Sanctions Imposed on Russia Hurt Chinese Economy

New Delhi — 

As the world’s biggest trader and buyer of crude oil, China has been hit hard by the economic sanctions unleashed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Even Chinese government officials have begun to predict economic difficulties on the horizon.

“This year, the pressure on foreign trade will be huge, and the situation will be very severe,” Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said at a recent press conference.

The current sanctions regime has pushed up the price of crude oil. This will result in a heavy financial burden on China, which is the world’s biggest oil importer. The economic restrictions may also affect the $147 billion annual trade between China and Russia. Fund transfers to Russian entities can no longer occur in U.S. dollars, the currency of choice for 86% of international transactions.

“Chinese firms are caught between a rock and a hard place,” Jacob Gunter, senior analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, told VOA.

Chinese companies with operations in the U.S. or the European Union may fall victim to secondary effects of the sanctions if parent corporations in China maintain business links with Russia, he said.

Four pallets of Lenovo Chromebook laptops sit in a Denver Public Schools warehouse after arriving, Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, in Denver.

Two Chinese firms, Lenovo and Didi, which recently announced plans to cease doing business in Russia, faced a storm of ridicule and criticism on Chinese social media for “pandering to American whims.” This has caused a lot of concern among dozens of Chinese firms, which fear losing the domestic market if they cut ties with Russia.

Energy imports constitute two-thirds of China’s purchases from Russia. For now, the ban on Russia-related SWIFT fund transfers does not affect energy payments. This safeguard primarily shields European countries that are heavily dependent on Russian gas supplies, but it will also protect Chinese energy-related transactions. SWIFT, which stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is an international bank-to-bank transfer system.

Some experts also predict China will end up importing inflation. The prices of many imported commodities have risen since the Russian invasion, said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist for Capital Economics.

“If the situation escalates further and energy trade between Russia and the West is cut off, then the impact would be even larger,” he said.

On the other hand, Williams said, the war offers some economic opportunities for China.

“With much of the world cutting off ties with Russia, China is in a strong position to negotiate long-run energy supply contracts on favorable terms. Meanwhile, bans on Western exports of certain goods may allow some Chinese suppliers to take their place instead,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics, in Beijing.

An important question is whether Beijing will stick to its recent deal with Russia for enhanced trade, including expanded purchases of Russian gas. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the agreement February 4, the opening day of the Winter Olympics, during a visit to Beijing.

“I think Beijing is frustrated by Russia’s actions in Ukraine so soon after the deal, but it is unlikely to walk away from it,” Gunter said, adding that although China will become a crucial lifeline for Russia, there are limitations to the extent Beijing can offer support without drawing the ire of the West.

Besides, demand for energy, one of Russia’s most important exports, cannot increase significantly in the short term, because importing quantities of Russian gas in excess of what has been contracted will require additional pipeline facilities, which take time to build.

China has for years been trying to reduce its dependence on U.S. dollars and has signed currency swap agreements with several trading partners, including Russia. In 2015, Beijing launched the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, an international yuan payment and clearing system, as an alternative to SWIFT.

“It remains to be seen how CIPS will work and if it could act as a possible ‘competitor’ for the SWIFT,” Lourdes Casanova, director of the Emerging Markets Institute at Cornell University, told VOA.

The CIPS system may not be entirely immune to U.S. intervention if it is used by China for transactions with countries other than Russia, said Williams of Capital Economics. At present, 17 Russian banks are connected to the CIPS system.

“It is also subject to Western sanctions on transactions involving Russian banks,” he said. “While the CIPS payments system doesn’t touch the U.S. banking system, payments through it that were deemed to be intended to circumvent U.S. sanctions could trigger sanctions for those involved. That effectively limits the use of CIPS to bilateral transactions between Russia and China.”

Ukraine Invasion Sparks Controversial Commentary on Chinese Social Media

NEW DELHI — 

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week, Chinese social media, usually a controlled space, is rife with conflicting comments about Ukraine. Censors have deleted thousands of posts — many containing vulgar sexual remarks about Ukrainian women — along with the accounts from which they originated.

A wide variety of comments are emerging hourly on the chatting platform WeChat; the Douyin video app, or Chinese TikTok; and Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.

Some social media users are asking the Chinese government to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the Ukrainian crisis to seize Taiwan. China regards the self-ruled island as a breakaway province, even though it has its own flag, currency, military and democratic institutions. The Chinese government has said it is ready to bring about a reunification with Taiwan, even if force is required.

Chinese social media is also witnessing an outpouring of support for Russia and criticism of the U.S. over its support for Ukraine. A small number of people are asking why Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to interfere in the affairs of another country by urging Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine to revolt against their local governments.

FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, China, Feb. 4, 2022. (Sputnik/Aleksey Druzhinin/Kremlin via Reuters)

Significantly, some commenters are asking why the Chinese government did not stand by its ally Russia during a recent United Nations Security Council vote on a resolution to condemn Russia’s attack on Ukraine. China, India and United Arab Emirates chose to abstain from voting, a neutral stance.

Commenters have also ridiculed Ukraine for supposedly letting the U.S. make decisions for it.

China’s motives questioned

Along with the posts that are vulgar or praise violence, the Chinese censors have been removing expressions of anti-war sentiment, including an open letter circulated by several academicians calling for an end to the war.

“It is not an easy situation for the government. It cannot support the war. But it is also uncomfortable about intense parading of anti-war sentiment because this has implications on the political situation in Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong,” said a Chinese university professor who asked not to be named.

FILE – A man reads the Chinese state-run newspaper with coverage of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, on a street in Beijing, Feb. 24, 2022.

The state-controlled Global Times suggested in its Chinese-language edition that anti-Beijing separatists are behind some of the anti-war postings. “Some people surmise that clandestine ‘Taiwan separatists,’ ‘Hong Kong separatists’ and other forces are the ones making waves in public sentiment and public discourse on the Ukraine situation,” wrote Sun Jiashan, a researcher at the Chinese National Academy of Arts.

Yet the country’s internet censor, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), initially stayed on the sidelines of the debate, allowing some posts questioning Moscow’s policy to remain up. This reflects a wider dilemma for Chinese authorities as their ally, Russia, supports and endorses a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine while carrying out an unprovoked attack on a neighbor.

“China overall is following events but not taking a clear stand, and why should it? For China this war is a lose-lose proposition,” said Francesco Sisci, a senior research associate at Renmin University of China in Beijing.

“If Russia wins, it gets stronger, and China will feel the weight again of the northern neighbor. If it loses, China will be more isolated,” Sisci told VOA. “Plus, it didn’t trust Russia to begin with. Still, China’s official stand is strongly anti-American, and [as seen] from Beijing, this war was set up by the U.S., which pushed Russia around.”

FILE – People walk past an office of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) in Beijing, China, July 8, 2021.

Nevertheless, the CAC and social media platforms have weeded out thousands of postings containing objectionable comments and videos. The agency said it was cracking down on “self-media” — social media accounts held by independent content producers who share irresponsible political ideas. It also said it wants to control the distribution of information across all internet platforms to end “disruption to the order of internet broadcasts.”

Douyin said it had removed 3,500 videos and 12,100 comments related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is investigating objectionable posts, such as those calling for the “capture of beautiful Ukrainian women,” spreading inappropriate values, and harming the platform’s atmosphere.

Backlash in Ukraine

Other postings suggest the Chinese government’s posture has prompted anger toward Chinese students studying in Ukraine. Several of them have cited hostility from local residents and expressed concern for their safety.

The Chinese flag is put on the fence of the Chinese embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 1, 2022.

The Chinese Embassy in Kyiv initially asked its citizens to clearly identify their nationality while traveling in Ukraine. It later changed the order to say that they should stay indoors and not identify their nationality until further instructions are issued.

“The Ukrainians are going through difficulties. … We need to understand them and not provoke them,” the embassy told Chinese citizens in Ukraine.

The official Xinhua News Agency also joined the government in urging social media users to “discuss and present in a reasonable way” and criticized those who “spoke inappropriately.”

New 'Highly Sophisticated' Malware Linked to Chinese Cyberattackers

A leading cybersecurity firm says it has discovered a “highly sophisticated” piece of malware being used by Chinese hacking teams to attack government and critical infrastructure targets.

Symantec, a division of U.S.-based software designer and manufacturer Broadcom, said the earliest known sample of the malware, which has been dubbed Daxin, dates back to 2013, while Microsoft first documented the hacking tool in December 2013.

A report by the company’s Threat Hunter Team says Daxin is “without doubt” the most advanced piece of malware it has seen used “by a China-linked actor.” The unit says Daxin was discovered along with other hacking tools previously used by Chinese cyberattackers.

The hackers have deployed Daxin against “organizations and governments of strategic interest to China.” The malware permits the attackers to communicate directly with infected computers on highly secured networks where direct internet connectivity is not available, allowing them to extract data without raising suspicions.

Vikram Thakur, a technical director with Symantec, told Reuters that Daxin “can be controlled from anywhere in the world once a computer is actually infected.” Thakur said Daxin’s victims included high-level, non-Western government agencies in Asia and Africa, including justice ministries.

Seattle Paper Fills Gap for Chinese Diaspora Seeking Local News

Founding a newspaper is rarely easy, but when Assunta Ng was preparing to launch the Seattle Chinese Post in 1982, she faced an unexpected challenge: The Chinese-script typewriters ordered from Taiwan were lost in transit.

The typewriters eventually turned up at the Port of Seattle, eight days before the newspaper was due to publish. A short window to train typists on the hard-to-use equipment.

But they got the job done, Ng said. In the early hours of January 20, the Post went to print and became the first Chinese-language paper in the Pacific Northwest since 1927.

Forty years on, the paper’s weekly circulation is in the thousands, but its small size belies its significance as one of the few independent Chinese-language outlets to offer local news in the United States.

Mandarin and other Chinese dialects combine to make up the third-most-common language in the U.S., with some 3.5 million speakers, according to a Census Bureau report.

And while major papers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal publish in Chinese, they typically don’t provide hyper-local news.

That is where outlets like the Seattle Chinese Post and the New York-based website NYChinaRen come in.

Both cover typical community news – a mix of local politics, crime, weather, business and culture.

That focus is what separates them from the broader — though still narrow — Chinese-language media landscape in the U.S., which Human Rights Watch researcher Yaqiu Wang says is politically polarized.

Some Chinese news outlets have ties to Beijing. Others are backed by opposition groups, such as the Epoch Times, which is reported to be aligned with Falun Gong, a controversial religious movement that claims persecution by Beijing.

Assunta Ng is pictured outside the Seattle Chinese Post’s original office in 1984. (Courtesy – Assunta Ng)

Finding accurate, unbiased outlets can be a challenge, says Wang. And while American media publishing in Mandarin provide independent coverage, their reporting doesn’t necessarily target a Chinese audience living in the U.S., Wang said.

Rare outlets like the Seattle Chinese Post and NYChinaRen, both of which publish in Mandarin, provide a snapshot into the small landscape of independent and impartial Chinese-language media in the U.S.

In Seattle, Ng is proud of her paper’s independence and neutrality.

Before the Post was founded, members of the city’s large Chinese population would gather at bulletin boards in Seattle’s Chinatown to get the latest news. Ng, who moved to Washington from China for college, wanted to fill that gap.

The local community was initially skeptical of Ng’s newspaper until she assured them that it would be politically neutral.

“We’re not pro-Taiwan or China,” Ng said. “We want to serve the community, and we want to write stories, and we write stories that other newspapers have not been able to see.”

That local knowledge and connection with the community in Seattle came into play in 1983, when 13 people were killed at a gambling club.

“The mainstream media – I wouldn’t say they didn’t cover our community – they did,” Ng said. “But they always liked to feature us with food. So I always laughed at them. ‘Boy, we look like a very hungry community.’ You always write about us about food and nothing else. And now there’s this murder – biggest murder in the state – and you didn’t know how to cover it.”

“Overnight I had so many mainstream media calling me to ask for help because they couldn’t communicate with the Chinese immigrants in Chinatown,” Ng said. “I was like a bridge between our community and the mainstream media.”

The Seattle Chinese Post is an outlier, but Ng doesn’t really view it that way. For her, its neutrality is not a political statement. Ng views the Post first and foremost as a local newspaper, one that just happens to publish in Mandarin.

“We are an American newspaper, except written in Chinese,” Ng said.

In leading NYChinaRen, Cheng Yizhong was similarly motivated. He worked at state-run and privately owned outlets in China before an arrest in 2004 on corruption charges, a move seen widely as retaliation for his outspoken reports.

Being jailed in China is behind Cheng now. “It doesn’t really matter to me anymore,” he told VOA in November. “It only makes me believe firmly that our industry is extremely important.”

Cheng acted as editor-in-chief from when NYChinaRen was founded in 2019 until he stepped down in January, citing “political risk and pressure” but reaffirming in a statement that the website is independent. For him, media play an important role in reporting on local Chinese communities

“Their news may not be reported by mainstream American news channels. But that’s what we care about,”’ he said.

Assunta Ng’s family members help mail copies of the Seattle Chinese Post in the 1990s. (Courtesy – Assunta Ng)

Beijing’s reach

For the past decade, China has worked to extend its influence over global media, using training opportunities, content sharing agreements, media trips and funding to try to curry favor with foreign outlets, all while restricting and expelling correspondents in Beijing.

Experts including the International Federation of Journalists believe China uses such tactics to influence global media coverage in its favor.

Wang, of Human Rights Watch, said Beijing made similar efforts to influence Chinese-owned media in New York and other cities “through ownership or making the businesspeople who are close to Beijing buy those newspapers.”

In an email to VOA, China’s Washington embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said that Chinese media “should not be assumed to be led or interfered (with) by the Chinese government,” adding, “The Chinese government supports closer cooperation between Chinese and foreign media.”

Being relevant to Mandarin-speaking audiences can bring challenges, including whether to connect via the popular app WeChat.

With more than 1.2 billion active monthly users worldwide, the Chinese social media, messaging, and payment app is a powerful tool. It is also under the reach of Beijing’s censors.

Rights groups have cited how sensitive topics, like criticism of the government and human rights, are suppressed on the app.

The WeChat question is an important tradeoff, according to Sheng Zou, a University of Michigan postdoctoral research fellow. Chinese-language outlets can access more readers, but at the expense of editorial independence.

“If you want to cater towards the Chinese community, then you inevitably have to use WeChat,” Zou said.

Embassy spokesperson Pengyu denied that Beijing censors web content and said that “Chinese people have extensive access” to online information.

The website for NYChinaRen is blocked in China, but it has two public WeChat accounts with about 250,000 subscribers, according to Cheng. The accounts act as a news portal or blog page that app users follow.

Ng decided to not disseminate Seattle Chinese Post content on WeChat.

But despite challenges of adapting in the digital age, local news remains at the core of both media outlets.

Although some mainstream media in the U.S. publish in Mandarin, they do not concentrate as closely on what’s happening in the Chinese diaspora communities, Zou said. That’s what makes local-language media all the more important.

“Identity — this sense of belonging, this sense of rootedness — is a very important factor in their consumption of the media,” he said. “Identity politics is crucial to understanding why people want to consume Chinese media.”

And, as Ng says: “People are hungry for information and what’s going on in the community.”

Bo Gu contributed to this report.

Chinese Netizens Deliver Mostly Positive Verdict on China’s Foreign-Origin Olympians

WASHINGTON — 

China’s social media users have responded mostly positively to the sporting performances of their largest-ever contingent of foreign-born Olympic athletes, while appearing to keep mum on the sensitive issue of whether those athletes were allowed to keep their foreign nationalities.

The Chinese Olympic Committee fielded 30 foreign-born and -raised athletes in its 176-strong delegation for this month’s Winter Games in Beijing, 28 of them in its men’s and women’s ice hockey teams. The two other athletes are the highest-profile members of China’s foreign-origin contingent: freestyle skier Eileen Gu and figure skater Zhu Yi, both U.S.-born.

Eighteen-year-old Gu has won adulation in China by securing two golds and a silver, with her second gold coming in Friday’s freeski halfpipe final. Zhu did not win a medal and the Chinese men’s and women’s ice hockey teams did not reach the quarterfinal knockout stages of their tournaments.

Canadian-born ice hockey player Ethan Werek is one of the Chinese men’s team’s 15 foreign-born players, of whom 11 hail from Canada, three from the U.S. and one from Russia. Most of them have Chinese ancestry, while Werek is one of five who do not.

Speaking by phone to VOA in Istanbul on Thursday as he was en route back to North America, Werek said he had seen only positive comments about his ice hockey team role as he translated posts made on his Weibo account. Weibo is the most popular Chinese microblogging site.

“There were lots of positive messages from Chinese fans thanking me and thanking our team. I just wish I knew how to respond properly and thank them truly for the opportunity to represent China,” said Werek, who does not read Mandarin.

Werek’s observation was consistent with posts seen by VOA on the Weibo accounts of two of his U.S.-born teammates Jeremy Smith and Jake Chelios, who also are not of Chinese origin.

Goalkeeper Smith, who injured his leg in China’s 7-2 loss to Canada in Tuesday’s qualification playoff and had to be taken to a hospital, posted a Chinese-language farewell message to his fans later that day. It elicited hundreds of comments, some in English, expressing admiration for his efforts and wishing him a speedy recovery.

Screenshot of Chinese ice hockey player Jeremy Smith’s farewell message to fans on his Weibo account, Feb. 17, 2022.

Screenshot of user comments on Jeremy Smith’s Weibo account, Feb. 17, 2022.

Screenshot of user comments on Jeremy Smith’s Weibo account, Feb. 17, 2022.

Chelios, a defender, had posted a Chinese message to his Weibo account a day earlier, describing his team’s initial 5-0 loss to Canada in a February 13 preliminary round group game as unfortunate and saying “we must do our best” in the qualification playoff.

“Winning or losing is not important, but you let us see the future of China’s ice hockey,” replied one Weibo user in English. “We will pay attention to you and love you.”

Screenshot of Chinese ice hockey player Jake Chelios’ message to fans on his Weibo account, Feb. 17, 2022.

Screenshot of user comments on Jake Chelios’ Weibo account, Feb. 17, 2022.

The foreign-origin ice hockey players likely endeared themselves to Chinese fans by respecting Chinese people and conventions, said Susan Brownell, an American research specialist on Chinese sports and an anthropology professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

“They demonstrated a commitment to China just by moving there several years ago to play for a Chinese club. Under circumstances like this, I do think that Chinese people can be honored and flattered that you have chosen to represent China,” Brownell told VOA.

Brownell said Chinese fans also likely did not expect the men’s or women’s ice hockey teams to be medal contenders. They were the lowest-ranked teams in their respective tournaments and secured automatic berths by virtue of China being the host nation.

China’s Mi Le (34) celebrates with Wang Yuting (49) after scoring a goal against Czech Republic during a preliminary round women’s hockey game at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 3, 2022, in Beijing.

The Chinese women’s team won two and lost two of its preliminary round group games. The men’s team lost its three preliminary round group games and its qualification playoff, but its preliminary round loss to Germany was by a narrow 3-2 margin.

VOA did not observe any Chinese social media posts criticizing the foreign-origin ice hockey players, but Brownell said there is a possibility that such comments may have been censored.

Zhu Yi, of China, reacts in the women’s team free skate program during the figure skating competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 7, 2022, in Beijing.

Zhu, the 19-year-old figure skater, drew a deluge of harsh comments from Chinese netizens after falling during her team and single skating events, some telling her to “go back to America.” U.S. and Chinese news reports said China’s internet censors responded by blocking the Mandarin hashtag “Zhu Yi has fallen” and removing some of the most incendiary posts.

Zhu is the only one of the 30 foreign-origin Chinese Olympic athletes whom the International Olympic Committee has confirmed to have renounced foreign citizenship. She switched her allegiance from the U.S. to China in 2018.

It does not appear that any of the other 29 athletes have done the same, despite Article 8 of China’s Nationality Law saying that a person naturalizing as a Chinese citizen “shall not retain foreign nationality.” Athletes must be a national of the country they represent under IOC Rule 41.

VOA did not observe any Weibo posts discussing the sensitive question of whether Chinese authorities bent the law to allow foreign athletes to compete for China as dual nationals.

Ice hockey player Chelios told The Wall Street Journal last week that he and several of his teammates still have U.S. passports. Smith, in an interview with U.S. outlet ESPN earlier this month, said he “told China” that he would “never” give up his U.S. passport and “they said that’s fine.”

In a sign that Chinese two-time Olympic champion Gu also has not renounced her U.S. citizenship, an Olympics.com article published last year in multiple languages, ‘Five things you didn’t know about Eileen Gu,’ ends with a sentence saying that she has “dual nationality.”

China’s Eileen Gu competes during the women’s halfpipe finals at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 18, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China.

The “dual nationality” reference can be seen in the Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese and Spanish versions of the article. It also had appeared in the English version of the article until it was removed on Feb. 9 or 10, shortly after Gu won her first gold and shot into the international spotlight. The Chinese version ends with a sentence saying Gu is “active in both China and the U.S.” rather than referring to her as a dual national.

The International Olympic Committee did not answer a VOA question about why it removed the reference from the English version of the Gu profile.

Gu has not responded directly to reporters seeking confirmation of whether she is a dual national. In a February 8 Beijing news conference, she repeated a statement that she has made before, saying that she is Chinese when she is in China, and American when she is in the United States.

When asked by VOA if he has renounced his Canadian citizenship, Chinese ice hockey forward Werek also did not respond directly, instead saying “when I’m in China, I’m Chinese.” Smith made a similar statement later when German news agency Deutsche Welle asked him to clarify his U.S. citizenship status following the Chinese men’s team’s 8-0 loss to the U.S.

U.S. news reports cited other North American-origin Chinese ice hockey players as telling reporters in Beijing that they were not allowed to comment on the issue.

“I think this is an experiment for China,” Brownell said, referring to its recruitment of the foreign-origin athletes. “If it works, then a government document declaring an official change in [naturalization] policy will come out in future,” she predicted.

Werek said he sees more work with the Chinese men’s national team in his future. Its next big challenge will be trying to qualify for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, where China will not have an automatic berth as it had this time.

The disappointment of the Chinese men’s team with its Beijing 2022 result shows that it believes it can do better, Werek said.

“There were games that we could have won. So our expectation going into 2026 is that we’re going to be a team that will compete, and we’re excited for that.”

This report was a collaboration between VOA’s News Center and Mandarin Service.

Chinese Netizens Pressure Government About Case of Chained Mother

On December 30, China’s state-owned Xinhua News Agency named the Xuzhou “China’s Happiest City” for 2021.

The city in eastern China’s Jiangsu province boasted dramatic economic growth and enlightened city planning, according to Jiangsu.net, resulting in the kind of blossoming that gains nationwide notice in China.

But within days, Xuzhou’s civic pride morphed into mortification when a blogger found a mother of eight chained by the neck to the wall of a hut and exposed to freezing weather. As the Olympic Games progressed in Beijing, the mother’s story went viral, and subsequent missteps by Xuzhou authorities drew local accusations of cover-ups and worldwide outrage.

The mother, Xiao Huamei, appeared in a video on Douyin (Chinese TikTok) shot by a blogger who documents unusual families, in this case, one with eight children, seven of them boys. In the video, behind the alleged father and all the youngsters, Chinese netizens spotted a chained woman.

On January 28, the video went viral. Amid the run-up to Lunar New Year festivities and the Beijing Winter Olympics, shocked netizens demanded answers: Who was this woman? Why was she chained up? How can she have eight kids with her husband given China’s reproductive controls?

Between January 28 and February 10, local authorities issued four reports on the situation. The muddled accounts stirred further public outcry, and many netizens expressed their suspicions that kidnapping and domestic abuse were central to the woman’s case.

Public pressure brought the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to reckoning for a long-hushed-up web of problems, such as the human trafficking resulting from the imbalanced male to female ratio, the result of a cultural preference for boys in a country that restricted families to one child from 1980 to 2013, when the policy began to loosen.

As of Tuesday, China’s social media platform Weibo was censoring the tag “Xiao Huamei,” and while discussion was allowed, the subject has been blocked from the hot topic list.

An official in the CCP Xuzhou Propaganda Unit told VOA Mandarin that authorities were investigating the case.

Understanding of laws banning domestic abuse “is relatively weak in rural parts of China, and there’s a lack of social governance, resulting in human trafficking,” the CCP official, who identified himself only as Mr. Xu, said.

“But we are working on it now. Please give us some space to get a clear picture,” he added.

Four conflicting reports

Xuzhou authorities have issued four contradictory reports since the woman was first seen on video.

County-level authorities issued the first two, which emphasized the woman had been diagnosed as mentally ill and dismissed concerns that she was being trafficked.

In the first report, published January 28, the same day the video went viral in China, authorities said the woman, a local resident, was married to a man named Dong Zhimin. The couple had eight children, said the report, which also stressed she had a serious mental illness.

A January 30 report said the woman was a beggar taken in by Dong’s father in June 1998. Although the local birth planning unit had performed “birth control measures” after the woman bore her first and second child, “both failed due to her physical condition

On February 7, city-level authorities reversed the second report and gave the woman’s name as Xiao Huamei, or “Little Plum Blossom,” which in Chinese sounds more like a nickname than a proper name.

This report, the third, said the woman came from a village in southern China’s Yunnan province, and in 1996, her mother had asked a woman identified only as Ms. Sang to take her daughter to Jiangsu province for treatment of her mental illness. The daughter disappeared, and Ms. Sang failed to inform Xiao’s parents or the local police.

Chinese netizens were not buying what the reports were selling.

“So all the previous investigation reports are lies!” one netizen said.

“How do you explain the chain on her neck?” asked another. “And how did they manage to get married if she’s mentally ill?”

“She went missing and no one cared to tell her family? And this is not human trafficking?” yet another netizen opined.

Facing unrelenting public outcry, the Xuzhou authorities on Thursday released the fourth, and latest, report. In it, they state that Xiao Huamei is a victim of human trafficking, and that three people have been arrested in connection with the case, including her husband, Dong, who has been charged with illegal detention. Ms. Sang and her husband have been charged with human trafficking

Continued pressure

Many netizens praised the latest report as a step closer to the truth. Others were angry that the authorities acted only after public outcry. Some still have questions.

“We need follow-ups. What’s her age? Where’s their marriage license?” one netizen asked.

“We need to see proof other than a report. If this is not the final investigation and the results are wrong again, someone needs to be held accountable,” another commenter wrote.

Xu, with the CCP Xuzhou Propaganda Unit, told VOA Mandarin on Friday that social services have the mother and her eight children in care.

Xu said that because of limited time and resources, the first two reports didn’t provide clear picture of the facts, which led to the conclusion that she wasn’t being trafficked.

“But now we are actively pursuing this case. I hope netizens and media can give us some room to conduct the investigation and not pressure us too hard,” he said.

Yao Cheng, a former lieutenant colonel of the CCP’s Navy Command and a women’s right activist, told VOA Mandarin that a third party needs to conduct the investigation to guarantee transparency.

“If the CCP is really confident in itself, it needs to allow other international organizations to conduct the investigation so people will actually believe the result,” he told VOA. Yao volunteered for the New York-based Women’s Rights in China, a nongovernmental organization, from 2007 to 2016.

Yao also pointed out that China’s longtime one-child policy has resulted in an imbalanced male to female ratio, especially in rural areas, where people value sons over daughters.

The “natural sex ratio” at birth is 105 boys for every 100 girls, according to the World Health Organization, because a few extra males are needed to offset their tendency to die at a younger age than females. But in China, the ratio has sometimes exceeded 120 boys for every 100 girls. The result is that in 2020, there were 34.9 million more males than females in China, making it a challenge for men to find a wife, especially in China’s rural areas, where gender imbalance is even greater, according to the BBC.

“The gender imbalance has resulted in more human trafficking of women in China’s rural areas,” Yao said. “Authorities and police usually turn a blind eye to these activities, and some even profit from it.”

Chinese Tennis Star Again Denies Accusing Government Official of Sexual Assault on Social Media

Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai is again denying that she had accused a former Communist Party official of sexually assaulting her in a social media post late last year.

L’Equipe, a French daily sports newspaper, published an interview it conducted with Peng in its Monday edition.

“I never said anyone had sexually assaulted me in any way,” Peng is quoted in the interview after she is asked directly if she actually wrote the post on her account on China’s Weibo social media platform.

In the November 2 post, Peng, a former Olympian who won titles at Wimbledon and the French Open, said former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli coerced her into sex before it evolved into an on-off consensual relationship. Her post was quickly deleted and she vanished from public view for several days. She eventually appeared at a tennis event and spoke by video with Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee president, during which she said she was safe.

Her public absence sparked concern among some of the world’s top tennis players, including Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams, Billie Jean King and Novak Djokovic, and the Women’s Tennis Association suspended all of its sponsored tournaments in mainland China and Hong Kong.

Peng told L’Equipe the initial post had caused a huge “misunderstanding” and that she did not want it to attract any more attention, and insisted that she had deleted it herself “because I wanted to.” She also explained that her “disappearance” was simply due to her being unable to respond “to so many messages.” Peng said her personal life since the controversy surfaced had been uneventful, and stressed that her private life and personal problems should not be mixed with sports and politics.

Peng also told the newspaper she was retiring from tennis.

She also said she had dinner with IOC President Bach Saturday, which the IOC confirmed in a separate statement Monday.

Bach told the Reuters news agency when asked about Peng’s interview that any communication “is up to her, it is her life, it is her story.”

The newspaper said it submitted the questions to Peng in advance and conducted the interview in Chinese. Wang Kang, the chief of staff of the Chinese Olympic Committee, accompanied Peng during the interview and translated her answers for the reporter.

WTA Chairman and CEO Steve Simon called for an open investigation into Peng’s initial accusations after a Chinese state-run media outlet released a statement it said was an email Peng had sent to Simon in which she denied the allegations and insisted she was not missing or unsafe, but just “resting at home.”

Peng issued a similar denial back in December during a virtual interview that was posted on the website of the Singapore-based Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

Tedros asks for more collaboration on covid origin in meeting with Chinese premier | World

The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, conveyed to the Chinese Prime Minister, Li Keqiang, the “need” for a “stronger collaboration” to determine the origins of covid-19, and that it is “based on science and evidence”.

In a message published last night through his official Twitter profile, Tedros thanked Li for his support to “strengthen the WHO” and indicated that he had talked with him about reinforcing global vaccination campaigns, to ensure that 70% of the global population receives the serum against the coronavirus.

Chinese Dissident Ai Voices Criticism as Winter Games Open

GENEVA — 

The dissident Chinese architect behind the Beijing stadium hosting Friday’s opening ceremony of the Winter Games has scoffed at the head of the U.N. health agency, saying China should award him “a gold medal” for not asking hard questions about its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ai Weiwei, possibly China’s best-known dissident, aired criticism of Beijing’s human rights record and response to the pandemic, in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, in which he also took aim at World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Ai also accused governments of showing too much deference to China for business or political interests.

He chuckled derisively after hearing that Tedros had posted a photo on Twitter showing himself in a red-and-white “Beijing 2022” winter track suit and matching wool cap as he carried the Olympic flame during the torch relay in China.

“My God. He should get a gold medal from China because he never asked the right question,” Ai said in a video conversation. “Where is his conscience, this guy? You know, all those people who are supposed to defend the human health and give the right information, but never ask the right question and (are) always on the side of the propaganda.”

“They’re so ridiculous.”

Under Tedros, the WHO came in for severe criticism from then U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration in 2020 for its alleged missteps and excessive deference to, and praise for, China when the COVID-19 pandemic first appeared in the city of Wuhan some two years ago.

Lights shine during a rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics at the National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, China, Jan. 30, 2022.

Tedros, in his tweet on Friday, wrote that he was “humbled” to participate in the torch relay.

“The Olympic Games are about hope & I wish for this flame to bring hope to people around the world that we can end #COVID19 together,” he wrote, while thanking the IOC president for the invitation.

Above all, Ai highlighted the Chinese government’s poor human rights record, saying hopes that it might have improved since Beijing hosted the 2008 Summer Games have gone unfulfilled.

“I think it’s really, really unbelievable after 14 years of this — this game, same game — we turn to the same country, a country (that has) not developed an inch towards better human rights and the better freedom of speech conditions, but rather become very arrogant,” Ai said.

He said the Chinese Communist Party’s government has brainwashed fellow citizens of his homeland who “kind of show their patriotic support for the party,” and said any comments that stray from that on social media like China’s Weibo “will disappear.”

Ai also took aim at the International Olympic Committee, saying the Games means “big business for them.” He said the IOC “never protected” human rights and has shown itself to “always defend … whatever China is doing — which is a pity.”

Ai didn’t give a pass to other countries either — both those like Russia, which were represented at the highest official levels, and some Western countries which boycotted the Games or decided to stay away for reasons like COVID-19 concerns. He faulted them for a double standard.

“They very, like, softly say, ‘We are not officially attending.’ For me, that is like a joke,” Ai said. “So the West, the problem is, cannot find a better strategy, but to use that as like a smoke gun to say, ‘O.K., we’re defending those principles.’”

“But in the reality, they are not: They are business as normal,” he added. “Many countries are hypocritical.”

Olympics a Sweet, Complex Homecoming for Chinese Diaspora

BEIJING — 

When Madison Chock looks outside here in the Chinese capital, the U.S. Olympic ice dancer sees glimpses of herself.

“Every time I’m on the bus, I’m just looking out and studying the city and just imagining my roots are here, my ancestors are here,” says Chock, whose father is Chinese Hawaiian, with family ties to rural China. “And it’s a very cool sense of belonging in a way, to just be on the same soil that your ancestors grew up on and spent their lives on.”

She adds: “It’s really special, and China holds a really special place in my heart.”

At the Beijing Winter Games, opening Friday, it’s a homecoming of sorts for one of the world’s most sprawling diasporas — often sweet and sometimes complicated, but always a reflection of who they are, where they come from and the Olympic spirit itself.

The modern Chinese diaspora dates to the 16th century, says Richard T. Chu, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Its members have ranged from the drivers of the colonial economy and laborer workforces on land and sea, to the highly educated who moved away for a chance at greater prosperity, to the unwanted baby girls adopted internationally during the government’s one-child policy.

“The Chinese diaspora is really very diverse, to the extent to that they maintain their Chinese-ness,” Chu says. “There’s no one kind of Chinese identity because each country has a unique kind of history.”

The question of ethnic Chinese identity is an especially delicate one for athletes with roots in Hong Kong and Taiwan. U.S. women’s singles figure skater Karen Chen, whose parents immigrated from Taiwan, says she identifies as both Taiwanese and Chinese, and uses those labels loosely and interchangeably.

Taiwan, which split from the mainland after a 1949 civil war that propelled the current Chinese government into power, is an island of 24 million people off China’s east coast.

FILE- Eileen Gu, of China, makes a run in the slopestyle finals, Dec. 17, 2021, during the Dew Tour freestyle skiing event at Copper Mountain, Colo.

It functions in many ways like a country with its own government and military. But China claims Taiwan as its territory, and only 14 countries recognize Taiwan as a nation. Most nations of the world, including the United States, have official ties with China instead.

Chen’s self-identification is not uncommon among the Taiwanese, as many trace their heritage back to mainland China. Some 32% of the islanders identify themselves as both Chinese and Taiwanese, according to an annual survey by National Chengchi University in Taipei.

While in Beijing, she’s pledged to speak as much Mandarin as possible and is proud to give a nod to her heritage on the ice.

“My free program is to ‘Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto,’ which is such a famous and classical piece that came from China … it’s kind of a Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet,” Karen Chen says. “It definitely relates to my background.”

The many athletes of Chinese descent here at the Beijing Games represent the many variations of the diaspora: some are one, two or many generations removed; others are biracial and multicultural.

And even similar backgrounds can diverge on the Olympic stage. For example, Nathan Chen and Eileen Gu are two superstar athletes fronting the Winter Games. While both were born and raised in the U.S. by Chinese immigrants and have fond memories of spending time in their ancestral homeland, Chen is competing for the U.S. team as a medal contender in men’s singles figure skating, and Gu is the hotshot freestyle skier competing for China.

FILE- Karen Chen competes in the women’s free skate program during the US Figure Skating Championships Jan. 7, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn.

Gu has raised eyebrows for switching to the China team after training with the U.S. team, but the San Francisco native — who speaks fluent Mandarin and makes yearly trips to China with her mom — is clear-eyed about how she defines herself.

“When I’m in China, I’m Chinese,” Gu told the Olympic Channel in 2020. “When I’m in the U.S., I’m American.”

For some, the Olympics in Beijing is the first time they’ll set foot in China, an unforgettable professional accomplishment on top of a very personal milestone.

That’s the case for U.S. women’s singles figure skater Alysa Liu, whose father, Arthur Liu, also longs to visit China. The elder Liu left his home country in his 20s as a political refugee because he had protested the Communist government following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

“I so much want to go to the Games and go back to China to visit my hometown,” said Arthur Liu in a phone interview from his home base in California. “I so much want to go back to the village I grew up in, to go to the high school that I went to, the college I went to. I so much want to go and have the spicy noodles on the side of the street.”

Arthur Liu eventually settled in the Bay Area, put himself through law school and nurtured one of America’s most promising athletes. Now his Chinese American daughter is set to make her Olympic debut in the women’s singles competition. He has no qualms about her competing in the Olympics in China, and no resentment toward a home country he still loves.

Like many biracial children, Alysa Liu used to wonder why she didn’t look like her parents though she has always identified as ethnically Chinese. Arthur Liu and his then-wife, who is also Chinese, decided to have children via surrogacy and sought white egg donors because Arthur Liu saw himself as a citizen of the world and wanted biracial children.

FILE- New York Islanders center Josh Ho-Sang (66) celebrates his goal against the Philadelphia Flyers with teammates in the third period of a preseason NHL hockey game in New York., Sept. 26, 2016.

In a culture that can be xenophobic, Arthur Liu says his daughter is warmly embraced by his home country, as Chinese fans and media consider Alysa Liu to be one of their own.

“I’m super happy the Chinese people welcome her and think highly of her,” Arthur Liu says.

The Olympics will also be the first time Josh Ho-Sang, the multiracial, multicultural Canadian ice hockey player, will visit China.

His paternal great-grandfather moved from mainland China to what is modern-day Hong Kong for business opportunities, then fell in love on vacation in Jamaica, which makes the Canadian hockey team forward one-eighth Chinese. From his mother’s side, Ho-Sang’s heritage is rooted in European, South American and Jewish cultures. For him to represent Canada as a “melting pot poster boy” is a testament to how inclusive the Olympic spirit has become.

“It really shows how far we’ve come as a society, to have these different faces representing home for everyone,” Ho-Sang says. “A hundred years ago, you would never see such diversity in each country that you see now. It’s a sign of hope and progress.”

Zimbabwe Villagers Fear Being Evicted to Make Way for Chinese Mining Company

Mutoko, Zimbabwe — 

Villagers in Zimbabwe say a Chinese mining company has told them they will have to leave their homes to make way for a granite quarry. The company denies plans to forcibly move the villagers, but a lack of transparency has many fearing they will be pushed out of their ancestral land.

Some villagers in Zimbabwe’s Mutoko District say they are not sure what the future holds now that Chinese companies such as Jinding Mining are exploring quarry mining in the region.

Some complain about the way the Chinese mining companies are destroying roads as they explore in Mutoko district of Zimbabwe, Feb. 1, 2022.

Most are reluctant to even talk about it, for fear of retaliation.

But this 42-year-old farmer, who asked that his name be withheld, is eager to speak out about the company’s plan to mine an area that stretches across 180 hectares and includes some of their homes.

Chinese mining companies have spread out over Mutoko district in Zimbabwe, about 200 km east of Harare, looking for granite, Feb. 1, 2022.

“The area they want is where we live and where our cattle graze. It’s our source of income. We wonder where we will go, the area they want is too huge. Our ancestors’ graves are there, too. We wonder where they will relocate them,” said the farmer.

Activists say more than 50 families could be forced out by one mining company alone.

Richard Ncube of the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association says, Feb. 2, 2022, his group plans to ask the courts to prevent the eviction of Mutoko villagers.

Richard Ncube of the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association said his group plans to ask the courts to prevent the eviction of villagers.

“ln order to help the communities, we are raising awareness on environmental issues. We are researching on these issues in order to inform legal reform and then we take matters to court as a last resort to have their remedies addressed or issues addressed,” he said.

An environmental impact report by Jinding Mining has addressed the concerns of villagers, said Amkela Sidange from Zimbabwe’s Environmental Management Agency.

Amkela Sidange from Zimbabwe’s Environmental Management Agency says, Feb. 1, 2022, an environmental impact report by Jinding Mining has no concerns of Mutoko villagers which they are now raising.

“What we only do as the agency is to take the project that is brought by the project owner, we go through it, we verify whether what is being indicated in the report that consultations were done, were really done. We actually go to the ground and triangulate to check if what is in the report is what actually took place on the ground,” said Sidange.

The farmer who spoke to VOA said the Jinding company asked no ordinary people about their concerns over the mining project, only the local leaders.

Officials at Jinding and the Chinese Embassy in Zimbabwe were not available to comment.

In a statement, the embassy said Chinese investors in Zimbabwe are working for the betterment of the country.

Zimbabwe Villagers Fear Being Evicted to Make Way for Chinese Mining Company

Villagers in Zimbabwe say a Chinese mining company has told them they will have to leave their homes to make way for a plant. The company denies plans to forcibly move the villagers, but a lack of transparency has many fearing they will be pushed out of their ancestral land. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Mutoko, Zimbabwe.
Camera: Blessing Chigwenhembe Video editor: Barry Unger

Chinese Americans Support Olympic Athletes, Not Necessarily Host Country

SAN FRANCISCO — 

Anthony Shiu was born in San Francisco. His father’s parents are from China. Several generations may separate him from China, but the 60-year-old transit mechanic spends his free time as an activist against anti-Asian hate crimes and helping to run a lion dance troupe. Lion dances are a facet of traditional Chinese culture.

In that spirit, he backs Beijing as the 2022 Winter Olympics host city despite a litany of Sino-U.S. political issues that culminated last month in Washington’s decision to boycott the Games diplomatically. He plans to watch the world sporting event on TV if time allows.

“To me, Beijing is just a hosting country, and the committee said, ‘We’re going to hold it here,’ so where they hold it is not important to me,” Shiu told VOA during an interview in Portsmouth Square park at the core of San Francisco’s historic Chinatown.

Shiu’s ideas about the Beijing Winter Olympics reflect those of many fellow Chinese Americans: China has the right to hold the Olympics despite Western condemnations of the country over human rights problems. Still, there’s a faction that would prefer Beijing not host the Games.

“It’s a sport,” said 38-year-old Vincent Fung, a Chinese American operator of the Buddha Exquisite Corp. paper goods store in Chinatown. “People should respect (that), it doesn’t matter what race. That’s what the Olympics stands for. So, if you’re boycotting things, that defeats the purpose of having the game. That’s my view on it.”

Chinese American Sherwin Won, 69, a retired university clinical lab scientist from San Francisco, skis and plans to watch the Olympics. He even hopes to visit Beijing someday, post-COVID-19. “The team members have nothing to do with China,” Won said of participating foreign athletes. “It’s their sports.”

Human rights groups gather to call for a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022, in Taipei, Jan. 26, 2022.

Tension over Taiwan, Hong Kong, Uyghurs

Supporters of diplomatic boycotts in multiple Western countries have called out Beijing over perceived strong-arm tactics toward Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Critics, including politicians in the U.S., EU and human rights organizations, also find fault with China for its treatment of the largely Muslim Uyghur population in the Chinese Xinjiang region, including sending more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic minorities to internment camps.

China has denied these accusations, saying the camps are vocational training centers to help alleviate poverty and fight extremism.

In the United States, White House press secretary Jen Psaki last month said the administration would avoid sending officials to the Games — the diplomatic boycott — due to “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.”

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said, “The United States should stop politicizing sports, and stop disrupting and undermining the Beijing Winter Olympics, lest it should affect bilateral dialogue and cooperation in important areas and international and regional issues,” according to Chinese state media Xinhua.

Hot and cold Sino-U.S. history

Sino-U.S. ties blossomed in the 1970s after then-U.S. President Richard Nixon’s historic meeting with Communist leader Mao Zedong. The same decade saw a wave of immigration from southern China to American cities such as San Francisco, mostly to earn money and join relatives who were already in the country.

About 5 million Chinese Americans live in the United States today, census data show.

A man walks past installations of Bing Dwen Dwen,left, and Shuey Rhon Rhon, mascots of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Games, along a street in Beijing on Jan. 28, 2022.

Relations have slipped since 2017 over trade friction, consular spats and technology transfer issues. The two superpowers have jousted too over the autonomy of Taiwan, with Beijing calling it a Chinese territory and Washington offering to defend it, and crackdowns against antigovernment protesters in Chinese-ruled Hong Kong.

Some Chinese Americans often feel distant from human rights causes, and as ethnic Han people — China’s vast racial majority — are not “sympathetic to the Uyghurs,” said Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

“Second, the boycott apparently makes bilateral relations more difficult, and it is even harder for Chinese Americans to travel back to China,” Sun added.

Sporting concerns

Justine Chen, 38, a Nashville, Tennessee-based communications director of Taiwanese American ancestry, says Beijing qualifies more as a showroom for the government than as an elite venue for athletes.

“I don’t think they should have won the bid in the first place. Not just because of their human rights record but because I don’t think they provide the best experience for athletes nor spectators,” she said. “It’s all a big show so the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) can pretend it has its affairs together when it really doesn’t.”

Chen attended the Beijing Summer Games of 2008 and the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Sydney offered better venues, she said.

“I think as a minority in America that has seen a huge amount of hate and violence over the past two years against people who look like me, I wish I could have more pride in an Asian country hosting such a large event that’s supposed to unify people of all kinds, including those participating in the Paralympics,” Chen said.

Human rights concerns

Many people of Asian ancestry in Southern California oppose China’s acts in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, said Ken Wu, Taiwanese American vice president of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs Los Angeles chapter. His Washington, D.C.-based group lobbies Congress for pro-Taiwan legislation.

They support diplomatic boycotts but also a guarantee that athletes can attend the Beijing Olympics as a reward for their practice, he said.

“Right now, I think the whole advocacy community and the whole human rights community are kind of agreeing on that’s the direction we should go,” Wu said. “We should continue to pressure the states to exercise the diplomatic boycott and also hopefully we can get the businesses not to sponsor, but let’s put our support behind our athletes.”

While Chinese Americans differ on their views of China as the host city of the Winter Olympics, they all stand behind the athletes who have worked to qualify for a spot in what has become a contentious world competition.

Chinese industrial companies earned 34.3% more in 2021 | Economy

The profits of China’s major industrial companies rose 34.3% year-on-year in 2021, according to official data released today by the National Bureau of Statistics (ONE).

In the recently ended year, the profits of the companies analyzed jointly reached 8.71 billion yuan (1.37 billion dollars, 1.22 billion euros).

Slovenian Trade Group Reports Chinese Backlash After PM Praises Taiwan

TAIPEI, TAIWAN  — 

A Slovenian business group has said its members are facing a Chinese backlash days after Prime Minister Janez Jansa publicly discussed his hopes for closer ties with Taiwan during an interview. It marks the latest case of China refusing to tolerate dissent on the issue of Taiwan’s autonomy.

On January 17, Jansa told Indian media that he hoped Taiwan and Slovenia could open mutual representative offices. He also praised Taiwan’s COVID-19 response and said Taiwan should determine its relationship with China independently. Opening offices in Taiwan would bring Slovenia in line with the rest of the European Union, as it is one of only a handful of countries — including Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Malta, and Romania — without a Taiwanese mission.

Swift criticism against Jansa came from the Chinese government describing his remarks as “dangerous.” China considers Taiwan a province and treats any discussion of its disputed political status as taboo.

Moreover, within days of the interview, the Slovenian-Chinese Business Council said Chinese partners were already “terminating contracts and exiting the agreed investments,” according to the Slovenian Press Agency. The business group and its parent organization, the CCIS- Ljubljana Chamber of Commerce and Industry, did not immediately respond to VOA’s email inquiries.

The statement has also drawn fire both from Slovenia’s opposition and businesses with links to China. In an email response to VOA, Sasa Istenic, the director of the Taiwan Study Center at the University of Ljubljana, said his remarks “were his personal position not in tune with the National Assembly and could severely harm Slovenia’s economic cooperation with China.”

Business groups in Slovenia fear they could suffer the same fate as Lithuania, which is now under a Chinese trade embargo in retaliation for pursuing closer ties with Taiwan, Istenic said.

“The Chinese market remains important for Slovenian companies and [the] Slovenian government has certainly been paying attention to China’s retaliation measures directed toward Lithuania,” Istenic said. “We have yet to see how far China is willing to go in preventing the EU member states from upgrading their relationships with Taiwan.”

The EU maintains the “One China Policy” which recognizes Taiwan as part of the Chinese nation, and has traditionally had a less tumultuous relationship with Beijing than has the United States. But dissent is growing within the EU and some countries in Central and Eastern Europe have also found that promises of Chinese investment have not panned out as previously hoped, according to a 2021 report by the Central and Eastern Europe Center for Asian Studies.

China’s growing strength in the Asia-Pacific region has also alarmed both the EU and NATO. The COVID-19 pandemic, combined with Beijing’s human rights violations in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet, have raised questions about its suitability as a close partner.

These concerns have given Taiwan a wedge to improve its relationship with some countries in Europe such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and, most notably, Lithuania.

Lithuania and Taiwan have grown closer during the pandemic, swapping donations of vaccines and emergency protective gear. But, in April, Lithuania exited the Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries trade initiative, a group formed in 2012 to improve trade and investment and known colloquially as the “16+1.”

In November, Taiwan opened a controversially named “Taiwan representative office” in Lithuania. The office angered Beijing as it broke with the tradition of Taiwan using more politically neutral names like “Taipei Economic and Cultural Office” or “Taipei Representative Office” that did not suggest it was an independent political entity.

Aware of the economic cost of its closer ties, Taiwan has worked to offset some of the newfound economic pressure on Lithuania by pledging a combined $1.2 billion in investment across several sectors including industries like semiconductors, biotechnology and lasers.

“[This] investment is meant to shape Taiwan’s image as a reliable partner and viable democratic alternative to China, so there is both a financial and a political dimension to these financial proposals for investment,” said Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, postdoctoral researcher in Taiwan and former political adviser in the European Parliament, over email.

Access to Taiwan’s advanced technology sector could also be an attractive pull for other European countries, including Slovenia, whose automotive manufacturing and metallurgical industries rely on industrial robots.

Una Aleksandra Berzina-Cerenkova, a China scholar and head of the Asia program at the Latvian Institute of International Affairs, said Slovenia’s plan to potentially upgrade ties with Taiwan is a sign that Europe has not lost interest in democracy despite coercive measures from Beijing.

“It seemed that there was a bit of a loss of momentum when the Lithuania example was not being followed by others in terms of withdrawing from the 16+1 and then turning towards Taiwan,” said Berzina-Cerenkova by phone.

“But we actually see that Lithuania is leading … against the backdrop of attracting all the heat to itself. The other Central and Eastern European countries are actually also exploring opportunities, and trying to ride this train of momentum in their relations with Taiwan, because Taiwan, of course, is an interesting partner.”

Some sectors in Slovenia could have a lot more to lose, however, than Lithuania. While cumulative Chinese investment in Lithuania was just 82 million euros in 2020, according to the Central and Eastern Europe Center for Asian Studies, investment in Slovenia was valued at a far greater 1.5 billion euros over the same period. Much of that investment is represented by a single acquisition of a video game developer, the report said.

Other countries in the EU may need more support to weather the Chinese economic backlash if they choose to strengthen ties with Taiwan. So far, said Ferenczy, that support has taken the form of statements of support and resolutions in the EU Parliament, but she said more is needed.

“The EU’s toolbox is limited. It is in the process of drafting its anti-coercion instrument designed to reinforce its resilience. It will be key to ensure the instrument works effectively in order to make a difference in terms of pushing back against China’s coercion,” Ferenczy said. “So, whether Brussels will stand with Lithuania and jointly push back against such messaging all the way, is key for the EU’s credibility and its ambition to be able to defend its interests.”

US Suspends 44 Flights by Chinese Carriers After Beijing Action

WASHINGTON — 

The U.S. government said Friday it would suspend 44 China-bound flights from the United States by four Chinese carriers in response to the Chinese government’s decision to suspend some U.S. carrier flights over COVID-19 concerns.

The suspensions will begin Jan. 30 with Xiamen Airlines’ scheduled Los Angeles-to-Xiamen flight and run through March 29, the Transportation Department said.

The decision will cut some flights by Xiamen, Air China, China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines.

Since Dec. 31, Chinese authorities have suspended 20 United Airlines, 10 American Airlines and 14 Delta Air Lines flights, after some passengers tested positive for COVID-19.

As recently as Tuesday, the Transportation Department said the Chinese government had announced new U.S. flight cancellations.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Friday the policy for international passenger flights entering China has “been applied equally to Chinese and foreign airlines in a fair, open and transparent way.”

He called the U.S. move “very unreasonable” and added, “We urge the U.S. side to stop disrupting and restricting the normal passenger flights” by Chinese airlines.

Airlines for America, a trade group representing the three U.S. carriers affected by China’s move, along with others, said it supported Washington’s action “to ensure the fair treatment of U.S. airlines in the Chinese market.”

The Transportation Department said France and Germany have taken similar action against China’s COVID-19 actions. It said China’s suspensions of the flights “are adverse to the public interest and warrant proportionate remedial action.” It added that China’s “unilateral actions against the named U.S. carriers are inconsistent” with a bilateral agreement.

China has also suspended numerous U.S. flights by Chinese carriers after passengers later tested positive.

The department said it was prepared to revisit its action if China revised its “policies to bring about the necessary improved situation for U.S. carriers.” It warned that if China cancels more flights, “we reserve the right to take additional action.”

China has all but shut its borders to travelers, cutting total international flights to just 200 a week, or 2% of pre-pandemic levels, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said in September.

The number of U.S. flights being scrapped has surged since December, as infections caused by the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus soared to record highs in the United States.

Beijing and Washington have sparred over air services since the start of the pandemic. In August, the U.S. Transportation Department limited four flights from Chinese carriers to 40% passenger capacity for four weeks after Beijing imposed identical limits on four United Airlines flights.

Before the recent cancellations, three U.S. airlines and four Chinese carriers were operating about 20 flights a week between the countries, well below the figure of more than 100 per week before the pandemic.

'Not There Yet' on Easing of Tariffs on Chinese Goods

WASHINGTON — 

President Joe Biden on Wednesday said that it was too soon to make commitments on lifting U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, but that his chief trade negotiator, Katherine Tai, was working on the issue.

“I’d like to be able to be in a position where I could say they’re meeting their commitments, or more of their commitments, and be able to lift some of them, but we’re not there yet,” Biden told a news conference at the White House.

He was referring to China’s commitments under a Phase 1 trade deal signed by his predecessor, Donald Trump.

China has fallen far short of its pledge under the two-year Phase 1 trade agreement to buy $200 billion in additional U.S. goods and services during 2020 and 2021, and it remains unclear how the shortfall will be addressed.

Chinese purchases reached about 60% of the target through November 2021, according to data compiled by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The U.S. Census Bureau is expected to release December data next week.

Biden said he was aware that some business groups were clamoring for him to start unwinding U.S. tariffs of up to 25% imposed by Trump on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese imports, and that was why Tai was working on the issue.

But he said it was too soon to move forward given China’s failure to boost its purchases.

China last week said it hopes the United States can create conditions to expand trade cooperation.