China Analysis Digest (March 31 - April 7, 2021)

Apr 07, 2021

Date: March 31 - April 7, 2021
Sources scanned: 78
Content: 232 publications from 57 sources
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Recommended readings:

The Longest Telegram: A Visionary Blueprint for the Comprehensive Grand Strategy Against China We Need (C. Lee Shea):
The task [for the US] today…is both clear and straightforward. It is to compete with China without rivalry, to treat Beijing as an adversary bent on our destruction without regarding it as an enemy, to mobilize against the greatest-ever threat to America’s existence while keeping the proper sense of proportion, and to embrace cooperation while carefully avoiding, for lack of a better term, cooperation.
Zhang Baijia: Reflections on China’s Research on Frontiers and Relations with Neighboring States (David Cowhig):
What scholars say and even Central Party School professors say in private can be very different from the Make China Great Again policies General Secretary Xi Jinping — the man whose published speeches are now Chinese Communist Party scriptures — can be very different from the Party canon. How much this matters now and over time we’ll have to wait and see. Meanwhile Chinese scholarly perspectives on Chinese history are very instructive, both for their factual and analytical value, but also for the range of opinions that can be expressed by scholars. In my work in China, I often found views and facts buried deep in thick books or in obscure articles helpful apparently because there is more freedom of expression where the censors did not care to go or are too lazy to go.
Australia-China Relations: The Great Debate (Jane Golley):
[Our analysis suggest that from 2013 to 2018], deteriorating political relations [between Australia and China] did have a significant and lasting negative impact on Australia's export growth of energy and minerals...while there seems to be trade resilience to political shocks in the aggregate, there is some indication that this resilience has started breaking down in recent years.
Surviving the crackdown in Xinjiang (Raffi Khatchadourian):
As mass detentions and surveillance dominate the lives of China’s Uyghurs and Kazakhs, a woman struggles to free herself.
Sanctions only escalate tensions. It's time to tackle the Uyghurs' plight differently (David Brophy):
[T]o be in any way effective, the sanctioned have to believe that changes to their behaviour will lead to some improvement in relations. There’s little chance of Beijing forming this view, given the state of Sino-western relations…sanctions only escalate tensions, and give politicians an opportunity to posture…The stalemate surrounding Xinjiang calls for ambitious thinking. If the west is capable of launching a global war on terror, why should it not be able to organise a similarly global campaign to undo the damage that war has done? This is what we should be calling on our politicians to lead, and they should be pressing China to join it.
How China Lends: A Rare Look into 100 Debt Contracts with Foreign (Anna Gelpern, Sebastian Horn, Scott Morris, Brad Parks, Christoph Trebesch):
How China Lends finds that Chinese state-owned banks are muscular, commercially savvy lenders that use contracts to position themselves as “preferred creditors,” seeking repayment ahead of other commercial and official lenders. They often do so by asking borrowers for an informal source of collateral and prohibiting borrowers from restructuring their Chinese debts in coordination with other creditors.
Pressing China on human rights – even if it hurts economic relations – has Americans’ bipartisan support (Laura Silver):

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China Story:

Reading the China Dream: