Update: China’s New Silk Road Fund Bumped Up to US$40 Billion
An earlier post cited Bloomberg that China would provide 100 billion RMB (US$16.3 billion) toward the New Silk Road fund for infrastructure development along both land and sea routes of the millennia old silk road. Now, Xinhua corrects that China will actually contribute US$40 billion, nearly 2 1/2 times the previous figure.
China will contribute $40 billion to set up a Silk Road infrastructure fund to boost connectivity across Asia, President Xi Jinping announced on Saturday, the latest Chinese project to spread the largesse of its own economic growth.
The fund will be for investing in infrastructure, resources and industrial and financial cooperation, among other projects, Xi said, according to Xinhua.
The goal of the fund is to “break the connectivity bottleneck” in Asia, state media quoted Xi as saying during a meeting in Beijing with leaders from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan and Tajikistan.
The Silk Road Fund will be “open” and welcome investors from Asia and beyond to “actively” take part in the project, Xi was cited as saying, ahead of a separate summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping, also being held in the Chinese capital.
Xinhua said it would focus on China’s Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiative, which aim to build roads, railways, ports and airports across Central Asia and South Asia.
“Such a framework accommodates the needs of various countries and covers both land and sea-related projects,” Xi said, adding China is ready to welcome its neighbors “to get on board the train of China’s development.”
– Reuters
Queen’s Professor: Stop Demonizing China
Further to the post on the TDSB’s recent cancellation of its hook-up with the Confucius Institute, here’s a compelling commentary by James Miller, Professor of Chinese Religions at Queen’s University. Bravo Professor Miller!
China’s Confucius Institutes provide money and personnel to enable people across the world to learn Chinese and to learn about the Chinese world. Their astonishing success proves that Canadians have an immense hunger to learn about China.
But the demonization of China is a shameful, toxic flaw that runs deep in Canadian history and culture. It prevents rational discussion about Chinese culture, religion and politics. It prevents sensible engagement with the Confucius Institute program. It shamefully hinders the engagement of Chinese Canadians in our civic life, for who would dare subject themselves to the same treatment that Olivia Chow received?
In the end the only victims will be our children who will simply learn to repeat the same flaws and failures of their parents.
France to Help China Hunt Corrupt Officials
Further to a previous post urging Canada to sign an extradition treaty with China and applauding Australia’s recent decision to help Chinese graft busters prioritize the apprehension and extradition of fugitives and seizing their assets in Australia, France has joined the fight against Chinese criminals hiding their families and assets in that country. An extradition treaty with France is awaiting ratification by the French parliament.
The French government will assist the Chinese judiciary by confiscating the illegal assets many corrupt officials have transferred to France, a senior official from the French Ministry of Justice has said. France and China will share the seized funds.
Robert Gelli, director of the criminal affairs Department of the French Ministry of Justice, said that in the following weeks the ministry will strengthen cooperation with its Chinese counterparts to track down corrupt Chinese officials and uncover their transferred funds.
“We will try to locate the ill-gotten funds that Chinese corrupt officials sent to France and take immediate actions to freeze them, such as houses, cars and bank savings and other investments,” Gelli said.
“In addition, for each individual case, we will negotiate with our Chinese counterparts to share the seized funds in a proper proportion,” he said.
In recent years, a number of economic fugitives, including many corrupt officials, have fled to the United Sates, Canada, Australia and European countries such as the Netherlands and France, to avoid Chinese judicial authorities.
Celine Guillet, a senior official from the criminal affairs department of the French Ministry of Justice, said that although a Sino-French bilateral extradition treaty is still waiting for approval by the French Parliament, the two sides will enhance judicial cooperation to nab fugitives and uncover their illegal assets in accordance with mutual legal assistance in criminal matters and other reciprocity regulations.
The judiciary in the US, Japan and Singapore have agreements with other countries to share seized ill-gotten funds and China will sign a formal agreement with Canada to return and share seized assets, he said.
Last month, China and Australia agreed to enhance judicial cooperation on extradition of corrupt officials, according to the Ministry of Public Security.
Australian judicial authorities have a priority list of 100 suspected Chinese economic fugitives and they will conduct joint operations within weeks, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
By the end of August, China had signed 51 mutual legal assistance agreements for criminal matters and 39 bilateral extradition treaties, according to the Ministry of Justice.
– China Daily
Protests Wreak Havoc on Hong Kong’s Economy: HSBC PMI
In spite of Western media reports trying to prop up the students and insisting their protests exert minimal negative impact on the Hong Kong economy, here is evidence sharply to the contrary. Hardly surprising!
Activity in Hong Kong’s private sector fell by its biggest margin in three years in October, a private survey showed on Wednesday, offering a first glimpse of the impact pro-democracy protests are having on the economy and signalling a further slowdown.
The monthly Purchasing Managers’ index (PMI) in Hong Kong’s private sector compiled by HSBC/Markit fell to 47.7 in October — its strongest pace of deterioration in operating conditions since September 2011 — from 49.8 a month ago.
Sub-indices measuring new orders and output led the decline with a number of companies surveyed attributing the drop to recent political protests that have blocked key roads and hurt business activity for more than a month.
“The slowdown in economic activity in Hong Kong deepened in October as orders and output fell at an accelerated pace,” John Zhu, HSBC’s economist in Asia, said.
A reading above 50 in the business survey indicates an expansion in activity while one below that threshold points to a contraction.
The dismal data is the first set of figures that factor in the impact of pro-democracy protests that have rocked the former British colony.
– Reuters
Chinese Media Face Similar Challenges of Their Foreign Counterparts
This is an interesting article that rather than simply blasting traditional Chinese state media as mouth-pieces of the Communist Party, it reports they face online, financial, and censorship challenges like any other. There are give and takes between them and the government and business bottom lines are unrelenting.
China’s state-controlled media is not being spared the new media challenges facing its Western counterparts, as publications contend with financial challenges and government influence.
An explosion of traditional and online media outlets – all controlled by the government – has flooded the largest media market in the world.
But Chu Xiaoling, deputy chief editor of the Beijing Daily Group, said newspapers were still under pressure to make money and were feeling the pinch of online media.
“We still don’t have a big audience in new media – maybe just five percent of our total readership – but we have seen a 15 to 20 per cent decline in advertising revenue,” she said.
“Right now, our newspapers rely heavily on traditional print advertising revenue [and] advertising in digital media so far isn’t enough to cover our costs.
“We do use social media such as WeChat and Weibo to promote our stories, but we’re yet to see the impact of that and we don’t charge for our online content.”
Despite the financial challenges, the growth in China’s media has also seen a boom in students studying journalism.
Yang Ying, a student at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, said there were financial challenges for those considering entering the media as well.
“The working environment for journalists is quite tough and the pay is not very high,” she said.
“If you want to be a journalist, you have to be a dreamer or something like that.
“There are also restrictions on media in China sometimes.”
Censorship issues affecting current and prospective journalists
With the government controlling all traditional media in China, both current and prospective journalists also feel those restrictions.
Ms Chu said the Beijing Daily Group was in constant contact with government officials regarding the content of the paper.
“From time to time, they may ask us not to publish certain news, but at the end of the day, it’s up to the editor-in-chief,” she said.
“When we cover important issues, we might present those stories to government officials for accuracy and clarification because our newspapers are led by China’s Communist Party.
“We don’t tend to do that with cultural or social stories though.”
Journalism students say the emergence of new media is allowing more access to information and freedom of communication.
Liu Moxiao said all journalists around the world face pressure from the government over their reporting – not just those in China.
“[But] especially nowadays, China’s investigative reporting is thriving and we have many famous investigative reporters who have unveiled big news,” she said.
“China is a big market – it is too big [with] too many news stories, and there are many bad news stories.
“I think journalists are watchdogs all around the world.”
– ABC (Australia)