On Aug. 6, US Senator Marco Rubio urged China to immediately and unconditionally release Sun Wenguang (孫文廣), a professor at Shandong University, who was arrested after commenting on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) spending spree in Africa in an interview with Voice of America.
This is yet another example of free speech being suppressed, but what is it about this spending spree that cannot be talked about?
During a visit to South Africa late last month, Xi committed China to invest US$14.7 billion in the country, which shows how his “Chinese dream” means buying up the whole world.
This should be compared to the revelation in late June by Li Xiao (李曉), a professor of finance at the School of Economics at Jilin University in China’s Jilin Province, that 80 percent of China’s US$1.9 trillion net foreign exchange reserves — according to Li’s definition, total foreign exchange reserves minus foreign currency-denominated debt — is held by foreign-invested companies.
If this number is correct, China can only make immediate use of about US$380 billion of its more than US$3 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves.
With China spending about 4 percent of that amount in South Africa, it is perhaps not such a mystery that Sun called for an end to the spending spree, saying: “There are so many poor people in China, having problems attending school, making a living in their old age and getting medical care, issues that must be urgently resolved.”
Sun’s disappearance is a sign that the spending spree is unlikely to come to an end, because it is the foundation of China’s global geopolitical strategy. This is the source of China’s interest in suppressing Taiwan and no one will ever know if there are other interests involved.
However, in view of this trend, the only way that the spending spree will come to an end is if there is no more money to spend.
Perhaps it is not so strange, then, that Ernesto Pernia, director-general of the Philippines’ National Economic and Development Authority, last month announced that although the country’s president brought back an earmarked US$24 billion of Chinese foreign direct investment and overseas development aid from his 2016 visit to China, the Philippines has only managed to strike a loan agreement with China over an irrigation project of US$73 million and inaugurated two bridges in Manila funded by China worth US$75 million — less than 1 percent of the earmarked amount.
This is a sign that money is running out and that China has entered a “post-spending spree” period; that is why this issue cannot be talked about.
Why has China entered this post-spending spree period? There are domestic, as well as international reasons, but in the end it is a matter of weakening economic momentum: Capital is no longer accumulating; it is even shrinking.
In 2015, JPMorgan Chase & Co estimated that exports to China made up about 40 percent of Taiwan’s total exports. Is Taiwan prepared for the arrival of the post-spending spree period? This is a question that Taiwan needs to tackle head-on.
Shih Ya-hsuan is an associate professor of geography at National Kaohsiung Normal University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
On Monday, the day before Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) departed on her visit to China, the party released a promotional video titled “Only with peace can we ‘lie flat’” to highlight its desire to have peace across the Taiwan Strait. However, its use of the expression “lie flat” (tang ping, 躺平) drew sarcastic comments, with critics saying it sounded as if the party was “bowing down” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Amid the controversy over the opposition parties blocking proposed defense budgets, Cheng departed for China after receiving an invitation from the CCP, with a meeting with
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
The two major opposition parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), jointly announced on Tuesday last week that former TPP lawmaker Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) would be their joint candidate for Chiayi mayor, following polling conducted earlier this month. It is the first case of blue-white (KMT-TPP) cooperation in selecting a joint candidate under an agreement signed by their chairpersons last month. KMT and TPP supporters have blamed their 2024 presidential election loss on failing to decide on a joint candidate, which ended in a dramatic breakdown with participants pointing fingers, calling polls unfair, sobbing and walking
RSS