Category: China

One South Korean speed skater claims that China is getting home town refereeing during the Winter Olympics:

As disappointed as he was that his team crashed out early in the mixed team relay in short track speed skating in Beijing over the weekend, South Korean short tracker Kwak Yoon-gy seemed even more upset that China won gold thanks to what he claimed was biased judging.

In a scrum with South Korean reporters Sunday, a day after China won the inaugural Olympic gold in the mixed relay on home ice, Kwak said it was difficult to describe the mixed bag of feelings he had about China’s path to the title.

“Looking at the way China won the gold medal, I felt bad that my younger teammates had to watch something like that,” Kwak, 32, said. “I thought to myself, ‘Is this really what winning a gold medal is all about?’ Things all just felt very hallow.” (……)

“I was watching that race unfold. I figured China, ROC and the U.S. would get penalized,” said Kwak, who didn’t compete for South Korea in the new relay event. “The Dutch skaters who were watching it with me said the same thing. But as the review dragged on, I figured China was going to be allowed to progress. And when the call was finally made, I found it difficult to accept it.”

Kwak, who is competing in his third and final Olympics in Beijing, said he had never seen a case where a relay team was let off the hook after missing an exchange entirely.

“If it had been any other country than China in that situation, I wondered if that team would still have been allowed to reach the final like that,” Kwak added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

China does have a point that in northeastern China there is a large Korean minority group present that they were trying to represent during the opening ceremony:

South Korea plans to continue global efforts to publicize hanbok, the traditional Korean attire, as its signature culture, a government official said Sunday, as people here are in an uproar over China’s use of hanbok during the winter Olympics opening ceremony.

One woman clad in hanbok appeared among those representing 56 ethnic groups across China during the event held in Beijing last Friday.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but clearly the CCP was trying to stick it to the West and their diplomatic boycott of the Olympics over human rights abuses of the Uighurs. This ceremony was intended to make it look like all the ethnic groups in China are happy and content and the West is wrong about repression of minority groups. I doubt this had anything to do with stealing Korean culture.

I don’t think anyone would be surprised that China would be upset to see Yoon Suk-yeol win the Korean Presidency:

The Chinese Embassy in Seoul has denied the allegation that China tried to meddle in Korea’s upcoming presidential election.

In a statement released to Korean journalists on Monday, the embassy expressed regret that a JoongAng Ilbo newspaper column published on the same day accused China of trying to intervene in the presidential election based on several Chinese officials’ remarks. 

“China, like many other countries in the world, is watching the South Korean presidential election, but it has never intervened in it and will never do it,” the press release reads. “China’s announcing of its position and argument on China-related issues is aimed at protecting its interests and the overall development of Sino-Korea relations, and has nothing to do with the so-called interference in the Korean presidential election.”

The Chinese Embassy’s reaction came as the JoonAng Ilbo published a column titled, “China’s attempt to ‘intervene’ in Korea’s presidential election regretful.” In the article written by its chief Beijing correspondent, the journalist cited former Chinese Ambassador to Korea Qiu Guohong’s “inappropriate” comments about Korea during an online international academic conference held Jan. 20.

“I hope presidential candidates of Korea would not mention any sensitive issues related to China,” Qiu was quoted as saying, adding he believes the bilateral relations between China and Korea should not be ruined by some politicians’ remarks.

The JoongAng Ilbo column presented Qiu’s remarks as being disrespectful to Korea, pointing out that the former ambassador was indirectly criticizing recent remarks made by Yoon Suk-yeol, the presidential candidate of Korea’s main opposition conservative People Power Party (PPP).

The article also mentioned several other Chinese scholars’ remarks about how some conservative politicians in Korea tried to China-bash as a campaign tactic.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but Yoon should use this as one of his campaign slogans that he is the candidate that China does not want to see elected.

Huawei is making it rain benjamins for people with connects to the Biden administration:

High-profile Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta, whose firm collapsed under scrutiny during special counsel Robert Mueller‘s investigation, was paid $1 million by Huawei in 2021 as Beijing sought to soften the Biden administration’s position on the Chinese telecommunications giant.

Huawei appears to have hired Podesta effective as of July, with Senate lobbying disclosure forms showing he agreed to work for Huawei Technologies USA to lobby on “issues related to telecommunication services and impacted trade issues.” An October filing showed that the Chinese company paid Podesta $500,000 for the third quarter of 2021, and a filing this week showed he was paid another $500,000 in the fourth quarter. One filing said he was specifically lobbying the “White House Office,” while the other similarly said he was targeting the “Executive Office of the President.”

The Gazette via One Free Korea

You can read much more at the link, but ROK Heads may remember that the prior ROK Presidency of Park Geun-hye was brought down and impeached because her good friend Choi soon-sil was accepting money from Samsung into her sports foundation for influence with President Park. Both Park and Choi ended up going to prison. In the U.S. such lobbying activity is just another day in the office.

It looks like President Xi is going to make it official and become the emperor for life he has always wanted:

Only two men in the Communist Party’s history have ever written a so-called historical resolution. China is waiting to see whether President Xi Jinping becomes the third.

The first official declaration on Chinese history in 40 years is set to top the agenda when the ruling party huddles this week in the last major meeting before a twice-a-decade congress next year, where Xi’s expected to break precedent and secure a third term to extend his indefinite rule.

Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping’s historical resolutions came at critical junctures in the nation’s trajectory and enabled their authors to dominate party politics until their dying breaths. Issuing his own magnum opus would not only put Xi on par with those party titans, but could signal big changes afoot in the world’s second-largest economy.

The meeting from Nov. 8-11, called the sixth plenum, kicks off the closest thing China has to a campaign season. Getting the party to back his take on China’s history — and its future — would be the biggest sign yet that Xi has the power base to potentially rule for life after almost a decade of purging enemies and pushing to foster national pride.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but that is the thing about purges, these authoritarians make so many enemies that it is dangerous for them to step down because they then risked being jailed or worse.