China has been making many investments in third-world countries, often in exchange for resource concessions. There is growing concern that some of these projects leave the host country with too much debt–indeed, last December, Sri Lanka sold control of its port of Hambantota to a Chinese state-owned company after falling behind in repaying $1.5 billion in loans from Beijing. Further such situations seem likely. (See interesting article about Chinese investment in Malaysia here.)
China has also been accused of using aid and investment funds to influence other countries’ policies toward Taiwan, an accusation that they unsurprisingly deny…and Taiwan is now down to only one diplomatic ally in Africa, the kingdom of eSwatini (prevously known as Swaziland.) El Salvador, too, has recently dropped diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
See also my recent post about Chinese influence efforts targeted at other nations, including the limiting of US film content and the firing of an American employee of Marriott for liking a tweet which offended the regime.
China’s economy is a total fraud.
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/new-study-shines-light-literally-on-chinas-and-russias-fake-gdp-data/
Even by their own accounts.
https://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/energy_watch/china-exposes-rampant-data-fraud-in-provinces-07092018105131.html
Brian…*total* fraud seems a little excessive…after all, China is manufacturing a lot of products and selling them for actual money to actual customers…and people in China aren’t starving to death on the street in the way they did during much of China’s recent history.
But, no question, authoritarian/totalitarian organizations tend to have a hard time telling the truth, even to themselves.
Also, the Chinese leadership must be having a very good laugh at the obsessive American media focus on *Russia*.
Speaking of which, did you catch the news that China had hacked Hillary’s server and was reading her emails for years.
A government staff official who’s been briefed on the ICIG’s findings told TheDCNF that the Chinese state-owned firm linked to the hacking operates in Washington’s northern Virginia suburbs. The company that penetrated Clinton’s server was not a technology firm and it served as a “front group” for the Chinese government, the source told TheDCNF.
Grurray…from the link: ““When [the ICIG] did a very deep dive, they found in the actual metadata ”” the data which is at the header and footer of all the emails ”” that a copy, a ‘courtesy copy,’ was being sent to a third party and that third party was a known Chinese public company that was involved in collecting intelligence for China,” the former intelligence officer told TheDCNF.”
IF this story is true, then Trump should order the public release of a few of the unclassified emails, including the headers & footers.
“two sources briefed on the matter told”
I have no doubt that this story is correct, BUT we can’t keep doing all this anonymously. This stuff has to be public and openly documented. The problem, of course, is that would probably lead to a certain former presidential candidate and many of her hangers-on going to prison, and we can’t have that.
and we can’t have that.
Awww, please? Just a little…?
One does wonder if the Dems have thought through their apparent obsession with driving Trump from office and landing him and his associates in jail. Do they not realize that as President, at the head of the IC and law enforcement communities, he knows things that could ruin them all? Or are they banking on the Deep State protecting them, and/or Trump not being as ruthless as they are? Both seem like lousy bets. Or maybe, just maybe, all their squawking is just to try to rile up their base, and they have zero intention of actually following through…
This is the mid year financial report for China Properties Group, a big commercial developer over there. Scroll down to page 15 for some entertaining commentary on the trade war.
I can confidently say that the whole world is fortunate Trump doesn’t have the Mao wisdom, considering how many tens of millions of innocent civilians were killed by that particular form of wisdom. Anyway, the fact that Trump is on the cusp of scrapping NAFTA, single-handedly rendering multilateral trade blocs obsolete, and marching across the world redefining American alignments nation-by-nation means that the trade war is going beyond the limit and into uncharted waters. These guys are about to get steamrolled, and they know it.
One thing I never see discussed with a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is that many of the largest employers on the main land are based in Taiwan. What happens to all the workers at Foxcon when the missiles start landing in Taipei? What happens to Apple?