Beijing asks officials to increase their efforts to enhance border infrastructure. Covid-19 testing could cost China $257 billion if rolled out across the country. Chinascope goes beyond the headlines to make sense of China – and the world.
China over the week
China’s border infrastructure along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is one of the sticking points in the strained relations between India and China. The construction of moderately well off (xiaokang) villages along the border with Arunachal Pradesh captured the news headlines in 2021. Now, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council has issued a notice requiring all regions to speed up the implementation of the development process of remote regions.
The official guideline titled Opinions on promoting urban construction with county towns as important carriers was published on Friday. “Support border counties to improve infrastructure, strengthen functions such as public services and border trade, and improve population agglomeration and border guarding capabilities”, it said on developing China’s border regions.
The guideline emphasised connecting villages with nearby medium to large cities through railways and highways. In 2021, China completed the construction of a road connecting Medog county to Nyingchi, a town just across Arunachal Pradesh. The completion of the road has halved the time required to move very close to India’s border in Arunachal Pradesh.
Also Read: Communist Xi explains capital’s benefits as Chinese executives speak up on economic crisis
Meanwhile, across the border, images of people in Shanghai and Beijing lining up to get multiple Covid tests on the same day have poured in on social media. But the cost of running a massive Covid-19 testing campaign is mounting.
According to Tao Chuan, the chief macro analyst at Capital market company Soochow Securities, the cost of rolling out mass testing across China could rise to $257 billion (1.7 trillion yuan), which would be 1.5 per cent of its 2021 GDP.
The cost might be mounting, but the Politburo Standing Committee, the most powerful decision-making committee headed by general secretary Xi Jinping, has doubled down on the zero-Covid policy on Thursday. “…always keep a clear head and unswervingly adhere to the policy of ‘zero-Covid’ and resolutely fight against all words and deeds that distort, doubt and deny our country’s anti-epidemic policies and policies,” said the readout of the meeting.
Li Qiang, the party secretary of Shanghai, was rumoured to be in line to join as one of the seven members of the elite Politburo Standing Committee. But that scenario looks difficult as there is growing pressure to find a scapegoat for the disastrous pandemic control measures in Shanghai.
Moving from pandemic control to control of its claimed territories, John Lee was voted in as the next chief executive of Hong Kong with 1,416 votes in the first managed elections since Beijing imposed National Security Law. Lee is the former Secretary of Security and is said to be Beijing’s pick to lead Hong Kong and implement its National Security Law.
China also wants to keep its neighbours close. On Friday, Xi told senior party leader Wang Qishan to lead a delegation to South Korea to attend the inauguration ceremony of new president Yoon Seok-youl. After Xi, Wang acts as the leading party figure on foreign affairs and the decision to send him to South Korea indicates that the party veteran still has Xi’s support.
Also Read: Xi Jinping races to secure third term, jails corrupt officials, clamps down on social media
China in world news
Since becoming prime minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida has taken a tough position over the growing cross-strait tensions between People’s Republic of China and Taiwan. “Ukraine may be East Asia tomorrow,” said Kishida during his recent visit to London. The visit was marked by Japan and the United Kingdom signing the reciprocal access agreement akin to the one between Japan and Australia that provides for shared military training and operations.
“For quite some time now, Britain has been drumming about an ‘Asian-Pacific NATO’ on several occasions and calling upon countries to respond to the ‘Indo-Pacific threats’ and ‘help Taiwan defend itself’. Japan, a country in the Asian-Pacific region, is excitedly echoing with this move, seeming quite interested to lead the way for NATO to extend its claws to the region,” said a PLA Daily op-ed about Kishida’s visit.
Japan isn’t the only one speaking out about China. Bill Burns, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has been far more outspoken about the “China challenge” than any previous directors of the agency.
“It strikes us… that Xi Jinping is a little bit unsettled by the reputational damage that can come to China by the association with the brutishness of Russia’s aggression against Ukrainians,” said Burns during the FT Weekend Festival in Washington.
There might be severe implications for Chinese companies in the United States too. Hikvision, the Chinese surveillance camera company, might be about to face severe US sanctions for “enabling human rights abuses”, according to Financial Times. The use of Hikvision technology by the Indian Army and within the railway network has previously raised security concerns in New Delhi.
Also Read: China’s cover-up of Covid and PLA deaths isn’t working. Neither are the social media bans
Must read this week
Generation Snitch – Tracy Wen Liu
China’s Doomed Fight Against Demographic Decline – Carl Mizner
China’s Evolving Strategic Discourse on India – Antara Ghosal Singh
Experts this week
“The first report at the beginning of the year meant that Xiaomi India remitted royalties and license fees to Qualcomm and Xiaomi Mobile Software. Xiaomi’s assembly company in India does not use these technologies, and it should be some imported components. The technology used in the production process and the royalties paid are not reflected in the value of their products in the import process. Considering that tariffs on mobile phone components in India were previously zero and only slightly increased to 2.5% in early 2021, there seems to be no need for tax avoidance on import prices,” wrote Yang Sanyi, an international tax expert.
India in China
World Health Organization’s publication of the latest data related to Covid-19 deaths started a trend on Chinese social media platform Weibo. The hashtag “India strongly opposes WHO’s release of COVID death toll” was viewed 150 million times.
Also Read: Shanghai residents can’t post about ‘food crisis’ and China fears US may nuke it some day
Podworld
The direction of China’s foreign policy under Xi is one of the most speculated areas within contemporary China studies. Zhao Suisheng, a professor at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies, is best placed to talk about China’s foreign policy securitisation under Xi. Jude Blanchette, the host of the Pekingology podcast, spoke to Zhao about how Xi has consolidated his authority in Chinese politics and weakened the institutions. Chinascope recommends listening to the conversation.
Upcoming Watch
China will mark the National Humiliation Day on 9 May. National Humiliation Day is a holiday to remind Chinese people about the history of aggression by Japan and the colonisation of the PRC by foreign powers.
The author is a columnist and a freelance journalist, currently pursuing an MSc in international politics with a focus on China from School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He was previously a China media journalist at the BBC World Service. He tweets @aadilbrar. Views are personal.
This is a weekly round-up that Aadil Brar writes about what’s buzzing in China. This will soon be available as a subscribers’-only product.
(Edited by Srinjoy Dey)