Xi wages info war from home as US, allies boost Indo-Pacific strength, Plus China slowdown hits Asian countries & the 'standard map' offends -- China Boss News 9.08.23
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What happened.
No one thought China would go so far, including Japanese officials.
Although the UN nuclear watchdog said the water was safe, China protested Japan’s treated release from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, calling it a “selfish and irresponsible act.”
But that was standard.
Eyebrows lifted when Beijing banned Japanese seafood imports. There was no scientific basis for it, but transactions in scallop, sea urchin, and tuna weren’t a “prominent feature” of Sino-Japanese bilateral trade, experts said.
Then Chinese state media went full throttle.
Headlines and editorials in rapid-fire succession - or, maybe, all at once - blasted Japan for threatening the “the entire marine ecosystem” today and for future generations. They were flanked by Armageddon-type political cartoons and dark "documentary" films.
The narrator of one particularly creative animation said Godzilla, a fictional reptilian monster that has frightened millions for decades in cinemas, would be “unleashed” by Japan’s release of radioactive waste into the ocean.
Transported, Beijing's Consul General in Belfast posted the short production to X (formerly Twitter), which is banned in China, the same day as Xinhua - the official state news agency.
Soon fuming Chinese citizens were stoning and egging Japanese schools in China, while others shared videos of themselves returning Japanese-manufactured home appliances and tearing down anime posters. Fish sellers and schoolchildren worked themselves up into fevered-pitches and threw ugly-cry tantrums, scenes of which spread like brush fires across China’s heavily censored social media.
As the Japanese government issued an alert for its citizens in China to “avoid speaking in a loud voice” and to "keep a low profile,” it summoned the Chinese ambassador and released a graphic showing four Chinese nuclear plants currently releasing water with more than three times the tritium levels as in Fukushima’s.
But that has not quelled the rage. Or, better yet, let’s call it Beijing’s latest showing of “performative outrage,” only this time cast with hundreds of millions of unsuspecting Chinese citizens to fan the flames.
Experts now understand that China’s massive outcry was a “coordinated campaign to spread disinformation about the safety of the release,” and to stoke “anger and fear among millions of Chinese,” the New York Times said last week.
Hamsini Hariharan, a China expert at UK-based data analysis company Logically, which aims to fight misinformation, told BBC China had been building the campaign “since January.”
"It is quite evident that this is politically motivated. This isn't about food safety, China itself has had a lot of scandals regarding food safety. The Chinese narrative has often been positioning itself as an 'alternate leader' in the world order, and that the US and its allies propagate an unequal world order," she said.
Why it matters
US, allies boost Indo-Pacific strength
The mass mobilization of emotions is historically familiar in China, but this one may be a little different, as it comes at a time of intense rivalry with the United States and certain allies who have been making big moves to win friends and influence people in the Indo-Pacific.
Last week, army soldiers from the U.S., Indonesia, Australia, Japan, Singapore, United Kingdom and France took part in the "live-fire Super Garuda Shield” military drills in Java, according to the Associated Press. Twelve other nations sent observers, it said.
The White House has been increasingly successful in "efforts to persuade" Vietnam, a former foe, to "upgrade" diplomatic relations, Reuters reported, and the State Department has homed in on establishing new embassies on tiny, yet geostrategically significant, island nations, including Seychelles, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Maldives, Vanuatu and Kiribati.
On Tuesday, the US Coast Guard said it has signed a new agreement with Palau that gave it “authorization to unilaterally enforce maritime regulations in the tiny Pacific island nation’s exclusive economic zone,” the Washington Post said.
Even so, Biden’s crowning achievement of bringing historical enemies Japan and South Korea together at Camp David last month to form a trilateral defense pact with the U.S. probably tipped the scales.
“The political reality is that the Fukushima operation comes just after the US, Japan and South Korea reaffirmed their security alliance. The move infuriated Beijing, which previously reveled in exploiting wartime grievances between the Japanese and South Koreans,” Michael Sheridan wrote in the Independent.
Xi withdraws from global stage
While Sheridan thinks Xi’s info war is an escalation that brings us dangerously close to a “geopolitical meltdown” in the region, it also comes at a time when the Chinese leader is withdrawing his personal participation in multilateral events abroad.
The Diplomat’s Editor-in-Chief Shannon Tiezzi, last month found it “unusual” that Xi failed to embark on his usual Africa tour after the BRICS meeting in Johannesburg, saying “Xi visited at least one African country (and usually more than one) in 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2018.”
But after that, she noted, China’s leader stopped traveling to the continent - which is “especially odd given . . . China’s proud positioning of itself as a country that “stand[s] together with the African people.”
Bloomberg analysts last week also found it strange that Xi would go AWOL at bigger multilateral events, like the G20.
“Whatever the reason, his absence marks a major shift in how Xi operates. The Chinese leader has attended every G20 leaders’ summit since taking power in 2012, and he’s also sought to burnish his image as a peacemaker since emerging from three years of Covid isolation at last year’s meeting in Bali, Indonesia,” they said.
Can China continue to compete globally if Xi withdraws from the global stage? At least one expert doesn’t seem to think so.
Neil Thomas, at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, told Bloomberg that “Xi’s comfort in delegating at major events suggests his leadership is becoming more like that of Mao,” which “carries risks.”
“The further Xi moves down this path, the more policymaking will be disconnected from mounting challenges,” he said.
But the “blindsided” folks back in Japan are just wondering when China’s leader will halt the abusive phone calls coming in from Chinese numbers and egg-tosses at their expats. Some are beginning to question whether he can.
“One concern is that anti-Japan sentiment stoked by the Xi administration itself could run wild. Hu stepped in to contain the Senkaku protests before they escalated to that point. But it is unclear whether Xi can do the same amid growing public frustration over a sluggish economy. In fact, he may be more likely to further harden his stance on Japan,” Nikkei Asia staff writer Yukio Tajima wrote.
This Week’s China News
The Big Story in China Business
CHINA SLOWDOWN HITS ASIAN COUNTRIES: China's economic troubles are "sparking warnings of contagion" in neighboring Asian economies as "waning consumer demand and slower manufacturing" has begun to impact trade, Financial Times reported this week.
Gezundeit: South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan have noticed drops in Chinese orders amid signs that “slowing global demand is further dragging on the Chinese economy,” news staff said.
“To borrow an old adage, when China sneezes, Asia catches a cold. With Chinese policymakers resisting calls to boost flagging growth through stimulus, the fallout will be felt across the region,” Gavekal’s Vincent Tsui warned.
The Australian dollar fell to its “lowest levels” in 10 months, while Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand "grew at a much slower pace for the second quarter than expected,” FT said.
CHINA MANUFACTURING CONTRACTS, REAL ESTATE CRISIS DEEPENS:
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