1-10-18 China’s strategy to re-establish its hegemony over North Korea has two main components. The first component is reminding North Korean regime officials of their country’s dependency on China. Even though China accounts for 90 percent of North Korea’s external trade, Pyongyang has become increasingly critical of China’s conduct toward North Korea.
As a result of its discontent with China, North Korea has pivoted strongly toward Russia as an alternative partner. In February 2017, the North Korean government named Russia as its leading international ally. Russia has also violated UN sanctions against North Korea by supplying vital raw materials to the Kim regime.
Despite the strengthening of Moscow’s ties with Pyongyang, Chinese policymakers believe that Kim Jong-un has overestimated Russia’s willingness to provide economic assistance to North Korea. By imposing economic sanctions on North Korea, China is pressuring Pyongyang to ask Russia for increased financial assistance. If Russia fails to comply with North Korea’s financial aid demands, Kim will need to improve North Korea’s relationship with China on Beijing’s terms to ensure his regime survives.
China’s belief that economic coercion will convince North Korea to settle its disputes with Beijing and become a reliable Chinese client state is rooted in historical experience. During the early 1990s, the China-North Korea alliance experienced a major rupture, after Beijing established formal diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992. In response to China’s actions, North Korea attempted to pivot toward Russia. These efforts failed as economic turmoil in Russia prevented Boris Yeltsin from providing large-scale economic aid to North Korea. This experience suggests that North Korea’s ability to defy China is much more limited than the Kim regime’s rhetoric would suggest.
The second component of China’s strategy to re-establish its hegemony over North Korea is to raise the costs of aggression that undermines China’s strategic interests....China dispatched Song Tao, the head of the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, to North Korea on November 16, in order to convince Pyongyang to respect China’s strategic interests and moderate its bellicose foreign policy. As the prospect of a complete Chinese oil embargo against North Korea looms heavily on the horizon, Beijing is operating under the assumption that North Korea will accept Chinese hegemony before drastic punitive measures take effect. https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/chinas-approach-to-north-korea-sanctions/
Despite the strengthening of Moscow’s ties with Pyongyang, Chinese policymakers believe that Kim Jong-un has overestimated Russia’s willingness to provide economic assistance to North Korea. By imposing economic sanctions on North Korea, China is pressuring Pyongyang to ask Russia for increased financial assistance. If Russia fails to comply with North Korea’s financial aid demands, Kim will need to improve North Korea’s relationship with China on Beijing’s terms to ensure his regime survives.
China’s belief that economic coercion will convince North Korea to settle its disputes with Beijing and become a reliable Chinese client state is rooted in historical experience. During the early 1990s, the China-North Korea alliance experienced a major rupture, after Beijing established formal diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992. In response to China’s actions, North Korea attempted to pivot toward Russia. These efforts failed as economic turmoil in Russia prevented Boris Yeltsin from providing large-scale economic aid to North Korea. This experience suggests that North Korea’s ability to defy China is much more limited than the Kim regime’s rhetoric would suggest.
The second component of China’s strategy to re-establish its hegemony over North Korea is to raise the costs of aggression that undermines China’s strategic interests....China dispatched Song Tao, the head of the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, to North Korea on November 16, in order to convince Pyongyang to respect China’s strategic interests and moderate its bellicose foreign policy. As the prospect of a complete Chinese oil embargo against North Korea looms heavily on the horizon, Beijing is operating under the assumption that North Korea will accept Chinese hegemony before drastic punitive measures take effect. https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/chinas-approach-to-north-korea-sanctions/
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10-11-17 One major finding from the study: China and the US, the world's biggest donor, have handed out similar amounts of money in the years covered in the database, but the countries distribute that money in radically different ways.
The vast majority (93%) of US financial aid fits under the traditional definition of aid that's agreed upon by all Western industrialised countries. That aid is given with the main goal of developing the economic development and welfare of recipient countries. At least a quarter of that money represents a direct grant, not a loan that needs to be repaid.
In contrast, only a small portion (21%) of the money that China gives to other countries can be considered as traditional aid. And the rest of that money? The "lion's share" of that money is given in commercial loans that have to be repaid to Beijing with interest. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-41564841
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4-3-17 Yet appearances are deceptive. Beijing and Moscow have shown no capacity to cooperate on grand strategy or establish new international norms. This is no authoritarian alliance but a partnership of strategic convenience – pragmatic, calculating and constrained. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/wary-embrace
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4-21-17 Lo (in the article just above) is certainly right to say that the most dynamic factor in this relationship is the growing imbalance in aggregated power between Russia and China, whereby China is outstripping Russia in most if not all indices of power and capability. He argues that this dynamism and the consequences that ensue from it are placing the relationship under ever-increasing stress. Thus he sees it as a tactical rather than principled relationship or partnership, and dismisses, as do most writers, the idea of an actual alliance appearing anytime soon. -Dr. Blank https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/despite-encroachments-china-still-russia-s-preferred-partner
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2-5-15 China launched a secret 100-year modernization program that deceived successive U.S. administrations into unknowingly promoting Beijing’s strategy of replacing the U.S.-led world order with a Chinese communist-dominated economic and political system, according to a new book by a longtime Pentagon China specialist.
For more than four decades, Chinese leaders lulled presidents, cabinet secretaries, and other government analysts and policymakers into falsely assessing China as a benign power deserving of U.S. support, says Michael Pillsbury, the Mandarin-speaking analyst who has worked on China policy and intelligence issues for every U.S. administration since Richard Nixon.
The secret strategy, based on ancient Chinese statecraft, produced a large-scale transfer of cash, technology, and expertise that bolstered military and Communist Party "superhawks" in China who are now taking steps to catch up to and ultimately surpass the United States, Pillsbury concludes in a book published this week....
Communist super-hawks in the military and senior Party leadership (post-Tiananmen Square protest of 1989) managed to defeat and ultimately arrest senior Party officials who supported the pro-democracy reform. The book also provides the following new disclosures on China’s strategy toward the United States:
- Chinese hardliners promoted the book of Col. Liu Mingfu, "The China Dream" that is the inspiration behind current Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s increasingly Maoist policies. Other writings by hawks reveal a future China-dominated world will that values "order over freedom, ethics over law and elite governance over democracy and human rights."
- U.S. intelligence agencies for decades underestimated the influence of Chinese hawks and continue to dismiss their power and influence as "fringe" elements.
- Intelligence assessments in the late 1980s failed to recognize the pro-democracy sentiment inside the ruling Politburo was strong until it was crushed after the 1989 crackdown on dissent.
- After Tiananmen, China’s government created a false history to hide its past covert cooperation with the United States.
- China’s "assassin’s mace" weapons--missiles and other exotic arms--are being built to defeat satellites and knock out aircraft carriers, using high-tech arms, including electromagnetic pulse weapons. http://freebeacon.com/national-security/chinas-secret-strategy-exposed/
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11-14-17
A question was raised on Georgia’s NATO cooperation and how it adapted to Turkey’s role in the region. According to Minister Dolidze, they have adapted well and coordinated effectively with NATO. The minister emphasized that Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia’s trilateral relationship built the basis for the modern Black Sea situation. …
Generally, Bulgaria’s intentions are aimed at maintaining the status quo, as the government is extremely weary of undertaking any security efforts independent of support from NATO or the Black Sea community. In order to align more closely with NATO, Bulgaria needs to modernize and de-Russify its military, replacing engine refurbishment efforts with Russia with analogous efforts in Poland, replacing Russian jets with other foreign jets, and the modernization of the Bulgarian flotilla. For these endeavors to be successful, Ms. Assenova argued that the Bulgarian defense budget must increase substantially, and profound cooperation between NATO, Georgia, Ukraine, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania must occur.
The roundtable then shifted focus to Black Sea security being one of the top priorities for Bulgaria. It was suggested that Bulgaria remained committed to NATO obligations; however, they emphasized the need to avoid abrupt change and act with caution, as the stakes were slightly higher for Bulgaria due to the 500,000 Russians in the region, Bulgarian investment, capital, and tourism are contingent on these Russians.
A Turkish participant emphasized the country’s status as a committed NATO ally and its plans to reestablish a Turkish influence in the Black Sea within the constraints of its current political climate. Turkey’s Black Sea influence is not static. According to Turkish representatives, there is strong Turkish support for China’s Belt Road and Initiative (BRI), and they hope China and India can begin to trade in the region.
http://www.silkroadstudies.org/silkroadstudies-news/itemlist/tag/Ukraine.html
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11-1-17 BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese President Xi Jinping's pledge to build a "world-class army" by 2050 is making his neighbours nervous, but analysts say Beijing's military ambitions do not constitute a strategic threat - for now.
With purchases and construction of fighter jets, ships and hi-tech weaponry, China's military budget has grown steadily for 30 years, but remains three times smaller than that of the United States. Now Beijing wants to catch up. http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/as-china-aims-for-world-class-army-asia-starts-to-worry
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5-20-16 Beijing has pledged to transform the mainland into a global powerhouse in innovation by 2050.
According to Xinhua, the Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council published a guideline for innovation in the world’s second-largest economy, a blueprint that adds weight to the leadership’s push to develop a growth model based on quality, rather than quantity.
The mainland has recorded breakneck economic growth in the past two decades, buoyed by huge fixed-asset investment and exports of low-value-added goods such as toys and furniture. ...It aims to be among “the front-runner countries in innovation” by 2030 before going on to become a global leader two decades later.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1947968/beijing-aims-lead-world-innovation-2050
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5-19-16 Under a scheme unveiled on Wednesday, the Chinese central government will give half of the money arising from any breakthroughs at state-linked institutions and universities to the team members themselves. Previously, the benefits flowed to the organisations.
The new profit-sharing arrangement, announced by the Ministry of Science and Technology, is part of a wider push to shake up research on the mainland and turn it into a pillar of the economy. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1947190/spur-innovation-beijing-offers-state-backed-researchers
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