Yellen, in Beijing, Criticizes China’s Treatment of U.S. Companies

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s concerns reflected continuing tensions between the two countries.

Of all the economic rifts between the United States and China, one felt personally by American executives is what they describe as the difficult, even hostile, conditions they face doing business in China.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen laid bare those concerns on Friday by leveling a forceful objection in Beijing to punitive measures the Chinese government has taken against foreign firms, as tension between the two nations has escalated.

Surrounded by executives from some of the most powerful American companies, Ms. Yellen criticized the Chinese government’s harsh treatment of companies with foreign ties and its recent decision to impose export controls on certain critical minerals. She suggested that such actions justify the Biden administration’s efforts to make U.S. manufacturers less reliant on China.

Ms. Yellen’s comments, made to a group of executives from American businesses operating in China, underscored the challenges that the world’s two largest economies face as they struggle to reconcile their deep differences. » | Alan Rappeport, Alan Rappeport, who covers the Treasury Department, reported this article from Beijing. | Friday, July 7, 2023

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Beijing Faces Covid Lockdown Once Again

Jun 14, 2022 • China's zero-COVID policy is leading to an uncertain and stressful existence for people living in the country's major cities as Sky's Tom Cheshire explains.

Don’t be complacent, another Covid wave is coming. Here’s how we can manage it: A spike in infections every three months seems to be the pattern, but the UK has the power to beat this if we act wisely »

Covid Outbreak in Beijing Prompts Panic Buying and Lockdown Fears

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Supermarkets stocked up as long lines formed. The Chinese authorities ordered mass testing to contain a rising number of cases in an affluent district of the capital.

Shelves at a supermarket began emptying out as shoppers rushed to stock up on Sunday following a coronavirus outbreak in the Chaoyang District of Beijing. | Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters
BEIJING — Families in Beijing rushed to stock up on food. Supermarkets stayed open late. Residents endured long lines for mandatory testing. China’s stock markets plunged.

A fresh coronavirus outbreak in China’s capital has raised concerns that Beijing could become, after Shanghai, the next Chinese megacity to put life on hold to contain the spread of the Omicron variant. The central government has leaned heavily on lockdowns despite their high social and economic costs, in pursuit of the Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s “zero Covid” strategy of eliminating infections.

On Monday, the Beijing government said that 70 coronavirus cases had been found in Beijing since Friday. Nearly two-thirds have been in the district of Chaoyang, which ordered all 3.5 million residents to take three P.C.R. tests over the next five days. In other cities, mass testing in response to initial coronavirus cases has sometimes been a prelude to stringent lockdowns, like the four-week one in Shanghai that has kindled widespread complaints from residents there. » | Keith Bradsher and Chris Buckley | Sunday, April 24, 2022

China: North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un Is in Beijing for Talks with Xi Jinping

Trump Risks 'War' with Beijing If US Blocks Access to South China Sea, State Media Warns

THE GUARDIAN: Threats by Rex Tillerson, would-be secretary of state, to stop access to islands are ‘mish-mash of naivety and shortsightedness’, says China Daily

The US risks a “large-scale war” with China if it attempts to blockade islands in the South China Sea, Chinese state media has said, adding that if recent statements become policy when Donald Trump takes over as president “the two sides had better prepare for a military clash”.

China has controversially built fortifications and artificial islands across the South China Sea. Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, said China’s “access to those islands … is not going to be allowed”. » | Benjamin Haas in Hong Kong | Friday, January 13, 2017

Freedom of Speech Is 'Universal' Right, Michelle Obama Tells China

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Amid a growing crackdown on Chinese dissidents, the US First Lady tells an audience in Beijing that the "questioning and criticism" of political leaders is crucial

Freedom of information, expression and belief should be considered "universal rights", Michelle Obama, the US first lady, told students in China on Saturday.

Speaking at Peking University on the second full day of a weeklong, bridge-building family tour of the country, Mrs Obama said: "It is so important for information and ideas to flow freely over the internet and through the media."

"When it comes to expressing yourself freely, and worshipping as you choose, and having open access to information - we believe those are universal rights that are the birthright of every person on this planet," Mrs Obama told an audience of around 200 students.

"My husband and I are on the receiving end of plenty of questioning and criticism from our media and our fellow citizens, and it's not always easy.

"But I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world." » | Tom Phillips, Shanghai | Saturday, March 22, 2014

China's State Newspaper Praises Edward Snowden for 'Tearing Off Washington's Sanctimonious Mask'
THE GUARDIAN: State-run People's Daily says whistleblower has exposed US hypocrisy after Washington blamed Beijing for his escape


China's top state newspaper has praised the fugitive US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden for "tearing off Washington's sanctimonious mask" and rejected accusations Beijing had facilitated his departure from Hong Kong.

The strongly worded front-page commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist party, responded to harsh criticism of China from the US for allowing Snowden to flee.

The Chinese government has said it was gravely concerned by Snowden's allegations that the US had hacked into many networks in Hong Kong and China, including Tsinghua University, which hosts one of the country's internet hubs, and Chinese mobile network companies. It said it had taken the issue up with Washington.

"Not only did the US authorities not give us an explanation and apology, it instead expressed dissatisfaction at the Hong Kong special administrative region for handling things in accordance with law," wrote Wang Xinjun, a researcher at the Academy of Military Science in the People's Daily commentary.

"In a sense, the United States has gone from a 'model of human rights' to 'an eavesdropper on personal privacy', the 'manipulator' of the centralised power over the international internet, and the mad 'invader' of other countries' networks," the People's Daily said. » | Jonathan Kaiman in Beijing and agencies | Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Russia and China Veto Syria Action
THE INDEPENDENT: Britain today condemned the decision of Russia and China to veto a United Nations' resolution to step up sanctions against Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

The UK's ambassador to the UN, Sir Mark Lyall Grant said he was "appalled" at the decision, which he predicted would lead to "further bloodshed and the likelihood of a descent into all-out civil war".

And he dismissed as "irrational" the arguments of Moscow and Beijing that the Western-backed resolution could act as a precursor to military action.

The vetoes at the UN in New York came just hours after Prime Minister David Cameron issued a personal plea to Russian president Vladimir Putin to help the Security Council send "clear and tough messages about sanctions" to the Assad regime.

Speaking during a visit to Afghanistan, Mr Cameron warned that Syria was facing civil war unless Mr Assad stepped down.

"I have a very clear message for president Assad. It is time for him to go," said the Prime Minister.

"It is time for transition in the regime. If there isn't transition it's quite clear there's going to be civil war."

But today's vetoes by Russia and China are likely to have the effect of shoring up Assad and allowing him to remain in power for longer. » | Andrew Woodcock | Thursday, July 19, 2012

Inside Story: North Korea and Iran's Missile Power
Inside Story, discusses with James Wylie, director of the Strategic Studies Programme at the University of Aberdeen; Bjornar Simonsen, an international counselor for the Korean Friendship Association; and Joshua Goodman from the Transatlantic Inst.

Hillary Clinton: China Crackdown 'A Fool's Errand'
BBC: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has criticised China's crackdown on dissent as "a fool's errand", saying Beijing is trying to halt history.

In an interview with The Atlantic, Mrs Clinton also called the nation's human rights record "deplorable".

She defended US dealings with Beijing, saying: "We live in the real world."

The BBC's Kim Ghattas in Washington says Mrs Clinton seemed to suggest the Chinese system itself would collapse and that democracy was inevitable.

The article quotes Mrs Clinton as saying last month that China's leaders were "worried" that the wave of pro-democracy protests overtaking the Middle East would spread east to China.

"They're trying to stop history, which is a fool's errand," she said. "They cannot do it, but they're going to hold it off as long as possible." » | Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Kim Jong-il to Meet with Hu Jintao in China
THE TELEGRAPH: The reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is expected to arrive in Beijing later today for talks with China's president Hu Jintao as he seeks to shore up his country's bankrupt economy and negotiate a way out of the international diplomatic isolation of recent months.



Neither Beijing or Pyongyang has confirmed the visit, but Mr Kim, with his easily recognisable sunglasses and frizzy hair, was photographed in the port city of Dalian where he arrived on Monday from North Korea in his 17-carriage armoured train.

This visit came as South Korea moved closer to blaming the Pyongyang for the sinking of one of its warships last March in an incident that has further raised tensions between the two Koreas in recent weeks.

The South's president Lee Myung-Bak told a televised meeting of his chiefs of staff that it was clear that the sinking was not a "simple accident" and ordered a thorough review of Seoul's military readiness in light of the apparent attack on the 1,200 tonne corvette Cheonan.

Analysts said the sinking, which Pyongyang has denied, was expected to be on the agenda of talks with Chinese leaders along with the North's desperate need for economic aid, including food and fuel.

A disastrous attempt to reform the North Korean currency last November is thought to have deepened the country's economic woes, raising the threat of a repeat of the famines of the mid 1990s. >>> Peter Foster in Beijing | Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Masters of the World: The Arrogance of China's Leadership
SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: The West hopes that China's growing prosperity will also lead to political liberalization. But the reverse is likely to be true. The Communist Party's increasing confidence means China is set to become more of a troublemaker on the international stage, and more brutal in its crackdown on dissidents.

China's Communist Party is omnipotent. It can move mountains, as it did when it built the world's largest hydroelectric plant on the Yangtze River. It can build the world's highest railway line, as it proved when it constructed the rail link to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.

It can even organize reincarnations, something it achieved when it anointed a man who is loyal to Beijing as Tibet's second-highest spiritual leader, or Panchen Lama -- a particularly impressive feat for an atheistic party which regards religion as a corrupting opium of the people. The Communist Party bosses briefly turned spiritual in order to get their man in place as successor to the Dalai Lama, 74. But the Dalai Lama has chosen his own spiritual deputy. And he's also thinking about selecting a woman to be his reincarnation, he told SPIEGEL. Besides, he doesn't want to do Beijing the favour of dying anytime soon.

Last Thursday, US President Barack Obama shook hands with the Tibetan Nobel Peace Prize winner in the White House. It's something his predecessors had also done, as had the French and German government leaders. Usually Beijing just responded to such meetings by uttering the usual protests. The Communist Party's complaints against US arms shipments to Taiwan have been similarly muted in the past because it was well aware that US presidents are bound by law to help Taiwan.

But it's different this time. Beijing reacted with uncommonly vocal fury to the latest Dalai Lama meeting and Washington's new Taiwan arms deal, and has threatened consequences. Companies like Boeing might be excluded from Chinese deals, and bilateral talks among military officials have been cancelled. Self-Confidence Bordering on Arrogance >>> A commentary by Erich Follath | Tuesday, February 23, 2010

China Alarmed by US Money Printing
THE TELEGRAPH: The US Federal Reserve's policy of printing money to buy Treasury debt threatens to set off a serious decline of the dollar and compel China to redesign its foreign reserve policy, according to a top member of the Communist hierarchy.

Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China's green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed's recourse to "credit easing".

"We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again," he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como.

"If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies," he said.

China's reserves are more than – $2 trillion, the world's largest.

"Gold is definitely an alternative, but when we buy, the price goes up. We have to do it carefully so as not to stimulate the markets," he added.

The comments suggest that China has become the driving force in the gold market and can be counted on to buy whenever there is a price dip, putting a floor under any correction.

Mr Cheng said the Fed's loose monetary policy was stoking an unstable asset boom in China. "If we raise interest rates, we will be flooded with hot money. We have to wait for them. If they raise, we raise. >>> Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in Cernobbio, Italy | Sunday, September 06, 2009

Beijing Forced Relatives to Blame Me: Uighur Activist
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: SYDNEY -- The exiled Uighur activist Beijing blames for inciting recent ethnic violence in China accused the Chinese government on Tuesday of forcing her imprisoned children to say she was responsible for the unrest.

China released a letter Monday it says was penned by close relatives of Rebiya Kadeer -- including two of her children -- blaming her for last month's deadly riots by minority Uighur Muslims in her native Xinjiang, which the government says left 197 people dead and more than 1,700 injured.

But the 62-year-old U.S.-based activist, who arrived in Australia on Tuesday, told reporters in Sydney that the Chinese government forced two of her children to speak against her. They are both in prison in China, where one was convicted of tax evasion and the other of subversion.

"If they .. refused to cooperate with the Chinese government, then their lives would be jeopardized," she said through an interpreter. "In order to live in China, you have to lie."

Ms. Kadeer, who lives in the U.S. state of Virginia, is in Australia to attend the Melbourne International Film Festival, which will feature a documentary about her life. >>> Associated Press | Tuesday, August 04, 2009

China’s Yuan: The Next Reserve Currency?
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Skeptics have dismissed Beijing's talk of de-emphasizing the US dollar, but China is making moves that could soon lead to a convertible yuan.

Are the Chinese finally getting serious about loosening their ties to the dollar -- and even replacing the greenback with the yuan as the global economy's reserve currency? The evidence is mounting that they are.

For the last two months, China's leadership has been complaining about the country's dangerous dependence on the dollar.. Beijing holds $2 trillion (€1.43 trillion) in dollar assets, accumulated through years of exports to America and massive purchases of Treasuries by the Chinese government. If Washington can't rein in its mounting budget deficit, both Treasuries and the greenback could weaken considerably -- and the Chinese could be big losers as a result.

The Chinese began generating attention on the issue in March, when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said he was worried that the country's dollar assets could slide. Ten days later Chinese central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan suggested replacing the dollar as the international reserve currency. One idea, Zhou said, was to replace the dollar with a basket of currencies supervised by the International Monetary Fund. >>> © SPIEGEL ONLINE 2009 | Tuesday, May 26, 2009

LeVine is a correspondent in BusinessWeek's Washington bureau.

Chinese Leader Condemns Tiananmen Massacre from Beyond the Grave
THE TELEGRAPH: Zhao Ziyang, the former Communist Party leader, has spoken from beyond the grave to break two decades of official silence on the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 with a wide-ranging attack on the Chinese political system.

Zhao Ziyang reads a newspaper in the garden of his home in central Beijing in this photo taken in 1994. Photo credit: The Telegraph
In extracts from a secretly recorded memoir, the purged general-secretary denounced the decision to send in the tanks and rebuked his party for failing to embrace the democracy which he claimed was an essential companion to economic reform.

Published four years after his death Zhao, a reformist who pleaded with China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping to take a softer line with the protesting students, described the killings as a "tragedy".

Recalling the moment he finally knew his efforts to prevent bloodshed were in vain, Zhao wrote: "On the night of June 3, while sitting in the courtyard with my family, I heard intense gunfire. A tragedy to shock the world had not been averted, and was happening after all."

He goes on to call for the introduction of democracy in China to rectify the country's social problems.

"It is the Western parliamentary democratic system that has demonstrated the most vitality," says Zhao. "If we don't move toward this goal, it will be impossible to resolve the abnormal conditions in China's market economy." >>> By Peter Foster in Beijing | Thursday, May 14, 2009

Islam in China: Friday Prayer at Niu Jie Mosque, Beijing
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Part 2

'Taiwan Spy' Executed by Beijing
Photo of the executed Wo Weihan courtesy of the BBC
Barbarism seems to know no bounds! Unfortunately, it seems to be increasing not by the month, not even by the week, but by the day! How sad it is to be alive in this age – an age which is so clearly growing darker so rapidly. - ©Mark

BBC: China has executed a scientist accused of spying for Taiwan.

Wo Weihan's family had appealed for clemency, saying that the scientist was tortured into admitting that he was a spy. He was sentenced last year.

The 59-year-old man, who ran his own medical research company in Beijing, was arrested in early 2005.

Among other things, he was convicted of passing Chinese military secrets to Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province.

Court documents said he spied for an organisation called The Grand Alliance for the Reunification of China under the Three Principles of the People between 1989 and 2003.

This group is under the auspices of Taiwan's new ruling party, the Kuomintang, according to China.

His daughter, Ran Chen, who holds an Austrian passport, said her father's death had been confirmed by the Austrian embassy in Beijing.

Mr Wo's family alleged that he had been denied access to a lawyer for a year.

A spokeswoman for the United States' embassy in Beijing condemned the execution. >>> | November 28, 2008

DIE PRESSE: Hinrichtung eines „Austro-Chinesen“

Wo Weihan lebte sieben Jahre in Innsbruck. Seine Töchter sind Österreicherinnen. Jetzt wurde er in Peking exekutiert, weil er für Taiwan spioniert haben soll.

WIEN. Die chinesische Justiz kannte keine Gnade. Sie ließ sich von niemandem erweichen. Es half nichts, dass die österreichische und die amerikanische Regierung intervenierten. Und auch die emotionalen Appelle der beiden Töchter des Todeskandidaten verhallten ungehört: Am Freitagmorgen wurde der 59-jährige Biomediziner Wo Weihan in einem Gefängnis in Peking durch Erschießen hingerichtet.

Seit 2005 saß der Biomediziner, der von 1988 bis 1997 in München und Innsbruck tätig war, hinter Gittern. Mehr als ein Jahr verbrachte er in der Todeszelle. Die chinesischen Behörden warfen ihm vor, für Taiwan spioniert und geheime Informationen über den Gesundheitszustand von hochrangigen Politikern weitergegeben zu haben. Jahrelang kämpften Ran Chen und Di Chen, die Töchter des Angeklagten, um das Leben ihres Vaters. Anfang der Woche erst erhielten sie überraschend eine Besuchserlaubnis, um die sie sich so lange vergeblich bemüht hatten. „Ihr könnt euren Vater ein letztes Mal sehen“, sagte man ihnen in Peking. Da vermuteten sie schon Schlimmstes. Der Vater wusste noch nichts von der bevorstehenden Hinrichtung. „Deshalb hinterließ er nicht einmal letzte Worte für seine Familie“, meinte Ran Chen am Freitag bei einer Pressekonferenz in Peking. >>> Irene Zöch | 28. November 2008

DIE PRESSE: Hinrichtung von Wo Weihan: Diplomatische Krise Wien-Peking

Der chinesische Geschäftsträger wurde ins Außenministerium zitiert. Staatssekretär Winkler spricht von "schwerem Vertrauensbruch" der chinesischen Justiz. Das Ansehen Chinas sei "schwer beschädigt".

Die Hinrichtung des chinesischen Geschäftsmannes Wo Weihan ungeachtet zahlreicher Gnadenappelle aus Österreich und der Europäischen Union hat eine schwere diplomatische Krise im Verhältnis zwischen Wien und Peking verursacht. Im Auftrag von Außenministerin Ursula Plassnik ist der Geschäftsträger der chinesischen Botschaft, Wang Shunqing, in das Außenministerium zitiert worden. Staatssekretär Hans Winkler bezeichnete dabei die Vorgangsweise der chinesischen Justiz als "schweren Vertrauensbruch, der durch nichts zu rechtfertigen ist", und nannte das Verhalten der Behörden gegenüber der Familie des Hingerichteten "unmenschlich". Der 60-jährige Wo Weihan, dem von der chinesischen Justiz angelastet wurde, dem taiwanesischen Geheimdienst "Staatsgeheimnisse" verkauft zu haben, hatte mehrere Jahre in Österreich gelebt, seine Töchter sind Österreicherinnen. >>> | 30. November 2008

LE FIGARO: L'UE indignée par l'exécution d'un «espion» chinois

Après l'annulation du sommet UE-Chine, les diplomates occidentaux sont consternés par ce nouveau signal négatif envoyé par Pékin.

Les diplomates européens n'en reviennent pas. Après l'étonnant report du sommet Europe-Chine, qui devait s'ouvrir ce matin à Lyon, voilà que Pékin leur envoie un nouveau signal qui confine à la provocation. À l'heure où s'ouvrait la 26e session du dialogue euro-chinois sur les droits de l'homme, vendredi, les autorités chinoises fusillaient un «espion» pour lequel l'UE et Washington appelaient depuis des mois à la clémence. Alors que l'homme était condamné à mort depuis longtemps, la concomitance des deux événements ne peut tout devoir au hasard. La ministre autrichienne des Affaires étrangères, Ursula Plassnik, a ainsi dénoncé un «affront prémédité» de Pékin envers l'Union européenne.

L'UE a condamné «avec la plus grande fermeté» l'exécution de Wo Weihan, 59 ans, qui avait vécu à Vienne et avait deux filles de nationalité autrichienne. Un communiqué «marque son indignation devant cette exécution», le jour même du dialogue UE-Chine. Vienne a fustigé la «conduite inhumaine de la Chine». Et l'Europe n'est pas isolée sur le dossier puisque les États-Unis se sont dits «consternés» par l'application de la sentence. Washington considère que l'arrestation et le procès de M. Wo n'ont pas répondu aux normes internationales. >>> Arnaud de La Grange | 1.12.2008

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