China Watch

The Communist Chinese Have Won. The Largest Opposition Party in Hong Kong Is Disbanding. – PJ Media– pjmedia.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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The Communist Chinese have accomplished what many people believed was only a matter of time. Beijing has nearly destroyed the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong as the city’s Democratic Party, the largest opposition party, is disbanding.

Sheer brutality and the use of modern instruments of oppression accomplished what many activists in Hong Kong believed couldn’t be done. Perhaps they were naive in thinking that Beijing wanted a “two systems, one China” policy. Maybe they were crazy to think that Beijing meant to keep its promise to maintain Hong Kong’s autonomy for 50 years after Beijing regained control of the city in 1997.

Beijing was always playing the long game. China is an ancient country that is used to thinking in terms of centuries, not decades. It has a plan to reintegrate Hong Kong into the Chinese state, and nothing would happen that interfered with that plan. Using intimidation and draconian “security” laws, Beijing has successfully stymied the movement to maintain Hong Kong’s position as a quasi-independent city and will now complete the process of making Hong Kong just another city in China after the Democratic Party disbands.

It’s difficult to remember that when the British handed over Hong Kong to Beijing, there was hope that the Communists would keep their word and allow Hong Kong to maintain its civil liberties. For a while, Beijing kept its promise. But the noose gradually tightened, choking off any hope for freedom.

“We have not achieved what we set out to do,” Fred Li, a founding member of the party, said in an interview. “Without money or resources, we can’t even survive ourselves.”

Chinese port volume drops by 9.7% as Trump tariffs hammer exports | The Post Millennial– thepostmillennial.com

pgnewser April 15, 2025 0

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Over the course of April 7-13, cargo handled by China has dropped by 9.7 percent.

Cargo going through ports in China has dropped by 9.7 percent in the second week of April, indicating that tariffs implemented by the Trump administration have been hammering the country’s exports to the US.

Over the course of April 7-13, cargo traffic dropped by 9.7 percent to 244 million tons, according to the Wall Street Journal. The week prior, when President Donald Trump implemented his reciprocal tariffs, there was only a drop of 0.88 percent.

Container throughput dropped by 6.1 percent, the Journal reported, reversing an increase of 1.9 percent the week prior. The outlet reports that there has been a steady increase in port volumes since January 2025, and the last couple weeks have seen that reverse.

China Halts Critical Rare Earth Exports as Trade War Intensifies – The New York Times

pgnewser April 15, 2025 0

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China has suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to choke off supplies of components central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world.

Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system. Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors.

The official crackdown is part of China’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs that started on April 2.

Why China Might Have An Upper Hand In Trade War With US– www.ndtv.com

pgnewser April 15, 2025 0

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The United States and China– two of the world’s largest economies– are locked in a dangerous trade stand-off that may have no winners. As the US tries to arm-twist China — with mounting tariffs– into seeking a deal from his administration, it is becoming increasingly clear that Beijing may have more leverage than President Donald Trump and his aides think.

The United States remains an almost irreplaceable market for China for its manufactured goods. However, experts caution Washington not to underestimate Beijing’s capacity to resist the Trump administration’s coercive tactics. The combination of Beijing’s centralised political control, diversified export markets and stronghold over some strategically vital materials, including rare earth metals and magnets, gives China plenty of room to negotiate with the US.

The complexity of the United States’ dependence on China was evident over the weekend when the Trump administration exempted smartphones, laptops and TVs from its new tariffs — goods that the US primarily imports from China.

Jerome Corsi: President Trump Can Snatch a Deep-Water Port in South America that China Covets | The Gateway Pundit– www.thegatewaypundit.com

pgnewser April 14, 2025 0

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… While the focus of the Trump administration has been on seizing control of the Panama Canal from China, another port on the Pacific Ocean side of South America, CopiaPort-E in Chile, billed as the “Rotterdam of the Pacific,” demands President Trump’s attention. The World Bank, UNESCO, and the Chinese Communist Party had long planned for CopiaPort-E’s 8-kilometer-long natural breakwater peninsula to be the landing pad for China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) in South America. If the Trump administration acts fast, President Trump can block the final step in China’s BRI expansion plans in South America before China finalizes the deal.

A group of three holding companies and one operating company (three Chilean and one Panama organized) own approximately 850 square miles (220,000) hectares of real estate on which the port will be developed, including all rights to intellectual property, programs, contracts, use and regulatory licenses, and trade secrets. St. Matthew Assurance Ltd., a part of the Cotswold Group of Companies, has established a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Chinese Representatives to purchase equity and the rights to develop the CopiaPort-E Super Port project. St. Matthew Assurance Company, the ultimate owner, is an insurance company owned, organized, and operating under the laws of the Chiricahua Apache (CAMB) Nation and is benefiting from the CAMB Nation’s sovereign Indigenous status and protections provided by the U.S. domestic and international law, including the Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

U.S. Moves into Panama Canal, Kicking China Out

pgnewser April 14, 2025 0

Hegseth Secures ‘First and Free’ Passage for U.S. Ships in Panama Canal– www.breitbart.com
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PANAMA CITY, Panama — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had one mission on his trip to Panama — to secure a deal to get “first and free” passage for U.S. ships in the Panama Canal, a critical waterway for the United States’ economy and military that was at risk of falling under China’s control.

As the secretary and his team flew the down from Washington on Monday evening to meet with Panama’s leaders, such a deal with Panama was far from certain.

While the U.S. had built the canal in the early 1900s and maintained it for decades before handing it over to Panama, China had in recent years poured money into projects and infrastructure attached to it. As a passageway between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans that handles more than 40 percent of U.S. maritime trade, if China were able to close the canal, it would be a catastrophe for the U.S.

President Donald Trump, early on in his administration, made retaking the canal from Chinese influence a top priority. In December, even before he took office for the second time, he posted about it on Truth Social:


 

China’s Xi Jinping Says ‘No Winners’ in Tariff War– time.com

pgnewser April 14, 2025 0

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HANOI, Vietnam — China’s leader Xi Jinping started a week of diplomacy in Southeast Asia with a visit to Vietnam on Monday, signaling China’s commitment to global trade, just after U.S. President Donald Trump upended the global economy with his latest tariffs moves.

Although Trump has paused some tariffs, China was the outlier, as he has kept in place 145% tariffs on the world’s second-largest economy.

Xi’s visit this week lets China show Southeast Asia it is a “responsible superpower in the way that contrasts with the way the U.S. under President Donald Trump presents to the whole world,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.

China also can work to shore up its alliances and find solutions for the high trade barrier that the U.S. has on Chinese exports.

“There are no winners in a trade war, or a tariff war,” Xi wrote in an editorial jointly published in Vietnamese and Chinese official media. “Our two countries should resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and cooperative international environment.”

U.S., China hold 1st military talks on maritime risks since Trump’s return – National– globalnews.ca

pgnewser April 4, 2025 0

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U.S. and Chinese military officials have met for their first working-level talks since U.S. President Donald Trump took office for the second time, with the two sides sharing their respective concerns over military safety on the seas.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the talks, held Wednesday and Thursday in the eastern Chinese city of Shanghai, were focused on “decreasing the incidences of unsafe and unprofessional” actions by China’s naval and air forces.

The Chinese defense ministry said it pointed out that U.S. military ships and aircraft have been conducting “reconnaissance, surveys and high-intensity drills in the sea and air spaces around China, which are prone to cause misunderstandings and miscalculations and jeopardize China’s sovereignty and military security.”

China told the U.S. that it would continue to “respond to all dangerous provocative actions” and “resolutely safeguard national territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” the ministry statement said.