Xi Jinping
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Red flags flutter in front of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China September 30, 2018. Picture taken September 30, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee
March 12, 2019
BEIJING (Reuters) – Western forces are trying to use Christianity to influence China’s society and even subvert the government, a senior official said, warning that Chinese Christians needed to follow a Chinese model of the religion.
China’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, but since President Xi Jinping took office six years ago, the government has tightened restrictions on religions seen as a challenge to the authority of the ruling Communist Party.
The government has cracked down on underground churches, both Protestant and Catholic, even as it seeks to improve relations with the Vatican.
In a speech on Monday, Xu Xiaohong head of the National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China, said there were many problems with Christianity in the country, including “infiltration” from abroad and “private meeting places”.
“It must be recognized that our movement’s surname is ‘China’ and not ‘Western’,” Xu said, according to remarks reported by the United Front Work Department, which is in charge of co-opting non-communists, ethnic minorities and religious groups.
“Anti-China forces in the West are trying to continue to influence China’s social stability and even subvert our country’s political power through Christianity, and it is doomed to fail,” he said, speaking to the Chinese parliament’s largely ceremonial advisory body.
“For individual black sheep who, under the banner of Christianity, participate in subverting national security, we firmly support the country to bring them to justice.”
Only by eliminating the “stigma of foreign religion” in China’s Christianity can its believers benefit society, he added.
“Only by continually drawing on the fine traditions of Chinese culture, can China’s Christianity be rooted in the fertile soil of Chinese culture and become a religion recognized by the Chinese themselves,” Xu added.
“Only by continuously carrying forward and practicing the core values of socialism can our Christianity truly be suited to socialist society.”
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Acting Director Russell Vought speak with reporters during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 11, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
March 11, 2019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders on Monday said a date for a trade summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping has not been set and negotiations are ongoing.
Asked whether they had a date yet for a summit, Sanders said: “Not yet.” She added that “we’re continuing negotiations with China.”
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by Lisa Lambert; Editing by James Dalgleish)
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FILE PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte speaks during his end-of-year news conference in Rome, Italy, December 28, 2018. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi
March 11, 2019
By Sara Rossi
MILAN (Reuters) – Italy’s ruling League party gave hesitant backing on Monday to government plans to endorse China’s “Belt and Road” initiative, saying the venture had to boost local businesses and not threaten national security.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has said he might sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to become a part of China’s giant infrastructure plan when Chinese President Xi Jinping visits Rome and Palermo later this month.
The prospect has alarmed Italy’s main Western ally, the United States, which has urged Conte to drop the plan, calling the Chinese venture a “vanity project” that would bring no benefit to the Italian economy.
The U.S. admonition has created tensions within the ruling coalition and one senior League official has called for the MOU to be put on ice. But the party leadership gave the idea conditional backing following a meeting near Milan.
“If it’s about helping Italian companies invest abroad, then we are ready to talk to anyone,” League leader Matteo Salvini told reporters. “But we’re absolutely not ready to do so if it’s a question of foreign companies colonizing Italy.”
Giancarlo Giorgetti, a senior League figure and cabinet undersecretary, added that Italy had “golden share” powers to protect strategic sectors such as defense, energy, transport and communications, and would not hesitate to use them.
Looking to allay any such concerns, the industry ministry put out a statement saying the mooted deal did not include any accord over the creation of a 5G high-speed telecom network — a major worry for Washington, which has accused Beijing of looking to insert equipment for espionage in next-generation technology.
Chinese companies have denied this.
CATCH UP
The Belt and Road plan, championed by Xi, aims to link China by sea and land with southeast and central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, through an infrastructure network on the lines of the old Silk Road.
Washington has said China is using the initiative to bolster authoritarian regimes and export standards for technology applications that could threaten U.S. businesses and market access across the globe. It is also worried the plan might enable Beijing to extend its military influence.
A number of European Union states have already signed MOUs with China, including Hungary, Greece and Poland. If Italy does likewise, it would be the first Group of Seven major industrialized nation to do so.
Junior Trade Minister Michele Geraci, who has championed the China deal, said on Monday that Italy needed to convince Western allies that their fears over the planned accord were unfounded.
Geraci, who spent a decade teaching in China, says Italy is simply playing economic catch up with its main trading partners, particularly regarding job creation and so-called green-field investment to build local companies from the ground up.
“China has invested $5.5 billion in Britain and just $130 million in Italy,” Geraci told a foreign policy seminar at the weekend, speaking of green-field projects.
“There is huge potential there that other countries are already taking advantage of,” he said.
Italy went into recession at the end of 2018 for the third time in a decade and the government is anxious to find ways to boost the economy and revive the stalled construction sector.
(Reporting by Sara Rossi and Francesca Piscioneri; Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Catherine Evans)
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Sam Brownback, U.S. ambassador for International Religious Freedom, speaks at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong, China, March 8, 2019. REUTERS/Yuyang Wang
March 11, 2019
TAIPEI (Reuters) – The U.S. ambassador for religious freedom on Monday again urged China to give its people religious freedom, a move he said could help gain trust from self-ruled Taiwan, an island China considers its own.
Sam Brownback on Friday said in a speech in Hong Kong that China was waging “war with faith” and that it needed to respect the “sacred right” of people to worship, especially Muslims locked up in internment camps in Xinjiang.
On Monday, he addressed the issue of Taiwan which China considers a wayward province and has pledged to unite, by force if necessary.
“If they want to build some confidence in Taiwan, they should give religious freedom to their own people,” he told Reuters. “If they would give religious freedom to their own people, that would be noticeable.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping sought to reassure people in Taiwan in January that religious and legal freedom on the island would be respected under a peaceful “reunification”.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has in return rejected Xi’s call and instead urged China to embrace democracy.
Brownback’s visit to Taipei was viewed by some in Taiwan as a sign of support from the Trump administration amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.
The United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, acknowledging that China takes the position that there is “one China” and Taiwan is part of it.
But the United States is also Taiwan’s biggest ally and arms supplier and is duty-bound by legislation to help the island defend itself.
(Reporting by Yimou Lee; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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FILE PHOTO: Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi di Maio holds a news conference in Rome, Italy, March 8, 2019. REUTERS/Remo Casilli/File Photo
March 10, 2019
MILAN (Reuters) – Italy wants to join China’s giant “Belt and Road” infrastructure plan to boost Italian exports, not to strengthen political ties with the Asian giant, Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said on Sunday.
Di Maio was responding to U.S. concerns at the prospect of a key ally supporting the Chinese initiative. A spokesman for the White House’s group of national security advisers, Garrett Marquis, on Saturday called the Chinese venture a “vanity project” that Italy should steer clear of.
The “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), championed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, aims to link China by sea and land with southeast and central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, through an infrastructure network on the lines of the ancient Silk Road.
Aside from boosting trade and investment, Xi aims to advance exchanges in areas such as science, technology and culture.
“I have heard the alarm being raised from the United States yesterday about this deal on the Silk Road that Italy wants to sign with China,” Di Maio said at an event organized by supporters of his ruling 5-Star Movement.
“Let it be clear that, if we are looking at the Silk Road towards China for our exports, it is not to strike a political deal with China but only to help our companies,” he said.
He added that Italy was an ally of the United States and respected its concerns, but that the Chinese market was hungry for “made in Italy” products and know-how.
On Friday, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that he might sign a framework deal on the venture when Xi visits Italy from March 22-24.
A number of European Union states have signed memorandums on the BRI with China, including Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Malta, Poland and Portugal. If Italy signs, it would be the first members of the Group of Seven industrial powers to do so.
Washington argues that China is saddling poor nations with unsustainable debt through large-scale infrastructure projects that are not economically viable, and is using the project to further its political and strategic ambitions.
Italy fell into recession at the end of 2018 for the third time in a decade and the government is eager to find ways to boost the economy and revive the stalled construction sector.
(Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser said U.S. economic growth can continue at 3 percent in 2019 and beyond, even as many private economists look for a slowdown this year as the impact of the 2017 Republican tax cuts wears off.
Larry Kudlow also rejected a suggestion that a U.S.-China trade deal is in trouble. A March signing ceremony might be off the table, but Kudlow said he was “optimistic” that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping would meet at some point to ink a pact.
Looking ahead to Trump’s 2020 budget proposal, due on Monday, Kudlow called the expected proposals for a five-percent across-the-board reduction in domestic spending tough but necessary. “I think it’s exactly the right prescription,” he said.
The former CNBC broadcaster brushed off worries about the rising U.S. budget deficit. Trump’s budget is likely to signal that the federal budget can be balanced in 15 years.
“I don’t think good growth policies have to obsess, necessarily about the budget deficit,” Kudlow said. “We are going to point a steady glide path to lower federal spending” and borrowing as a share of GDP.
On the China trade negotiations, Kudlow lauded overnight news that China has “accepted our currency proposals to have stable currencies.”
China and the U.S. have reached consensus on many “crucial” issues and have discussed the need to observe the “autonomy” of each other’s monetary policy, People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang said during a press conference Sunday during the annual National People’s Congress in Beijing.
Yi didn’t say on which issues they had reached consensus.
Source: NewsMax Politics
FILE PHOTO: Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte addresses the European Parliament during a debate on the future of Europe in Strasbourg, France, February 12, 2019. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler//File Photo
March 9, 2019
By Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Italian government should not support China’s “Belt and Road” infrastructure plan, a spokesman for the White House’s group of national security advisers said on Saturday, calling it a “vanity project.”
On Friday, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that he might sign an accord with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month, despite reports that the United States was concerned at the prospect of a key ally joining the venture.
“Italy is a major global economy and great investment destination. No need for Italian government to lend legitimacy to China’s infrastructure vanity project,” said spokesman Garrett Marquis on Twitter.
Xi is due to travel to Italy from March 22-24 and Conte said Rome and Beijing were looking to agree a framework deal during the state visit.
The “Belt and Road” plan, championed by Xi, aims to link China by sea and land with southeast and central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, through an infrastructure network on the lines of the old Silk Road.
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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FILE PHOTO: Workers decorate the party activity room next to a portrait of Chinese president Xi Jinping at Tidal Star Group headquarters in Beijing, China, February 25, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo
March 9, 2019
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s ruling Communist Party is ramping up calls for political loyalty in a year of sensitive anniversaries, warning against “erroneous thoughts” as officials fall over themselves to pledge allegiance to President Xi Jinping and his philosophy.
This year is marked by some delicate milestones: 30 years since the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square; 60 years since the Dalai Lama fled from Tibet into exile; and finally, on Oct. 1, 70 years since the founding of Communist China.
Born of turmoil and revolution, the Communist Party came to power in 1949 on the back of decades of civil war in which millions died, and has always been on high alert for “luan”, or “chaos”, and valued stability above all else.
“This year is the 70th anniversary of the founding of new China,” Xi told legislators from Inner Mongolia on Tuesday, the opening day of the annual meeting of parliament. “Maintaining sustained, healthy economic development and social stability is a mission that is extremely arduous.”
Xi has tightened the party’s grip on almost every facet of government and life since assuming power in late 2012.
Last year parliament amended the country’s constitution to remove term limits and allow him to stay in office for the rest of his life, should he so wish, though it is unclear if that will happen and Xi has not mentioned it in public.
Later in the year the party will likely hold a plenum of its top leadership focused on what China calls “party building”, diplomats and sources with ties to China’s leadership say, a concept that refers to furthering party control and ensuring its instructions are followed to the letter.
In late January the party again stressed loyalty in new rules on “strengthening party political building”, telling members they should not fake loyalty or be “low-level red”, in a lengthy document carried by state media.
“Be on high alert to all kinds of erroneous thoughts, vague understandings, and bad phenomena in ideological areas,” it warned. “Keep your eyes open, see things early and move on them fast.”
LOYALTY FIRST
On March 1, Xi spoke at the Central Party School, which trains rising officials, mentioning the word “loyalty” at least seven times, according to official accounts in state media.
Xi noted that whether an official is loyal to the party is a key gauge of whether they have ideals and convictions. “Loyalty always comes first,” he said.
Duncan Innes-Ker, regional director for Asia at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said China was concerned about resistance at lower levels to following party orders, the slowing economy and also about demands for political reforms as people get steadily richer.
“The desire for control is not something particular to any time period,” he said. “It is a fundamental tenet of autocratic governments that they are constantly paranoid about being overthrown.”
Xi looms large over this year’s session of China’s largely rubber stamp parliament, known as the National People’s Congress, which has always been stacked with people chosen for their absolute fealty to the party.
Government ministers who spoke to reporters on the sidelines of parliament’s opening session on Tuesday peppered their comments with references to Xi – 16 times in all.
Customs minister Ni Yuefeng said that Xi himself “pays great attention to not allowing foreign garbage into the country”, a reference to China’s ban on solid waste imports, part of the country’s war on pollution.
“Ideology comes first this year,” said one Western diplomat who is attending the parliamentary sessions as an observer. “It’s all about the 70th anniversary.”
ROOTING OUT DISLOYALTY
The party has increasingly been making rooting out disloyalty and wavering from the party line a disciplinary offense to be enforced by its anti-corruption watchdog, whose role had ostensibly been to go after criminal acts such as bribery and lesser bureaucratic transgressions.
The graft buster said last month it would “uncover political deviation” in its political inspections this year of provincial governments and ministries.
Top graft buster Zhao Leji, in a January speech to the corruption watchdog, a full transcript of which the party released late February, used the word “loyalty” eight times.
“Set an example with your loyalty to the party,” Zhao said.
China has persistently denied its war on corruption is about political maneuvering or Xi taking down his enemies. Xi told an audience in Seattle in 2015 that the anti-graft fight was no “House of Cards”-style power play, in a reference to the Netflix U.S. political drama.
The deeper fear for the party is some sort of unrest or a domestic or even international event fomenting a crisis that could end its rule.
Xi told officials in January they need to be on high alert for “black swan” events..
That same month the top law-enforcement official said China’s police must focus on withstanding “color revolutions”, or popular uprisings, and treat the defense of China’s political system as central to their work.
The party has meanwhile shown no interest in political reform, and has been doubling down on the merits of the Communist Party, including this month rolling out English-language propaganda videos on state media-run Twitter accounts to laud “Chinese democracy”. Twitter remains blocked in China.
The official state news agency Xinhua said in an English-language commentary on Sunday that China was determined to stick to its political model and rejected Western-style democracy.
“The country began to learn about democracy a century ago, but soon found Western politics did not work here. Decades of turmoil and civil war followed,” it said.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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FILE PHOTO: U.S. and Chinese flags are seen before Defense Secretary James Mattis welcomes Chinese Minister of National Defense Gen. Wei Fenghe to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., November 9, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
March 8, 2019
By David Lawder and Alexandra Alper
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Trump administration officials have not made any new plans to send a team to China for face-to-face trade talks although there is much work left to be done to reach a deal, White House trade adviser Clete Willems said on Friday.
“We’re talking to them (Chinese officials) every day, but no one’s got any trip plans,” Willems told reporters on the sidelines of a Georgetown Law School event. When asked about the prospect for future face-to-face meetings, he said: “Maybe. But there are no plans right now.”
The governments of the world’s two largest economies have been locked in a tit-for-tat tariff battle for months as Washington presses Beijing to address long-standing concerns over Chinese practices and policies around industrial subsidies, technology transfers, market access and intellectual property rights.
Advances in talks drove the White House to indefinitely delay hikes in tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports that were set to kick in on March 2.
Willems said the two countries had made progress in talks but that there was still much more to be done. He declined to say whether Trump would set a new tariff deadline should the talks stall.
Members of Congress and the business community have expressed concerns that Trump is so eager for a deal ahead of presidential elections next year that he may accept an agreement that falls short of addressing key structural issues.
Willems pushed back against such concerns, saying the notion that Trump will settle for a “bad deal” is “totally inaccurate.”
U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad told The Wall Street Journal on Friday that Washington and Beijing have yet to set a date for Trump to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping — a sign that neither side sees a deal as imminent.
“Both sides agree that there has to be significant progress, meaning a feeling that they’re very close before that happens,” Branstad told the newspaper in Beijing. “We’re not there yet. But we’re closer than we’ve been for a very long time.”
One complicating factor has been Xi’s plans to visit Europe after a meeting of the National People’s Congress ends next week.
Larry Kudlow, the top White House economic adviser, gave Fox Business Network an optimistic view of the progress so far.
“It is historic, it is written down, it was agreed to by the Chinese who were here two weeks ago, but it has to pass through the political filter of President Xi and the politburo,” Kudlow said. “Perhaps a meeting of the leaders later this month or in April. Perhaps.”
Kudlow said the emerging deal would provide “an end to the theft of intellectual property” through forced technology transfers and hacking of computer networks.
“We will get substantially lower tariffs, or maybe an end to tariffs on cars, commodities, agriculture, industrial supplies. We will get an enforcement procedure,” he said.
“If the deal doesn’t work for the United States, and our long-term interests, whether it’s technology, IP, theft, enforcement, commodities, tariffs … then it’s not our deal.”
(Reporting by David Lawder and Alexandra Alper; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jonathan Oatis and Sonya Hepinstall)
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FILE PHOTO: Men check on a light installation in a shape of the party flag of the Communist Party of China, that is set up to celebrate the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year, in Jining, Shandong province, China January 29, 2019. Picture taken January 29, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer
February 27, 2019
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s ruling Communist Party warned party members on Wednesday to stick to Marx and Lenin and not believe in “ghosts and spirits”, in the latest effort to root out superstitious practices.
China officially guarantees freedom of religion for major belief systems like Christianity, Buddhism and Islam, but party members are meant to be atheists and are especially banned from participating in what China calls superstitious practices like visiting soothsayers.
There have been numerous scandals in recent years where senior party members have been accused of involvement in superstition.
A lengthy statement on how best to strengthen the party’s role and its leadership, issued on the official Xinhua news agency, said Marxism was the guiding thought for China and the party.”Resolutely prevent not believing in Marx and Lenin and believing in ghosts and spirits, not believing in the truth and believing in money,” the party statement said.
“Resolutely oppose all forms of mistaken thought that distorts, misrepresents or negates Marxism.”
President Xi Jinping said last year that the party’s decision to stick with the political theories of Karl Marx remained “totally correct”, to mark the 200th anniversary of the German philosopher’s birth.
Chinese people, especially the country’s leaders, have a long tradition of putting their faith in soothsaying and geomancy, looking for answers in times of doubt, need and chaos.
The practice has grown more risky amid a sweeping crackdown on deep-seated corruption launched by Xi upon assuming power in late 2012, in which dozens of senior officials have been imprisoned.
The founder of modern China, Mao Zedong, banned fortune telling and superstition in puritan, communist China after the 1949 revolution, but the occult has made a comeback since the still officially atheist country embraced economic reforms and began opening up in the late 1970s.
In one of the most famous recent cases, China’s powerful former security chief Zhou Yongkang was jailed for life in part due to accusations he leaked undisclosed state secrets to a fortune teller and healer called Cao Yongzheng, known as the “Xinjiang sage” after the far western region where he grew up.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Darren Schuettler)
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