Congressional China Caucus

How to Deal With Chinese Assertiveness: It’s Time to Impose Costs. “China’s reemergence as a wealthy and powerful nation is a fact. In recent decades its rise has been unprecedented, moving from the tenth-largest economy in 1990, to the sixth-largest economy in 2001, to the second-largest economy in 2010. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), China now surpasses the United States in terms of purchasing power parity. By the same measure, China’s economy was only half the size of America’s a decade earlier, and it is this trajectory that is molding assumptions about the future regional power balance and order across the Indo-Pacific. Recent declines in growth and rising questions about future stability have yet to alter most perceptions about tomorrow’s China. China’s deepening integration with the regional and global economy underscore the difficulty of pushing back when China transgresses rules and norms. Take the issue of infrastructure. Infrastructure will gradually redraw the strategic economic and security connectivity of the twenty-first century, and China’s infrastructure prowess has been on prominent display of late. President Xi initiated the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum with a speech touting the linear projection that China will invest some $1.25 trillion over the next decade overseas, and wants to invest $40 billion in re-establishing the old Silk Road while also building a new Maritime Silk Road. These sums are in addition to China’s proposal for a new $50 billion Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. Like the New Development Bank (previously called The BRICS Development Bank), these schemes chip away at the existing Bretton Woods international economic architecture with bodies of uncertain governance. As Indian Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman put it at a recent conference, “If Bretton Woods institutions will not provide infrastructure financing for emerging economies, then we will have to find alternatives.” http://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-deal-chinese-assertiveness-its-time-impose-costs-11785

Forget the South China Sea: Taiwan Could Be Asia’s Next Big Security Nightmare. “Forget the South China Sea. The results of Taiwan’s local elections last week, still reverberating in Beijing, are more likely than not to propel Taiwan’s ascension to the status of No.1 security problem in Asia over the coming two to three years. That is one consequence of the shellacking Taiwan’s ruling KMT party took in last week’s local elections. The ruling KMT lost thirteen of twenty-two cities and counties, including the Mayoralties in Taipei (by an opposition-backed doctor) and Taichung. All told, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party took 47.5 percent of the vote to 40.7 percent garnered by the ruling KMT. This sets the stage for the 2016 presidential elections. President Ma Ying-jeou, whose popularity was in single digits before the elections, is finishing his second term and cannot run again. So humbled was Ma that he resigned as chair of the KMT. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), whose constitution calls for Taiwanese independence, has fuzzy positions on many key issues, but is nonetheless now well positioned for 2016. What led to the DPP landslide? The short answer is economics. Taiwan, in the 1980s and ‘90s known as one of the four tigers (along with Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore) symbolizing Asia’s economic dynamism, has suffered anemic GDP growth under 2 percent over the past several years. But in Taiwan, its maturing economy has, under President Ma, become increasingly dependent on China—and associated with Ma’s cross-strait economic pacts. Ma signed several trade agreements with Beijing, opened cross-straits direct air travel, and broadly expanded economic, cultural and social ties to the mainland. With 40 percent of Taiwan’s exports going to China, China has become Taiwan’s largest trading partner. Officially, Taiwan has invested $58 billion in China, but unofficial estimates have it well over $100 billion. While there are few reliable statistics, several hundred thousand Taiwanese are estimated to live in China, most in and around the Shanghai area.” http://nationalinterest.org/feature/forget-the-south-china-sea-taiwan-could-be-asias-next-big-11790

‘One Country, Two Systems’ Falls Apart. “Taiwan's local elections this week and Hong Kong's public demonstrations send an implicit but clear message to Beijing: These two populations do not want to live under the rule of China's Communist Party. The rejection embodied in these events has been building for years in both places. With it, Deng Xiaoping's prescription for the futures of Taiwan and Hong Kong - "one country, two systems" - lies figuratively in ashes. President Xi Jinping now must decide whether he should hold firm or find ways to broaden his China Dream to accommodate the democratic aspirations of Hong Kong and Taiwan. Xi has greater legal latitude and practical opportunity to use force in Hong Kong, where Beijing's sovereignty is universally acknowledged and where it controls the actions of police. Short of a mass revolution in the territory, there is no present need to mobilize the People's Liberation Army, particularly as the local police are beginning to show the kinds of ruthless behavior Chinese authorities use in handling protests on the Mainland. But if Hong Kong's authorities prove unable to handle larger demonstrations, would Xi risk a Tiananmen-like massacre rather than honor Deng's home-rule promise? Taiwan presents a different kind of legal, diplomatic, or military challenge. First of all, a couple dozen governments still recognize the Republic of China, rather than the People's Republic, as the legitimate authority in Taiwan. Even governments that officially accept the "one China" concept, most notably the United States, profess agnosticism on which government should rule Taiwan. Moreover, successive U.S. administrations have declared that any resolution to Taiwan's fate must reflect the will of the 23 million Taiwanese. (Beijing says 1.4 billion Chinese voices must also be heard in the decision.) Washington has long provided arms to help Taiwan prepare its own defense, and the Taiwan Relations Act pronounced any threat to Taiwan's future a matter "of grave concern to the United States," falling just short of the explicit security commitment contained in the earlier Mutual Defense Treaty.” http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2014/12/04/one_country_two_systems_falls_apart_110837.html

For China, Cybersecurity is Part of Strategy for Protecting Communist Party. “For nearly two years, cyberespionage has been a tense focal point of relations between the United States and China. On Wednesday, the Center for a New American Security, a research group in Washington, released a paper written with the aim of understanding the motivations behind China’s cybersecurity strategy. Its conclusion: that the strategy, like China’s foreign policy, is driven mainly by the domestic political imperative of needing to “protect the longevity of the Chinese Communist Party.” The paper is based on readings of Chinese-language sources and tries to lay out reasons for why state-supported actors engage in cyberespionage and other activities. The paper’s author, Amy Chang, a research associate in the center’s technology and national security program, argues that there are three main components of the cybersecurity strategy — economic, political and military — and that they are all aimed at ensuring the survival of party rule. For example, Ms. Chang writes that maintaining economic growth and stability, which is critical to legitimizing the party in the eyes of ordinary Chinese, is a goal of industrial economic cyberespionage, which the White House has said is carried out at least in part by hackers employed by the People’s Liberation Army. China’s cybersecurity strategy — which it calls “network security” (网络安全) — also ranges from mastering information control and propaganda with the goal of preventing or quelling domestic instability to studying foreign adversaries’ military infrastructure and capabilities in the cyber realm, according to the paper.” http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/for-china-cybersecurity-is-part-of-strategy-for-protecting-the-communist-party/?_r=0#

The Next Flash Point Between China and America: Taiwan? “Taiwan’s governing Kuomintang Party (KMT) suffered a brutal defeat in just-completed elections for local offices. Indeed, the extent of the KMT’s rout made the losses the Democratic Party experienced in U.S. midterm congressional elections look like a mild rebuke. The setback was so severe that President Ma Ying-jeou announced that he would relinquish his post as party chairman. Although that decision does not directly affect Ma’s role as head of the government, it reflects his rapidly eroding political influence. The growing domestic political turbulence in Taiwan is not just a matter of academic interest to the United States. Under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, Washington is obligated to assist Taipei’s efforts to maintain an effective defense and to regard any coercive moves Beijing might take against the island as a serious threat to the peace of East Asia. During Taiwanese leader Lee Teng-hui’s presidency in the 1990s, several tense episodes occurred between Taipei and Beijing, and in December 1995, the U.S. aircraft carrier Nimitz made a show of support for Lee’s government by sailing into the Taiwan Strait. The Taiwan issue became an even more persistent source of tension in U.S.-Chinese relations during the subsequent administration of Chen Shui-bian. Chen and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) aggressively pressed an agenda to move Taiwan’s de facto independence from China toward a more official version. Beijing responded by warning that such a move risked provoking a military response and cautioned “outside powers” (i.e., the United States) against support for “separatist” ambitions.” http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-next-flash-point-between-china-america-taiwan-11791

China to Halt Harvesting of Organs from Executed Prisoners for Transplant. “China said it would halt harvesting the organs of executed prisoners for transplant beginning next year, following longtime criticism from human-rights groups, though the change could add uncertainty to China’s organ supply. Chinese officials will stop using the organs of inmates beginning Jan. 1, nearly three years after Beijing first said it intended to stop the program and create a national organ donation system. While China already forbids organ donations without the consent of the donor or the family, critics have said inmates can feel pressured to sign away their organs and that the source of organs isn’t well supervised. “This is the only way to go,” said Zhao Hongtao, an assistant to Huang Jiefu, director of China’s Human Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee. Mr. Zhao said the directive issued on Wednesday was aimed at hospitals, which harvest the organs and play a key role in the trade. Authorities haven’t publicly released details, so specific changes to China’s organ-donor laws aren’t clear. Officials have previously said that China depended for years on executed prisoners as its main source of organ supply for ailing citizens. About 65% of transplants in China use organs from deceased donors, over 90% of whom were executed prisoners, according to a 2011 paper co-written by Mr. Huang in the medical journal Lancet. The paper said China is the only country that systematically uses organs from executed prisoners. Human-rights groups say the harvesting is often forced and influences the pace of China’s executions. Mr. Huang has been quoted in state media reports as saying that the rights of death-row prisoners have been fully respected and that the state asks for written consent prior to donation. The shift calls into question where China will get its organs. Due in part to traditional beliefs and distrust of the medical system, voluntary donations are rare in China, where the need for organs far exceeds the supply. According to an online survey done in May by the China Youth Daily newspaper and the website qq.com, fewer than half of more than 40,000 young Chinese people wanted to be organ donors.” http://online.wsj.com/articles/china-to-halt-harvesting-of-organs-from-executed-prisoners-for-transplant-1417701166

The Caucus Brief is a daily publication for Members of Congress and Hill Staffers on China news and information compiled by the office of Congressman Randy Forbes, Founder of the Congressional China Caucus.  Email alex.gray@mail.house.gov with tips, comments, or to subscribe/unsubscribe.