Far-right member of the Bundestag sympathetic to Beijing
British pork allowed entry into the PRC; and PLA conducts new war games around Taiwan
Observing China is the essential newsletter to understand the UK-PRC relationship, explained in the context of global developments.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC), angered once again by the engagement of the president of Taiwan with the United States (US), has broken its previous record of military deployment for war games around the island nation.
Elsewhere, several leaders in the free and open nations continue to encourage caution against the PRC, while emerging figures hold a more sympathetic stance.
Welcome back to Observing China.
1.1 Mandarin-speaking China pensions expert emerges as German far-right leader
Alice Weidel, chancellor candidate of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), is a figure full of surprises. According to German media, Wiedel’s six-year stint living and working in the PRC is the longest she had ever spent in one place prior to a career in politics. Taiwanese media reported that Wiedel is critical of other German politicians’ cautious stance on the PRC, and favours close economic ties with Beijing. As a woman in a same-sex partnership with a foreign national, political analysts say that her personal profile may help her party appeal to a more diverse audience.
1.2 Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council arrives in Beijing for talks
This week, Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council, is paying a two-day visit to Beijing for talks with senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. Last month, Medvedev warned the US that Russia is willing to lower its threshold for the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
Last month, Sergei Shoigu, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council, declared that the most important bilateral task in the Russia-PRC relationship is to ‘counter the policy of “dual containment” of Russia and China pursued by the US and its satellites’.
1.3 Former senator tipped to be the next US ambassador to the PRC
If confirmed by the Senate, David Perdue will be the next US Ambassador to the PRC, as appointed by Donald Trump, President-elect of the US. A report from 2019 by think tanks in the PRC labeled Perdue as being ‘anti-China’, largely in response to his calls that the US Navy build up its capabilities in the face of the unprecedented scale of expansion of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).
1.4 Time to challenge the PRC’s antimony hegemony
Free and open nations continue to reevaluate their supply chains of critical minerals as worsening trade conflicts with the PRC has seen Beijing impose restrictions and even outright bans on the export of critical raw materials.
In August this year, Beijing announced export curbs on antimony, a critical material for automakers and military equipment manufacturers. The PRC is the world’s largest producer of antimony. Earlier this year, Beijing announced a ban on exports of germanium and gallium to the US, in response to further restrictions by Washington’s to curb the PRC’s access to critical technology semiconductor manufacturing. Restrictions on gallium and germanium – essential for electric vehicle manufacturing – remain in place for the European Union (EU).
1.5 India becomes the latest dumping ground for Chinese steel thanks to US tariffs
In 2018, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on imports of Chinese finished steel products, which Joe Biden, President of the US, reinforced this year. The PRC diverged the path of its steel to India, where low sale prices have thrown local producers into such a dire struggle that India’s steel ministry has requested that a 25% ‘safeguard duty’ be placed on these imports.
1.6 Lithuania sees ‘high probability’ that Baltic Sea cables were intentionally cut
There have still not been any specific reasons given for the expulsion of three PRC diplomats from Lithuania which we covered in last week’s newsletter. But on 6th December, Gitanas Nauseda, President of Lithuania, stood by previous remarks expressing conviction that the undersea data cables (one of which connects Lithuania and Sweden) were deliberately cut. Suspicions have been cast that Moscow orchestrated the attack with help from Beijing.
1.7 Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) invited to Trump’s inauguration
Trump has invited Xi to his inauguration in January 2025, although it is not yet confirmed whether Xi will accept the invitation. The eve of Trump’s inauguration is the deadline given to TikTok’s PRC parent company ByteDance to either sell the social media platform or be banned in the US.
2.1 A report by the Lowy Institute analyses geopolitical implications of the Ream Naval Base in Cambodia, a military upgrade largely funded by the PRC.
2.2 A report by the Centre for New American Security provides a technical analysis of how the US can secure its artificial intelligence semiconductor supply chains to restrict countries like the PRC.
3.1 Tower Hamlets council rejects plans for PRC mega-embassy
On 9th December, the politicians of Tower Hamlets council – the district where the PRC’s proposed mega-embassy would be located – unanimously voted against it, citing legitimate security and traffic congestion concerns.
His Majesty’s (HM) Government has committed to make a final decision by May 2025 at the latest. The views of the local council and residents will be taken into account during the final decision.
3.2 Thousands of Chinese ‘burner’ companies costing United Kingdom (UK) millions in lost revenue
An investigation has found that tens of thousands of Chinese companies are inundating the UK market with cheap goods on online marketplaces, by setting up fake front companies which mysteriously cease operations when His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) attempt to reclaim the tax owed.
There are up to 30,000 companies operating on these platforms registered with UK addresses where the residents have no connection or knowledge of their address being used in such a way.
3.3 HM Government secures the resumption of British pork exports to the PRC
The visit of David Lammy, Foreign Secretary, to the PRC in September, spurred negotiations to end Covid-19 era restrictions on British imports of unprocessed pork. HM Government estimates that the lifting of these restrictions could boost industry revenues by about £80 million.
3.4 UK must do more to integrate Chinese students at our universities, say researchers
A report published by the Higher Education Policy Institute says that Chinese students in the UK feel they are treated as mere ‘revenue sources’ and would appreciate greater integration efforts on behalf of their universities. The report focuses largely on the difficulties in digital integration faced by Chinese students and infers that WeChat be used at British universities. This is an interesting proposition. But is digital integration really the most important aspect in helping foreign students feel at home in a faraway country?
It is also worth noting that all foreigners who visit the PRC are famously rendered useless without WeChat and must accommodate accordingly. So is it so problematic to expect Chinese students to use the systems in common use in other countries, such as the UK, when they visit or live there, especially when Chinese social media are so heavily monitored by the CCP?
4.1 The PRC will impose visa restrictions on US officials it considers to be interfering in Hong Kong affairs. This is in response to Washington’s recent move to impose visa restrictions on Hong Kong (now synonymous with CCP) officials involved in imposing national security law, after the sentencing of 45 pro-democracy activists last month.
Mao Ning, Spokeswoman of the Foreign Ministry of the PRC, claimed that Washington’s move to restrict visas was made ‘under the pretext of Hong Kong-related issues’ and that the ‘United States has seriously violated the principles of international law and basic norms governing international relations.’
In Hong Kong alone, the PRC has violated a multitude of basic norms governing international relations.
4.2 Xinhua news agency reports that a delegation of Taiwanese youth will visit the PRC in a cultural exchange programme to promote cross-strait exchanges. Beijing invests greatly in such youth exchanges as part of its long game to win over the Taiwanese to the idea of unification. The Taiwanese delegation is led by Ma Ying-jeou, former president of Taiwan between 2008 - 2016. Ma never directly advocated for unification during his presidency, but consistently encouraged more people-to-people exchanges. He also warned against open declarations for Taiwanese independence, saying it would only anger Beijing.
Gray Sergeant, Research Fellow in the Indo-Pacific at the Council on Geostrategy, writes:
Taiwan’s president does something or says something, something which would be regarded as totally innocuous if any other free world leader did it or said it, and the PRC launches large-scale military exercises around the island. That is what happened when Nancy Pelosi, former US House of Representative Speaker, was welcomed to Taipei, and it is what happened following the visit of Tsai Ing-wen, former President of Taiwan, to the US. The same pattern repeated itself after both Lai Ching-te’s inauguration and National Day speeches.
Following Lai’s diplomatic tour around the Pacific, his first-ever overseas trip, which included a stop-over in Hawaii and Guam, the picture is less clear.
The Taiwanese president returned home last Friday, and two days later, the country’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) reported a doubling of Chinese warships around the island – speculation about new war games were afoot.
Come Monday, the PRC had established seven ‘temporary reserved areas’ east of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, two of which faced Taiwan (but were closer to the PRC’s coast). Curiously, Beijing did not announce any military exercises. When asked about the MND claim, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC responded that ‘Taiwan has no “defence ministry”’ along with the usual ‘One China’ spiel (hardly illuminating!)
Some analysts have suggested that Beijing’s opacity could be a deliberate attempt to play ‘mind games’, to pressure Taiwan and leave like-minded partners unsure of how to respond.
It is also unclear just how unprecedented the accompanying military activity has been. Reports indicate that 90 Chinese Navy and coast guard ships operated inside the First Island Chain, a vast expanse of water from Southern Japan to the South China Sea. Compared with the previous four exercises around Taiwan, the MND said they are the largest. A ‘security diplomat in the region’ agreed, telling Reuters: ‘we have not seen anything like this in at least the past few years’. But on the same day, the same news agency also reported a US military official saying that while ‘PRC military activity [was] elevated’ it was, however, ‘consistent with levels we have seen during other large exercises’.
Finally, what was Beijing hoping to achieve? According to a Taiwanese defence official, the PRC’s military activity formed two ‘walls’ east of Taiwan to practise securing the strait and denying other countries access to it. Another ‘senior Taiwan security source’ told Reuters that the PLA aircraft practiced attacking foreign naval ships as part of a ‘blockade exercise’. But beyond practice, what message was Beijing seeking to send and to who? And why now? It would seem that these military manoeuvres, however unprecedented in scale, are not simply a response to Lai’s visit.
The discovery of thousands of fraudulent Chinese companies operating in the UK occurred alongside a breakthrough in agricultural trade. As such, it would be helpful for all business areas across the UK to have HM Government clarify the industries in which it plans to expand trade with the PRC, and a detailed strategy on how it will tackle the business areas which pose obvious threats.
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Grace Theodoulou – Policy Fellow, China Observatory
Email: grace@geostrategy.org.uk
If you would like to explore any of the Council on Geostrategy’s PRC-focused research papers, click here to visit the China Observatory.