It Doesn’t Matter if Ecuador Can Afford This Dam. China Still Gets Paid.
August 11, 2021
Tag: China
How McKinsey Has Helped Raise the Stature of Authoritarian Governments
August 11, 2021
But the political backdrop did not appear to bother the McKinsey consultants, who posted pictures on Instagram chronicling their Disney-like adventures. In fact, McKinsey’s involvement with the Chinese government goes much deeper than its odd choice to showcase its presence in the country.
Why it Matters Podcast: (China’s BRI) Exporting Authoritarianism
August 11, 2021
China is undertaking massive infrastructure projects across the world and loaning billions of dollars to developing nations. On paper, the objective is to build a vast trade network, but is China also exporting authoritarianism?
China and India Brawl at 14,000 Feet Along the Border
August 11, 2021
As China projects its power across Asia, and along the disputed India-China border in the Himalayas, India is feeling surrounded. Both sides insist they don’t want a war, but thousands of troops have been sent.
Analysts said that China did not intend to start a war but that it wanted to frustrate India’s road-building efforts. The race to make these high mountain roads is becoming increasingly fraught. The 2017 standoff between India and China began when Indian troops physically blocked a Chinese road crew in a disputed region claimed by Bhutan, a close ally of India’s.
How to end the perilous Indo-Chinese border spat ($)
August 11, 2021
To avoid escalation, both sides should agree on the “Line of Actual Control”
Yet whatever the efficacy of generals meeting in windblown tents, it is a reckless way to fix problems between two rising nuclear powers that are home to a third of humanity. India has previously suggested that, as a second-best to a formal agreement over where the border lies, the two sides should at least present maps showing their view of where the line of control runs in practice. China, perhaps thinking itself the more astute Go player, has always refused to do so. This allows it to claim that any Indian move is a violation of its own understanding.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/06/18/how-to-end-the-perilous-indo-chinese-border-spat
The Attack Of The Civilization-State
August 11, 2021
A world society seemed to be advancing. But then the civilization-state struck back.
As a civilization-state, China is organized around culture rather than politics. Linked to a civilization, the state has the paramount task of protecting a specific cultural tradition. Its reach encompasses all the regions where that culture is dominant.
The importance of this concept became more obvious to me in India during a conversation with Ram Madhav, the general secretary of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. After a conference in Delhi, he explained: “From now on, Asia will rule the world, and that changes everything because in Asia, we have civilizations rather than nations.”
China’s Claims to the South China Sea Are Unlawful. Now What?
August 11, 2021
Republican and Democratic administrations have failed to thwart aggressive expansion in one of the world’s busiest sea lanes. The solution isn’t flashy, but it could work.
It is, nonetheless, a message that is valid and long overdue. Over the past decade, China has steadily hardened its claims to most of the South China Sea, a zone circumscribed by a vague “nine-dash line” that one American naval commander called the “Great Wall of Sand.” The claims have included a campaign of building up shoals and militarizing islands or proclaiming municipal districts and settling people on contested islands. The reclamation of several reefs and atolls in the Spratly Islands has included construction of runways, hangars, barracks, missile silos and radar sites.
China’s ‘purification’ of classrooms: A new law erases history, silences teachers and rewrites books
August 10, 2021
With China’s tightening control over Hong Kong, including passage of a new national security law, the territory’s pro-democracy activists, politicians, journalists and others are facing a Communist Party determined to crush dissent. Perhaps the greatest threat from this new purge — one that will affect generations to come — is the increasing pressure on schools and teachers over what to put in the minds of students. Both activists and bureaucrats know that a nation’s soul is distilled in the classroom; history can be erased with the silencing of teachers and rewriting of textbooks.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-09-11/hong-kong-teacher-purge
The world’s money transfer system is China’s Achilles heel in its sanctions battle against the US
August 10, 2021
But China is actually far more vulnerable to US sanctions than it will let on, even if the sanctions are aimed at individuals and not banks. That’s because the primary system powering the world’s cross-border financial transactions between banks, Swift, is dominated by the US dollar.
https://qz.com/1893235/swift-transfer-system-leaves-china-vulnerable-to-us-sanctions/
Top international court rejects Uighur calls to investigate China for alleged genocide
August 10, 2021
The office of prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said the ICC couldn’t act because China is not a signatory to the court.
The Uighurs had argued that even though the alleged deportations did not happen on Chinese soil, the ICC could act because they happened on Tajik and Cambodian territory, and both of them are ICC members.
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