USA sanctions companies connected to BRI
ICC gets complaint from Uighur Organisations
Kazakhstan increases export to China ____________________________________
The Diplomat
Tags: USA China sanctions BRI
The USA continued to hit Chinese companies with sanctions with the addition of another 24 firms to the Entity List, which prohibits US companies from doing business with sanctioned companies. This round of sanctions seems particularly set against the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC). The CCCC is a huge Chinese state-owned company that did the dredging on the construction of the artificial South Sea Islands, amongst other big operations. It is also a company that does a lot of work on BRI projects. While the sanctions aren’t expected to be able to stop other countries working with the CCCC (they have projects from Sri Lanka to Italy and Hungary), it is anticipated to make things more challenging to do business with the CCCC. This potentially has the knock-on effect of causing other actors to reconsider partnerships with Chinese firms. Comment: More of the drip drip of sanctions against Chinese companies by the USA. Key Quote: “The sanctions have “various aims, including, of course, to impose costs on bad actors and to encourage all sorts of parties and institutions and governments around the world to assess the risk and reconsider business deals with the sort of predatory Chinese state-owned enterprises we have identified here,” a senior State Department official told the Washington Post.” USA senior State Department official “The PRC must not be allowed to use CCCC and other state-owned enterprises as weapons to impose an expansionist agenda.” Mike Pompeo Connected: ‘US sanctions China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative
US Imposes Sanctions on China's Belt and Road Initiative ________________________________________________________
NBC News
Tags: Uigyurs China Xinjiang human rights
Two Uigyur organisations have lodged a complaint at the International Criminal Court against the Chinese government. The complaint consists of accusing high ranking officials of crimes against humanity, torture and genocide. While the USA and China do not recognise the ICC, it does have 133 members and the hope from the complainants is that the case renders reputational damage to the CCP. The article has interviews with two of the people, among many, who the complaint is based on, detailing alleged torture and imprisonment that echo other accounts from people caught up in the ‘reeducation camps’. Key Quote: “In his witness testimony that was lodged with the ICC, Bekali stated that “the death of one person in the United States shakes up the entire world, however in East Turkistan, thousands of innocent Uighur and Kazakh youths are being chained up with black bags over their heads.”
Connected: Uyghur rights activist Arslan Hidayet on the lack of international support and solidarity with Uyghur Muslims Big Brother vs China’s Uighurs Xinjiang: Facts and Fiction Geopolitical Hotspot: Xinjiang and the Uighur Internment Camps ________________________________________________________
Trend News Agency Tags: Covid China Kazakhstan Trade Behind a paywall is a piece detailing increasing exports from Kazakhstan to China, despite the restrictions of COVID.
Connected: Nursultan Nazarbayev meets with Chinese FM
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The Diplomat
Tags: Central Asia China Covid Geopolitics An update on border openings in Central Asia, detailing a slow reopening to the crisis-hit region. Key Quote: “The only thing that’s clear is that the situation is liable to continue shifting. Regional governments surely wish tourism could resume alongside other economic activity, including the flow of migrant workers.” Connected: Live COVID-19 updates: Kazakhstan, Russia sign deal on procurement of "Sputnik V" vaccine
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The Diplomat
Tags: Central Asia China USA BRI
Analyses the BRI as an incoherent mess of non-joined up initiatives that are incapable of adapting to shifting situations. It uses India as a case study to demonstrate both the inflexibility and the inability of the CCP to alter the BRI when situations arise that is cannot deal with. Comment: One of a rising number of pieces that push back against the claims that the BRI is a strategic masterplan, but rather a posthoc tag for uncoordinated actions. Key Quote: “China’s development financing system is too fragmented and poorly coordinated to pursue detailed strategic objectives.” Jones and Hameiri
“Edward Luttwak has famously described China as an “autistic power,” where “decisions on foreign affairs are almost always made on the basis of highly simplified, schematic representations of unamenable complex realities …” Its failure to rope India into the BRI illustrates the moniker.” Connected: Proving China’s hegemonic ambitions
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