Tag: China

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.

The resilience that Australia has shown against China’s economic retaliation has likely been a major surprise for the CCP. Instead of weakening Australia it has actually strengthened and embolden the country to stand up even more against CCP human rights violations, economic coercion, and territorial expansion:

If the scale of China’s trade coercion against Australia is unprecedented, it also offers an intriguing experiment: What does a sudden economic decoupling from China look like? With China accounting for nearly 40 percent of Australian exports, one might assume the costs of Canberra’s defiance would be grave.

But in fact, the effects have been surprisingly mild. The reason is trade diversion: When a trade barrier is erected, businesses seek alternate outlets for their products. In open international markets, the outcome is rarely the destruction of export industries. Most of the time, trade flows adjust around the barrier.

Coal provides an illustrative example. Once China banned imports of Australian coal in mid-2020, Chinese utilities had to turn to Russian and Indonesian suppliers instead. This, in turn, took Russian and Indonesian coal off the market, creating demand gaps in India, Japan, and South Korea—which Australia’s stranded coal was able to fill. What’s more, the global energy crunch has pushed up the price of coal, leading Australian coal producers’ export earnings to rise this year—not exactly the effect China had in mind. 

Foreign Policy

You can read more at the link, but for a commodity based economy like Australia has, it is easier to decouple from China. However, for countries that have tech and manufacturing relationships with China it will be harder to decouple because new factories have to be built and new skilled workers have to be trained elsewhere. This would likely be a multi-year process. However, if countries don’t start this process now they could find their economies compromised if China threatens to close them as part of economic pressure to coerce governments to side with them during any future conflict over the South China Sea for example.

President Moon continues to push hard for an end of war declaration for the Korean War before he exits office early next year:

The scheduled visit to China by President Moon Jae-in’s top security advisor is widely believed to be seeking Beijing’s support and cooperation for the President’s proposal of declaring an official end to the Korean War. However, experts say it remains to be seen how actively China will work on the issue, given the complex geopolitical situation.

Cheong Wa Dae said, Wednesday, that National Security Advisor Suh Hoon will visit Tianjin from Thursday to Friday for talks with his Chinese counterparts, at the invitation of the Chinese Communist Party’s head of foreign affairs, Yang Jiechi.

The presidential office said that Suh’s trip will be a reciprocal visit for Yang’s visit to Busan in August last year, and the two will discuss, “South Korea-China relations, Korean Peninsula issues, regional and international affairs and other topics of mutual interests.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

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.

This is just another example that a country should not rely on China for key ingredients in their supply chain for critical needs especially something as important as diesel fuel:

 South Korea said Sunday it plans to import urea water solution, a key material used in diesel vehicles to reduce emissions, from Australia this week in a bid to ease its supply shortage that has caused soaring prices.

The government has decided to mobilize military aircraft to bring 20,000 liters of urea solution from Australia, the finance ministry said after a meeting on security and the economy.

“The country plans to mobilize all available diplomatic channels to import thousands of tonnes of urea within this year not only from Australia but also from other countries, including Vietnam,” the government said.

South Korea has been grappling with a shortage of urea water solution, known as diesel exhaust fluid, in recent weeks, as China tightened exports of fertilizers and related materials, including urea, in October amid a power crisis caused by a coal supply shortage. Coal is the main feedstock for urea.

South Korea heavily relies on China for its supply of urea water solution, as 97.6 percent of its import came from China in the first nine months of this year. In around 2013, local manufacturers of urea shut down business as they lost price competitiveness over foreign rivals, such as China and Russia.

In Korea, a relatively high portion of diesel cars caused a shortage of urea water solution.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.