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Finbarr Bermingham Profile picture
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Feb 16 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
A really interesting look at what Chinese experts think re Ukraine by my colleague Amber Wang.

Echoes much of the thinking I've heard in Europe this week, where most experts / officials think China does not want war, cos it's bad for business...

scmp.com/news/china/dip…
Zhang Tuosheng, military researcher, says it would make US relationship "more difficult" and "China-EU relations would also be very troublesome... as they're all watching what stance China will take.”

China would "pay the price of a war" because of the effects on global economy
Respected state council adviser @ Renmin Uni Shi Yinhong said war would mean" the US will have to reduce its attention and resources to China in the Indo-Pacific"

But war would "radicalise world politics and "doom" China to an arms race.
“Taiwan is not Ukraine,” said Wang Jianmin, an expert in Taiwanese affairs at Minnan U in Fujian.

But China is closely watching US involvement in Ukraine – “including the degree its allies are involved and the weapons mobilised, which will all be references for us to study”.

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More from @fbermingham

Finbarr Bermingham Profile picture
Feb 16
NEW: The World Bank has been accused of “funding a campaign of repression” of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang

New report details almost half a billion dollars lent to companies with deep links to forced labour and other rights abuses

scmp.com/news/china/dip…
Report published by Atlantic Council details lending as recently as 2020 to 4 Chinese companies who "directly participated in":

• state-sponsored forced labor programs,
• compulsory land expropriation,
• programs that require minoritized citizens to take oaths to the CCP Image
The World Bank's International Finance Corporation is one development finance institute with links to Xinjiang.

Others include Asian Development Bank, European Investment Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Dutch and German state-owned DFIs ImageImage
Read 12 tweets
Finbarr Bermingham Profile picture
Feb 10
🚨SCOOP 🚨

As well as beef, China has also banned dairy and alcohol products from Lithuania, claiming Vilnius has not met compliance requirements for beef and dairy.

Claims Lithuanian companies "arbitrarily" tampered with beer labelling

scmp.com/economy/china-…
Letter from Chinese customs to Lithuania’s State Food and Veterinary Services says Lithuanian beer companies "arbitrarily change production date & expiry date", accused of "counterfeiting"

"Lithuanian authorities don't pay attention to it which makes this risk more serious” ImageImage
Formalises an unofficial ban on certain products which had been in place since late last year.

In December 2021, there were zero imports of dairy, beef or alcohol products from Lithuania, per Chinese customs stats.

There wasn't a huge amount in first place, but all gone now
Read 5 tweets
Finbarr Bermingham Profile picture
Jan 28
German far right MEP @KrahMax gave an interview to Chinese state news portal Guancha.cn, a few excerpts below, run through translate.

The broad takeaway, "the more liberal a party is in the sense of “woke”, the more it is anti-China."

m.guancha.cn/MaximilianKrah…
On "woke" politics and the deterioration in Western-Chinese relations...
On the CAI and complaints over perceived US hijacking of the investment deal

"When the United States competes with China and Russia, it needs Europe to be its sidekick, so the Americans have mobilized their own network of relationships."
Read 7 tweets
Finbarr Bermingham Profile picture
Jan 27
As we reported last night the EU has now filed its WTO case vs China.

Details in this thread, but here's the letter the EU sent to China's WTO ambassador to request the consultation ImageImageImageImage
At a press conference this morning, EU trade commissioner Dombrovskis says that the WTO case will be dropped if China responds positively to requests to drop the coercion
He is hopeful that the anti-coercion instrument's legislative process can be concluded this year under the French and Czech presidencies of the EU
Read 9 tweets
Finbarr Bermingham Profile picture
Jan 26
NEW!

EU to imminently launch WTO case against China over economic coercion campaign against Lithuania

scmp.com/news/china/dip…
EU spent the past month interviewing Lithuanian businesses who had been blocked from Chinese market, after the government in Vilnius permitted the opening of a "Taiwanese Representative Office" in the capital.

EU feels it has gathered enough evidence to make a case in Geneva.
A request for consultation will be lodged. China may or may not enter bilateral talks with Brussels. It will then go to a dispute settlement panel

Both parties are signatories to the MPIA, alternative to the defunct appellate body, so this one can't be appealed into the void.
Read 18 tweets
Finbarr Bermingham Profile picture
Jan 25
EU DG trade @WeyandSabine has just presented to the @EP_Trade committee on a proposed forced labour ban, which would of course have serious impact on China, given issues in Xinjiang.

Some takeaways 🧵
Weyand and EC seem keen to avoid the US model, which combines product-based bans with origin bans.

So in the case of Xinjiang, cotton products linked to Xinjiang, and also just Xinjiang products in general.

scmp.com/news/china/art…
She described this as "ineffective".

The "rebuttable assumption" places "a heavy burden" on the importer, which has to prove that it has no traces of forced labour in any product it imports that may have connection to the region and its cotton + other goods
Read 18 tweets

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