New report predicts location of China’s next overseas military base

The People’s Liberation Army Navy is most likely to build its second overseas base in Sri Lanka, according to a new report that studied where Chinese commercial firms have invested most heavily in establishing harbor and port infrastructure.

• The report, published by the College of William & Mary’s AidData research lab, proposes a shortlist of eight likely locations for China’s next overseas military base.
• Bata port in Equatorial Guinea, Gwadar in Pakistan, Kribi in Cameroon, and Ream in Cambodia also make the top five.

But researchers aren’t in complete agreement about where, or even whether China will build new naval bases abroad.

• The new report assumes that ports that have seen deep Chinese commercial investment will be more likely to host a base, but other experts told The China Project that Chinese investment may not be the best indicator of China’s intentions to build military facilities.
• Scholars who study the PLA also think China’s navy may simply opt to use existing commercial ports that Chinese state-owned entities own or operate.

Click through for a review of everything we know about China’s plans, and informed commentary from a range of specialists.

Eduardo Jaramillo

China released a Taiwanese citizen detained for the past four years on spying charges, Taipei announced today.

Taiwanese businessman Lee Meng-chu (李孟居 Lǐ Mèngjū), who departed Beijing on Monday, went missing in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in August 2019. He had been crossing the border from Hong Kong — a trip he had done many times in the past — when Chinese border guards found fliers supporting the 2019 anti-government protests.

Lee was also accused of taking photos of Chinese military troops gathering near the Shenzhen border during Hong Kong’s protest movement and sending them back to contacts in Taiwan. He later appeared on Chinese television “confessing” to illegally filming the military exercises in October 2020.

“I almost cried when I passed through immigration just now,” Lee said when he landed at Haneda airport in Tokyo, where he was sent upon his release, according to the Washington Post. “I’ll never return there.”

Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 met with Indonesian President Joko Widodo in Chengdu, capital city of southwest China’s Sichuan Province, where Widodo will attend the opening ceremony of the FISU World University Games — this is the top story on the English and Chinese homepages of the state news agency Xinhua.

The People’s Daily today leads with guidance from General Secretary Xi to “take how many good deeds have been done for the common people as an important criterion for evaluating political performance.”

Canadian diplomats were denied access to the appeal trial of Kris Wu (Wú Yìfán 吴亦凡), the 32-year-old Chinese-born Canadian rapper who in November was sentenced to 13 years in prison for sex crimes and ordered to pay an $84 million fine.

“Consular officials in Beijing were notified of the hearing and requested to attend, but the request was denied by Chinese authorities,” Jeremie Berube, spokesperson at Global Affairs Canada, said.

China’s new, but old Foreign Minister Wáng Yì 王毅 was in Turkey on his first foreign trip since being reappointed, the highest-level visit from Beijing to Ankara since 2011. Two days ago, Wang had replaced former rising star Qín Gāng 秦刚 after a mysterious one-month absence from the public eye barely half a year into the job. (The Foreign Ministry is still not saying what happened to Qin, despite comically persistent questioning from foreign journalists.)

Wang pledged to deepen China’s economic cooperation with Turkey during his meetings with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday. They also discussed the latest situation in Ukraine, as well as the global financial system.

China offered to hold joint military drills with the Philippines, after Beijing’s ambassador to Manila made an “informal” proposal for the two countries to hold defense exercises, Philippines military chief Romeo Brawner said today. Manila will study the proposal, but will not hold the joint drills in the disputed South China Sea if it goes through, he said.

China hit a record number of 668 million gamers, up 0.35% from the same period last year, government-run game industry association China Game Industry General Communities (CGIGC) announced at a conference in Shanghai today. Sales revenue of the domestic gaming market reached 144.263 billion yuan ($20.23 billion) for the first half of this year.

Mobile phones are also the main way that users are accessing the internet in China, accounting for 88.9% of the total online population, the CGIGC stated. Meanwhile, online payments, shopping, and travel booking services, through cell phones rose 26.9%, 14.5% and 25%, respectively.

The uptick signals a recovery in China’s gamer population, which shrank for the first time last year after Beijing imposed a sweeping crackdown on the gaming sector.

Gallium prices are up nearly 20% in the U.S. and Europe, after China announced earlier this month that it will impose new export controls on the crucial metal used in production of compound semiconductors, which power everything from mobile phones, 5G networks, solar panels, to military hardware. China is estimated to control about 94% of the world’s raw supply.

South Korea’s conservative president Yoon Suk-yeol is bolstering the alliance with the U.S.

• In April, Yoon condemned “attempts to change the status quo by force” in Taiwan and said the Taiwan issue was of global importance, contradicting China’s claim that it is purely a domestic matter.
• Yoon then enjoyed a state visit to America, where he was feted by Joe Biden. The two leaders also shared platforms at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan in May, and the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania in July. (South Korea is not a member of either organization, so Yoon was officially an “observer” at both events.)

Yoon is also embracing Japan:

• Since Yoon became president in the summer of 2022, he has held a series of productive meetings with his Japanese counterpart, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Both leaders will be treated as VIP guests by U.S. President Joe Biden when he hosts a trilateral summit at Camp David in the United States on August 18, 2023.
• “Washington has long tried to push its two closest Asian allies together but has often been unsuccessful in this endeavor because Japan’s brutal 35 year occupation of Korea has scarred the Korean psyche,” Head of Asia Research at Global Data TS Lombard told The China Project.

Beijing is not happy, as Ducan Bartlett explains.

Duncan Bartlett

Soul-rock singer Della Miles, who once sang back-up for Whitney Houston, is using her talents to draw attention to the plight of detained Uyghur Muslims in China with a new song called “East Turkistan.”

• Miles was shocked to learn about the plight of Uyghurs, leading her to record the song with Turkish composer Turgay Evren, she told The China Project from Turkey, where she lives.
• The song has become a rallying cry for the Uyghur community in exile, now estimated to number 50,000-150,000.

Ruth Ingram reports from Istanbul.

Ruth Ingram

• Chiang Yee, through war and loneliness, lived quite the life. Born in Jiujiang, Chiang Yee (Jiǎng Yí 蒋彝) found himself in England in 1933, where he became an exile after war broke out back home. He became a “silent traveler,” and wrote books beloved in his adopted land. His travelog The Silent Traveller in London is the latest entry on Paul French’s Ultimate China Bookshelf.

Below are links from our NewsBase to other noteworthy reports published in the last 24 hours from and about China.

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

China’s answer to Starlink
Lift-off for Lingxi-03: China tests ultra-thin flexible solar wing for satellite network to rival Elon Musk’s Starlink / SCMP (paywall)
“China has launched its first communications satellite bearing an ultra-thin flexible solar wing as it tests technologies for the country’s planned 13,000-satellite broadband mega constellation in low-Earth orbit to rival SpaceX’s Starlink.”

• On The China Project in June: China wants to compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink

TikTok
Inside TikTok CEO’s plan to play offense / The Information (paywall)
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew (周受资 Zhōu Shòuzī) “is fending off intensifying threats to the viral video app, including circling regulators and slowing growth. His answer: Give his policy team more freedom and make bigger bets on e-commerce and livestreaming.”
TikTok wants to sell made-in-China goods to Americans / WSJ (paywall)
“TikTok is launching an e-commerce business in the U.S. to sell made-in-China goods to consumers, stepping up its rivalry with popular shopping platforms Shein and Temu.”

Can Shein take on Amazon?
Shein makes an aggressive pitch to woo U.S. Amazon sellers / The Information (paywall)
“Shein, the Singapore-based fast-fashion giant most recently valued in May at $66 billion, has won over millions of American shoppers by shipping $4 crop tops and $8 jeans directly from China. Now it’s pushing further into incumbents’ territory by trying to recruit U.S. brands that are already big on Amazon and Shopify, part of its plan to transform into an online ‘everything store’ where shoppers can buy a wide range of goods from outside sellers and Shein alike.”

Investors believe in government stimulus
China tech stocks on brink of bull market on stimulus hopes / Caixin (paywall)
“A gauge of China tech shares traded in Hong Kong closed just shy of entering a technical bull market over expectations of further stimulus for the nation’s flagging economy.”

Decoupling not de-risking
The case for a hard break with China / Foreign Affairs (paywall)
Oren Cass and Gabriela Rodriguez argue for decoupling: “Never in human history have nations with such radically different economic and political systems as the United States and China attempted economic integration.”

No end to economic woes
Half of China’s provinces fall behind the national economy / Caixin (paywall)
“More than half of China’s provinces and provincial-level municipalities reported slower economic growth in the first half than the national economy’s 5.5% expansion, largely reflecting the ongoing slump in the real estate industry and slack global demand for manufactured goods.”
China industrial profits extend double-digit slide on weak demand / Reuters
“China’s industrial profits extended this year’s double-digit pace of declines into a sixth month as waning demand took a toll on companies’ profit margins, bolstering the case for more supportive policy to help the economy.”
Has China peaked? / FP (paywall)
“There’s been a spate of unflattering economic data out of China recently. Growth in the most recent quarter ending in June amounted to just 0.8 percent, dragged down by weak consumer spending. Trade flows have declined the most since the start of the pandemic. And rising geopolitical tensions have led multinational corporations to accelerate moves to shift their manufacturing and supply chains away from China.”

Youth unemployment
How bad Is China’s economy? Millions of young people are unemployed and disillusioned / WSJ (paywall)
“More than one in five young people in China are jobless. The government casts much of the blame on the job seekers themselves, insisting that their expectations have gotten too high.”

Electric vehicles
Western car makers look to slash EV costs to fight Chinese ‘invasion’ / Reuters
“Western automakers are fretting about an ‘invasion’ of cheap Chinese electric cars in Europe, prompting France’s Renault (RENA.PA) to say on Thursday it was aiming to slash production costs for its electric models by 40%.”
Chinese electric-car shares boosted by Volkswagen investment in Xpeng / FT (paywall)
“Shares in Chinese electric-vehicle makers rose sharply on Thursday after Volkswagen announced a tie-up with Chinese rival Xpeng designed to boost the German car manufacturer’s lagging sales in the country.”
VW-Xpeng deal is evidence of China’s growing EV dominance / Bloomberg (paywall)
Volkswagen’s EV gambit in China makes sense / WSJ (paywall)
Probe clears local government accused of crippling China EV startup / Caixin (paywall)
“The decision by a local government to reject renewing a loan guarantee for troubled mini electric-vehicle (EV) startup Levdeo was in compliance with regulations, a joint investigation team said on Tuesday as it wrapped up a probe into a claim by the automaker’s founder in January that the refusal led to a production halt and undermined its financing efforts.”
Charging your electric car is becoming more expensive in China / Sixth Tone
“The government has moved electricity supplied to public electric charging stations to a higher rate. Charging station operators are passing on the increased costs to consumers.”

Huawei
Huawei’s comeback ambition and China’s jobless grads / Nikkei Asia (paywall)
“Chinese tech champion Huawei, which has been struggling to shake off the impact of a yearslong U.S. clampdown, aims to bring back its 5G mobile chips as soon as this year.”

WeChat says it does not spy on users
WeChat tells Australian lawmakers China has never asked to spy on users, access private messages / SCMP (paywall)
“An Australian parliamentary inquiry into foreign interference convened by China hawks has been told by WeChat that Beijing had never made requests to snoop on Australian users or have access to private chat messages.”

Alibaba
Alibaba Cloud brings Meta’s next-gen AI model to mainland / Caixin (paywall)
“Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s cloud unit said it has become the first Chinese mainland-based enterprise to support Meta Platforms Inc.’s new Llama artificial intelligence (AI) model, bringing the next-generation technology used to train ChatGPT-like tools to Chinese businesses.”

SCIENCE, HEALTH, AND ENVIRONMENT:

Mental health
Living in perpetual fear: why discharged psychiatric patients in Hong Kong walk on eggshells and say the system of letting them out needs to be reformed / SCMP (paywall)
“About 1,300 people with mental health disorders have been given conditional discharges from psychiatric care facilities, a freedom that comes with a host of rules.”

Extreme weather
Coastal Chinese city joins parts of Taiwan in shutting down schools and offices for Typhoon Doksuri / AP
“The coastal Chinese city of Shantou on Thursday joined parts of Taiwan in shutting down schools and offices as Typhoon Doksuri brings heavy wind and rain to the Taiwan Strait and surrounding areas.”
China braces for Typhoon Doksuri’s landfall, shutting schools and businesses / Reuters
China girds for Typhoon Doksuri as toll rises in Philippines / Bloomberg (paywall)

POLITICS AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS:

China’s warm relationship with Indonesia
Indonesian President Widodo arrives in China and plans talks with Chinese leader Xi / AP
“Indonesian President Joko Widodo arrived Thursday in China and planned to meet with Chinese leader Xí Jìnpíng 习近平.”
Indonesia’s Jokowi off to China to meet Xi / Nikkei Asia (paywall)
Xi pledges closer ties with Indonesia after Jokowi meeting / Bloomberg (paywall)

China’s foreign ministry shakeup
Chinese foreign minister exit: no change to ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy as Wang Yi replaces Qin Gang, but there is hope of policy stability / SCMP (paywall)
“China’s tough-talking foreign minister Qín Gāng 秦刚 is gone, but foreign diplomats and analysts believe the ‘wolf warrior’ style of diplomacy he is known for will continue.”
China insists diplomacy ‘orderly’ after foreign minister’s shock removal / FT (paywall)
“China has insisted its diplomatic affairs are in an ‘orderly’ state despite the month-long disappearance and sudden removal from office this week of foreign minister and favorite of President Xi Jinping, Qin Gang.”
Xi protege’s sudden removal adds to rough start for third term / Bloomberg (paywall)
“The sudden ouster of Xi Jinping’s handpicked foreign minister is the latest example of how the Chinese president’s strengthened grip on power has failed to insulate him from setbacks on some of his biggest policy priorities.”
After ousting a top official, China erases him and evades questions / NYT (paywall)
“China blasted ‘malicious hype’ around the abrupt removal of Qin Gang. The Foreign Ministry’s fumbling response pointed to its diminished influence under Xi Jinping.”

China’s historical narratives
Why America forgets — and China remembers — the Korean War / Foreign Affairs (paywall)
“In March, an essay in the CCP’s top theoretical journal praised how the Chinese army ‘defeated the world’s No. 1 enemy armed to the teeth on the Korean battlefield and performed mighty and majestic battle dramas that shocked the world and caused ghosts and gods to weep.’”

Taiwan
Taiwan says China releases man accused of spying / Reuters
“Taiwan’s government said on Thursday that China had released a Taiwanese citizen who had been detained on charges of spying, and that he had already left the country.”

U.S.-China competition and tensions
China vows countermeasures after CIA chief William Burns says agency is working to rebuild spy network / SCMP (paywall)
“Beijing has vowed to take ‘all necessary’ countermeasures following comments by CIA director William Burns that the agency has “made progress” in rebuilding its spy networks in China.”
China’s Cambodian navy base project makes U.S. wary, but fears it will host aircraft carrier are unfounded, analysts say / SCMP (paywall)
“The PLA might be able to use a Chinese-built pier project in Cambodia for logistics but the facility could not be used for bigger military missions such as berthing an aircraft carrier, according to observers.”
China-baiting by the U.S. Congress shows little has changed since the China Exclusion Act / SCMP (paywall)
“From banning Chinese immigrants in 1882 to barring Chinese property buyers in 2023, as part of the Eight Nation Alliance in 1900 or a China-containing Western bloc today, America is still not doing justice to China”
Why China won’t talk with America’s military / Foreign Affairs (paywall)
“Beijing sees silence as leverage.”
The new spy wars / Foreign Affairs (paywall)
“How China and Russia use intelligence agencies to undermine America.”

Thailand
Accused of bomb threats they say they didn’t make, family of Chinese dissident detained in Thailand / AP
“When Gao Peng landed in Thailand on July 3, he was not expecting to be accused of making bomb threats, to be put on an EU travel blacklist, or to see his mother and 16-year-old sister detained and threatened with deportation back to China.”

Canadian-Chinese pop star appeals sexual crimes verdict
Canadian diplomats denied access to Kris Wu’s appeal trial in China / Reuters
“Canadian diplomats were denied access to the start of Canadian pop star Kris Wu’s (吴亦凡 Wú Yìfán) appeal trial in Beijing, the Canadian government said, following his sentencing in 2022 to more than a decade in prison for crimes including rape.”

The Philippines
China offers to hold joint military drills with Philippines / Reuters
“China has offered to hold joint military exercises with the Philippines, local media reported on Thursday, quoting Manila’s military chief.”
China offers to conduct military drills with Philippines amid tensions / SCMP (paywall)

Turkey
New Chinese foreign minister Wang talks Ukraine in Turkey on first trip / Reuters
“Chinese Foreign Minister Wáng Yì 王毅 discussed Ukraine with his Turkish counterpart in Ankara and met President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday during his first foreign trip since being appointed, a Turkish foreign ministry source said.”

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

Should women have female-only spaces?
Amid uproar, Ctrip pulls plug on women-only train compartments / Sixth Tone
“While the new service has garnered attention among Chinese travelers, it has also sparked controversy over gender equality implications.”

Video games
China’s video game player population rises to a record at end-June / Reuters
“China’s video game players have grown to a record of 668 million, a government-run game industry association said on Thursday, as the world’s biggest gaming market returns to growth after a bruising crackdown.”

Theater
How a controversial play captured Aranya’s cultural divide / Sixth Tone
“The exclusive resort town wants to be known as a cultural hub. But high culture and high commercialism are an awkward match.”