Month: October 2022

Tech war: US ban on chip exports to have little effect on Chinese military for now, analysts say

Chin@Strategy

“The chip technology for civilian use is on a higher level than for military use,” Macau-based military commentator Antony Wong Tong said. Announcing the latest tech sanctions, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security said one reason for the move was to restrict China’s access to “sensitive technologies with military applications”. Advertisement In a statement on October 7, the bureau said the new measures would restrict China’s ability to obtain advanced technologies that are used “to produce advanced military systems including weapons of mass destruction; improve the speed…

Han Chinese migrants stream home from Lhasa, causing traffic jams

Chin@Strategy

Han Chinese migrant workers are streaming out of Lhasa after demanding permission to return to their homes amid a harsh COVID-19 lockdown in the Tibetan capital, creating snarled traffic jams as far as the eye can see, Radio Free Asia’s Tibetan service has learned. Protests broke out in Lhasa on Wednesday over COVID-19 restrictions in the city and had spread to at least four different districts by Thursday, prompting scuffles with authorities in some cases. RFA was able to confirm that many of the protesters were ethnic majority Han Chinese…

Nguyen Phu Trong’s Trip Highlights Special Relationship Between China and Vietnam

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Advertisement At the invitation of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee General Secretary and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) Central Committee General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong will pay an official visit to China from October 30 to November 2. It is not only a prominent demonstration of the special relationship between the CCP and the VCP, but also a positive signal about the steady progression of Sino-Vietnamese relations. Xi and Trong have not met face-to-face since the APEC Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam in 2017. This is…

Why China Won’t Play Power Politics With the US at COP 27

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Advertisement When the Convention of Parties (COP) 27 convenes at Sharm el-Sheikh, all eyes will be on China as the world’s largest emitter of carbon. Despite its high emissions, China achieved leadership status on global climate change mitigation efforts during former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. Within those four years, the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Agreement and abandoned its role as an international leader in combatting climate change, while China invested heavily in renewables and EVs and Chinese leader Xi Jinping announced that China would reach peak emissions…

What Happened to Hu Jintao?

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It was the lone disruption in one of the most closely choreographed events in China: The country’s former top leader, Hu Jintao, was suddenly led out of the closing ceremony of the Chinese Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress. The congress, where China’s next leaders are anointed, is the single most important political event for a ruling party fixated on control. Every detail, whether it is the outcome of its elections or how servers pour tea, is planned. Nothing unscripted happens. Nothing unscripted is allowed to happen. Except this year, it did.…

Chip Makers, Once in High Demand, Confront Sudden Challenges

Chin@Strategy

A few months ago, makers of computer chips seemed on top of the world. Customers could not get enough of the small slices of silicon, which act as the brains of computers and are needed in just about every device with an on-off switch. Demand was so strong — and U.S. dependence on a foreign manufacturer so worrying — that Democrats and Republicans agreed in July on a $52 billion subsidy package that included grants to build new chip factories in America. U.S. chip makers such as Intel, Micron Technology,…

Was Hu Jintao’s removal from China’s 20th party congress suspicious or not?

Chin@Strategy

After eight days of China’s most important political meeting, in which the autocratic leader Xi Jinping’s precedent-breaking third term was confirmed, belligerent foreign policy reaffirmed, and the leader of the world’s largest population and second-largest economy announced through the next five years, one question was on everyone’s lips: what on earth happened to Hu Jintao and where is he now? The drama happened on Saturday morning. In a short window between foreign media being allowed into Beijing’s Great Hall and the start of the final public meeting of the 20th…

G.O.P. Senator’s Report on Covid Origins Suggests Lab Leak, but Offers Little New Evidence

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The top Republican on the Senate health committee said in a report on Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic was most likely caused by a laboratory incident in China. The report offered little new evidence, however, and was disputed by many scientists, including those whose research suggests that the outbreak originated instead at a live animal market. The report, released by Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, grew out of a joint inquiry with the committee’s Democratic chairwoman that proponents of the effort hoped would add a measure of…

Apple Earnings: iPhone Powers Growth, but Signs Point to a Slowdown

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When Apple released the 16th version of its iPhone in September, some tech reviewers described it as an incremental improvement over earlier models. Apple’s customers didn’t care. They bought the new iPhone 14 in droves. On Thursday, the world’s most valuable company said that strong demand for iPhones helped it increase total revenue by 8 percent to $90.1 billion for the three months that ended in September, bringing an end to a fiscal year in which it posted sales gains every quarter. The company reported that profits rose nearly 1…

Protests spread in Lhasa over COVID-19 restrictions

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Protests over COVID-19 restrictions in the Tibetan capital Lhasa spread to at least four different areas of the city Thursday, prompting “scuffles” with authorities in some cases, sources told Radio Free Asia, as ethnic Chinese migrant workers demanded permits to return home from the region. RFA was able to confirm that many of the protesters were ethnic majority Han Chinese migrant workers who likely obtained permission to reside in Lhasa for jobs that pay daily wages.  Sources in the city, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns,…