China's Emergence as a Superpower (2015 onwards)

**AdamG** · 03-09-2019

Lede sorta buried on this one.

Even after twenty-one rounds of bilateral talks, the India-China border dispute remains unresolved. Nor is the frontier quiet. In the summer of 2017, a flare-up occurred at Doklam near the India-Bhutan-PRC tri-junction. The catalyst was an attempt by China’s People Liberation Army (PLA) to construct a road on the Doklam plateau, through disputed territory. Bhutan, which has a security pact with India, turned to New Delhi for assistance. India responded by deploying a contingent of forces to block the road building. That decision did not stem from altruism toward a weak neighbor but rather from the awareness that China, had it completed the road, would have been in a position to launch a pincer movement to cut India’s ground links to its northeastern states in the event of a war.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature...ht-china-46377

**Bill Moore** · 03-09-2019

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...erate-on-china

EU Urges Trump to Lift Tariffs So Allies Can Cooperate on China

“We have a problem: China is dumping the market, China is subsidizing their industry, this creates global distortions. We can agree on that. So what is the solution? Well, we think it is to cooperate on China,” Malmstrom told Bloomberg News in an interview in Washington. “The solution to these problems is not imposing tariffs on the European Union. Why is that so hard to understand?”

We all got it, balancing policy decisions across the DIMEFIL to address multiple and often conflicting national interests is challenging to say the least. The President is trying to protect U.S. jobs and manufacturing. He is doing so by simultaneously targeting competitors who are in broad terms adversaries (China) and competitors who are friends (EU). To address the greatest threat, it may be best to delay our trade discussions with the EU so we can collectively focus on the major threat to international norms which is China. It would somewhat stabilize the markets, and give us a position of advantage to compete more effectively against China.

**Bill Moore** · 03-10-2019

https://www.news.com.au/world/south-...affafd742defab

South China Sea tensions at new high after Vietnamese boat rammed and sunk

“A Chinese ship reportedly rams and sinks a Vietnamese fishing boat in the Paracels (again),” he said on Twitter.

“China’s neighbors have become so numb to the constant exercise of low-intensity violence and intimidation that it will warrant barely a mention in regional press.”

**Bill Moore** · 03-10-2019

https://www.defenseone.com/technolog...nseone_today_n

The West Isn’t Ready for the Coming Wave of Chinese Misinformation

The Chinese government activity has gone largely undetected by Americans because it mostly aims to shape perceptions about China. But the researchers’ data shows that Chinese social media posts are very effective at achieving their aims. They report that just two Chinese profiles on Instagram achieved “a level of audience engagement roughly one-sixth as large as the entire Russian IRA-associated campaign targeting the United States” on the same platform.

Yea, but you can't lie to us better than we lie to ourselves.

Also, neither Chinese nor Russian misinformation activity matches what Americans do to one another. A new report out Thursday from the NYU Stern School of Business and Human Rights found that Americans are the largest creators of misinformation on American social networks.

This is the link to the actual report.

https://www.recordedfuture.com/china...ia-operations/

What we need to see to balance this report is China's influence on other countries, where they very much seek to influence the outcome of elections to advance their OBOR interests.

**AdamG** · 03-14-2019

Double-tapped post, as it could dovetail with Bill's post above.

Note - this conclusion is based on the number-of-papers-published. Flip a coin as to whether this is a valid indicator of actual progress or academic hot air.

In July 2017, China’s government published an ambitious policy paper, outlining how the country would become the world leader in AI by the year 2030. But by some measures China has already succeeded in this goal — a decade ahead of schedule.

A new study shows that China’s output of influential AI research papers will soon overtake that of the US, the world’s current number one in AI research. The finding suggests that China’s plan to expand its AI capabilities with the help of generous government investment in both educational facilities and private industry is paying off.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/14/1...in-ai-research

**AdamG** · 03-21-2019

During Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to Italy starting tomorrow (March 21), the euro zone’s third-largest economy is expected to officially back the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s global push to extend its political and economic clout abroad.

The move, which is alarming European allies and the US, bears the stamp of a relative newcomer to Italian politics: Michele Geraci.

Xi’s visit to Italy, which will be followed by stops in Monaco and France (paywall), comes after discussions in Europe that have seen China labeled a “systemic rival” and amid efforts by the US to bar Chinese firms from participating in the roll-out of 5G telecom by allies over concerns about network security.

Shades of Il Duce. Gotta keep those trains running on time.

Behind Italy’s move to deepen ties with China—even as global concern about Chinese investment has increased—is Geraci, one of the most ardent admirers of China in the Italian government. Now serving as Italy’s undersecretary for economic development, Geraci lived in China for over a decade teaching finance, and has written approvingly about the country’s approach to everything from China’s stern controls (link in Italian) on internal migration, to its security apparatus, to its investment strategy on the African continent.

https://qz.com/1572243/italy-to-sign...d-project/amp/