korea as a colonial possession. 

But that is even worse.
Nationalist China sought the “return” of Korea from the U.S. after the Japanese were defeated in World War II. 

“Chiang Kai-shek insisted to FDR in 1942-1943,” according to political scientist Edward Friedman at the University of Wisconsin, “soon after the U.S. Navy defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway that Korea be ‘returned’ to China after the U.S.-led military coalition totally defeated Hirohito’s military expansionists. FDR ignored Chiang on that imperialist demand to Korea.”

A protester walks past two portraits of the late Taiwan president Chiang kai-shek written with ’228 murderer’ at the Education Ministry in Taipei during a demonstration on August 4, 2015. Talks between Taiwanese student protesters and education officials broke down after an emotional meeting about controversial changes to the school curriculum which have been slammed as ‘China-centric.’ 

Treating other nationalities as tributaries, colonies, or their territory as somehow like property that should be returned, is flat wrong. 

Territories that have broken off from another country at some point for whatever reason should only be rejoined through a democratic referendum by the people. 

China’s economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan over the years shows that they do not respect the vote of Taiwan’s people. 

That should be a warning sign to South Korea.
Since 1948, after it was liberated from Japanese colonialists, South Korea has been an independent and sovereign democracy. 

China should publicly and explicitly recognize this for China’s own good, and to put the minds of South Koreans at rest. 

That China failed to do so when given the opportunity on Thursday raises the question as to why China would pay a present public relations cost to keep alive the option of a historical argument for Chinese sovereignty over South Korea. 

China’s intentions toward South Korea are now publicly in question. 

Does China want to “reconquer” or influence South Korea to rejoin the mainland like it is attempting or nearly succeeded at doing with the South and East China Seas, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang “autonomous” area, and in the Indian Himalayas?
South Korea does not want to become the next Taiwan, Taiwan does not want to become the next Hong Kong, and Hong Kong does not want to become the next Tibet. 

China’s reinvention of history in places like the South China Sea, East China Sea, and the Indian Himalayas have eventually led to Chinese militarization of those places, and incrementalist military tactics to take territory. 

The compromise, through valued goods, services or property, of democratically-elected officials is another method of eroding democratic sovereignty. 

In this multilayered historical, ethical, and military erosion of democratic or other sovereignty, territory and political independence is gradually lost, and in extremis, the sovereignty of the democratic polity is extinguished.
China is arguably using such incrementalist tactics against South Korea by attempts to influence domestic politics through imposing unofficial economic hardships on South Korean companies operating in China, including on rock bands, tours and retail stores. 

These companies understandably want to expand or at least maintain their revenues, so are in turn incentivized by China’s economic influence tactics to put pressure on the democratically elected government of South Korea. 

These mini-sanctions are thereby an attempt to influence South Korean foreign policy on critical issues such as THAAD and North Korea. 

China has used similar economic pressure tactics against the Philippines, for example by slowing orders to import bananas, against Japan with autos, and in the U.S., for example by threatening to cancel orders of Boeing jets.
A primary cause of the problem is an ideology of autocratic revanchist nationalism that sees distant territories or even individuals as somehow “belonging” to China long after those people took their own path. 

This includes countries like Taiwan and South Korea, but also individuals of Chinese heritage who have moved elsewhere and taken new citizenship. 

China treats its “lost” territories and people as if they could be property and should continue to be under the autocratic control of Beijing.

This leads to Chinese forced renditions (kidnapping) from places like Thailand, Burma and Hong Kong of people, including with Swedish or British citizenship. 

Whether or not China’s revision of Korean history takes hold, we should recognize that upon Korea’s democratization, the legitimacy of its sovereignty became sacrosanct. 

It should be permanently recognized as a sovereign entity by all other nations. 

The international community must resist any other state, with a literally trumped up historical argument, that seeks to peacefully or otherwise “reconquer” the territory. 

The world’s democratic countries have in the past two decades failed to defend the territories and sovereignty of democracies like Taiwan, the Philippines and Ukraine. 

We must do better, and we must do better for South Korea if push comes to shove.
Not fully recognizing the sovereignty of democratic entities, as China has done with Taiwan and now apparently South Korea, should be an international crime akin to the promotion of serfdom or slavery. 

It goes against a democratic approach that prioritizes people and a human right to democracy, over autocratic revanchism and the almost feudal notion that chunks of territory, and the people who live there, could possibly revert to elites in distant capitals based on historical arguments.
The government should belong to the people, rather than the people belonging to the government. 

In 1948 South Korea held a Constitutional Assembly that reified its own sovereignty as a nation. 

That assembly is the true lodestone of its sovereignty. 

It is an additional, and ultimately more important, claim to sovereignty than a history of succession from the ancient kingdoms of Korea. 

Any historical argument made by Beijing, whether believed or not, has no normative, ethical, or moral bearing on the sovereignty of South Korea, because South Korea is now a democracy. 

Year 1948 is the moment when the South Korean people, rather than the Chinese or Korean kings and emperors, began significantly participating in their own governance. 

That is the governance that should serve as the strongest foundation of a contemporary understanding of sovereignty. 

That is democratic sovereignty.

Chinese Fifth Column: Wolves In Tech Robes

Huawei Is Focus of Widening U.S. Investigation
By Paul Mozur

A Huawei booth at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, in February. The widening inquiry in the United States puts Huawei in an awkward position at a moment when sanctions have taken on new import. 

HONG KONG — As one of the world’s biggest sellers of smartphones and the back-end equipment that makes cellular networks run, Huawei Technologies has become one of the major symbols of China’s global technology ambitions.
But as it continues its rise, its business with some countries has fallen under growing scrutiny from investigators in the United States.
American officials are widening their investigation into whether Huawei broke American trade controls on Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, according to an administrative subpoena sent to Huawei and reviewed by The New York Times. 

The previously unreported subpoena was issued in December by the United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees compliance with a number of American sanctions programs.
The Treasury’s inquiry follows a subpoena sent to Huawei this summer from the United States Department of Commerce, which carries out sanctions and also oversees exports of technology that can have military as well as civilian uses.

As an administrative subpoena, the Treasury document does not indicate that the Chinese company is part of a criminal investigation.
Still, the widening inquiry puts Huawei in an awkward position at a moment when sanctions have taken on new import. 

The Trump administration has been working to push China to cut back its trade, and in turn economic support, for North Korea, amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear and missile programs. 

The growing investigation also comes after Huawei’s smaller domestic rival, ZTE, in March pleaded guilty to breaking sanctions and was fined $1.19 billion.
It is not clear why the Treasury Department became involved with the Huawei investigation. 

But its subpoena suggests Huawei might violate American embargoes that broadly restrict the export of American goods to countries like Iran and Syria.
“The most likely thing happening here is that Commerce figured out there was more to this than dual-use commodities, and they decided to notify Treasury,” said Matthew Brazil, a former United States commercial officer in Beijing and founder of the Silicon Valley security firm Madeira Consulting.

By its own admission, Huawei has struggled with corporate governance.

In a rare 2015 media appearance, Ren Zhengfei, Huawei’s founder, said that 4,000 to 5,000 employees had admitted to various improprieties as part of a “confess for leniency” program the company set up in 2014.
“The biggest enemy we’ve run into isn’t other people,” he said at the time. 

“It’s ourselves.”
A Treasury spokeswoman declined to comment on whether it was conducting an investigation. 

A Commerce Department spokesman also declined to comment.
Huawei plays an important strategic role for China. 

The company is often a part of Chinese overseas trade delegations and investment deals in emerging markets like South America and Africa. 

As a major spender on research and development, it is also a crucial part of Chinese industrial policies aimed at building up domestic technological capabilities.
It has also turned itself into an increasingly recognized smartphone brand. 

In the fourth quarter of 2016, Huawei was the third-largest smartphone maker in the world, with a global market share of about 10 percent.
The subpoena, which was sent to Huawei’s Texas offices in the Dallas suburb of Plano, called for the company to describe technology and services provided to Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria over the past five years. 

It also called for the identity of individuals who played a part in those transactions. 

North Korea, which was named in the Commerce Department subpoena issued last year, was not named in the Treasury Department subpoena.
The scrutiny of Huawei shows the increased importance both the United States and China are putting on the technology industry. 

Earlier this year a Pentagon report distributed at the top levels of the Trump administration indicated Chinese flows of investment into American start-ups were a new cause for concern.
The American authorities have jurisdiction over the trade of companies like Huawei and ZTE when those companies sell equipment made by or featuring components from American companies. 

If Huawei is deemed to have violated American laws, it could have its access to American electronic components cut off. 

Given the company’s size — it is one of the two largest cellular phone equipment makers in the world — that could have an effect on the expansion of mobile networks around the globe.
When the Department of Commerce first announced its investigation into ZTE, it released a document in which ZTE executives mapped out a plan for how to get around American export controls. 

The document said the strategy came from a company that ZTE labeled with the code name F7, which The New York Times reported closely resembled Huawei.
Earlier this month 10 members of Congress sent a letter to the Commerce Department demanding that F7 be publicly identified and fully investigated.
“We strongly support holding F7 accountable should the government conclude that unlawful behavior occurred,” read a part of the letter.

Chinese Aggressions

U.S. admiral sees new South China Sea freedom of navigation operations

By David Brunnstrom

The Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris, testifies before a House Armed Services Committee hearing on ''Military Assessment of the Security Challenges in the Indo-Asia-Pacific Region'' on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S, April 26, 2017.

WASHINGTON -- The United States will likely carry out new freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea soon, top U.S. commander in the Asia Pacific region, Admiral Harry Harris, said on Wednesday, without offering details.
Asked about any upcoming operations, Harris said: "I take direction and guidance from the secretary of defense and the national command authority on the conduct of those operations. I think we'll be doing some -- soon."

Chinese Fifth Column: Wolves In Cultural Robes

National Association of Scholars calls on universities to close their Confucius Institutes. 

By Elizabeth Redden 

More than 100 American colleges and universities house Confucius Institutes, centers of Chinese language and cultural teaching funded and staffed in part with instructors screened by a Chinese government-affiliated entity known as Hanban.
The Confucius Institutes may seem to many to be benign outposts offering cultural events programming and noncredit courses in introductory Chinese, calligraphy or Tai Chi, but for nearly as long as the Confucius Institutes have been around -- more than 10 years now -- they’ve been controversial.
Advocates for the institutes say they’ve brought welcome new resources for Chinese language study and study abroad at a time when financial support for the humanities has been shrinking, while critics question whether American universities sacrifice academic freedom and autonomy in hosting the Chinese government-backed institutes, which in some cases are involved in delivering for-credit classes.
Many Confucius Institutes are also involved in teaching or teacher training for local K-12 schools.
One U.S.-based Confucius Institute, at the University of Chicago, closed in 2014 after more than 100 faculty signed a petition that cited, among other things, concerns that Hanban's role in the hiring and training of teachers “subjects the university’s academic program to the political constraints on free speech and belief that are specific to the People’s Republic of China.”
Ontario's McMaster University closed its Confucius Institute a year earlier after a former instructor filed a complaint alleging that the university was “giving legitimization to discrimination” because her contract with Hanban prohibited her participation in the spiritual practice Falun Gong.
Over the years, Confucius Institutes have been dogged by allegations that they self-censor when it comes to sensitive subjects in China such as Taiwan, Tiananmen Square, Tibet and Falun Gong.
In 2014, organizers of a Chinese studies conference in Europe accused Hanban, a sponsor of the conference, of outright censorship of conference materials related to Taiwan.
The latest take on this contentious topic, a 183-page report on Confucius Institutes from the National Association of Scholars, by the author’s account finds reasons for concern.
The report, which examines hiring policies, course offerings and textbooks, funding structures, academic freedom protections, and what the author describes as “formal and informal speech codes” at 12 Confucius Institutes in New Jersey and New York, concludes that “to a large extent, universities have made improper concessions that jeopardize academic freedom and institutional autonomy. Sometimes these concessions are official and in writing; more often they operate as implicit policies.”
The report from NAS recommends that universities close their Confucius Institutes. 
“Confucius Institutes permit an agency of a foreign government to have access to university courses, and on principle that is a university function,” Rachelle Peterson, the author of the report, said in an interview. “Institutions should have full control over who they hire, over what they teach, and Confucius Institutes basically act like class-in-a-box kits that come ready-made for universities to use.”
Short of closing the institutes -- NAS’s primary recommendation -- the report makes a series of recommendations for changes that faculty and administrators should push for.
Those recommendations include: increased transparency and public disclosure of contractual and funding agreements, and the renegotiation of contracts “to remove constraints against ‘tarnishing the reputation’ of the Hanban” and “to clarify that legal disputes should be settled only in the jurisdiction of the host institution (in our cases, American courts).”
Other recommendations in the report call on universities to “cease outsourcing for-credit courses to the Hanban,” to “formally ask the Hanban if its hiring process complies with American nondiscrimination policies,” and to “require that all Confucius Institutes offer at least one public lecture or class each year on topics that are important to Chinese history but are currently neglected, such as the Tiananmen Square protests or the Dalai Lama’s views on Tibet.”
NAS, which promotes liberal arts-style education and intellectual freedom, is perceived by the left as something of a contrarian scholarly organization with a politically conservative bent, though the organization maintains it has no partisan affiliation (its website quotes the organization’s president, Peter Wood, saying, “Both the left and the right produce their share of intellectual obtuseness. The NAS is not a partner with either”).
Much of the prior criticism of the institutes has come from pro-China scholars.
While NAS may be an organization that prides itself on “challenging campus orthodoxies,” on Confucius Institutes its recommendations are to a large extent in step with that of the American Association of University Professors. 
In 2014, the AAUP came out with a statement “recommending that universities cease their involvement in Confucius Institutes unless the agreement between the university and Hanban is renegotiated so that

• (1) the university has unilateral control, consistent with principles articulated in the AAUP’s Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, over all academic matters, including recruitment of teachers, determination of curriculum and choice of texts; 
• (2) the university affords Confucius Institute teachers the same academic freedom rights, as defined in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, that it affords all other faculty in the university; and 
• (3) the university-Hanban agreement is made available to all members of the university community.”

One theme of the NAS report is the lack of transparency on the part of the universities in the sample. 
Although NAS’s researcher obtained contracts through Freedom of Information Act requests for eight public universities in her sample -- as well as an unsigned draft contract shared by one private university -- Peterson found what she called “significant resistance” on the part of many university officials to answer questions about their Confucius Institutes. 
She reported that only two of the 12 Confucius Institute directors in her sample consented to interviews.
 

China's Fifth Column
The most secretive institution was Alfred University, a private institution located about 80 miles south of Rochester, N.Y. She writes that Alfred's provost personally ejected her partway through a Confucius Institute class she'd received advance permission from the instructor to observe.
Reached by phone, the instructor of the class, Lanfang “Haley” Gao, referred questions to the university.
Alfred's provost, Rick Stephens, said he asked Peterson to leave the class and escorted her to her car after receiving worried messages from students about a strange person in the class.
Peterson disputed this.
She said Gao gave her permission over the phone to observe her class and that she identified herself clearly.
"I asked Professor Gao two questions:
1) if classes were open to members of the public to visit and
2) if I could visit her class as a researcher from the National Association of Scholars doing some research on Confucius Institutes.
"She answered yes to both questions.
"I arrived at the class early, having located it with the help of another person for whom I did not get a name (this person spoke limited English, and told me as much).
"When Professor Gao arrived I introduced myself as Rachelle Peterson from the National Association of Scholars, and mentioned again that we had spoken by phone about the possibility of my visiting her class.
"She did not object to my presence at the beginning of class or ask me to leave, or in any other way indicate that I misunderstood our phone call regarding my proposed visit."

The NAS report includes detailed looks at the governance, leadership and funding agreements for the institutes, which are managed by the host American universities in conjunction with Chinese partner universities.
The financial terms vary somewhat, but various contracts obtained by Peterson -- and shared with Inside Higher Ed -- show that Hanban typically commits to provide around $150,000 in start-up funding for the institutes, followed by annual sustaining operating grants (generally, Peterson found, in the $100,000 range), plus 3,000 volumes of textbooks and teaching materials. 
Hanban also commits to pay for the salaries and airfares of the Chinese language teachers it sends. The American host university is expected to match Hanban's support, a requirement that Peterson reports is typically met through in-kind contributions such as office and classroom space and faculty/staff time.
The NAS report includes an extended discussion of the content and quality of Hanban-supplied textbooks.
It also raises concerns about Hanban’s role in prescreening Chinese language teachers -- Peterson writes that universities select instructors from a pool of candidates proposed by the Chinese partner university or Hanban -- and the relationship of those instructors to the American host university at which they teach.
“No teachers within Confucius Institutes are hired as employees of the host university with standard protections for academic freedom,” Peterson writes.
“Most are hired by, paid by and report to the Hanban, which reserves the right to remove teachers who violate Chinese law -- including speech codes. Hanban provides teachers with stock answers to questions it wishes to avoid. When we asked Chinese teachers and directors what they would say to a student who asked about Tiananmen Square, several replied that they would talk about the square’s historic architecture.”
The report continues, “We also found that professors within the university felt pressured to self-censor. Those affiliated with the Confucius Institute sensed the need to maintain a friendly relationship with the Hanban. Those outside the Confucius Institute felt pressure from the university -- most immediately from their department -- to protect the Confucius Institute’s 'reputation'.”

Rogue Nation

The Tech Challenge of Reporting Under China’s Watchful Eye
By JANE PERLEZ

Jane Perlez, The New York Times bureau chief in Beijing, at the cafe at the Met Breuer in New York on Tuesday. 

How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? The Times’s bureau chief in Beijing discussed the tech she is using.

As Beijing bureau chief, what is it like to try to get information online given China’s Great Firewall, the system of filters and controls that can limit what people see on the internet there?
We live and die by the strength of virtual private networks, or VPNs. 

The Chinese government is always trying to disrupt VPNs.
Some work relatively well for a few months, then all of a sudden they slow down, a sign that the government has successfully interfered with them. 

As journalists, we feel frustrated by the instability of the internet, the overall slowness.
But we are not the only ones affected. 

Businesses operating in China have the same problems. 

So do researchers, scholars and scientists, all people who need to get information from websites — including Twitter, Facebook and Google — that the government blocks.

Workers playing online games in an internet cafe at the Huajian shoe factory in Guangdong Province, China.

What story was your greatest challenge working with these restrictions?
All stories are a challenge. 

Everything. 

That’s the point — the Great Firewall blocks so much.
The internet always slows to a crawl during Communist Party congresses, when the government believes it must keep everything controlled and calm. 

We are expecting the internet to be particularly slow this fall when the party holds a major meeting to re-elect Xi Jinping as leader.

What tools do you use to overcome the Great Firewall? What could be better about the tools, if anything?
I would like to see faster, more efficient VPNs that are not so vulnerable to Chinese hackers, who are world champions.

Is government surveillance a concern for you? If so, how do you keep your work and communications private?
Surveillance in China is all-encompassing. 

There is no foolproof way to elude it. 

We are just reporters and we don’t have anything to hide. 

There are CCTV cameras everywhere. 

We do take steps to protect our sources.

The Chinese were way ahead of Americans in adopting messaging apps like WhatsApp and WeChat. What messaging app do you use the most?
I use both WeChat and WhatsApp, though not a lot. 

By not using WeChat too much, I deny the prying eyes of the government the pleasure of knowing instantly whom I am talking to. 

But I do not try to hide anything. 

That’s impossible. 

Last month, I was in the provinces and when I started to talk to someone on WhatsApp, I was immediately disconnected.

Beyond your job, what tech product are you currently obsessed with using in your daily life and why?
Air Matters is a vital app for checking pollution levels. 

I can tell in the morning from my apartment in a high-rise building what the air is like. 

My measure is whether I can see the Beijing hills in the distance. 

On clear days, they stand out as a jagged ridge of blue. 

On bad days, you can’t see them.
Today the A.Q.I. (air quality index) in Beijing is 188, or moderately polluted. 

On Air Matters you can see the A.Q.I. in other Chinese cities — most are over 100 today.
And you can see the worst polluted place in the world. 

Today it is a city in the west of China, Aksu, with a level of 900 because of a sandstorm. 

I am glad I am not there.

What Chinese online service or app do you use that Americans may not know about and why do you like it?
I like Didi, the ride-hailing service. 

It’s better than Uber. 

You can get an ordinary Beijing taxicab with a pleasantly cranky driver, grungy interior and an ultracheap fare. 

Or you can go high end, and get a Didi driver who comes in a spiffy car with a clean interior and bottled water.

Rogue Nation

China offers contested South China Sea oil and gas blocks
Oilprice.com

Last week, China National Offshore Oil Corp tendered 22 oil and gas blocks in the South China Sea, expecting bids from foreign companies that would help it develop the reserves in response to growing local oil and gas demand.

It has already struck one deal, with Canada’s Husky Energy, which will drill two exploration wells in block 16/25 next year.
Some might consider Husky exceptionally brave given the circumstances. 

A lot of the South China Sea is the object of disputes between China and its neighbors, with a court in The Hague last year ruling against China’s claims and in favor of the Philippines—one of the neighbors opposing China’s expansion in the basin. 

China however, has not acknowledged the ruling, which has heightened tensions in the area.
The South China Sea may hold 28 billion barrels of oil, according to an estimate from the US Geological Survey from the mid-90s.
Since then, with technology improvements, this figure could have increased substantially.
Of course, low oil prices or no low oil prices, everyone wants a piece of the oil pie, and China wants the biggest one.
The question is: will foreign oil companies help China take it?

Some observers note a string of challenges for CNOOC in this endeavor. 

First, there is the simple problem with regional hostility: if a company chooses to work with China, it may be shown the door in Vietnam or Taiwan, as some of the territory covered by the blocks, which span 47,270 sq km, is disputed by the two countries.
Second, there is the uncertainty of oil and gas ownership if exploration leads to any significant discoveries. 

Companies willing to team up with CNOOC on the exploration of these 22 blocks, some authors argue, will effectively be taking China’s side in the territorial dispute, potentially straining a corporation’s reputation.
Third, there is the much more practical problem of the cost of exploration. 

According to one Chinese academic from Renmin University, exploration in the South China Sea involves high risks and high technical requirements, which only the bigger oil and gas players can afford.
On the other hand, a map of the blocks put up for sale shows that most of these are near China’s coastline, which means they are out of the sensitive parts of the sea. 

A total 16 of the 22 blocks are located in the Pearl River Mouth Basin, near the coast, energy analyst Han Xiaoping notes.

This could potentially increase the confidence of foreign explorers as far as the possibility of a dispute over any oil and gas discovered goes. 

The other problems, however, will remain.
It is a tough choice to make: China is by far the biggest market around the South China Sea, so working with the Chinese could ensure some sustainable returns. 

But with no fresh surveys and reserve estimate updates, the risk of failing to find viable resources is indeed high.
The CNOOC tender closes this September, so oil companies have another five months to make a decision. 

Keeping an eye on developments in the South China Sea is certainly advisable, but with a more pressing matter in the region, namely North Korea’s insistence on developing and testing new missiles, international focus has shifted temporarily.
China is in a position to bargain for recognition of its claims in the South China Sea now – it is indeed “the economic lifeline” of North Korea, as Trump called it recently, and it will need a major incentive to cut it. 

Whether the U.S. is ready to offer such an incentive is a whole other matter, however, just as uncertain is whether China will actually ask for it.
Yet, it is a possibility worth considering.

Chinese Peril

Why China’s new aircraft carrier is significant
By Christopher Bodeen 

In this photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, a newly-built aircraft carrier is transferred from dry dock into the water at a launch ceremony at a shipyard in Dalian in northeastern China’s Liaoning Province, Wednesday, April 26, 2017. China launched its first aircraft carrier built entirely on its own on Wednesday, in a demonstration of the growing technical sophistication of its defense industries and determination to safeguard its maritime territorial claims and crucial trade routes. 

BEIJING — China on Wednesday launched the navy’s second aircraft carrier, its first to be entirely homebuilt.
While the 50,000-ton ship still needs considerable work before commissioning, analysts say its launch telegraphs China’s ambitions to become the region’s most powerful and influential country. That’s an alarming prospect to others.
Here’s a look at how the new carrier came into being and what impact it is expected to have.
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CARRIER SHOWS CHINA’S MILITARY PROGRESS
China’s carrier program got off the ground with the purchase of the Varyag, an incomplete carrier begun during the 1980s and then inherited by Ukraine after the breakup of the former Soviet Union. Beijing bought the ship in 1998 and towed it to China, where it underwent years of extensive refurbishing before being commissioned as the Liaoning in 2012. 

It was originally described as being mainly for training and research but last year was declared combat-ready. 

Development of the new carrier began in 2013 and moved into high-gear in 2015. 

Based on the same original Soviet design, its construction is believed to have benefited greatly from lessons learned in fitting-out the Liaoning. 

Both ships suffer some of the limitations inherent in the design, including a ski jump-style launching system that limits the amount of fuel and bombs its Chinese J-15 fighters can carry. 

Michael Chase of the U.S. think tank RAND Corporation said the carriers reflect the progress China’s has made in shipbuilding and other defense industries, and future carriers will be even more sophisticated, particularly in their propulsion and aircraft launch systems.
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CARRIER AT HEART OF CHINA’S MILITARY AMBITIONS
China had long said it needs aircraft carriers to protect its shoreline and other maritime interests. That’s seen as reflecting Beijing’s desire to put teeth behind its increasingly assertive claims to territory in the East China and South China seas, while establishing itself as the region’s most powerful and influential nation and challenging America’s global influence and leadership. 

Carriers also factor into China’s threat to use force to gain control over self-governing Taiwan, from which it separated amid civil war in 1949. 

Carriers could be deployed to intimidate the island’s government and 23 million residents, something it apparently attempted earlier this year when it sailed the Liaoning through the Taiwan Strait. 

Fueled by a fast-growing defense budget that is now the world’s second biggest after the U.S., China’s navy has also been acquiring destroyers, nuclear submarines and other ultramodern vessels. 

Its air force is meanwhile rapidly introducing fourth-generation fighter jets and has produced prototypes of two different kinds of fifth-generation stealth fighters.
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CARRIER RAISES CONCERNS AMONG NEIGHBORS
Apart from Taiwan, Chinese carriers are seen as a threat primarily by China’s historical rivals Japan and India. 

Beijing and Tokyo have long feuded over a collection of tiny uninhabited islands in the East China Sea and China in recent years increased the presence of its navy and coast guard in the area while repeatedly sending military planes to patrol the nearby airspace. 

Many Chinese consider the dispute to be a legacy of Japan’s brutal invasion and occupation of much of their country during the 1930s and 1940s, memories of which are kept fresh by state propaganda and the education system. 

India has looked on nervously as the Chinese navy expands its presence in its traditional sphere of influence, the Indian Ocean. 

That includes the development of ports and airports with potential military uses in Pakistan and elsewhere, along with China’s first overseas military base in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti. 

Chinese carriers are seen as less threatening to the region’s leading military power, the U.S., although American officials have called for more transparency from Beijing about how it intends to use the ships. 

Rather than a military threat, the carriers are more of an indirect challenge to U.S. influence in the region.