• US national security adviser held “candid, constructive“ talks with Chinese foreign minister
• US national security adviser meets with Chinese foreign minister
• US national security advisor held talks with Chinese foreign minister-official
• A ‘green nudge’ cut single-use plastic waste in China, study suggests
• [Uk] James Cleverly refuses to say if he raised Parliament spy claim with China
• Xi Jinping builds a 21st-century police state | China
• The mystery surrounding China’s missing defence minister | China
• Analysis: Upheavals in Xi“s world spread concern about China“s diplomacy

US national security adviser held “candid, constructive“ talks with Chinese foreign minister

https://reuters.com/article/usa-china/us-national-security-adviser-held-candid-constructive-talks-with-chinese-foreign-minister-idUSKBN30N05O

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Malta this weekend, Beijing and Washington said on Sunday, as the world's two largest economies seek to stabilize troubled relations.

Both sides held "candid, substantive and constructive" talks during multiple meetings held Sept. 16-17, according to separate statements from the White House and the Chinese foreign ministry published Sunday.

Sullivan's meeting with Wang was the latest in a series of high-level discussions between U.S. and Chinese officials that could lay the groundwork for a meeting of U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year.

Sullivan last met Wang in Vienna in May.

China's foreign ministry said both sides agreed to maintain high-level exchanges and hold bilateral consultations on Asia-Pacific affairs, maritime affairs and foreign policy.

The White House added that both sides "committed to maintain this strategic channel of communication and to pursue additional high-level engagement and consultations in key areas ... in the coming months".

Washington said Sullivan "noted the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait", while Wang cautioned the United States that the Taiwan issue is the "first insurmountable red line of Sino-U.S. relations", according to the Chinese foreign ministry statement.

Biden this month expressed disappointment that Xi skipped a summit of Group of 20 leaders in India, but said he would "get to see him." The next likely opportunity for Biden to hold talks with Xi is an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco in November.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have traveled to China this year to ensure continued communication between the two countries amid tensions that flared after the U.S. military shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon that traveled over the United States.

Biden and Xi last met in 2022 on the sidelines of a G20 summit on Indonesia's resort island of Bali.

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US national security adviser meets with Chinese foreign minister

https://reuters.com/article/usa-china/us-national-security-adviser-meets-with-chinese-foreign-minister-idUSKBN30N05O

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Malta this weekend, a U.S. official said on Sunday, as the world's two largest economies seek to stabilize troubled relations.

Sullivan's meeting with Wang was the latest in a series of high-level discussions between U.S. and Chinese officials that could lay the groundwork for a meeting of President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year.

Sullivan last met Wang in Vienna in May.

Biden this month expressed disappointment that Xi skipped a summit of Group of 20 leaders in India, but said he would "get to see him." The next likely opportunity for Biden to hold talks with Xi is an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco in November.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have traveled to China this year to ensure continued communication between the two countries amid tensions that flared after the U.S. military shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon that traveled over the United States.

Biden and Xi last met in 2022 on the sidelines of a G20 summit on Indonesia's resort island of Bali.

Related Galleries:

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US national security advisor held talks with Chinese foreign minister-official

https://reuters.com/article/usa-china/us-national-security-advisor-held-talks-with-chinese-foreign-minister-official-idUSKBN30N05O

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan held weekend talks in Malta with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, a U.S. official said on Sunday.

Related Galleries:

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A ‘green nudge’ cut single-use plastic waste in China, study suggests

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/09/17/app-reduced-plastic-utensil-waste/2023-09-13T19:51:12.703Z

Pollution and climate change fueled by disposable plastics is a scourge of modern times — but recent research suggests a few simple changes can push people to use fewer single-use plastic utensils.

Writing in the journal Science, Chinese researchers report on how incorporating “green nudges” into a popular Chinese online food delivery service dramatically cut single-use cutlery orders. The nudges, if applied at a larger scale, could cut both plastic waste and deforestation, the scientists say.

China is the world’s largest producer and user of single-use cutlery, with Chinese customers of food delivery services using more than 50 million sets of single-use cutlery each day that were not “adequately recycled or disposed of,” the researchers write.

In response to new regulations designed to quell disposable cutlery waste, the Chinese online food platform Ele.me — similar to UberEats or DoorDash in the United States — began asking consumers whether they wanted cutlery with their orders, instead of automatically including it.

The researchers worked with Ele.me’s parent company, Alibaba, to evaluate the effectiveness of this initiative, which defaulted to zero cutlery and also allowed users to earn points that could be collected and redeemed for planting a tree in the Chinese desert.

They found that no-cutlery orders increased “significantly” — 648 percent — after the app change. The “nudges” didn’t harm business performance or the total number of orders.

Different groups responded differently to the app’s cutlery choices. Women, people over age 24 and infrequent app users were more likely to respond to the nudges, while people with more expensive cellphones or who bought more expensive meals responded more often.

Over 27 months of study, the researchers write, the nudges cut the number of cutlery sets delivered by 225.33 million, preventing 4,506.52 metric tons of waste and saving the equivalent of 56,333 trees.

If applied nationwide, the researchers write, such changes could make a massive difference.

“We think that the private sector and platform companies can play a powerful role in promoting prosocial behaviors among their customers,” the researchers write. “Better alignment between their corporate social responsibilities and ecofriendly initiatives could bring about far-reaching impacts to our planet.”

[Uk] James Cleverly refuses to say if he raised Parliament spy claim with China

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66836338?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

Xi Jinping builds a 21st-century police state | China

https://www.economist.com/china/2023/09/14/xi-jinping-builds-a-21st-century-police-state

UNDER XI JINPING, the Communist Party is building the most ambitious police state in China’s history, with the legal powers and surveillance tools to bring order and ideological conformity to every corner of daily life.

Special attention is being paid to grassroots law enforcement, notably via China’s system of administrative punishments: a vast array of sanctions, including physical detention, that may be imposed by police without a court hearing or warrant from a judge. The system covers acts that, in more severe forms, would be considered crimes. It has ancient roots. In imperial times, officials could punish “inadvisable behaviour” that fell short of illegality.

A revised version of China’s Public Security Administration Punishments Law was recently opened to public comment on the website of the National People’s Congress (NPC), updating a law enacted 17 years ago. It grants police many new powers. Some are provoking an unusually vocal backlash.

Article 34, for instance, creates a set of administrative-level political misdemeanours. It empowers police to fine or detain people for up to 15 days for words and deeds that “harm the spirit” or “hurt the feelings” of the Chinese people. The article is inspired by laws passed in recent years that created political-thought crimes punishable in court. To widespread public alarm, this proposed administrative-level law allows rank-and-file police to sanction not just unpatriotic acts, but also articles of clothing or symbols that they deem offensive to the public, as well as insults to party-approved heroes and martyrs.

Should those being punished answer back, they may regret it. Whereas the existing law punishes people whose actions obstruct police work, the draft version creates an offence of merely insulting or verbally abusing the police in the course of their duties. Its Article 120 allows some cases, involving “irrefutable evidence”, to be decided by a single officer. To offset these new powers, the draft law emphasises that enforcers will be subject to internal codes of discipline and supervision by anti-corruption inspectors.

The revised law has a crowd-pleasing feel to it. Several articles respond to news events that triggered public outrage. There are ripped-from-the-headlines clauses about pyramid schemes and those who throw objects from high buildings. One strikingly specific clause sanctions anyone who grabs the steering wheel of a public bus from the driver. That anti-social act has been caught on video—and widely shared—more than once in the past few years.

That is not the only nod to viral news stories. By adding language about clothing that hurts the public’s feelings, authorities are reopening recent rows about sartorial censorship. In effect, the new clause offers retroactive backing to police who temporarily detained a young woman last year for taking selfies while wearing a Japanese kimono in the eastern city of Suzhou. That heavy-handed response delighted Japan-loathing nationalists, but appalled liberal netizens. Anxiety is spreading. A comment earlier this year on Taobao, an e-commerce platform, pondered the risks of arrest for buying a T-shirt reading: “This is what a feminist looks like”.

The revised law is provoking unusually heated debate. More than 92,000 citizens have submitted comments on it to the NPC website. Many Chinese have not forgotten the petty grassroots tyrants who enforced strict, at times irrational “zero-covid” pandemic controls. Liberal Chinese, an embattled bunch, are not shocked that the measure claims new powers for the state. They long ago understood that the government’s authority is more or less limitless. Instead, critics focus on the discretion that the draft offers law-enforcement officers. Put another way, if a police state worries some Chinese, their main concern is the police.

An article by Shen Kui, a law professor at Peking University, voices concerns that the draft’s vague language makes “arbitrary” law-enforcement more likely. In a commentary later deleted from the Paper, an online publication in Shanghai, Zhao Hong of the China University of Political Science and Law worries that officers may be allowed to decide whether they have been abused while on duty, based on their personal feelings. In that case, he writes, the law may sanction citizens who merely direct heated complaints or “harmless ridicule” at the police. Other scholars note, gloomily, that the draft law allows police to collect biological samples, such as hair or blood, from those charged with even trivial misdemeanours. A court warrant is not needed.

Arbitrary rule, but with paperwork

To an optimist, these careful murmurs of criticism show that China still allows some limited space for debate. Draft laws are opened for comments and legal minds may weigh in. In the first decades of the People’s Republic, Mao-era “revolutionary justice” often amounted to rule by mob, with class enemies hounded to death or sent to labour camps without due process. Under Mr Xi, the party treads a different path. It is horrified by mobs and obsessed with order. Instead, the party promises law-based governance, enforced by professionals whose roles are constrained by written codes. After a decade of brutal anti-corruption drives, that system is now cleaner. Not long ago, Chinese judges openly asked for bribes. Today, they are too scared to try.

To a pessimist, a less corrupt, more professional justice system offers no real shield against tyranny. China’s courts and police are explicitly under the party’s authority, and judicial independence is denounced as a dangerous Western notion. Vaguely-worded laws allow officials to define wrongdoing as they see fit. The administration punishments law is a case in point. In today’s China, rulers publish a stream of new laws to try to legitimise their exercise of power. They eschew state terror. Party critics are not found in the streets of Beijing, at dawn, with a bullet in the head. But the Xi-era police state is remorseless, like a great, steel machine. This China will take dissenters’ freedoms, and offer them a receipt. ■

Read more from Chaguan, our columnist on China:
The Belt and Road, as seen from China (Sep 7th)
When China thought America might invade (Aug 31st)
The world should study China’s crushing of Hong Kong’s freedoms (Aug 24th)

Also: How the Chaguan column got its name

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The mystery surrounding China’s missing defence minister | China

https://www.economist.com/china/2023/09/15/the-mystery-surrounding-chinas-missing-defence-minister

MAO ZEDONG used to say that political power grows from the barrel of a gun. In other words, controlling the armed forces is key to any leader’s success. Xi Jinping, China’s current supremo (and a keen student of Mao), appears to believe the same, having built his authority to a large extent on his sweeping overhaul of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the past decade. Yet just as those changes were supposed to be bearing fruit, a broadening purge of the PLA’s top ranks is calling into question its capacity to fight—and Mr Xi’s to lead.

The latest blow came with reports on September 14th and 15th that General Li Shangfu, who was appointed defence minister and state councillor (a senior role in China’s cabinet), in March, was recently detained for questioning. General Li, who is 65, has not been seen in public for more than two weeks, and was suddenly pulled out of an annual meeting with Vietnamese defence leaders that was scheduled for September 7th and 8th. Chinese authorities blamed a “health condition”.

China’s government has not confirmed any of the reports. A foreign-ministry spokeswoman said she wasn’t aware of the situation when asked to comment at a routine briefing. But if the news is accurate, it will be the first time in about six years that such a fate has befallen a sitting member of the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission, which controls the armed forces and is headed by Mr Xi.

It would suggest, too, that his purge goes well beyond the Rocket Force, which controls the PLA’s conventional and nuclear missiles. In July the authorities announced the sudden dismissal of General Li Yuchao, the commander of the Rocket Force, and General Xu Zhongbo, its political commissar. No reason was given. But there has been speculation that they could be under investigation for corruption or leaking military secrets.

A less high-profile but equally unusual personnel change came to light on September 1st with the dismissal of Major General Cheng Dongfang as president of the PLA military court after just eight months in that post. No reason was given. A graduate of the prestigious Peking University, General Cheng had previously served as head of the legal department and spokesman of the PLA garrison in Hong Kong.

Since all four generals’ appointments would have been approved by Mr Xi, if not personally decided by him, their downfall also raises questions about his judgment—or his ability to vet personnel effectively. So too does the equally sudden removal as foreign minister of Qin Gang, who was given that post by Mr Xi in December. The Chinese authorities cited health reasons for that change as well.

One possible explanation is that the four generals’ problems are all connected to the Rocket Force. Its share of the military budget is thought to have expanded in recent years as it has been overseeing a major upgrade of China’s nuclear arsenal. There has been no suggestion of corruption so far but big military-spending schemes have often enabled embezzlement, kickbacks and other misuse of funds.

Mr Xi’s new choices to lead the Rocket Force also suggest that he is trying to break up the kind of patronage networks within the service that have often led to corruption in the past. The force’s new commander, General Wang Houbin, is a career naval officer. Its new political commissar, General Xu Xisheng, comes from the air force.

A second possibility surrounding General Li Shangfu’s predicament is that it relates to his own long involvement in weapons development and procurement—another fertile ground for corruption. An engineer by training, he spent three decades working at China’s main satellite-launch centre, eventually becoming its director.

From 2017 to 2022 he headed the Central Military Commission’s Equipment Development Department. America imposed sanctions on him in 2018 for his role in China’s purchase of Russian combat aircraft and missile equipment. In July this year, the department announced a fresh crackdown on corruption, calling for tips about abuses dating back to 2017.

But there could be several other explanations, such as a failure to follow Mr Xi’s orders or another breach of military discipline. As defence minister, General Li is principally responsible for military relations with other countries and does not oversee operations. In that sense, his dismissal might not have immediate effects on the PLA’s capacity to fight.

Nonetheless, it would almost certainly be damaging to morale within the PLA and to the armed forces’ public image at home and abroad. The PLA’s corruption and ineffectiveness before Mr Xi took power could be blamed on his predecessors. But its current problems suggest he has had less success than he hoped in turning it into a leaner—and cleaner—fighting force capable of taking on America in a war over Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims.

There are no signs of any organised challenge to Mr Xi’s authority. However, the turmoil in the PLA is likely to amplify doubts about his ability to govern effectively as he confronts a wide range of challenges, including a slowing economy, crippling local-government debt and a rapidly ageing population.

The purges are also rich pickings for Mr Xi’s foreign critics as he seeks to portray China’s political system as a more stable and effective alternative to Western-style liberal democracy. Rahm Emanuel, the American ambassador to Japan, compared China’s government to an Agatha Christie novel, “And Then There Were None”, in a post last week on X, a social-media platform. After the reports about General Li on September 15th, he offered another literary analogy: “As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’.”■

Analysis: Upheavals in Xi“s world spread concern about China“s diplomacy

https://reuters.com/article/china-politics-defence-minister-diplomac/analysis-upheavals-in-xis-world-spread-concern-about-chinas-diplomacy-idUSKBN30M0GP

The disappearance of China's defence minister, the latest in a string of upheavals in the country's top ranks, is stoking uncertainty about President Xi Jinping's rule as an internal security clampdown trumps international engagement.

The growing unpredictability could affect the confidence other countries place in the leadership of the world's second-biggest economy, diplomats and analysts say.

Defence Minister Li Shangfu, who has missed meetings including with at least one foreign counterpart since he was last seen in late August, is under investigation in a corruption probe into military procurement, Reuters reported on Friday.

Newly installed Foreign Minister Qin Gang vanished with scant explanation in July, the same month as an abrupt shake-up of the military's elite Rocket Force, which oversees China's nuclear arsenal.

As Xi, China's commander-in-chief has focussed inward, he caused concern among foreign diplomats this month by missing a Group of 20 summit in India, the first time he has skipped the global leaders' gathering in his decade in power.

Faced with the growing uncertainties, some diplomats and analysts are calling for a hard look at the true nature of Xi's regime.

"Clear-eyed assessments are needed - this isn't just a question of whether China is a partner or a competitor, it is a source of economic, political and military risk," said Drew Thompson, a former Pentagon official who is now a scholar at the National University of Singapore.

Due to a lack of transparency surrounding the changes, various explanations were plausible "and this feeds the crisis of confidence that is brewing around China," Thompson said.

China's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

Regarding Defence Minister Li's disappearance and investigation, a ministry spokeswoman told reporters on Friday she was not aware of the situation. The State Council and Defence Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Since his appointment in March, Li has been the public face of China’s expanding military diplomacy, expressing concern over U.S. military operations during a high-profile security conference in June and visiting Russia and Belarus in August.

He had been expected to host an international security meeting in Beijing in October and represent the People's Liberation Army (PLA) at a meeting in November of regional defence chiefs in Jakarta.

With corruption long permeating China's military and state institutions, some analysts and diplomats believe Xi's anti-graft crackdowns mark political purges across the Communist Party.

"Regardless of the reason... the sense that this could keep happening could have an impact on foreign actors' confidence in engaging with their Chinese counterparts," said Helena Legarda, lead analyst with the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin.

The Li upheaval is unusual for its speed and its reach into Xi's hand-picked elites.

"This is all so sudden and opaque. One thing we can now see is that proximity does not equate to patronage in Xi's world," said Singapore-based security analyst Alexander Neill, an adjunct fellow with Hawaii's Pacific Forum think-tank.

Although not in a direct command position, Li serves on Xi's seven-person Central Military Commission and is one of China's five state councillors, a cabinet position that outranks regular ministers. Some scholars believe he is close to General Zhang Youxia, who sits above him on the commission and is Xi's closest ally in the PLA.

Li, sanctioned by Washington in 2018 for an arms deal with Russia, shunned a meeting with U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin at Singapore's Shangri-la Dialogue security conference in June, where a handshake marked their closest interaction.

Austin and other U.S. officials are keen to resume high-level talks between the two militaries regional tensions roil. But Beijing counters that it wants Washington to be less assertive in the Asia-Pacific.

Regional envoys say deeper Chinese military diplomacy is vital, particularly with the U.S. but also with other powers, as China increasingly deploys forces around Taiwan - the democratically governed island it claims - and across disputed parts of the East and South China Seas.

If Li's fate "reflects Xi's increasingly inward focus, it is not good for those of us who want greater openness and lines of communications with China's military," said one Asian diplomat.

As the PLA has an unprecedented level of military engagements with Southeast Asian forces this year, the recent swift changes back in Beijing "spur speculation and some concern about the continuity of policy", said political scientist Ja Ian Chong at the National University of Singapore.

"A shake-up of the military at this time is likely to draw attention, given the heightened activity of the PLA near Taiwan and the East China Sea, as well as stepped-up paramilitary activity in the South China Sea, since such actions create potential risk of accidents, escalation and crises," Chong said.