What China wants you to know — Covid in Xi’an under control. What he does not do, there is no food

IIn this week’s Chinascope, we look at Xi Jinping’s new training order for the People’s Liberation Army, India’s frustrations with Beijing’s demands, the neighbor’s involvement in the Kazakhstan protests, the tax demand $ 87.80 million from India on Xiaomi and other important stories from China.

China during the week

Chinese state media reported that President Xi Jinping issued the mobilization training order to the entire Chinese military. “Comprehensively promote the transformation and upgrading of military training, and train elite soldiers capable of fighting well,” the order said. This is the fifth year in a row that Xi has issued the military-wide training order. The order was widely viewed as a symbolic action by the president until April 2020, when the PLA mobilization along the Line of Effective Control (LAC) was linked to the formation order. The order emphasizes the importance of science and technology in future warfare and training.

Besides training, the construction of Chinese infrastructure at LAC was another major development over the past week.

Snehesh Alex Philip, deputy editor of ThePrint, recently reported that China is building a bridge over Pangong Tso Lake in the Khurnak region. The Foreign Ministry reacted strongly to the news. “This bridge is being built in areas that have been illegally occupied by China for about 60 years now,” MEA spokesman Arindam Bagchi said.

Meanwhile, India is frustrated with China’s response to requests for the next round of border talks.

China seems to want Russia to arbitrate negotiations with India. Hu Shisheng, senior researcher and director of the Institute of South and Southeast Asian and Ocean Studies at the Chinese Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, wrote that Russia’s participation “would allow interactions strategic more active between the three countries, which would also increase the factor of stability in the Sino-Indian general relations.

The 14th round of talks between India and China are scheduled to take place on January 12.

Xi’an Covid-19 cases have started to decline after a recent spike. Local authorities say they have brought the pandemic under control in the city.

A reporter named Jiang Xue published an account of Xi’an under lockdown. She writes about how people struggle to find food.

Chinese authorities censored the newspaper on the popular social media app WeChat for “violating regulations.”

Users compared Jiang’s account to Fang Fang’s Wuhan Diary about his experience with the first Covid-19 shutdown in Wuhan.

The anti-government unrest in Kazakhstan grabbed headlines around the world. China has an interest in maintaining stability in the country. China is Kazakhstan’s second-largest trading partner, and its total bilateral trade was worth $ 22.94 billion in the first 11 months of 2021.

Xi even sent a message to the Kazakh president reassuring him of China’s support.

China strongly rejects any attempt by outside forces to cause unrest and incite ‘color revolutions’ in Kazakhstan, as well as any attempt to damage the friendship between China and Kazakhstan and disrupt cooperation between the two country, “Xi said, according to Xinhua.

The Color Revolution is a term used in China to refer to protest movements initiated with the support of “foreign forces”. The term has been used repeatedly on Chinese social media as users attempt to make sense of the unrest. “Almost 4,000 terrorists detained in Kazakhstan” was another trend on Weibo, seen over 703,000 times. One user posted an article titled “From Hong Kong to Kazakhstan, Color Revolutions in America Get Worse.”

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is a former Kazakh diplomat who became president in 2019 after Nursultan Nazarbayev resigned from his 26-year reign.

There are 56 Chinese projects worth about $ 24.5 billion in Kazakhstan, which will be completed in 2023. Kazakhstan also serves as a transitional land port for rail freight that China sends to Europe as part of the move. its “Belt and Road” initiative. But it’s not the economy that’s the main driver here. China’s interest is to maintain stability in the province of Xinjiang, which borders Kazakhstan.

Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councilor Wang Yi visited the Maldives on Friday. He travels to five countries in Eritrea, Kenya, Comoros, Maldives and Sri Lanka. New Delhi will follow Wang’s visit to the region very closely.

China and the Maldives have signed an agreement to facilitate 30-day visa-free travel for Maldivians once Covid restrictions are lifted. Wang and Maldivian Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid also signed other agreements, including “economic technology, infrastructure, seawater desalination, medicine and public health.” According to Xinhua, the two countries pledged to build projects under the “Belt and Road” initiative signed by Xi.

On Saturday, Wang Yi arrived in Colombo for a two-day visit as Sri Lanka finds itself in a severe debt crisis. The country is facing a foreign currency crisis as Covid-19 has shut down most tourism-related businesses.

According to Sri Lankan officials, Wang will likely offer further grants to Colombo during the visit.

“They will seek more business opportunities, fishing in the troubled waters of the country’s economic slump,” a political analyst named Ranga Kalansooriya said.

Read also : Chinese citizens burst from the Galwan Valley onto Weibo, a gentle exchange between the Indian military and the PLA on Baidu

China in the world news

Thanks to Beijing, Tokyo and Canberra today share a growing sense of camaraderie.

Japan and Australia signed the historic reciprocal access agreement at a virtual summit. The agreement creates a legal basis for the entry of troops into each other’s territories with a streamlined process.

The growing defense ties between Tokyo and Canberra are a direct challenge for Beijing, with whom they have a difficult relationship. The two countries – along with India and the United States – are part of the Quadrilateral Dialogue, a group seen as a counterweight to China. The United States is the only other country to have a similar defense agreement with Japan.

India has asked the India division of Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi to pay $ 87.80 million in import taxes following an investigation by the Tax Intelligence Directorate. The investigation found that Xiaomi India did not add royalties and license fees in the payment to Qualcomm USA and Beijing Xiaomi Mobile Software Co Ltd.

“By not adding ‘royalties and license fees’ to the value of the transaction, Xiaomi India was escaping tariffs as the beneficial owner of these imported cell phones, their parts and components,” said a government press release.

Read also : In 2022, Indo-Chinese glass is both half full and half empty. Russia can be a tipping factor

What you need to read this week

For Chinese workers in Indonesia, no salary, no passport, no going home – Xu Zhenhua

As Beijing takes control, Chinese tech companies lose jobs, hope – Li Yuan

Experts this week

Zhang Xiaokang wrote an article which was widely read and shared on Chinese social media. We don’t know what their affiliation is, and he said, “Why are we talking about the name of this counterattack? Because the question of the denomination of operations is essentially the notion of war. The most important thing in the concept of war is to distinguish the nature of war. The nature of wars in the history of mankind can be divided into two categories: just wars and unjust wars. In 1962, the Sino-Indian border self-defense was a counterattack by the border defense forces of the People’s Liberation Army. In order to promote a just and reasonable solution to the Sino-Indian border problem, the army defended itself and waged a just war against the invading enemy in the Sino-Indian border area.

Read also : China’s Pangong Tso Bridge cannot be countered by panic or controversy

Podworld

The US military has recently started to describe China as a “stimulus challenge.” Christine Wormuth, Secretary of the United States Army, gave a keynote address on the United States military’s perspective on the Chinese challenge. Chinascope recommends listening to the episode with Secretary Wormuth’s Remarks posted by China Power Podcast.

SupChinaKaiser Kuo spoke to David McCourt, a sociologist who studies the community of “Chinese observers” and conducted a sociological study on the subject. It’s a fascinating discussion about “the sighting of China” and the people involved. Chinascope recommends listening to the conversation.

The author is a freelance columnist and journalist. He is currently pursuing an MA in China-focused International Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. He was previously a Chinese media reporter for the BBC World Service. He tweets @aadilbrar. Opinions are personal.

This is a weekly roundup that Aadil Brar writes on what’s hot in China. This will soon be available as a subscriber-only product.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)