Saw this interview with Liu Zongyi on why China does not open up to Indian generics. guancha.cn/liuzongyi/2023…

Reading this left me rather annoyed. Such deep-seated envy with an Indian success story, which has benefitted the world & offers an easy win-win for India-China ties. I'm only focussing on the part of the interview dealing with his view on India's generics industry & not his comments on India's vaccine diplomacy. There are problems I have with the latter bit too, but that's for another day.

Interesting story.. economist.com/finance-and-ec… ...Baosight, Maxscend, Sangfor, Supcon or YoueData. Many are listed in Shanghai or Shenzhen, not New York and Hong Kong. They are a mix of state and private firms, but almost all are close to the government. And they are working to upgrade China’s industrial infrastructure

So, here's the Chinese readout of the Wang Yi-Blinken call. Not unexpected that the first chunk is dedicated to bilateral ties, specifically Taiwan, given recent visits, including Pompeo's. mfa.gov.cn/wjbzhd/202203/… Wang said China had not wanted to see the Ukraine crisis escalate to the current situation. He hopes 战火 (Global Times translates this as "crossfire") can be stopped asap and the situation can be eased so as to prevent large scale humanitarian crisis. globaltimes.cn/page/202203/12…

There has been a marked a shift in the discourse around India in Chinese media and in terms of actions like this that shape public consciousness. Here are some examples.

https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1488719319588814850

Let's go back to the Doklam standoff of 2017. I did a detailed study of the narrative from the Chinese side. To me this was an inflection point. nationalinterest.in/the-doklam-epi…

Xinhua reports that there was a Politburo meeting today. It talked about economy in 2022 and anti-corruption tasks. Here's what the readout says: news.cn/english/2021-1…

Chinese readout: news.cn/politics/leade… "economic work to be carried out in a solid manner under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on..., and for the COVID-19 response to be coordinated with economic development while improving the well-being of the people." -- So no easing of COVID policies it seems.

India's External Affairs Minister's comments at the 5th Indian Ocean Conference. mea.gov.in/Speeches-State…

He says: US policy "moving towards greater realism both about itself and the world."... "This makes it a more active partner beyond orthodox constructs" - He calls China a "‘different’ kind of polity;" talks about its "centrality to the global economy"--

"Agreements and understandings of yesteryears now seem to have some question marks."

-- All this necessitates a "multipolar Asia"

🧵-- So, there was a religious affairs work conference this week in Beijing. Here's the English readout after the conference. news.cn/english/2021-1… On Friday, People's Daily had published a review of religious affairs work. You can see the breakdown here:
trackingpeoplesdaily.substack.com/p/religious-wo…

I agree with so much in this piece; I've been arguing for a while that there is a deep sense of confidence -particularly since the pandemic - that appears to be driving Xi's policies. foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/… For instance, here's something I'd written earlier this year. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/whats-be…

This speech from the Chinese ambassador to India is really interesting. Some rough notes/thoughts on the speech in this🧵 First, the amb. tells us that India should not view relations with China from a realist prism. This is a "Western" concept. This then leads to a slippery orientalist argument of peace and harmony.

Long week, in which I missed checking out the EU's Indo-Pacific strategy and SOTU.

So doing a thread with the details that I found noteworthy:
ec.europa.eu/commission/pre… The IP Strategy document says that "current dynamics in the Indo-Pacific have given rise to intense geopolitical competition adding to increasing tensions on trade and supply chains as well as in technological, political and security areas...

Putting together a threat with interesting AUKUS reads

1. @sstrangio in The Diplomat on what this means for East Asia, ASEAN's centrality and balancing efforts. thediplomat.com/2021/09/what-d… 2. In SCMP: AUKUS implies "Anglosphere will take precedence over transatlantic alliances in dealing with China, said Wang Yiwei, a European affairs specialists with Renmin University of China."... scmp.com/news/china/dip…

What I've understood so far about China's tech shake-up. Very tentative about all this; so want to hear more.

First, no one sweeping explanation suffices for the different set of actions that've been taken. Party control enhancement is a given as an objective. But there's more. Second, systemic risk was an important part of fintech action; there were rules that were being framed and negotiation was underway on those. Of course that's not saying there was nothing personal about what happened with Ant.

There has been significant outreach by Beijing in the past two weeks with regard to the pandemic. Detailing the developments here with a few thoughts on what the Indian government should be doing given the gravity of the crisis that we face. First, we saw two comments by the foreign ministry spokesperson. Wang Wenbin said "We stand ready to provide India with necessary support and assistance." thehindu.com/news/internati…

A longish thread about the new @USCC_GOV report on China. So far, I’ve managed to go through the summaries of all chapters. Much more to tuck into. But a short take is that it’s very clear-sighted yet not necessarily really introspective. Anyway, here's some points. The report captures the strategic shift, i.e., that China is an "unprecedented economic rival" and "growing military threat." And that Beijing views competition with US from an ideological lens.

Really good interview of the foreign minister by @suhasinih Thought the questions were really sharp.

thehindu.com/news/national/… On quad: "I think we look at it as a positive agenda, a diplomatic mechanism, as a diplomatic platform, if you will, with a certain agreed agenda, which is, you know, issues like maritime security, connectivity, counter-terrorism, whatever we have agreed on..."

Thread: There’s been talk about the abrogation of Article 370 being responsible for the current standoff at the LAC. So in this thread, I am going back to my newsletter's coverage to examine Chinese views and India-China engagement on boundary issues since Aug. 5. My objective is to shed some light on the debate looking at official statements and reportage. My view based on this is that Beijing had concerns but clearly understand the practical implications of the Art. 370 decision, i.e., it didn't change the ground situation. Here goes:

Shared some thoughts with @smitha_tk in this report on the Chinese media's coverage of events so far.

Just to add to the points that I've mentioned here.

https://twitter.com/TheQuint/status/1273268858514821121

If it wasn't clear earlier to people in India, now it should be. The argument that the Chinese side initiated this standoff in April-May because it wanted to stoke nationalism and divert attention from domestic issues does not stand scrutiny.

Very few people in India read Chinese news. Can be very inaccessible. So I'm starting something new. I'll do a daily thread on People's Daily, using translations. That might make it more accessible & better inform debate. So here goes Sunday's edition.

Feedback is welcome. Page 1: A piece on HK’s natsec law. The argument is that US criticism shows double standards, i.e., it isn’t about HK but about “hegemonism.” Also natsec laws are mandates of national legislatures + when US could change laws after 9/11, why can’t China? paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2020…

A quick thread on #BRI in the post-Covid world. There’s lot of talk about debt renegotiation, strategic takeovers and project failures and so on. So putting a few thoughts together. Happy to hear other views. (1/n) BRI is more than the sum of its parts. It’s a mistake to simply limit BRI with infrastructure or construction projects in third countries. This provides a misleading picture of the overall scope of the initiative. (2/n)

Should #India allow #Huawei a role in building the country’s #5G network? @AKanisetti and I have tried to provide a roadmap for the government in our new discussion document. takshashila.org.in/takshashila-re… We argue that India’s decision on Huawei in the context of 5G has strategic implications and should not be looked at only from the prism of economic benefits.