Keeping an eye on Communist, Totalitarian China, and its influence both globally, and we as Canadians. I have come to the opinion that we are rarely privy to truth regarding the real goal, the agenda of China, it's ambitions for Canada [including special focus on the UK, US & Australia]. No more can we trust the legacy media as there appears to be increasing censorship applied to the topic of communist China. I ask why. Here is what I find.
The coronavirus crisis has revealed the west’s key strategic dependencies on China, and plans will be announced shortly under Five Eyes auspices for a major increase in production of rare and semi-rare metals from Australia, Canada, and America in order to reduce dependency on Chinese stocks.
Critical minerals, known as rare earth elements, are the key components in a wide range of consumer products including mobile phones, laptops and TVs, and have widespread defence applications in jet engines, satellites, lasers and missiles. On average, China has accounted for more than 90% of the global production and supply of rare earths during the past decade, according to the US Geological Survey.
The potential for an expanding role for the Five Eyes alliance, an intelligence relationship formed in 1941, is part of a growing interest among conservative democratic lawmakers to form a cohesive political and economic alliance to compete with China. The proposals have an added allure for British Conservative MPs looking for deeper trading relationships outside the EU and China. The current Five Eyes members are Australia, the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.
The idea of a Five Eyes free trade bloc has won the backing of Andrew Hastie, chair of the Australian parliament’s joint committee on intelligence and a longterm critic of China.
He told a Henry Jackson Society seminar on decoupling with China that: “once we review our supply chains and establish vulnerabilities – and I trust the other Five Eyes countries will do the same – that will give the basis for an understanding where we can mitigate one another’s weakness and yes there is a potential to build a free trading bloc. We should do everything possible to build out that network.”
The parallel proposal for Japan to become the sixth partner in the intelligence sharing relationship was made by the Japanese defence minister, Tarō Kōno, at a China Research Group seminar last week, and has been welcomed by the Conservative chair of the foreign affairs select committee Tom Tugendhat.
Kōno also said he would welcome the UK joining the new Pacific regional trade grouping the CPTPP partnership.
Tugendhat, who is also the founder of the China Research Group, said that “Five Eyes has been the core of our intelligence and defence architecture for decades. We should look at partners we can trust to deepen our alliances. Japan is an important strategic partner for many reasons and we should be looking at every opportunity to cooperate more closely.”
Kōno said Japan would welcome an invitation to join the Five Eyes grouping.
He warned the growth of the Chinese economy has allowed China to purchase foreign tech companies, adding: “This is a development we must monitor closely. Tech-partnerships with countries like the UK will be critical to countering China, pooling our investments and encouraging our people to study the skill sets needed for our high-tech sectors to grow.”
He added China was attempting to become independent of the US dollar economy through fast money-sending services, the introduction of their own internet, launching a digital renminbi and introducing a Chinese international order.
Kōno in his remarks stressed he was not seeking a military conflict with China, and was instead hoping to provide the Chinese Communist party with the space to cut defence spending, allowing democratic nations to take parallel steps.
Urging caution about economic decoupling, Pascal Lamy, the former World Trade Organization director general, predicted a more autonomous and closed China was likely to prove more dangerous. But he warned: “The west cannot coexist in a free trade relationship with a country that subsidies 30% of its economy. If China is not willing to accept global disciplines on state aid then we have to review a number of trade commitments – whether it is on public procurement or in specific sectors.”
He denied that China had cheated, but had instead exploited a general absence of WTO rules and disciplines, including on state subsidies.
pdated, July 30: Further proof this week that Huawei inhabits two parallel universes, as staggering quarter-two sales in China have propelled the company past Samsung to lead the global market for the first time. This comesdespitedamaging new U.S. sanctions. Huawei’s headline role in the standoff between the U.S. and China has seemed to diminish in recent weeks, but only becauseTikTok has been running interference. In reality, little has changed.
Restricted internationally, Huawei continues to use China to shore up its balance sheet and keep up its overall global sales numbers. The company’s domination at home reached new heights last quarter. Its stunning 46% market share was more than its three local rivals—Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi—managed between them. All three saw year-on-year sales plunge around 30%, while Huawei saw its own share grow 14%.
Such has been the strength of its sales in China, that Huawei has now finally beaten Samsung to the global top spot for a full quarter. The figures
In reality, this worldwide result comes from Samsung’s year-on-year sales decline of 30%, given the impact COVID-19 has had on demand. Huawei surprised many when it first secured the world’s
Market researcher Counterpoint, which published the latest
Huawei has obviously needed its home market to pick up significant slack given the sales slowdown in international markets, where its blacklisted new phones ship without Google and have found it hard to secure a foothold. Google is banned in China—the U.S. blacklist makes no difference to sales. And so quarter-two China sales growth, from a 33% share last year to 46% this year, is what was needed.
This has been a bruising first half to the year for Huawei,
But there may be some unexpected light at the end of this tunnel, with the news this week that Huawei’s dominance of 5G patents might include a few that its rivals can’t live without in key markets where the Chinese giant finds itself excluded.
Behind the headlines, though, there is a serious issue for Huawei in China. It had spent the best part of a decade reducing its reliance on its domestic market, and now those advances have been reversed. Reports that
The double-whammy of the latest U.S. sanctions is that it will hit both 5G equipment and smartphone sales, which account for the vast majority of Huawei’s revenues. The question now for Huawei, remains just how far it can push its dominance at home to compensate for softening sales elsewhere. That decline is impacting 5G sales as well as Google-less phones, making the task significantly harder.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionIndia is building a number of roads and bridges in the Ladakh region
India and China are trying to out-build each other along their disputed Himalayan border.
A new road to a high-altitude Indian forward air base is said to have been one of the main triggers for a clash with Chinese troops last month that left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead.
The 255km (140-mile) Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi (DSDBO) road - which winds through mountain passes up to the world's highest airstrip more than 5,000m above sea level in the Ladakh region - was finished last year after nearly two decades of work. Its completion could increase India's ability to move men and materiel rapidly in a conflict.
The 15 June clash, in Ladakh's Galwan Valley, gave rise to concerns that tensions between the two nuclear powers could boil over. They have never agreed on the exact position of their 3,500km border, and their armies - two of the world's largest - come face-to-face at many points along the rough, inhospitable terrain.
Both India and China have devoted money and manpower to building roads, rail links and airfields along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) - the de facto boundary separating them - as well as modernising their military hardware in the region.
India's recent building work, including the DSDBO road, appears to have infuriated China - but China has been busy building along the border for years. Both sides tend to view the other's construction efforts as calculated moves to gain tactical advantage, and tensions flare when either announces a major project.
In the summer of 2017, the neighbours were brought to a stand-off at Doklam plateau, far to the east of Ladakh. That confrontation was also over construction - this time China attempting to extend a border road near a tri-junction between India, China and Bhutan.
India plays catch-up
The completion of the DSDBO road, which connects the crucial Daulat Beg Oldi airstrip - put back in use in 2008 - to the regional capital Leh, has strengthened India's ability to move equipment quickly. The all-weather road lies about 20km from the Karakoram Pass and runs parallel to the LAC in eastern Ladakh.
India has long stationed men at Daulat Beg Oldi but, before the reactivation of the airstrip and the completion of the road, the men there could get supplies only through helicopter drops, and nothing could be removed, turning the airstrip into a "graveyard for equipment".
Additional roads and bridges are now being built to link the road with inland supply bases and border outposts on the LAC, enabling Indian patrols to go further forward and shifting the tactical dynamics in the area.
Image copyrightINDIAN AIR FORCE/TWITTERImage captionIndia has landed heavy transport planes at the world's highest airstrip, Daulat Beg Oldi
Despite the recent clashes, India has signalled that it will continue improving its infrastructure. It is in the process of moving 12,000 workers from its eastern state of Jharkhand to build roads along the border in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, all areas which border China.
After years of letting its infrastructure fall into neglect, India is frantically trying to develop its borderlands to neutralise China's logistical advantage. It has begun a vast road and railway construction programme in the region.
A total of 73 strategic roads and 125 bridges have been sanctioned along different sectors on the Indian side of the LAC. But progress has been slow. Only 35 roads have been finished so far - key among them are Ghatibagarh-Lipulekh in Uttarakhand state and Damping-Yangtze in Arunachal Pradesh. Another 11 are scheduled to be built by the end of this year.
Delhi has also approved nine "strategic" rail lines - including the Missamari-Tenga-Tawang and the Bilaspur-Mandi-Manali-Leh sections. These run along the border with China and would allow the Indian military to carry heavy armour into position.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionIndia has expedited the construction of roads along its border with China
In terms of aviation facilities, India has about 25 airfields along the LAC but its recent focus has been on expanding its network of Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs).
In 2018, India announced that it would modernise eight existing ALGs and also develop seven new ones close to the border. Sukhoi-30 advanced fighter jets and Chetak helicopters are deployed at Chabua - a key Indian Air Force base located in the state of Assam, along the eastern section of the border with China. That base has been recently renovated and modernised.
INTERACTIVEIndia is continuing to expand capacity at the Chabua Air Force Station in Assam, close to its disputed territory with China near Arunachal Pradesh
9 July 2020
Although improved in recent years, India's building efforts continue to be hampered by rugged terrain, land acquisition problems, bureaucratic delays and budget constraints.
And it has a lot of catching up to do.
China's head-start
China has been putting its renowned construction abilities to use in recent years by building a network of air bases, cantonments and other physical infrastructure along the frontier.
Beijing began building roads in the Himalayan region as early as the 1950s, and now has an extensive road and rail network in Tibet and Yunnan Province.
Since 2016, China has upped the stakes by increasing connectivity to areas near its boundary with India, Bhutan and Nepal.
It is working on linking the old Xinjiang-Tibet Road to National Highway G219, which runs along almost the entire China-India border. A concrete road between Medog and Zayu near India's Arunachal Pradesh state - which China claims - will be completed by the end of this year.
There is also a new rail line under construction connecting Shigatse - the second largest city in Tibet - to Chengdu via Nyingchi, close to the Indian border.
Another rail link is planned between Shigatse and Yadong, a trading centre next to
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionChina has built high-speed rail lines in Tibet despite the treacherous terrain
China has around a dozen airfields facing India, with five of them being dual-use airports in Tibet, meaning for both civilian and military purposes.
It is building three new airports there and upgrading Shigatse, Ngari Gunsa and Lhasa's all-weather Gonggar airport by adding underground shelters and new runways.
A surface-to-air missile battery and advanced fighter jets are reportedly deployed at Ngari Gunsa airfield, which is located 4,274m (14,022) feet above sea level, about 200km from Pangong Lake.
INTERACTIVEThe high altitude Ngari Gunsa airfield has received a significant upgrade in recent months with the construction of new taxiway and parking ramps.
2 July 2020
In terms of air power, military experts say India has a relative advantage, as China's bases are generally further from the LAC and at higher altitudes, where the thinner air means jets can carry less fuel and payload.
Suspicions over border infrastructure
These infrastructure improvements on both sides are designed with one primary purpose - to allow the fast movement of troops and military hardware to the border in case of a full-scale conflict.
"When these ambitious infrastructure projects eventually are completed, large numbers of Indian forces will be able to move more freely within certain critical sub-theatres without fear of being crippled or physically blocked," noted a 2019 study by the Centre for a New American Security.
India long held back from extensive development, believing that improving infrastructure on its side of the border would facilitate Chinese movement inside Indian territory in the event of a conflict. But it is moving away from that reasoning.
The two countries have fought only one war, in 1962, when India suffered a humiliating defeat.
Image copyrightCHINA MINISTY ONLINEImage captionChina showcased its logistics capability during a recent military drill
Rajeswari Pillai, a fellow at Observer Research Foundation, described India's infrastructure building as "primarily a defensive response because China's infrastructure represents a threat, as it can permit the Chinese army to engage in offensive operations and allows it to rapidly concentrate forces at any point where there is a dispute".
"India's poor infrastructure has meant that it has always had difficulties in defending against China's encroachments," Ms Pillai said.
China denies encroaching, as does India when it is accused of stepping over the line. Several rounds of talks in the last three decades have failed to resolve the boundary disputes.
Meanwhile, Chinese state media has highlighted how quickly the military was able to mobilise for a recent drill near the India border using their efficient transport networks.
"The scale and short time it took to finish the mobilisation showed the army has the capability to project its power anywhere in China very quickly and send reinforcements to remote locations, including high elevation," an unnamed Chinese army veteran told the state-run Global Times.
As vast numbers of new roads, railways and bridges appear on both sides of the border, there is plenty of scope for more face-offs between Indian and Chinese troops in the future.
