Australia, US urged to counter China ‘fake news’ strategy in Pacific Jacob GreberSenior correspondent Oct 5, 2022 https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-...fake-news-strategy-in-pacific-20221004-p5bn37 China conducted a co-ordinated public information strategy in Solomon Islands to “spread lies” and undermine the Pacific nation’s relationships with Australia and the US, a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says. A detailed study of media, Facebook posts and official statements by Chinese diplomats showed that the Chinese Communist Party pushed “false narratives” after riots in the capital, Honiara, in November 2021 and following the leaking of a China-Solomon Islands security deal in March this year. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, right, locks arms with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Honiara, Solomon Islands on May 26, 2022. AP The report comes after Foreign Minister Penny Wong last month warned the United National General Assembly of escalating geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific and China’s debt diplomacy with smaller nations. The ASPI report details how the Chinese embassy in Honiara used local and social media to amplify a narrative that Australia, the US and Taiwan instigated the 2021 riots and sought to smear the relationship between Solomon Islands and Australia. Local media consumers were also informed that Australia and the US had behaved like “colonialist bullies” in trying to derail Solomon Islands sovereignty over the security pact. “The ‘bullying’ narrative was taken up in comments by Solomon Islands’ local population, such that it featured strongly in anti-West online commentary,” ASPI’s analysts wrote in the report, published on Wednesday. “In alignment with the CCP’s regional security objectives, those messages have a strong focus on undermining Solomon Islands’ existing partnerships with Australia and the US.” ASPI accused China of a co-ordinated effort to influence the islands’ population. “A Facebook group in Solomon Islands, created just after the riots and with more than 1000 followers, was used to amplify party-state media articles that promoted the benefits of engaging with China at the expense of other foreign partnerships. These pages have unknown origins and ownership.” ASPI also noted “growing evidence that CCP officials are seeking to suppress information that doesn’t align with the party-state’s narratives across the Pacific islands through the coercion of local journalists and media institutions”. It urged the Australian government to train journalists in the Pacific, and fund more research into foreign influence and disinformation in the region. It also urged Facebook and other social media companies to identify state sponsored media content. “Social media companies need to provide, in national Pacific languages, contextual information on misinformation and label state affiliations on messages from state-controlled entities. “Social media companies could encourage civil society to report state affiliations and provide evidence to help companies enforce their policies.” ASPI said Pacific island countries will “need support” as great-power competition intensifies. “The US, for example, can do more to demonstrate that the CCP’s narratives are false, such as proving Washington’s genuine interest in supporting the region by answering the call of the local Solomon Islands population to do more to clean up remaining unexploded World War II ordnance on Guadalcanal.”
Opinion China's expansionism creeps along as West distracted by Ukraine India retreats further into own territory with Himalayan buffer-zone pullbacks Brahma Chellaney October 7, 2022 https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/China-s-expansionism-creeps-along-as-West-distracted-by-Ukraine Chinese troops hold a banner reading, "You've crossed the border, please go back," in Ladakh, India, in May 2013: An incremental, salami-slicing approach of bulletless aggression has come at little international cost. © AP China's relentless expansionism in the frigid high Himalayas through furtive territorial encroachments has fostered a nearly 30-month military standoff with India. The confrontation, and the wider faceoff between the world's two most populous nations, persists even as both militaries have pulled back recently from some front line areas to establish buffer zones so as to reduce the risk of inadvertent clashes. China's Himalayan encroachments are a reminder that in contrast to Russia's full-force attack on Ukraine, Beijing prefers to act gradually with stealth, deception and surprise to expand the country's frontiers. This incremental, salami-slicing approach of bulletless aggression comes at little international cost. Most prominently, China has redrawn the geopolitical map of the South China Sea and maritime Southeast Asia without inviting any concrete Western sanctions. In the Himalayas, Beijing is seeking to replicate its South China Sea strategy by unilaterally changing facts on the ground, assuming there will be little diplomatic or geopolitical fallout. It has not spared even tiny Bhutan, nibbling away at its borderlands one valley at a time. China honed its salami-slicing strategy in the 1950s when it carved off the Aksai Chin plateau, a Switzerland-sized area originally part of the princely Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir. Under President Xi Jinping, this strategy has evolved into a "cabbage" approach with the People's Liberation Army stealthily cutting off neighboring states' access to contested territory they previously controlled and surrounding the acquired areas with multiple layers of security forces. China's current military standoff with India involves some of the most inhospitable terrain on Earth. But no sooner had New Delhi declared a nationwide lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that emerged from China in early 2020 than the PLA clandestinely invaded the borderlands of India's northernmost region of Ladakh, enveloping hundreds of square kilometers of territory with layers of defense lines. Although India has responded with heavy military deployments, leading to the largest Himalayan buildup of rival forces in history, the PLA remains in control of the larger areas it grabbed in April 2020. Through lengthy negotiations, India has managed only to get China to convert its smaller encroachments into buffer zones -- largely on Beijing's terms. The daunting challenge for a traditionally defensive India is to regain lost territory in the same way China took it -- without resort to open combat. The scale of the challenge may explain why Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has agreed to the establishment of four separate buffer zones, with the latest established in September in the Hot Springs area of eastern Ladakh. Under these deals, the rival forces have pulled back by equal distances from specified confrontation sites to create no man's lands between them. The buffers in effect advance China's "10 miles forward, eight miles back" strategy, forcing Indian forces to retreat further back into their own territory while illustrating what Beijing calls "meeting each other halfway." In the more strategically valuable areas it has seized, China has fortified front line positions by establishing permanent military bases and deploying large, combat-ready forces with tanks, artillery and cold-weather troop shelters to preclude any Indian attempt to regain lost territory through counterforce operations. Indeed, since the faceoff began, China has expanded its frenzied buildup of military infrastructure and capabilities along its entire disputed frontier with India. New heliports and expanded air bases near the border have strengthened China's vertical lift capability. Modi, while seeking to befriend China after taking office in 2014, coined the phrase "inch toward miles" as a motto for bilateral cooperation. Beijing has cynically translated that slogan to incrementally advance its territorial aggrandizement in the Himalayas. Simply put, China's strategy is proving just as effective on land as it has been at sea. In fact, its terrestrial aggression has attracted even less international attention than its blue-water expansionism. China's actions in muscling into its neighbors' territory reflect the Communist Party's goal of achieving Asian hegemony as a stepping stone toward supplanting the U.S. as the world's preeminent power. Advancing that ambition means asserting the country's economic and strategic interests and territorial claims, including by rewriting history and disregarding international law. Should Beijing next target Taiwan, its aggression is likely to take the form of a slow squeeze of the island democracy rather than a full-fledged invasion. China's live-fire exercises around Taiwan in August simulated the steps it might take to slowly throttle the island, including by imposing a blockade. A video screen in Hong Kong shows China beginning military exercises near Taiwan on Aug. 4: Beijing's aggression is likely to take the form of a slow squeeze of the island democracy rather than a full-fledged invasion. © Reuters The White House acknowledged in August that China is pursuing a "boiling the frog" strategy against Taiwan by regularizing crossings of the median line that previously restricted military activities in the Taiwan Strait, stepping up coercive pressure and slowly altering the status quo. The parable of the frog is about sensory adaptation to small changes over time: If a frog is put into a pot of boiling water, it will instantly jump out, but if it is placed in a pot of cool water that is then only slowly brought to a boil, the frog will not notice before it is killed by the heat. China likewise pursues its expansionism incrementally, conditioning international power elites to its expanding footprint and thwarting a concerted Western response until it is too late. Asked recently whether American forces would defend Taiwan if China attacks, U.S. President Joe Biden replied, "Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack." China is more likely to slowly throttle Taiwan than directly attack, however. Would Biden put up with a gradual squeeze of Taiwan? The singular focus of the U.S. and Europe on isolating and punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine has deflected attention away from China's creeping, covert warfare. But while Russia's strategic ambitions are essentially limited to its near abroad, China is seeking to fundamentally alter global power dynamics.
‘They can vote with their feet’: As Xi locks in power, many Chinese rush for the exits By Eryk Bagshaw October 12, 2022 https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/t...inese-rush-for-the-exits-20221009-p5boej.html Between the Detian Waterfall and Friendship Pass along China’s southern border with Vietnam, locals used to trade chicken and rice on bamboo rafts along the Red River. “There were lots of businesses, big and small, near customs,” says Lyu Weijun, who runs a small hotel in Detian Village. “Since the pandemic, all such flows had been tightly restricted. There were barbed-wire fences installed along the river. The pandemic situation in Vietnam is serious, but they treat it like the flu.” A man checks if a China-Vietnam boundary marker is damaged in Detian Village in September. Credit:Sanghee Liu On this 1200-kilometre border between China and Vietnam, locals are acutely aware of their predicament. China remains stuck in the land of COVID-zero while its neighbour flourishes. “This area has been locked down three times this year, all during the most lucrative seasons,” says Lyu. “The first time, it was just one night before the Spring Festival [in February].” All it took for a lockdown in Detian was for one infected person from Guangdong province on the coast of China to visit Debao, a county that is 100 kilometres away from Lyu’s village. Two more lockdowns would strike in April at the beginning of the summer holidays and during the National Day holiday in October. “I may not make enough money to cover the elevator maintenance fee,” says Lyu. A young man rides by the barbed-wire fences and surveillance cameras along China-Vietnam border in Detian VillageCredit:Sanghee Liu Lyu, like many Chinese business operators, is losing patience with a COVID-19 strategy that appears to have no end in sight. Now, as Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to lock in his third term in power at the National Party Congress starting on October 16, many are rushing for the exit. “They cannot actually vote, but they can vote with their feet,” says Alfred Wu a professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore and an expert on the political economy of Greater China. “The middle class that can is quietly starting to leave or planning to leave.” In Japan, British schools Malvern College, Rugby, and Harrow, famed for educating royals and members of parliament, are setting up campuses to cater to high-end Chinese demand. In Malaysia, the number of Chinese student applications has doubled. In Europe, there has been a rush on Chinese applications, to Greece, after the government announced it would double the cost of an investment visa from $380,000 to $760,000. Across Southeast Asia, but particularly in Singapore, Chinese buyers are dominating the market for properties worth more than $5 million - making up 20 per cent of sales so far in 2022. “International schools in Singapore are receiving a lot of inquiries, not just from Hong Kong, but from the mainland,” Wu said. In some cases, Chinese parents are enrolling their children in Singaporean schools and pay tens of thousands of dollars in fees to secure a place before getting out of the country. More than 100,000 Hong Kong residents applied for a British National Overseas visa in 2021 and China remains Canada’s second-largest source of permanent migrants. Joe Jin, who owned a baby product online shop in China says he had been considering migrating to Canada for the past decade but circumstances this year forced his hand. “What made me actually take action is the further education of my elder son who will enter high school this year and the bleak prospects of my own business,” says the 45-year-old, who has moved on a student visa and begun work as a courier. He misses home but does not regret his decision. “Immigration brings a huge change in lifestyle and sometimes loneliness,” he says. In Australia, the most recent set of Department of Home Affairs data shows that China once again became Australia’s largest source of permanent migrants in 2020-21, topping India for the first time in the past five years with 22,207 places. Zheng Guo, an international steel trader, is now considering a move to Australia despite the ongoing geopolitical tensions between the two countries and his concerns about COVID-fuelled racial discrimination in Australia. “Doing international trade requires lots of travel and visas. However, as foreign countries do not recognise the Chinese vaccine, I have to take prolonged quarantine, at my own expense,” says Zheng. “Another reason is to provide a better educational environment for my son, who will enter middle school this year.” Educational opportunities have always been a key reason for middle-class and wealthy Chinese families to go abroad to both give their kids a better chance at attending prestigious universities and minimise the pressures of gaokao - China’s high-stakes university entrance exams. But under COVID-19 they have also become an excuse to get out of a country that has maintained strict control over passports throughout the pandemic. “China has not opened yet and many people are hoping to go out, but the Chinese government has been issuing few passports,” says Jack Zhang an immigration consultant based in Shenzhen. Zhang says the number of passports issued in China in the first half of 2021 was only 2 per cent of the same period in 2019. “Today, it’s almost impossible to get a passport for visiting family or tourism but studying abroad or doing business is relatively easy,” he says. “Chinese people living overseas live a free life, like many of my friends who live abroad. However, inside China, we are in a closed state, not that free, such as in Shenzhen, as soon as there was an outbreak, it was locked down.″ Outside the Canadian visa centre in Beijing in September more than a dozen people were standing in a queue waiting to see if they would be allowed to leave. “I’m planning to visit family members in Canada,” says one woman who asks to be identified due to the political sensitivities of travel. “The most difficult part of international travel is to get a Chinese passport because it is not issued regularly in recent years due to COVID-19.” Getting money out of the country is also tricky. Chinese migrants have to establish bank accounts overseas, and then transfer their Chinese yuan into an exchange account run by another company. The exchange company then holds the yuan and transfers the equivalent foreign currency from a foreign exchange bank account to get around Chinese government restrictions on transferring money across borders. Xi Jinping is expected to be awarded an historic third term.Credit:AP On Chinese social media services Weibo and WeChat “run xue” or “run philosophy” went viral in May, as residents in Shanghai grappled with food shortages and millions were sealed in their apartment blocks. But even as some of those pressures have eased, immigration agents say demand for a way out has continued to grow. Some are resorting to extreme measures. In August, CNN followed 33-year-old Wang Qun as he made his way to the United States. The bubble tea shop owner got his passport by applying for a language school in Ecuador, flew to the capital Quito, caught a bus for 1600 kilometres to Columbia, took a boat across to Panama, spent three days hiking through the Panamanian jungle, made it through Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Guatemala before scrambling across the US-Mexico border. He was one of the dozens following instructions in an online forum on how to immigrate illegally from China to America. “In the years after Xi Jinping came to power, China’s policies have become tighter and tighter, the economy is not doing great … and (his) dictatorship is only getting worse,” Wang told CNN. More than 2000 Chinese Communist Party members will gather for a week from Sunday to anoint Xi as General Secretary for a third term where they could also name him as either Chairman or “People’s Leader” and elevate him alongside Mao Zedong in the pantheon of Chinese leaders. Xi has ruthlessly pursued COVID-zero more than any other world leader, turning an impossible task into a personal test for both him and the Chinese people. Fences once again encircled neighbourhoods in Shanghai on Monday and staff were locked inside restaurants. Mobile units have been installed on sidewalks to carry away close contacts to quarantine, dashing hopes of any real easing of restrictions before the end of this year. “We must remain vigilant against the spread of the epidemic, increase our confidence and patience in our country’s epidemic prevention and control policies,” Chinese government-controlled media outlet People’s Daily said in an editorial on Tuesday. “[We must] overcome any numbness of the mind, any war-weariness, any thought of leaving things to chance, and any complacency.”
see https://earthscience.stackexchange....sidence-time-of-atmospheric-co2-from-bomb-14c There seems to be a big disagreement between the peer reviewed literature and the IPCC official value. The mean half-life reported is in the neighborhood of 10 years. The longest estimate based on Carbon-14 is 25 years, but all the other estimates from C-14 are considerably less than that. I would go with the mean value from the C-14 decay studies rather than the IPCC value which was obtained from models (i.e., the IPCC value is the value needed to make the IPCC models agree with observations over a period of about 6 years, after which the models' parameters need to be adjusted again. I conclude from this that there are as yet no reliable climate models for predicting atmospheric temperature. There seems to exist a consensus that the values from C-14 decay are providing our best estimates so far.
I am not fan of China but it is ridiculous for people to say they are the cause of global warming when the biggest thing we have done in the US to reduce our emissions is ship our heavy industry to China. Global warming is absolutely real and the solutions we have to global warming are mostly complete bullshit. Outsourcing heavy emission industry to China and then have China ship us back the end products on giant heavy petrol burning ships is our brilliant leaders type of global warming "solution". When the product hits our shores we can claim zero emissions as if it showed up by magic. Zero emissions is just going to be a complete accounting scam because that is far easier than solving the actual problem.
They are trying to figure out how to cook the books -- or at least delay the information until after the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China session. China delays release of Q3 GDP, other key economic metrics https://seekingalpha.com/news/3891859-china-delays-release-of-q3-gdp-other-key-economic-metrics China's National Bureau of Statistics has delayed the release of critical economic metrics including quarterly GDP, monthly retail sales, property sales and fixed-asset investment figures. The National Bureau of Statistics has marked the release of this data as delayed, with no reason cited or new date for when it would be released. The delay comes amid the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The key political gathering, held once every five years, is set to see premier Xi Jinping hold onto power. In a two-hour speech at the party conference, Xi stood firm on his policies and said per-capita GDP would rise to the level of a "medium-developed country" in a "giant new leap" by 2035. While he did not give a specific number, economists told Bloomberg that would mean doubling GDP and per-capita income, with an average GDP growth rate of 4.7%. The lack of data makes it difficult to gauge China's economic trajectory so far this year, although analysts believe a recovery is well on the way after COVID-19 restrictions slowed down Q2. China's National Development and Reform Commission said earlier the economy had improved significantly in Q3 despite droughts, new COVID-19 outbreaks and other headwinds. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expect GDP to have grown 3.5% in Q3 after a 0.4% increase in Q2.
UK seeks to prevent military pilots from training China’s army The move comes after a report said up to 30 former pilots had gone to train members of the Chinese army. A BBC report said up to 30 former UK pilots had gone to train members of the China's People's Liberation Army. {File: Henry Nicholls/Reuters] Published On 18 Oct 202218 Oct 2022 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022...es-to-prevent-uk-pilots-from-working-in-china The British government is taking measures to prevent China from recruiting serving and former Armed Forces pilots to train army personnel in China, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. “We are taking decisive steps to stop Chinese recruitment schemes attempting to headhunt serving and former UK Armed Forces pilots to train People’s Liberation Army personnel in the People’s Republic of China,” a spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday. “All serving and former personnel are already subject to the Official Secrets Act, and we are reviewing the use of confidentiality contracts and non-disclosure agreements across Defence, while the new National Security Bill will create additional tools to tackle contemporary security challenges – including this one.” The comment came following a BBC report claiming that up to 30 former pilots had gone to train members of China’s People’s Liberation Army. China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin denied any knowledge of Chinese recruitment efforts. “I am not aware of the circumstances you mentioned,” he said during a press briefing. UK Minister of State for the Armed Forces James Heappey told Sky News the recruitment scheme is not new and it had been a concern for “a number of years”. British counterintelligence had been looking at it closely, he added. “China is a competitor that is threatening the UK interest in many places around the world. It’s also an important trading partner,” Heappey said. “But there is no secret in their attempt to gain access to our secrets and the recruitment of pilots in order to understand the capabilities of our air force is clearly a concern to us.” Heappey said those involved in the training had been approached and told to stop, and the government was putting in place a law that would make it an offence to disregard the warning.
Manhandled and erased: Confusion surrounds Hu’s ignominious exit from Xi’s stage By Con Coughlin October 23, 2022 https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/m...ous-exit-from-xi-s-stage-20221023-p5bs43.html London: If any image underlines the utter ruthlessness of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s pursuit of absolute power, it is the sight of his predecessor, Hu Jintao, being reluctantly, but firmly, escorted from the closing ceremony of the Communist Party Congress. While explanations differ as to the reasons for the former Chinese president’s undignified removal, the forcible manner of his departure suggests that it is all part of the Chinese leader’s effort to consolidate his grip on the country. Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) watches as former president Hu Jintao touches Premier Li Keqiang as he is escorted to leave.Credit:AP In the closed and secretive world of Chinese politics, the bitter power struggles constantly taking place between rival factions in the country’s communist elite rarely reach the public eye – so this is remarkable. If the reason for Hu’s removal was, as has been suggested, that he was suddenly overcome by ill health, then why did the nation’s censors act so swiftly to erase any references to the former president’s unceremonious departure from the podium? And, as Hu was clearly reluctant to vacate his front row seat, would it have not been better, certainly from a public relations point of view, to leave him in his seat until the proceedings had concluded? This, after all, was supposed to be the crowning moment of Xi’s autocratic rule, as he prepares to achieve his long-held ambition of effectively becoming China’s president-for-life when he is officially appointed to serve another five-year term as the communist party’s general secretary. Was Hu against this? Was that why he was so publicly ejected? We may never know. Former Chinese leader Hu Jintao unexpectedly led out of room Former Chinese top leader Hu Jintao was unexpectedly led out of the closing ceremony of a major meeting of China's ruling Communist Party on Saturday. Xi’s inexorable rise to become his country’s all-powerful leader has not been without its detractors among China’s ruling elite. After the turmoil that followed the death of Mao Zedong, the communist regime’s founder, in 1976, constitutional measures were put in place – including a two-term limit for serving as president – to prevent any future incumbent repeating Mao’s authoritarian role. This arrangement, though, has been systematically eroded since Xi replaced Hu as Chinese leader in 2012, to the extent that, in 2018, the National People’s Congress, China’s so-called parliament, approved constitutional changes that removed the two-term presidential limit, thereby allowing Xi to remain in power for life, should he choose to. Former Chinese president Hu Jintao tries to talk to Premier Li Keqiang (left) and President Xi Jinping as he is escorted out of Congress.Credit:Getty The treatment of Xi’s predecessor yesterday by officials inevitably revives memories of the era of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, when key members of the Soviet politburo who fell foul of his dictatorial rule would suddenly disappear from view. So determined were the apparatchiks to erase them from history that their faces were quietly erased from official photographs of Soviet summits. Whatever the reasons for Hu’s precipitate ejection from the platform, the spectacle of this frail old man being escorted off will serve as a timely reminder that no one, not even former Chinese presidents, are immune from Xi’s insatiable quest for power. The Telegraph, London