Category: China

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.

Another American tech company has pulled out of China:

Yahoo Inc. said Tuesday it has pulled out of China, citing an increasingly challenging operating environment.

The withdrawal was largely symbolic, as many of the company’s services were already blocked by China’s digital censorship. But recent government moves to expand its control over tech companies generally, including its domestic giants, may have tipped the scales for Yahoo.

“In recognition of the increasingly challenging business and legal environment in China, Yahoo’s suite of services will no longer be accessible from mainland China as of November 1,” the company said in a statement. It said it “remains committed to the rights of our users and a free and open internet.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Before any blockade or invasion of Taiwan would happen, the CNAS think tanks thinks the Chinese would first seize the Pratas Islands. It makes sense because the Chinese could use the international response to this as a trial balloon for them to see if they could get away with a follow on blockade of Taiwan:

The United States has “few credible options” to respond if China were to seize a set of islands administered by Taiwan in the South China Sea, underscoring the need for Washington and Taipei to build deterrence “against limited Chinese aggression,” according to the results of a war game conducted recently by foreign policy experts in Washington and the Asia-Pacific region.

The scenario was examined by the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank, and detailed in a report published Tuesday. It supposes that Chinese forces invade the Pratas islands, capturing the 500 Taiwanese troops who are based there and establishing a military outpost.

It’s a theoretical dilemma for the Pentagon that “many China-watchers view as increasingly plausible” – and one that “reinforces the need for regular planning exercises between Taiwanese and U.S. personnel,” the report says.

The report comes at a moment of heightened tension between Washington and Beijing, with the United States opposing China’s military expansion in the region and China calling on the Pentagon to cut ties with Taiwan. The standoff has spotlighted the challenge U.S. commanders would face in responding to an incursion of the islands without provoking a full-blown war.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

A joint Japanese and Russian naval fleet sailed around the main island of Honshu, Japan in response to the international community sailing ships through the Strait of Taiwan. The big difference between this exercise and the international community’s freedom of navigation patrols is that no one from Japan is shrieking about the exercise like the Chinese government routinely does after freedom of navigation patrols. This shows how secure the Japanese government is unlike the CCP which has to shriek after every international military exercise or freedom of navigation patrol to drum up internal nationalism to legitimize their rule:

 A combined Russian Navy and People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) fleet concluded a sail in international waters east of Japan’s main island of Honshu and split off to their home ports on Saturday, all while being monitored by Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships and aircraft during the voyage.

The Chinese ships were Type 055 destroyer Nanchang (101), Type 052D destroyer Kuming (172), Type 054 frigates Binzou (515) and Liuzhou (573) and the replenishment ship Dongpinghu (902). Russian ships were destroyers Admiral Tributs (564) and Admiral Panteleyev (548), corvettes Gromkiy (335) and Hero of the Russian Federation Aldar Tsydenzhapov (339) and the missile range instrumentation ship Marshal Krylov (331).

The combined fleet had entered the Tsugaru Strait on Oct. 18 and since then had been sailing off Honshu. The Joint Staff of the Japan Self-Defense Force issued a release and map on Saturday stating that the joint fleet had sailed through the Osumi Strait that day. Located between the Osumi Peninsula and Tanegashima Island, the strait connects the Sea of Japan with the Pacific Ocean. Following their sail through the Osumi Strait, the ships of the two countries separated at a location 130 kilometers, or about 81 miles, southeast of the Danjo Islands. 

USNI News

You can read more at the link.