De Chinese Wouden, dinsdag 3 april: woensdag wordt druk
Het is nu bekend dat op dezelfde woensdag 5 april dat het bezoek van Europese Commissievoorzitter Ursula von der Leyen aan Peking van start gaat, Taiwans president Tsai Ing-wen in Californië een ontmoeting zal hebben met Amerikaans Congresvoorzitter Kevin McCarthy. Ook op die dag: debat in de commissie Buitenlandse Zaken van de Tweede Kamer over China met drie ministers erbij.
Xinhua komt met het heugelijke nieuws dat de eerste twee volumes van een nieuwe serie Geselecteerde Werken van Xi Jinping gepubliceerd zijn. Zo’n vorm van publicatie is in lijn met hoe waarop de geschreven output van eerdere leiders werd gebundeld (ja, ook Mao Zedong). De bekendste boeken van Xi tot nu toe zaten in de aparte serie The Governance of China.
Nog meer goed nieuws voor de Chinawatcher: de Ballon is weer terug in het nieuws. NBC en CNN hadden bronnen over de capaciteiten van het neergeschoten ding.
Nederland en Europa 🇳🇱🇪🇺
EU’s von der Leyen to visit China April 5-7 – Reuters 🇪🇺
War in Ukraine to headline Macron-Xi talks on French president’s China trip – SCMP 🇪🇺🇫🇷
Airbus is working to secure a multi billion-dollar sale of wide-body jets to China in a deal that could come together as soon as this week, during French President Macron’s planned visit to the Asian nation, sources say – Bloomberg 🇫🇷
Tsai Ing-wen in de Amerikas
Tsai Ing-wen 蔡英文 [Cài Yīngwén] to meet with US House Speaker McCarthy in California on Wednesday 5 April – Focus Taiwan
US House foreign affairs committee chair Michael McCaul to visit Taipei Thursday, lawmaker confirms – Focus Taiwan
Tsai Ing-wen begins 3-day visit to Belize after wrapping up Guatemala tour – Focus Taiwan
Guatemala’s Giammattei thanks Taiwan for assistance – Taipei Times
PLA Navy stages live-fire drill as Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen transits in the United States – SCMP
Ballon 🎈
Chinese spy balloon gathered intelligence from sensitive military sites, despite US efforts to block it, current and former government sources say – NBC News: ‘China was able to control the balloon so it could make multiple passes over some of the sites (at times flying figure eight formations) and transmit the information it collected back to Beijing in real time, the three officials said.’ ‘The balloon had a self-destruct mechanism that could have been activated remotely by China’
Chinese spy balloon was able to transmit information back to Beijing, source said – CNN: ‘it is not much more sophisticated than what Chinese satellites are able to glean’
China spy balloon got limited data from US military sites, Pentagon says – Bloomberg
Kantelpunt
Philippines names 4 new camps for US forces amid China fury – ABC News
Tech War
Deutschlands oberste Cybersicherheitsbehörde setzt Huawei-Technik ein – Handelsblatt
Silicon Valley is beating Washington to China decoupling – Foreign Policy
How China is winning the race for Africa’s lithium – FT
US-China tech war: without advanced chips, can China’s smartphone industry survive? – SCMP
Overige
China buitenland en defensie
💡 China’s Xi Jining did not support Japan’s claim over Russian-held Southern Kurils in recent Putin talks – Kyodo News: ‘Xi told Putin in their meetings in Moscow that China “does not take either side” regarding the territorial row, in a shift to neutrality from China’s position indicated by then Chinese leader Mao Zedong in 1964 to view the four disputed islands as belonging to Japan, the source said.’
China’s longest US ambassador vacancy provides latest sign of bleak relations – SCMP
SCMP herhaalt het door de Chinese ambassade verspreide verhaal dat Qin Gang als ambassadeur in Washington DC zo weinig toegang zou hebben gekregen en niemand mocht spreken. Dat schijnt erg mee te zijn gevallen – Bonnie Glaser noemde dat Qin zich ook niet populair maakte als gesprekspartner door zijn stijl.
王缉思:症结在各自国内政治问题 中美再多对话也难改善关系 – 联合早报
Malaysia open to talks with Beijing over dispute in South China Sea, Bernama reports PM saying – Reuters
China economie
China’s March factory activity falters as post-covid bounce fades – Reuters
Evergrande enters restructuring support agreements with creditors – FT
China binnenland
First two volumes of Xí Jìnpíng 习近平’s selected works published – Xinhua
Covid-19 in China: time to limit mask mandates, respiratory expert Zhōng Nánshān 钟南山 says – SCMP
Hong Kong
No. of national security arrests ‘very small’ compared to population, Hong Kong justice secretary says – HKFP: ‘The sedition law, which has seen more frequent use than the national security law, is separate from the Beijing-enacted legislation.’
Taiwan buitenland en defensie
CCP changing up tactics, argues Mainland Affairs Council report – Taipei Times: ‘shifting away from a strategy of seeking common ground with Taiwan to a more aggressive approach of eliminating differences’
Taiwan binnenland en economie
Taiwan courts foreign graduates to plug semiconductor talent gap – Focus Taiwan
Ministries agree to expand agricultural migrant worker programme – Focus Taiwan