Category Archives: defense policy

A Crackdown

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Or maybe a purge beginning. Fourteen (so far) Hong Kong protestors now are under arrest by the People’s Republic of China Hong Kong police for their rudeness in objecting to the PRC satrap government’s behavior.

Among those arrested Saturday were 81-year-old activist and former lawmaker Martin Lee and democracy advocates Albert Ho, Lee Cheuk-yan and Au Nok-hin. Police also arrested media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who founded the local newspaper Apple Daily.
The sweeping crackdown amid a coronavirus pandemic is based on charges of unlawful assembly stemming from huge rallies against proposed China extradition legislation….

Naturally, the PRC has defended those arrests and the West’s objections to them. Here’s the Office of the Commissioner of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong:

It is completely wrong that the UK Foreign Office spokesperson has distorted the truth by painting unauthorized assemblies as “peaceful protests….”

Because, after all, when a Government official uses a word, it means just what he chooses it to mean—neither more nor less.

This is what the Republic of China can look forward to. “One country, two systems” really means that second system is subjugation. And the dictionary will have only Government-approved definitions.

在中国, Newspeak 还活得很好.

Overseeing PRC Telecomm

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The Senate has started looking into tightening oversight of People’s Republic of China telecomms that are operating in the US.

In a forthcoming report, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will level sharp criticism at a group of telecom regulators for failing to scrutinize the Chinese companies and the way they handle data going back nearly two decades. Senate investigators who briefed The Wall Street Journal on their findings said that without proper oversight the Chinese companies “present an unacceptable amount of risk.”

It’s a start.

But even with suitably proper oversight, a larger question remains unaddressed, much less unanswered: why are these companies allowed to operate in the US at all? They are, after all, arms of the PRC government, not free enterprise entities competing on their own recognizance and beholden to the laws of the political jurisdiction within which they operate.

And this:

Representatives for American carriers warned the Senate investigators that the US moves could cause Beijing to retaliate by cutting off their business with Chinese carriers to provide services. That, the carriers have said, would potentially hurt their customers in China, such as US companies, and hinder the carriers’ ability to cooperate with US intelligence-gathering requests.

Couple things about this. Cutting off American carriers’ business inside the PRC would be relatively minor for operations in a nation that demands domestic partners and technology sharing as a condition of doing business within that nation and that demands government-accessible backdoors into foreign companies’ critical software suites as a condition of doing business within that nation.

The bit about hindering US carriers’ ability to cooperate with US intelligence-gathering requests emphasizes a critical difference between us and the PRC. US carriers’ cooperation with our government’s intel requests is entirely voluntary, for all the political pressure a carrier might face for noncompliance. PRC telecomm companies operating in the US have no such option: PRC government requests for intel-related information are required to be satisfied. The only request aspect relates to the type of information the PRC government requires to be collected.

Restrictions and Supply Chains

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The People’s Republic of China has relatively newly emplaced—earlier this month—export restrictions on a variety of Wuhan Virus-related medical equipment that prevents their shipment to the US. These restrictions included signed deals for shipment—these are now blocked as well.

This is another example of the duplicity of PRC government officials and another example of the worthlessness of those officials’ promises.

Still, it’s not all bad. I don’t know why we’d want medical stuff that’s manufactured inside the PRC or by PRC-controlled manufacturers anywhere else, given the demonstrated shoddiness and outright uselessness of their manufactory.

This is just one more reason why we—and the rest of the world—need to excise the PRC from anywhere and everywhere in our supply chains.

[The PRC] is an almost irreplaceable supplier, making more than 40% of the world’s imports of masks, gloves, goggles, visors and medical garments, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

This is a dependency that must end. The PRC government as currently constituted is simply too unreliable, and the products it produces for export are too quality-lacking.

Planning

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Many nations are beginning to look at how to release the stay-at-home encouragement regimes and outright lockdown/quarantine requirements, including the United States (and several of the individual States and groups of States), the European Union sort of confederation of nations, Austria, among others.

A bit of second-guessing by me: these “looks at” should have been ongoing, with plans nearing readiness as plans to reduce or release restrictions draw nigh.

Any flag officer, knowing logistics, could tell you this.

Just as a sensible person is reluctant to enter a building before knowing where at least some exits are located, so a sensible government shouldn’t be entering widespread stay-at-home encouragements, much less lockdowns, without also having at least begun planning for easing/releasing the restrictions and for post ease/release recovery.

Export Incentives Coupled with Domestic Disincentives

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The People’s Republic of China has moved to shut down the domestic marketing of wild animals on fears [wild animal traders’] goods sparked the coronavirus pandemic. This is a seeming response to growing international pressure on the PRC to cut that out for that reason.

[The People’s Republic of] China’s National People’s Congress on February 24 imposed a ban on the sale and consumption of wild animals in the country.

However.

Less than a month later, [The People’s Republic of] China’s Ministry of Finance and tax authority said on March 17 they would raise value-added tax rebates on nearly 1,500 Chinese products, including offering a 9% rebate on the export of animal products such as edible snakes and turtles, primate meat, beaver and civet musk, and rhino horns….

As the Congressional Research Service, cited in the article at the link, mentioned, the export move

could spread the risk to global markets[.]

You think?

The CRS’ report further noted,

Absent in [The People’s Republic of] China’s policy push are incentives to encourage the sale of pharmaceuticals, PPE, and other medical products overseas[.]

Hmm. Makes me wonder just what the PRC is up to, really.

 

The CRS’ report can be read here.