GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
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#1 WHAT ARE RARE EARTHS? WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT?
#2 THE WIFE AND THE WINDOW CLEANERS
#3 CHINA EXPORTS FROM XINJIANG TO CHINA SURGE
#4 CHINA AND JACK PERRY –PART 15
JACK RECEIVES A PHONE CALL
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#1 CHINA RARE EARTHS -WHAT ARE THEY?
WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT?
SOUTHCHINA MORNING POST
“Rare earth permanent magnets are essential components in electric vehicles, wind turbines, smartphones, aero planes, spacecraft and other devices, including in the defence industry.
In August, researchers from Govini, Ade fence acquisition analytics firm, estimated that Beijing’s tighter controls could affect more than three-quarters of the US’ weapons supply chain.
That has turned critical minerals into an important negotiating tool. Earlier this year, when US-China trade tensions escalated, Beijing – which controls the vast majority of rare earth extraction and refining infrastructure – leveraged its position to secure concessions from Washington on the export of certain advanced computer chips”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS:
The U.S. took their eye off the ball. They were distracted by the semiconductor tensions between the U.S. and China and failed to observe that China was doing two things; – first, China pursued a worldwide policy to access rare earths outside China. Second, China ramped up its processing of imported and domestically sourced rare earths. And the effect? – it was to give China a leading role as the major source and the major processer of Rare Earths. And more than that – it upset the balance of power in the world economy forcing the U.S. into a position of dependency on China for the supply of many of the 17 different categories of Rare Earths.
China will not overplay its hand. They are experienced negotiators and know how to convert an economic strength into apolitical strength. But the U.S. is on notice. Now they have to respect China and not talk down to China.
GRAHAM PERRY
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#2 THE EMBARASSED WIFE AND THE WINDOWCLEANERS
HUASHENG NEWS – SICHUAN
A woman in China has developed depression after two male window cleaners saw her asleep naked in her home. The woman and her husband live in Port Apartment, a high-end housing estate in Chengdu, in south-western Sichuan province. They pay 10,000 yuan (US$1,400) a month in rent.
Her plight captivated mainland social media after her husband, surnamed Cheng, exposed the situation online in the middle of August.
The couple said they were not satisfied with the manner in which the property management company had dealt with their problem, the Hashing News reported. The couple live in a high-end residential complexing south-western China.
The incident unfolded on the morning of April 25 when Cheng was working in their living room while his wife was asleep in the bedroom. Suddenly he heard his wife screaming.
“I went to check on her. My wife was sleeping naked. Two workers, who were cleaning our window, were gawking at her,” said Cheng. He said the curtains were not closed and the light was on in the room at the time.
“We normally do not wear pajamas. I promptly ran to draw the curtains,” said Cheng, adding that his wife was woken up by the sound made by the workers. The woman’s husband said that both he and his wife do not normally wear pajamas in bed.
The couple blame the property management company for not notifying them of the exact time the window cleaners would be outside their flat. “They only told us the glass cleaning task would be carried out in the daytime from April 21 to April 30. It is impossible for us not to open curtains for the whole 10 days.
“Therefore I urged them twice to tell us in advance if the workers were soon to be near our room,” said Cheng. They promised they would notify us. However, in the end, they forgot to do so,” he said.
Cheng said his wife has been in low spirits ever since and was diagnosed with depression and anxiety in May. The couple want a public apology from the property management firm, plus a“ reasonable” amount of compensation. Both requests have been turned down, said Cheng.
“They only sent a worker with a basket of fruit to our home to apologise. As for my wife’s mental suffering, they showed no concern,” he said.
Their rental contract expires at the end of August.
As the incident attracted wide attention on social media, the company recently agreed to reduce the rent by 600 yuan(US$80) a month if they renew the contract. We can afford a monthly rent of10,000 yuan. Are we short of 600 yuan? This offer is typical of their attitude in dealing with our problem; we are not satisfied,” Cheng said.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS; –
China is not only about soybeans, rare earths and international politics. The above article is a human story that can happen anywhere in the world. It is good to get behind the politics and viewaspects of day-to-day life in China that have parallels with life in the U.K.
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#3 XINJIANG’S EXPORTS TO U.S RISE 265%
SOUTH CHINAMORNING POST
“China’s western region of Xinjiang has recorded an extraordinary rise in merchandise shipments to the United States, despite the area being subject to Washington trade restrictions imposed over allegations of forced labor and other human rights abuses.
US-bound shipments from the XinjiangUygur autonomous region rose 265 per cent year on year to US$2.4 billion in the first seven months of the year, Chinese customs data showed.
According to the data, the surge was largely driven by a large uptick in shipments of holiday decorations from Xinjiang to the US. Exports of Christmas decorations totaled US$151.7 million during the January-July period – 20 times the amount during the same period last year.
Holiday entertainment items – such as magic show equipment – were the second largest export category, followed by toys and models. Both showed sharp year-on-year increases, rising from aboutUS$20 million to US$108.2 million and US$71.4 million, respectively.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS; –
The surge in exports came in spite of Washington’s enforcement of the Uygur Forces Labor Prevention Act in June2022, which allows US authorities to scrutinize goods from Xinjiang suspected of being produced via forced labor.
Sebastian Contain Trill-Figueroa, a Hong Kong-based geopolitical analyst, said the surge in exports from Xinjiang showed that the 2022 U.S. restrictions lacked substance and were mostly an act of“ “political posturing”.
Apart from the surge of Xinjiang exports to the U.S. which drives a coach and horses through U.S. policy of punishing Xinjiang for its alleged genocide of Uygur Muslims, it remains the case that Chinese central government actions in Xinjiang were never acts of race persecution, as has been widely claimed in the Western media, but acts to prevent hard core extremist Yugurs from converting the China province of Xinjiang into an independent country. From day one, China has never permitted secession of any land that the authorities in Beijing have regarded since 1949as territory of China.
Pompeo at the end of his stint as Secretary of State in Trump’s first administration sprung the allegation of Chinese genocide onto the U.S. electorate in an effort to embarrass the Democrats but Biden and Blinked took the wind out of Pompeo’s sudden attack on China by embracing the Trump genocide allegation.
The leaders of the Uygur extremists were confronted by China’s security forces, there was violence. Some of the leaders were arrested, tried and executed. The followers were dealt with more leniently with a mix of prison sentences and compulsory attendance at re-education camps. The insurrection failed and, it should be noted, the Uygur population increased during this period – not quite what you would expect from genocide.
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#4 CHINA AND JACK PERRY – PART 15
JACKRECEIVES A PHONE CALL
Part 14 concluded as follows; –
“The companies forming the 1953 Mission included Austin Motors; British Electrical and Engineering; Crompton Parkinson; Dominions Exports; Enfield Cables; Harrisons; Harvey Main; Hirsch Son and Rhodes; Kingfisher and Fermín; Propane Co; Rubbery Owen; Tube Investments and London Export Corporation. Accompanying the mission were Professor Joan Robinson, Roland Berger and his secretary Joan Harrick’s.
The Mission – which became known as the Icebreaker Mission for reasons that will become clear – desired to transact business and sign commercial contracts and set itself two targets; first – to clarify China’s purchasing requirements under the First Five Year Plan and, second, to investigate the likely channels of trade that the Chinese would utilize and the organizations to be involved.”
The Icebreaker Mission needed to be a commercial success with meaningful and substantial contracts. There could be no damp squib. There were many jealous and envious onlookers who resented that the first steps to UK-China trade accord were being undertaken by private companies and not by Government, and led by a man – Jack Perry – with pronounced Left political views. But the UK Conservative Government with Winston Churchill as Prime Minister and Anthony Eden as Foreign Secretary could not move forward on China. The UK was allied to the U.S. and the latter was caught up in the Reds Under the Beds Panic led by Senator Joe McCarthy and the House of Un-American Activities Committee.
There was also the Korean War which was coming to an end but which had pitted UK servicemen against Chinese volunteers fighting on the side of the North Koreans. Politics was an ever-present issue throughout the early years of China-UK trade. There were questions in Parliament from MP’s eager to thwart the China-UK Initiative in general and the Ice-Breaker Mission in particular. Jack and his colleagues were prepared for the anti-China propaganda emanating from the Foreign Office. It did not intimidate them. Rather the reverse – it inspired the Mission to be more assertive in pursuit of its goal of opening commercial relations with the newly created Peoples’ Republic of China.
Members of the Mission made their own way to Hong Kong where they encountered hostility from the old established“ Hongs”. The Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce claimed that Jack’s mission was undermining the security of the Hong Kong status and blackballed the Mission. By comparison Jack was welcomed by the British Trade Commissioner, a Mr Harrison, who stood out by saying that the trade relations between the two countries would strengthen not weaken.
The morning after his arrival Jack received a call from the China Travel Service – the official China travel organization –requesting him to visit their offices. He was informed that Beijing had instructed the Travel Service to arrange for Jack, in advance of the Mission, to leave for China the following day by train to Kwangchow. Beijing wanted Jack to bring details of the Mission members so that the Chinese side could take steps to prepare for concrete business discussions in advance of the delegation’s arrival in Beijing.
Jack duly arrived at the Hong Kong railway station only to be told that the bridge at the border was flooded. Hewes told to return the following day, the day after that and one further day. On each day he was informed that no travel into China was possible. Finally, Jack was asked to go to the Hong Kong Harbor at 23.30 hrs. and board a boat to Macao – six hours away. On arrival, he was met by two Chinese who escorted him to a vessel that would sail through the Pearl Valley to Guangzhou. Jack records;-
“As we walked along the pier, I searched for an appropriate boat. To my surprise we halted alongside an antiquated Chinese junk that looked as though it had been ploughing the shallow river since the Middle Ages. The heat was intense at the height of the monsoon season. I was about to endure the most uncomfortable stifling twenty-four hours of my life.
Four hours after leaving Macao the boat arrived at the Chinese river border where a small army of Chinese medical and customs officers came aboard to inoculate the passengers and inspect the baggage, then a young man walked over to me and introduced himself as my companion to Guangzhou”
Jack had arrived in China and became the First Western Businessman to visit the People’s Republic of China.
PART 16 – JACK ARRIVES IN BEIJING
