CRG Weekly: CCP influence event, genocide amendment and vaccine disinformation
News from the China Research Group
Next week’s event: Our next session is on Tues 26th January at 10am GMT, looking deeper into CCP influence on British society and business with Charles Parton, Juliet Samuel and Mareike Ohlberg. Sign up here.
In case you missed it: We hosted Gideon Rachman, Evan Medeiros and Jude Blanchette for an excellent discussion on US-China relations, covering everything from a Xi third term to a potential 2022 Winter Olympics boycott. Read and listen back here.
In the press: CRG member Alexander Stafford MP in The Times on the UK’s reliance on China for critical minerals.
The week in review
It was a packed week for China in Parliament. Tuesday saw the government defeat the so-called ‘genocide’ amendment, which would have allowed the High Court to make a preliminary determination of genocide and forced the government to revoke bilateral trade agreements with any state deemed genocidal. A revised amendment protecting parliamentary sovereignty over trade deals will almost certainly be back in the Commons in a couple of weeks.
The Telegraph reports that the government is likely to make concessions to avoid another rebellion. The ‘compromise’ option, reportedly approved by ministers, is a commitment to publishing a broader human rights assessment before negotiating trade deals, instead of a full legal determination on genocide. China was also a major theme in oral evidence given to the committee of MPs scrutinising the Telecommunications (Security) Bill and in the debate on the National Security and Investment Bill on Wednesday.
On Thursday, Liu Xiaoming, the outgoing Chinese Ambassador to the UK, gave a farewell speech to the China-Britain Business Council, celebrating the deepening of the UK-China relationship over his 11-year term. Liu was an important figure of the Golden Era, and cited achievements such as the UK joining the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and its participation in two Belt and Road forums. It serves as a useful reminder of how much things have changed: back in 2015, the UK’s decision to join the AIIB was fiercely opposed by an Obama administration which criticised the UK’s ‘constant accommodation’ towards China. Liu is set to be replaced by diplomatic heavyweight Zheng Zeguang, who had been tipped to become Ambassador to the US.
An intriguing story is that Chinese fast fashion unicorn Shein has reportedly tabled the highest bid for iconic British high street brand Topshop, offering ‘well over £300m’. Shein has quietly become one of the world’s biggest fast fashion players, hitting $10bn of global sales in 2020. Its business model is based on speed and volume: it lists as many 4,000 new items a day, almost all shipped directly from Guangzhou. Shein is big in the UK - we believe with revenues of at least £500m a year - or sales of 30,000 items a day. Aimed squarely at 18-30 year old women, advertising is almost all through social media, with a particularly big presence on TikTok. Buying Topshop would signal the very public arrival of a new Chinese retail giant in the UK - and long-overdue scrutiny of Shein’s highly opaque supply chains.
In the US, China policy came thick and fast in the week of Biden’s inauguration. Amid a slew of parting announcements, the most notable was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declaring that China's policies in Xinjiang constitute genocide and crimes against humanity.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying led the denunciation of the statement, and the Chinese Embassy in the UK was quick to follow. Hua also doubled down on the Covid blame game by calling for investigations into Fort Detrick, a US military facility. Beijing has called for revisions to be made to two reports presented to the WHO executive which suggested shortcomings in China's initial response to Covid-19.
Beijing also announced sanctions on 28 US officials on the grounds of violating China's sovereignty, timed minutes after President Biden's inauguration. Mike Pompeo, Peter Navarro and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon headlined the slate. By banning their immediate families from China and potentially preventing any company or institution associated with them from doing business with China, these new sanctions are the most severe yet.
The new administration took its first steps in setting out its China direction: Anthony Blinken, Biden's nominee for Secretary of State, endorsed Mike Pompeo's assessment of genocide and indicated that Xinjiang and greater engagement with Taiwan would be high on his list of priorities. Taiwan's top envoy Bi-khim Hsiao was invited to President Biden's inauguration as Trump's outgoing UN ambassador called for an end to Taiwan's global exclusion. There have been positive noises around a US-Taiwan trade deal, and the European Parliament passed resolutions supporting Taiwan's democracy and encouraging member states to 'revisit engagement policies' on Taiwan.
Polemic and disinformation around western vaccines has heightened in past week. A Global Times editorial blamed the US, UK and Canada for the 'catastrophic moral failure' of vaccine distribution. At the same, China Daily attacked the UK's lockdown measures; the Global Times targeted the Pfizer vaccine, citing positive tests in Israel and deaths in Norway to discourage Australia from approving the Pfizer vaccine.
Chinese state media has also been focused on celebrating China’s vaccine successes, like the roll-out of Sinovac's CoronaVac in Brazil (potentially securing Huawei's right to participate in the country's 5G network and a major win for China's vaccine diplomacy) and Turkey. Chile joined a growing list of countries that have given emergency approval to CoronaVac, while CanSino have offered 20 million doses to Pakistan. The emerging battle over the global vaccine narrative looks set to be a key issue over the next year, with the West slow to react so far.
Jack Ma is back. He made his first public appearance since Ant Group's IPO was pulled in November. One day later, the People's Bank of China unveiled its definition of a monopoly for online payment providers such as Ant Group's Alipay. Alibaba’s share price fell on the news.
Finally, David Perry QC pulled out of the prosecution of pro-democracy Hong Kong activists under international pressure, but fresh concerns were raised over planned changes to the territory's immigration law that may prevent citizens from leaving the city and possible electoral reforms that could disqualify candidates not deemed 'patriotic'. MPs are set to quiz HSBC’s chief executive next Tuesday over the freezing of accounts of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong.
In brief
The Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress, China's top legislative body, started its 25th session.
Pro-Beijing politicians in Hong Kong will receive priority vaccines ahead of the rest of the territory's population in order to attend the NPC in March.
China's Ministry of Commerce said it will take 'all necessary measures' in response to Sweden's move to exclude Huawei and ZTE from its 5G networks. Ericsson's CEO has lobbied to overturn the ban.
A group of MEPs plan to condemn the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, arguing that it undermines the EU's credibility on human rights.
Twitter locked out the Chinese Embassy in Washington's account after tweets from last week violated its dehumanization policy.
China doubled its renewable capacity in 2020 and broke its record for installation of wind power capacity.
Weekend reads
Europe's China Deal: How not to work with the Biden administration. Andrew Small sets the CAI in its geopolitical context, arguing ‘the political constellation in Europe that brought about the CAI is fading’. ECFR.
Generation Xi: The Economist takes a deep dive into the rising social liberalism and nationalism of China’s young people.
How Japan can help the UK meet its China challenge. An insightful read by IISS fellow Yuka Koshino on strategic overlap between Japan and the UK. Japan Times.
America's Big China Question. A reflection by James Kynge on the mirage of Chinese liberalisation, cherished by US policy over the previous 20 years but shattered in the most recent five. FT.
What's behind Beijing's treatment of the Uyghurs? The Specator’s Chinese Characters podcast with the brilliant Cindy Yu and James Millward.
Research bites
Institut Montaigne’s Wins and Losses in the EU-China Investment Agreement by Francois Godement is the most thorough policy analysis yet of the CAI. It concludes that the deal ‘has been oversold and underpowered.' Worth reading, especially on the absence of a formal enforcement and dispute resolution mechanism on sustainable development obligations (forced labour, environment).
EU-China Mappings: Interactions between the EU and China on key issues by MERICS maps out significant variation in European policy on China, from Huawei to extradition treaties. With rumours that a 17+1 summit could be taking place in February, it brings internal European divisions sharply into focus.
The crisis of American power: How Europeans see Biden’s America. A new ECFR survey of 15,000 respondents shows Europeans are realistic about China’s rise and sceptical about US efforts to regain its influence and contain China.
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