“Mentally Blind” Men and An Elephant

A couple of days ago, I was invited to attend a talk by the chief economist of a leading bank in Australia at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Melbourne. (The invite was actually extended to my son-in-law and as he could not make it had asked me to attend instead.) After the talk, a few of us were invited to join the dinner hosted by the university for the speaker.

The talk was on the outlook of the economy of China and India. As expected, the speaker thought China’s economy was about to decline, an outcome that is no different from what has happened to Japan years ago. He put up impressive graphs to support his contention – negative population growth, high youth unemployment, and more than 300% of debt as a percentage of GDP. He thinks that although China can achieve 5% GDP growth this year, the rate is going to be downhill all the way to something that is common to all developed countries, i.e., close to zero growth. He thinks it is unlikely that China can replace the US as the largest economy in the world.

On the other hand, he thinks India still has much in its tank. It should continue to do well for a long time.

The speaker is obviously a great fan of The Economist magazine. During the dinner, he sat two seats from me. And in between us was a lady professor at the university. I lost no time to patronise him. I told him he had not taken the culture part when he did his projections. He said he did not believe China’s story was a case of exceptionalism. I told him this should precisely be the term to describe China. I cited example after example to support my case. Since he agreed with me that Singapore’s leaders are great, I suggested he might like to read what Ong Ye Kung has just spoken about China – it is on way to become the largest economy in the world in 2030 in nominal terms. (It is already the largest in PPP terms.) One thing I have to take my hat off to him is that he did not seem to get offended by my opinion of this conclusion.

However, not so with the lady professor who sat between us. She seemed scornful about China all the while. Such attitudes are common amongst politicians in Australia, but I was surprised that a senior academic could behave that way. Just imagine, she said the century of humiliation suffered by China was made up by we Chinese. I could not help blurting out "What a load of rubbish!” to her. She must have been shocked by my outburst, albeit mine was done in a smiling manner. But how could a senior academic be so callous in her remark?

China produces about 12 million first level higher education qualifications, splitting roughly 50-50 between bachelor and non-degree professional certificates. It is still small relative to the size of the Chinese economy. The Chinese is rebalancing economy, thanks to the west’s decoupling and now de-risking policies in general and the US and its allies’ of their denial of China’s access to advanced chips and chips-making equipment in particular.  Nowadays, graduates tend to avoid manufacturing and construction jobs. The country therefore needs a much bigger and robust service sector to absorb much of this number. Unfortunately, its service sector is still small. The result has been the high rates of youth unemployment that have recently earned the “There, I told you so” cynicism from the western media.

Necessity is the mother of invention. I am quite confident that with its cultural foundation, entrepreneurs will rise to the occasion to grow the service industry.

 

There is a great deal of herd mentality amongst economists. They love to use past patterns and statistics to predict the future. Everything appears structural to them, when the real culprit is actually cyclically driven or circumstantial in nature. China’s apparent downturn in their eyes is to me a case in point.

The force that is driving and shaping this herd mentality is the west’s media. Remember US has allocated – under the America COMPETES Act – USD500 million for media outlets to produce journalism for overseas audiences that is critical of China. It funds the US Agency for Global Media, a US-run foreign media service, as well as local outlets and programmes to train foreign journalists.

I have a friend who is an editor with a leading daily in Hong Kong. He pores over hundreds of articles from newspapers, tv channels and journals everyday and would take pain to extend the links to friends. Just the last two months alone, I spotted the following and readers can see for yourselves the motives behind these articles. (Do see who the authors are. Several are Chinese ethnically!) The most venomous of which I can conclude is The Economist. To me, it is the most patronizing journal. They should advise its government what to do instead of telling Confucius how to teach Chinese young.

28 November
SCMP – Another charm offensive from China: China eager for closer supply chains and no decoupling, Premier Li Qiang tells inaugural expo, in latest charm offensive.
Kinling Lo

23 November
The Economist – How China Lost Europe, China’s European diplomacy is on losing streak. Both sides may come to regret it.
Nicholas Bequelin

21 November
The Economist - A Paradigm Shift in America’s Asia Policy. Washington Must Get More Countries Off the Sidelines in Its Contest with China.
John Lee

16 November
The Economist – Xi Jinping repeats imperial China’s mistakes. Lessons of a loyalty test that stifled innovation.

15 November
The Daily Telegraph – Xi Jinping won’t be able to save Communist China from disaster.
George Magnus

15 November
BBC – Xi Jinping arrives in US as his Chinese Dream splutters.

15 November
AFP - Biden says China has 'real problems' ahead of key US summit with Xi.
Huw Griffith

13 November
The Economist – China’s leaders will seek to exploit global divisions in 2024; But they will continue to preach harmony.
David Rennie

9 November
The Economist – China wants women to stay home and bear children; Xi Jinping shares his vision for a patriarchal society.

9 November
The Economist – Not all fun and games; The people of Hong Kong are growing more tolerant. Their government is not.

6 November
The Economist – The People’s Liberation Army is not yet as formidable as the West fears. Overestimating China’s armed forces would be dangerous.
Jeremy Page

6 November
The Economist – China’s economy is a mess. Why aren’t firms going under? The government’s desire to avoid bankruptcies is another drag on growth.

5 November
Foreign Policy - The Inevitable Fall of Putin’s New Russian Empire, What history tells us about collapsed empires trying to restore their former possessions.
Aleander Motyl

3 November

CNN – As the scattered patrons hop from one deserted bar to the next, it’s hard to believe the near-empty streets they are zigzagging down were once among the most vibrant in Asia.
Chris Lau

 

2 November

Foreign Affairs - Why China Can’t Break Its Coal Addiction; The CCP Prioritizes Energy Security Over Fighting Climate Change.

Michael Davidson

2 November
The New York Times – This city never slept. But with China tightening its grip, Is the party over?
Qilai Shen 

2 November
Foreign Policy – The Maoist Roots of Xi’s Economic Dilemma; Beijing needs domestic consumers to spend more, but the Chinese president’s ideology is getting in the way.
Jeremy Friedman 

2 November
Nikkei – Analysis: The mysteries and dangers that trail Li Keqiang's death; Xi Jinping's 'eternal rival' was behind this summer's Beidaihe drama.
Katsuji Nakazawa 

30 October
The Telegraph – Chinese minister invited to AI summit helped to create cyborg rats; Wu Zhaohui has also been described as man 'whose fingerprints are all over the Uyghur genocide'.
Charles Hymas and Jenny Pan 

28 October
The New York Times – One country, one system? Hong Kong’s judiciary faces test of independence; Beijing’s security law has had far-reaching-effect, snuffing out most of the free press, civil society and political activity.
Denis Staunton 

27 October
The Guardian – Li Keqiang, former premier of China, dies aged 68; Li served as China’s number two leader for 10 years before being sidelined by Xi Jinping.
Helen Davidson 

27 October
BBC – Why Li Keqiang's death is dangerous for Xi Jinping.
Stephen McDonell 

5 October
Nikkei – Analysis: Inside Xi Jinping's great military purge; Absences from National Day banquet reveal determination to cement army's loyalty.
Katsuji Nakazawa 

2 October
The Economist – The young and the nationalist; Communist rappers are luring young disgruntled Chinese; The party’s youth wing is growing. 

1 October
The Guardian – Beijing’s mixed messages leave businesses ‘questioning’ investments in China; A renewed focus on national security coupled with rising geopolitical tensions has damaged confidence in the private sector; Peak China? How the middle class hit a brick wall.
Amy Hawkins 

To be fair, there are also those who are pretty ojective in their reporting or assessments, but these are few and far between. I must say, of all, Pearls & Irritations is most commendable. Their contributors are usually scholars and thinkers. Below are the examples that I saw during the two-month period. 

29 November
SCMP – How US’ anti-China supply chain strategy risks hurting American consumers.
Christopher Tang

 

26 November
Pearls & Irritations – Sacrificing pawns in the USA’s geopolitical game.
Jerry Grey

 

25 November
Pearls & Irritations – White Man’s Media: The Chinese warship sonar incident.
John Menadue

 

16 November
SCMP – The wonders of British human rights hypocrisy on Hong Kong never cease; While the UK called on the city to scrap its national security law, it was busy enacting its own draconian domestic versions.
Alex Lo

24 October
Foreign Affairs – What America Wants from China. A Strategy to Keep Beijing Entangled in the World Order. 

6 October
Notes from The Edge of the Narrative Matrix – If You Buy into The Anti-China Propaganda You’re Just a Stupid Asshole.
Caitlin Johnstone 

2 October
Foreign Policy – Why the Global South Is Accusing America of Hypocrisy
Oliver Stuenkel

2 October
Brave New Europe – Five things that the west doesn’t understand about China’s foreign policy.
Tom Harper 

* * * * *

He Deserves to be Whipped???

The fact that the Kuala Lumpur High Court has found Syed Saddiq guilty of four charges of criminal breach of trust, misappropriation of property, and money laundering linked to RM1.12 million of Bersatu Youth funds did not quite shake me – until I read the sentence: Seven years of imprisonment, a RM10 million fine and two strokes of the cane.

What disturbs me is the sentence, especially on the whipping part.

Mariam Mokhtar wrote a long article to argue that the prosecutor had been too overzealous in his efforts to commit Saddiq. She cites Saddiq’s unwavering stances on issues of principles and thinks Saddiq represents our hope for the country. I cannot find fault with her sentiment.

The verdict and sentence created much traffic in the chat group amongst our Class of 1973 UM Engineering mates. Some contend that a crime is a crime, and Saddiq must face the music. Others thought it was because of his own making politically.

Of course, Saddiq still has higher courts to appeal, and a royal pardon to seek at the end of the legal route.

Sentences are meant to serve society’s expectations. Few would disagree if a harsh sentence is meted up to someone who has committed a heinous crime. Let’s take the case of the war in Gaza. Hamas’s action on October 7 was certainly an act of terrorism, even though it was done not without a cause. Yes, every effort can be made by the Israeli government to hunt down the terrorists, which they are certainly very good at, but for Netanyahu to order a blanket wipe-out of the Palestinians in Gaza is itself a terrible crime. 

China also sentences corrupt officials to face firing squads, but only if they have embezzled billions and caused irreparable damage to the economy.

In Saddiq’s case, I believe that it is more of a judgmental lapse than an intention to cheat. As Tunku Abdul Rahman used to say, if you have to throw stones at every one who is seen to be in the ‘wrong’, then you probably cannot find any stone left in the country. (I am just exaggerating!)

Wisdom is expected from a judge, not by-the-book decisions. It is not possible for sentences to be “standardized”, but double standards must not be the conclusion that we draw from our judiciary system.

I wrote about a certain Bāo Zhěng (包拯, 999-1062) in my recent book Knowing Your Roots. Let me bore readers with the lessons that can be learned from this legend.

Bāo Zheng, more commonly known as Bāo-Gōng (包公), was a justice in the Song Dynasty. Bao Zheng today is honoured as the cultural symbol of justice in Chinese society. Dramas on him have enjoyed sustained popularity. In mainstream Chinese mythology, opera, or drama, he is often portrayed with a black face and a white crescent shaped birthmark on his forehead. Legend has it that as he was born dark-skinned, Bao Zheng was discarded by his father right after birth. However, his virtuous elder sister-in-law, who just had an infant named Bao Mian (包勉), raised Bāo Zhěng like her own son. As a result, Bao Zheng would refer to Bao Mian's mother as "sister-in-law mother".

Bao Zheng was known for his honesty and uprightness, with actions such as sentencing his own uncle, impeaching an uncle of Emperor Ren-Zong's favourite concubine, and punishing powerful families. He defended peasants and commoners against corruption or injustice.

The Case of Executing Chen Shi-Mei (鍘美案)

Chen Shi-Mei had two children with wife Qin Xiang-Lian, and left them to sit for the imperial examination in the capital. After finishing first, he lied about his marriage and became the emperor's new brother-in-law, leaving Qin and the children to fend for themselves. Years later, a famine forced Qin and her children to move to the capital. She finally found a way to meet Chen, and begged him to at least help his own children. Not only did Chen refuse, but he also sent a servant by the name of Han Qi to kill them in order to hide his secret. Instead, Han helped the family escape and killed himself. Desperate, Qin brought her case to Bao Zheng, who tricked Chen into coming to court to have him arrested. The imperial family tried to intervene, but Bao executed him, nonetheless.

 

This case might not even appear metaphorical to Saddiq’s. Indeed, this is not my intention. I was trying to use Justice Bao Zheng to symbolise ‘wisdom’. Yes, the case would not have stood up in modern day justice systems. He used it to convict and serve society’s expectations.

What would Justice Bao mete out if he was the judge in the present case?

Shelf Lives of Empires and America, your time is up?

I was reading Hugh Peyman’s latest book America as No. 3, Get Real About China, India and the Rest. Peyman writes glowingly about the works of two great thinkers/historians – John Glubb and Paul Kennedy.  

Kennedy’s book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers is more recent; it was released in 1987. He is a well-known academic; many readers would have read it. It is more fact-based. He studied the causes and drew lessons. However, Glubb’s The Fate of Empires & Search for Survival is more observation-based. Glubb was born in 1897. He served throughout the first World War but in 1926 resigned his commission and accepted an administrative post under the Iraq Government. From 1939 to 1956 he commanded the famous Jordan Arab Legion.

Glubb observed that empires typically lasted about 250 years. He cited the following examples to support his observations.

I agree with some critics that Glubb was generalizing. It can hardly be described as a phenomenon. Be that as it may, there are many common denominators that do make an empire very vulnerable upon reaching a certain age, like what we humans tend to feel when we go into our 70s or 80s.

America declared independence on July 4, 1776. It is 247 years old. Peyman thinks that the American empire is also about to expire!

I love to believe Peyman, but we need to be more vigorous in making our wish!

Glubb had overlooked China to draw his conclusion. Let’s look at the timeline of China’s history.

Xia and Shang each lasted about 500 years, followed by Zhou’s 879 years, which included 275 years of the Warring States period. Han recorded 426 years. After that, China was plagued by many short dynastic reigns for about four hundred years. Xia, Shang, Zhou, and Han obviously did not sit well with Glubb’s pattern.

Then came Tang (289 years), Song (269 years), non-Han Yuan (89 years), Ming (275 years), and non-Han Qing (267 years). None lasted more than 300 years.

The People’s Republic of China is now 74 years old. Its health looks great and there is no reason for us to predict its demise now, save the nuts in the West and their sycophants in Japan, Korea, and the Philippines.

The causes of a dynasty or an empire’s demise are usually apparent to historians. To the Chinese, the emperor in question has lost the mandate of Heaven!

For America, the writing is indeed already on the wall. Society is fragmented – its great ethnic diversity is no longer a blessing. All Americans are equal before the law; but the reality is far from the truth. There is much racism and prejudice, and people are not quite tolerant of one another. The racial inequality and the huge gap between the rich and the poor, etc. turn many to lawlessness, gun violence and homelessness. The country spends much more than they produce and comes up with monetary policies that make other countries poor. The leaders are weak and devoid of visions and foresights, yet they think they are the best people to safeguard democracy in the world. The proxy war they are fighting in Ukraine is far from over, yet they want to help Israel finish off the Hamas. But the straw that will break the camel’s back is its unpreparedness to live peacefully with a rising and confident China. It thinks deprivation of technology to China is the answer to sustaining its hegemony position. The American leaders fail to recognise the fact that the strength of any empire is in its people. Much of American technology prowess is contributed by Chinese in America. This pool will certainly get smaller if the anti-China or anti-Chinese sentiments continue unabated.

America has helped awakened a strong sense of civilisational pride amongst Chinese all over the world. Yes, China still has many problems to solve, chief among which is the unbridled entrepreneurship that tends to get the whole country into a financial mess from time to time. There is still a gap between policies and execution. The former are usually good, and the latter, poor. Xi should encourage people to speak out in meetings and gatherings, rather than seeing top party officials and government leaders behaving like schoolboys feverishly taking note of what he says. Their petrification is very evident; it leads to mental seizure, as shown many a time in their inability to act in the most obvious way. (That’s anyway a very Chinese behaviour. Maybe there are strengths in it.) But one thing is for sure, China is less burdened by the unnecessary baggage that America loves to carry, and China is completely capable of reforming itself on a continuous basis.

Hi China, never mind what the world says of you. Just do things the Confucian way.

Let’s hope Peyman’s book can help englighten the Western world. 

 

Hamas, you have led your people into the jaws of Netanyahu!

I have always held the view that the Hamas leaders are a very ‘bodoh’ lot. Yes, they do have a cause, but they simply do not have any idea how to bring the Gaza Palestinians out of the reach of the Israeli jaws.  

Since their October 7 terror on the Israelis, more than ten thousand of their people have lost their lives. Out of the dead, two-thirds were children and women. Much of northern Gaza has been flattened, and they include schools and refugee centres. Aljazeera is the only TV channel that shows what has been, and is still, happening there. Many of the scenes are simply too graphic for us to watch. The world is calling for an immediate ceasefire. But America stands with Netanyahu, so do its hardcore allies. They are happy to support the bloodthirstiness of Netanyahu and his generals. (Hi Zelensky, you have a new competitor for America’s affection! It looks like you will soon be abandoned by Biden and NATO.)

Palestine is the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, and has been controlled by many kingdoms and powers, including Ancient Egypt, Ancient Israel and Judah (c 9^th Century BCE), the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great and his successors, the Roman Empire, several Muslim caliphates, and the Crusaders. In the more modern times, the area was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, then the British Empire after World War I. Starting in the late 1940s and continuing for decades thereafter, some 850,000 Jews from the Arab worlds immigrated to Israel.

 

In 1947, the UN General Assembly recommended partitioning Palestine into two states: one Arab and one Jewish.

 

The Jews declared the independence of the State of Israel in 1948. Unfortunately, the Arabs rejected the partition plan. War broke out; in the aftermath, Israel not only conquered more territories than those originally mandated, but they also drove out or caused about 80% of all Palestinians to flee.

 

After the war, only two parts of Palestine remained in Arab control – the West Bank, which was annexed by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip, which was occupied by Egypt. (Does this say something about the Arab world? Technically, Egyptians are not Arabs, but Arabic-speaking, though.) Israel took Gaza in the Six-Day War in 1967 and began to establish settlements in the occupied territories. 

 

The Palestinian national movement gradually gained international recognition under Yasser Arafat. In 1993, the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the PLO established the Palestine Authority as an interim body to run parts of Gaza and the West Bank (but not East Jerusalem) pending a permanent solution to the conflict. In 2007, Hamas won control of Gaza from the PA, now limited to the West Bank.

Except Israel and the US, most countries support a two-state solution to the conflict. But realistically, can the two-state proposal work?

Geographically, West Bank and Gaza are not abutting. West Bank is landlocked. The Gaza Strip does front the Mediterranean Sea, but it is too tiny to be able to survive on its own. The Arabs are generally very tribal in their mindsets – some countries practise absolute monarchy; others do show some form of democracy. You also have Muslim Brotherhood movements which countries like Egypt do not take kindly to as well. And the Muslim world is divided into the Sunnis and the Shias. While Palestinians are Sunni, Hamas is strongly supported by the Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran, both are Shia followers. It is all very confusing indeed.

Devoid of any strong common cause, Muslims in the Middle East only lend lip services to the Hamas in the present conflict, nothing more.

Do not blame them, though.

Militarily, Israel is the most powerful country in the Middle East. Judaism is puritanical. “We are God’s chosen people”, that is their belief. Period. On the other hand, the Arabs have never been cohesive. Even the Ottoman Empire, whose sultans were also not Arabic, could only rule with feudalistic iron-hands.

What was Hamas’s endgame in staging the October 7 raid into Israel? (I have loosely used the term ‘endgame’, which is a misnomer, for a foray of this nature should not be a game at all!) There is no doubt they have shaken the world up to the fact that their plights have been overlooked for a long, long time. But what are the consequences? And what can they achieve?

Hamas’s October 7 terror would only bring out the mania in Netanyahu and his generals. And to Biden, an attack on Israel is absolutely no-no, for the Jews are part-and-parcel of the US Deep State. Antony Blinken openly reminds everyone that he is Jewish and with that credential or qualification, he is trying to help? Help who? This dumb man keeps himself super busy. Who is listening to him?

When the whole of Gaza is flattened, Israel will occupy it for good. The remaining Palestinians will have to flee. Many will become suicide bombers in no time. The vicious circle continues!

As for the West Bank Palestinians, their leaders are entrenched in the trappings of the office Israel has accorded them. They will continue to pretend that they are the ‘authority’. In my opinion, statehood is not tenable there. It might as well ask to be absorbed by Jordan and live as Palestinian Jordanians – like Fujianese Chinese or Cantonese Chinese or Hainanese Chinese in China! Why try to split hair with your tribal background when you have no teeth or might? Or maybe the Autonomous State of Palentine that is guaranteed by the Arab fraternity? (Like Xinjiang, or Xichang. or for that matter SAR Hong Kong?) 

I love Taiwan, but…

 But the politicians there are destroying it!

The first time I visited Taiwan was in 1977 – with my wife and my two-year-old son. We joined a tour group the cost of which was paid by a company who wanted to thank me for having their goods released by Malaysian Customs after the court accepted my ‘expert’ testimony in a product classification case. The tour took us to the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand. I particularly remember our boat journey in Sun Moon Lake. My son asked if there were sharks in the water!

My 3^rd Brother Yew Sim did his degree at the National Chengchi University in the early 1960s. My parents could not afford for him to go to Nanyang University in Singapore. In those days, tertiary education was virtually free for overseas Chinese students. I remember he survived with a monthly remittance of fifty dollars from home. I loved to collect stamps those days and stamps from Taiwan were beautiful. Yew Sim would send me new issues from there from time to time.

My next visit was made in the late 1980s, when as the head of corporate development in Guthrie, I suggested that the company should go into rubber glove-making since it is a major rubber producer in the country. Three of us – Datuk Sulaiman Sujak who was the director of the commercial division, Ng Chee Tee who looked the machine-making unit, and I – went to Taichung to look for good suppliers of glove-making machinery and equipment. Taiwan was already a leading economic tiger then. Unfortunately, the visit did not achieve anything.

I was back in Genting in the early 1990s. A political crisis was brewing between China and Taiwan then and there was fear that China would cut off water supply to Kinmen, which is only about 10km east of Xiamen. Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong thought he should play Kissinger. He took a couple of us to fly with him to Taiwan. Obviously, the cross-Straits politics there was much more complex for him to be involved in. We had a good porridge meal there and flew back the same day. (The governor of Fujian during those days was Jia Qinling, who had been trying hard to get Tan Sri Lim to invest in two big-ticket projects in the province. And Jia had once brought all the city mayors in Fujian to visit Genting and I was privileged to be assigned to be the lead ‘receptionist’ and look after the mayor of Quanzhou specifically during their entire stay. City’s status in China is high; the area under a mayor’s jurisdiction can be as big as a state in our context.)

My last visit was about a year before Covid, which was also before Hong Kong was besieged by rioters. My son and his partner were both invited to attend a major medical function in Taipei. Two rooms had been booked at the Grand Hyatt for them. They did not need two rooms; he asked us to go with them.

While he was busy with his meetings, out of nostalgia, my wife and I took a train to the Sun Moon Lake area and put up a night there. After that, we also hired a dedicated taxi to take us to some other parts of the island. We had plenty of time to talk with the driver who also doubled as our tour guide. He was pretty knowledgeable, having worked in China before. He said he was comfortable if Taiwan had to return to China’s fold. My grandfather hailed from the prefecture of Jinjiang, which is in Quanzhou. Min-nan is therefore our dialect. We empathized with each other well.

Taiwan’s countryside is beautiful and clean. You see temples everywhere. Judging from the way they hold their religious processions, less-urban Taiwanese are certainly more “deity-fearing” than other Chinese all over the world. Daily scenes are much like what we have in Malaysia.

Taiwan was in the midst of a local election fever. Tsai Ing-wen’s popularity had plummeted and her party – the Democratic Progressive Party – was in deep trouble. And there was a maverick politician called Han Kuo-yu 韓國瑜 from Kuomintang. Han successfully wrestled the “safe” mayoral seat from DPP. Kuomintang won handsomely across the island. But no sooner, evil forces appeared in Hong Kong and caused the young to riot against the SAR government. Thanks to the power of western and pro-west media, sentiments in Taiwan turned against China and all its “One country, two systems” undertakings.  Han was removed under a “recall” referendum. He was deemed to be pro-unification. Taiwan succumbed to “Green” forces again. And Tsai got re-elected. What a twist of fate!

Covid came in and China became a pariah. Taiwanese have never been more anti-unification than ever.

Tsai has been using the tip of her American umbrella to poke China’s eyes. The so-called 92 Consensus is now as good as dead. (The 92 Consensus is a political term referring to the outcome of a meeting in 1992 between the People’s Republic of China and the Kuomintang-led Republic of China whereby it was agreed by both parties that there is only ONE China, which includes Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China is the sole government of China.) Lee Teng-hui denied the existence of the consensus and it has also been rejected by Tsai.

The tide is turning…

Tsai has proven to be an ineffective president, not to mention her questionable London School of Economics PhD. (Several of her proteges or toy-boys had also fallen by the wayside, thanks to their fake degrees.) The presidential election will be held early next year. Tsai cannot stand for re-election. The current Vice President Lai Ching-te will contest instead. 

But the notion that America is their protector is no longer that appealing to Taiwanese. They can see that Biden and his team are just snake oil salesmen. The sufferings of Ukrainians are there for them to see; and now the US is showing its double-standards in the Israeli-Hamas conflict. Taiwan is just a pawn in the chessboard America is playing with China.

Yes, Taiwan had been ruled by Japan for fifty years. Given to the ‘benevolence’ the Japanese occupiers had shown them, many have already been ‘nipponized’ to look up to Japan. But their cultural roots are still very Confucianist-Buddhist-Daoist”. It is time Taiwanese wake up to think they are Chinese. They cannot walk alone to tell the world that they are different – if China is being subdued like before. The British had destroyed much of Chineseness in Hong Kong; the riots were a wake-up call.

Which country has brought hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty? Which country has diligently helped to bring its minorities to be at par with the majority – socially and economically? Which country has tirelessly tried to bring conflicting governments or regimes to reconcile with each other or one another? China is of course the answer. And the West is talking about human rights abuses in China – when their own physical infrastructure and “democratic” fabrics are breaking apart. They realise China’s system – at least as it stands today – is superior to theirs, hence the fear and all the demonising.

Taiwanese should feel proud to be Chinese! Of course, no system is perfect, and nobody should oppose good change as the world evolves. By being a part of China, it can help push China to even greater heights.

DPP has lost much of its support. However, Lai is still leading at 30%, with Taiwan People’s Party’s Ko Wen-je coming in second with 25%, followed Kuomintang’s Hou Yu-ih at 20%. FoxConn’s Terry Gou has about 10% of the electorate’s support. Hou wants to come to terms with Ko to fight Lai, but given the egoism in Ko, this is unlikely going to happen. The trophy is Lai’s to lose.

Why can’t they see the writing on the wall?

Hence the second line of the title of this article.

Taiwan's "Famous Mouths" - China Needs People Like Them

I have never liked Facebook but somehow, I would click on their ‘Video’ component whenever I have time – principally to watch podcasts and information clips. I especially love to hear comments from several Taiwanese commentators on their takes on geopolitics, China-US relations, Taiwan politics and the various regional conflicts. They have been labelled 名嘴 (míng-zuǐ, literally “famous mouths”. I thought the term was quite inappropriate; they deserve better respect.

Five of them appear most regularly – Guo Zheng-Liang (郭正亮), Cai Zheng-Yuan (蔡正元), Lai Yue-Qian (赖岳谦), Jie Wen-Ji (介文汲) and Lei Qian 雷倩.

Guo graduated from the National Taiwan University and earned a PhD in political science from Yale. He has served in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan.

Cai holds a doctorate from Beijing’s Tsinghua. He has also served as a legislator.

 Lai’s PhD is from France’s Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas.

Jieh holds several masters degrees and was a former ambassador to New Zealand.

 

Lei studied at the National Taiwan University before earning a master's degree and doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. She has not been very successful in her political pursuits, despite her credentials.

There are also several others like Li Zheng-Jie (栗正杰) and Huang Zhen-Hui (黄征辉), Yuan Ju-Zheng (苑举正), Shuai Hua-Ming (帅化民), etc, some of whom were once high-ranking officers in Taiwan’s Military.

Typically, they appear in a panel setting, with a host introducing – in pretty good depth – the various subjects displayed on a TV screen before inviting each of the panel members to comment. You see several such programmes every day; the issues are therefore very current. One of them is Xīn-Wén Dà-Bái-Huà (新闻大白话), which can be loosely translated as “News Plainly Expressed”.

Of course, the stage is all well-choreographed; the commentators must have been well-prepared for the subjects. But you cannot help but take your hat off for their ability to throw out facts and figures – on history, economy and the trade wars, geopolitics, cross-Straits tensions, the background of the more recent Israeli-Hamas conflict, and even some good knowledge in microelectronic technology and supply chain issues – without notes or help. Yes, they are all scholars, but their spontaneity is incredible.

They represent the type of Chineseness we want to see – analytical, encyclopedic, philosophical, objective, scholarly yet plain-speaking and full of commonsense! They are usually supportive of China’s stances on global and regional issues, very dismissive about the ability of Joe Biden and his key people, and outright contemptuous of Tsai Ing-wen and Lai Ching-te.

To the supporters of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, they must have been ‘paid’ by mainland China!

I do not believe they are hard-core Chinese government sympathizers. Guo was in fact a DPP member until quite recently. But I strongly believe they are proud of being Chinese. And they all know Chinese can walk tall if there is a strong China – in brand but not necessarily in a common ideology.  

Mainland Chinese need much help on this front! Save for a very few – CGTN’s Liu Xin is one – most are ill at ease on stage. There is often one “I think”, “You know”, and “What should I say” too many in the deliveries. 70% of the podcasts from mainland China are utterly rubbish, much of which is self-exultation and carry headlines that do not bear any relationship with the matters that are subsequently presented. Many of the claims are blared out without basis. As for those insights that seem more credible, they were largely read from prepared scripts. None is close to what we see from the “famous mouths” from Taiwan!

Many highly acclaimed intellectuals know what China and Xi are doing is good for the world – Jeffrey Sachs, Kishore Mahbubani, just to name a few. But the collective mind of the world is hijacked by the US’s “Military-Industrial-Media-Jewish Money Complex” – a Deep State of which Biden and his team are a pinion in the rolling mill, or is plodding along like a toad that is being slowly boiled. We all know that the CIA is using NED – National Endowment for Democracy – to destablise governments that are doing the right thing in the China-US relationships, and install or finance instead parties that are prepared to do its biddings, such as Korea, Japan, the Philippines. There are talks that Indonesia, which will be holding a presidential election soon, is already being infiltrated. We all know that NED is anything but democratic!

Readers may already be tired of my constant criticism of China’s lack of mass communications skills. I woke up this morning to read that former premier Li Keqiang had died of a heart attack. Strangely, the official media are quite quiet in their coverage of this sad news. Yes, it had often been rumoured that Xi had not been entirely comfortable with Li. But Confucian ethics necessitate that friends and foes alike lay down their grievances during occasions like this. To do otherwise is simply un-Chinese and we should be worried about China!

I do harbour a simpler explanation. The state media people are incapable of acting on their own. They need to be prompted and all such prompts have to cascade down many layers to reach the editors!

The whereabouts of Qin Gang and Li Shangfu is a case in point. The fates of Qin and Li have finally been sealed. They have been relieved of their political as well as their governmental positions. The former is about moral lapses, but the latter, I believe, is much more  serious, likely to involve huge corruption.

When the news about their ‘problem’ first surfaced, China’s official spokespersons cited “health reasons” for their sudden disappearance. Who would believe them? But they did so regardless. But the western media was certainly less accommodating, and Mao Ning was rendered totally incoherent on the rostrum.

Why couldn’t they just say that China expected its leaders, no matter how high they were or how close they were to Xi, to be impeccable in integrity. These two leaders had simply been suspended pending the outcome of full and fair investigations. Such a degree of transparency will help shape the western media’s respect for the country, instead of using it as a source of conspiracy theory to demonise China. Lapses are common amongst politicians all over the world. Even in the squeakily clean Singapore, two of their leaders had also recently been caught with their pants down. The government lost no time in acting. Qing and Li’s dismissals actually demonstrate China’s determination to weed out leaders with personal failings at all costs. That is good for China!

Acknowledgement

Being a semi-illiterate in Chinese, I always have difficulty in fishing out the right Chinese characters and names from Pinyin apps. This time around I was fortunate enough to be able to count on a good friend out of Julian Tan Ay Peng, who also hails from Muar, Johor, to provide the names of all the "famous mouths" mentioned above in both Chinese and pinyin. 

Thank you, Ay Peng. 

The Unyielding Spirits of Nelson Mandela and Ren Zhengfei - Something Malaysians Can Emulate…

I woke up this morning to see a WhatsApp message from Hussein. He asks if I can write an article that might interest Malaysians in his portal. Some may know that I blog often, but much of what I have written is on geopolitics, especially about the United States’s paranoia against China. I have even released two books on the subject: “China’s Arduous Journey to Earn Its Place - From Mr Q to President Xi Jinping”, and more recently “Knowing Your Roots - In the Wake of the New Xiong-Nus at China’s Gate”.

However, I have hardly written anything substantive about the affairs in Malaysia, because of a simple reason: The 3Rs (Race, Religion and Royalty) are too sensitive for me to handle.  

But I can’t refuse Hussein’s invitation. I do not quite agree with many of the things he has written, however, I salute his guts and feel obliged to accept.

There are many greats whom as a society we can emulate. However, these two names came immediately to my mind when I think about Malaysia: Nelson Mandela and Ren Zhengfei.

Most Malaysians who were adults during the 1980s/1990s would remember Mandela, the South Arican leader who was imprisoned for 27 years by the all-White apartheid government. Upon his release by Frederick de Klerk in 1990, he went on to become the President of South Africa in 1994. He relinquished the position in 1999. Despite having suffered the long incarceration, Mandela dismantled the legacy of apartheid not by witch-hunting the colonial masters but with a spirit of racial reconciliation. Economically, his administration introduced measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty and expand health services.

He published his autobiography – Long Walk to Freedom – in 1994, which is an extraordinary story of his life.

Unfortunately, his successors, starting with Thabo Mbeki, were less enlightened. Some morphed into the type of leaders whom we love to stereotype as “African leaders”. Be that as it may, South Africa remains a highly regarded country in the world today.

The second name is Huawei’s Ren Zhengfei. Everybody knows what has happened to Huawei in the recent years. Ren founded it in 1987. By 2019, it was already a world giant in technology, especially in 5G technology.

Ren’s daughter Meng Wenzhou was detained at Vancouver International Airport upon her arrival on December 1, 2018. She was placed under house arrest and made to wear an electronic shackle on one of her upper ankles. She was not released until September 2021.

The US was determined to kill Huawei. Lesser mortals would have yielded. But not Ren.

Huawei bid its time. On August 29, 2023, it shook the world. Right when Gina Raimondo was visiting China, Huawei released its 60 MatePro smartphone; it was done without much fanfare, but the message is clear. Huawei has returned. I wrote a piece in my blog; I called that day the Day of Breakthrough (yubooklimblogspot.com).

Ren holds less than 1% of Huawei. I consider Ren a sage entrepreneur. How many of our entrepreneurs are in that mould?

China in Decline?

On 21 September 2023, South China Morning Post headlined this: China beats US in top global scientific ‘hot papers’ ranking. Its journalist Ling Xin in Ohio begins by saying, “For the first time, China has surpassed the US with in the number of papers published and cited in the world’s most influential journals.” She went on to report, “China also ranked first on the international papers citation chart in six major disciplines – agricultural sciences, chemistry, computer science, engineering, materials science and mathematics.”

Personally, such news are really not news to me. The trajectory is clear, it will continue to be so, unless China has another Hongxi Emperor (洪熙帝, reigning from 1424 to 1425) to shoot his own foot.

I labelled August 29, 2023 as China’s Breakthrough Day – when Huawei released its Mate60Pro smartphone in the midst of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s visit. Many friends are not so sanguine, fearing that the US will come harder on China and Huawei. It is certainly going to be so, but I am pretty sure that with the type of resilience in our culture, China will finally prevail. Just look at its car industry this year; it is totally capable of ‘commoditizing’ anything that its entrepreneurs go in.

But pessimism is gripping many, including top scholars. Prof Tan Kong Yam of NTU Singapore published an article “Is China headed down the path of decline?” in The Straits Times on September 6. While his article is constructive, his title is unnecessarily pessimistic.

Tan begins by citing the vulnerability of China’s property sector – “given its outsized influence on the economy.” He goes on to suggest that China needs to shed the drag from its bloated real estate sector and overexpansion in infrastructure. Investor confidence appears to be lacking in China today, he laments.

While the reasons offered by him are largely valid, I contend that China is not heading south, economically speaking.

Three things are fundamentally behind China’s gloom now: (a) the greed element in Chinese mindset, (b) the decoupling attempts by the US and its allies on China’s economy, and (c) the ‘formidable tyranny’ of the Fed.

Chinese by nature are high risk takers; and they believe in real estate, thinking that they can make great capital gains out of such investments. I remember witnessing things when I visited Zhengzhou in 2012. Huge completed residential high rises were left unoccupied everywhere. Did they become white elephants, No, of course. They were taken up – because China was urbanising its population. And has China collapsed? Only Gordon Chang said yes.

Be that as it may, the Chinese government was trying to correct this “real estate is best” culture. Xi had admonished that “houses are for one to stay, and not for one to speculate’. His admonition immediately caused the overzealous bureaucrats to immediately act on the sector, when the overall economy needs proper ‘tuina’ (推拿, gentle massaging), hence the apparent meltdown. I believe China has realised this mistake and has started to loosen up. It should go back to normalcy in no time. Afterall, China has an extremely high national savings rate (equivalent to something like 46% of its GDP, and high downpayments are required for mortgages. Walking away is usually not an option). However, this greed element can never disappear. Once the tide subsides, Chinese will return to this ‘safe haven’ asset class again. Ditto on its infrastructure spending. Its belief in Supply Side economics is most commendable. Based on conventional economic modelling, most infrastructure projects in China would not have passed the financial feasibility test, but they went ahead regardless. And the West had cast all sorts of doubts about their necessity and viability. Who is having the last laugh now?

Its exports seem to be slowing. Have the Chinese lost their competitiveness? The answer is certainly a big NO. There is no denying that it is not in a good shape now. It is really the result of the last two headwinds mentioned earlier.

It is obvious that there is no way the US and its allies in Europe and Asia can decouple their economies from China’s. And realising that, they are now talking about de-risking, which they themselves are also groping in the dark about how they can or should go about doing it. Yes, some were forced to relocate their factories out of China because of the sanctions imposed by the US, or because China is no longer a place for them to produce low-tech and labour-intensive goods. This certainly has caused unemployment in China to shoot up, especially amongst its young. And the Fed’s ‘harvesting’ policy is causing virtually the entire world to lose the value of their currencies vis-à-vis the US Dollar. China is also not spared since it is still a long way for all the de-Dollarisation efforts to take good effect. A weak currency at a time when demands are down is particularly bad for China and this has a vicious effect on its general economy – lower revenues, higher unit cost, so on and so forth. Despite its success in harvesting the world, the US is only forecasted to achieve 2.2% in 2023. China, despite the gloom, will ‘chao-chao’ (臭臭, Ming-Nan lingo; meaning, at the very least) do about 5%!

US policies have impoverished much of the world. Its Quantity Easing efforts and close-to-zero interest rates in the earlier decade had sown two bad seeds: (a) the widening of the income gap between the rich and the poor, and (b) current inflation pressure. Commonsense Economics says that there must be a cost to borrowed capital. And money supply must be pegged to growth and productivity. All these had been cast aside, resulting in huge returns to the equity capital of the rich, thanks to the stock market P/Es and the huge spread generated by low borrowing cost (which, when multiplied by a high D/E allowability, generates obscene gains).

Old Joe and his self-aggrandization team have zero understanding of Commonsense Economics. You can move all the chip-making facilities to America, but if you do not sell to the innovative Chinese, who else can buy from you in huge volumes? India? Another twenty years maybe. And how much is ethnic Chinese IP capital in the US? More than 30%! Any shrinkage of this capital, and with zero collaboration between the universities and scientific institutions with China, America will have to kiss goodbye to its high-tech hegemony. Any surprise with the SCMP article mentioned earlier? Of course, China will also have to suffer in the interim.

And on the question of consumer confidence raised by NTU’s Prof Tan, he should have understood the Chinese better. With their deep pockets, they will swarm outlets and tourist joints once some forms of impetus to spend surface – like a festival, a celebration, a new ‘toy’, etc.

Huawei and BYD epitomize China’s innovativeness and competitiveness. Coupled with the people’s resilience, the country as a whole will persevere. The new Xiong-nus will be subdued in no time, not by war, but by the good side of Chineseness.

Policy initiatives in Xi’s China are pro-actively conceived years ahead. Belt & Road is a case in point. And in the process of aligning the entire country to a better vision of geopolitical realities, there will always be short-term pains, like what they are experiencing now. Few Western policies are long-term driven, for the incumbent leaders are always worried about their next election chances. They therefore react, rather than proact, in most situations, giving rise to many side effects in the longer-term.

The European leaders have certainly understood the folly of blind loyalty to Biden. Unfortunately, EU is still led by a dumb blonde, who rationalises and talks like Uncle Sam, the latest being her accusation that China is flooding the continent with subsidized EVs. As for the other Yellow and Brown banana leaders in Asia, they will do Sicko Joe’s bidding when they find that the US umbrella cannot even shelter the Americans themselves. And bet you, they will seek China’s accommodation once the US, but if and only if, comes to their senses – just like the way they rushed to recognise the PRC after Richard Nixon made his visit. Their encirclement strategy will vaporise once economic realities seep in. As for rest of the world, particularly the leaders in Central and West Asia, Latin America and Africa have wised up to America’s rhetoric. Their realisation that America is doing a lot of harm to the world now has woken them up. China is seen to be a more dependable partner now. (Everyone wants to be photographed next to President Xi now!) have made them understood China’s philosophy with the outer world better. However, thanks to Western and pro-West media, China still has an image problem with the men in the street in most developed countries. This has to be addressed, lest some of the weaker leaders in this world may become victims of CIA’s Colour Revolution efforts.

I greatly despise the Western and pro-West media, particularly The Economist. I was a subscriber for about 30 years. When it became a mercenary in the wake of the West and pro-West attempts to demonise China and foretell its collapse, I stopped reading them, save for the headlines that came through my mailbox and WhatsApp chat groups. Their journalists remind me of Gordon Chang, who has been predicting China’s collapse for the last twenty year). They are blind or lazy followers of ‘experts’ who have been schooled in Western economics – devoid of any understanding of the uniqueness of a certain cultural strength in Chineseness.  Recently, I received a posting on my WhatsApp and thought I should reproduce it below to show how outstanding The Economist is in playing this role.

1990. The Economist. China’s economy has come to a halt.

1996. The Economist. China’s economy will face a hard landing.

1998. The Economist: China’s economy entering a dangerous period of sluggish growth.

1999. Bank of Canada: Likelihood of a hard landing for the Chinese economy.

2000. Chicago Tribune: China currency move nails hard landing risk coffin.

2001. Wilbanks, Smith & Thomas: A hard landing in China.

2002. Westchester University: China Anxiously Seeks a Soft Economic Landing

2003. KWR International: How to find a soft landing if China..

2004. The Economist: The great fall of China?

2005. Nouriel Roubini: The Risk of a Hard Landing in China

2006. International Economy: Can China Achieve a Soft Landing?

2007. TIME: Is China’s Economy Overheating? Can China avoid a hard landing?

2008. Forbes: Hard Landing in China?

2009. Fortune: China’s hard landing. China must find a way to recover.

2010: Nouriel Roubini: Hard landing coming in China.

2011: Business Insider: A Chinese Hard Landing May Be Closer Than You Think

2012: American Interest: Dismal Economic News from China: A Hard Landing

2013: Zero Hedge: A Hard Landing in China

2014. CNBC: A hard landing in China.

2015. Forbes: Congratulations, You Got Yourself A Chinese Hard Landing ….

2016. The Economist: Hard landing looms for China

2017. Market Watch: China’s economic problems will come to a head in 2017

2018. CNN: Forget the trade war, China's economy has other big problems

2020. Economics Explained: The Scary Solution to the Chinese Debt Crisis

2021. Global Economics: Has China's Downfall Started?

2022. Cathie Wood: China's COLLAPSE Is FAR Worse Than You Think

2022. Business Basics: China's Economic Crisis, GDP is Crashing, Protests Everywhere. China's financial crisis is here." China

2022. 'The Worst is yet to come'. China's slowdown weighs on Global economy.

2023. The Economist: Why China's economy won't be fixed - An increasingly autocratic government is making bad decisions. The fact that China’s problems start at the top means they will persist.

You would have thought after so many years of prediction and Law of Averages that the West would have it right for one year 😬. Unless of course it's all just a smear to make their citizens feel good 🤣

I always love to illustrate my thoughts with some side stories, and in this case, on China’s unyielding spirit to succeed. This time is about China’s space capability. (I believe there are also great successes achieved in the military and micro-electronic fronts, however, due to the need to maintain secrecy, we are unable to know a great deal about them – hypersonic missiles, Fujian Aircraft Carrier, J-20 fighters, etc in the former, and chips and 5G technology for the latter. However, China’s feats in space technology is there for all to see and follow.) There is a great deal of information in Wikipedia about China’s space technology and I have taken the liberty to plagiarise it to share with readers.

China’s Space Technology

Early years

Qian Xuesen, the father of China’s space programme

·       1955: Qian Xuesen (钱学森) returns to China from the United States.

That year, China started constructing its first missile test site in the Gobi Desert, which later became the country’s first space port, Jiuquan (酒泉) Satellite Launch Centre.

·       1960: It launches a sounding rocket T-7M to a height of 8 km.

This was followed by its first missile, later renamed Dongfeng-1 (DF-1, 东风一号) – fuelled by alcohol and liquid oxygen – later that year.

·       1964: DF-2 follows.

·       1970: The 173 kg Dong Fang Hong-1 (DFH-1, 东方红一号, the East is Red 1) takes off atop a Long March-1 (CZ-1, 长征一号).

(China began to develop long-range Dongfeng intercontinental ballistic missile in 1965. The first test flight of DF-5 was conducted in 1971.)

The 1980s and Beyond

Dong Fang Hong-2 (DFH-2, 东方红二号) was China’s own first generation communication satellite. Communications satellites work in the geostationary orbit and require more powerful rockets to do the lift. It started to develop the Long March-3 (CZ-3, 长征三号) series in the 1980s. The Xichang (西昌) Satellite Launch Centre was chosen as the launch site due to its low latitude. It embarked a decade of commercial launches in the 1990s. Its first commission in 1990 (AsiaSat 1) in 1993 was a success; unfortunately, some failures followed, notably the one in 1996 which saw a Long March-3B rocket carrying Intelsat 708 veering off course immediately after take-off, crashing and killing 6 people and injuring 57, making it the most disastrous event in the history of Chinese space program. As a consequence, the Chinese commercial launch service came to a quick halt.

Fortunately, it was able to salvage its reputation and in a space of 15 years (1996 to 2011), China achieved 102 consecutive successful launches. Long March 3B was able to place heavy GTO payloads into orbits.

However, this good fortune evaporated after the US banned all forms of collaboration with China in this industry.

Notwithstanding, China persevered.

 (1)  The Rockets

Without a powerful rocket, nothing heavy can be lifted extra-terrestrially.

The Long March rockets were also experiencing a crucial revolution. After an early study that lasted for over a decade, a new rocket engine named YF-100 was eventually certified in 2012. 

 

2015: Long March-6 (长征六号), a small rocket using one YF-100 engine, on its first stage, makes its maiden flight.

 

2016: The medium-lift Long March-7 (长征七号), which is equipped with six YF-100 engines, completes its flight, increasing the maximum LEO payload capacity by Chinese rockets to 13.5 tons.

 

The launch of Long March-7 was also the very first launch from Hainan’s Wenchang (文昌) Space Launch Site. The Wenchang site is China's latest and most advanced spaceport. Rockets launched from Wenchang can send ten to fifteen percent more payloads to orbit thanks to its low latitude. Additionally, due to its geographic location, the drop zones of rocket debris are in the ocean, eliminating threats posed to people and facilities on the ground. Wenchang's coastal location also allows larger rockets to be delivered to launch site by sea, which is difficult, if not impossible, for inland launch sites due to the size limits of tunnels needed to be passed through during transportations. The unique advantages has made Wenchang the launch site of many major space missions of China in the following years.

 

The biggest breakthrough was brought by the introduction of Long March-5 (长征五号). It is capable of lifting up to 25 tons of payload to LEO and 14 tons to GTO, making it more than 2.5 times as much as the previous record holder Long March-3B and nearly as equal as the most powerful rocket in the world at that time – Delta IV Heavy. However, after a successful maiden flight in late 2016, the second launch of a Long March-5 in 2017 suffered a failure, which was a big setback for the Chinese space program in nearly two decades, causing postponement of major space missions which were in the pipeline.

 

2019: Long March-5 rocket finally returns in December at Wenchang. It successfully places Shijian-20, the heaviest satellite China had ever built, into the intended orbit.

 

With its great power, the Long March 5 cleared the paths to multiple world-class space projects, allowing China to make great strides toward its ambitions in the coming 2020s.

 (2)   China’s Manned Space (CMS) Programme

1999: Shenzhou-1 (神舟一号), takes off atop a Long March 2F (CZ-2F, 长征二号F) rocket from Jiuquan. After orbiting the Earth for 14 rounds, the spacecraft initiates the return procedure as planned and lands safely in Inner Mongolia, marking the full success of China's first Shenzhou test flight.

 

China’s Manned Space Programme was formally announced to the public.

 

January 2001 to January 2003: China conducts three uncrewed Shenzhou spacecraft test flights, validating all systems required by human spaceflight. Shenzhou-4 is lifted off in 2002 flies for almost 7 days and orbited around the Earth for 108 circles before returning.

 

2003: Shenzhou-5 spacecraft carries China’s first astronaut Yang Liwei (杨利伟) flies for 21 hours and 14 orbits around the Earth, the spacecraft lands safely in Inner Mongolia.

 

2005: China launches Shenzhou-6

 

2008: Shenzhou-7 takes off. During the latter flight, two of the astronauts conducted spacewalk.

 

China’s Manned Space Program continued to make breakthroughs in human spaceflight technologies in 2010s. (In the early 2000s, China had engaged with the Russians in technological exchanges on the development of a docking mechanism used for space stations.)

 

2011: In April, US bans all space collaboration between China and NASA. China launches an 8,000 kg (18,000 lb) target vehicle, Tiangong-1(天宫一号) in September.

 

2011: The uncrewed Shenzhou-8 performs China's first automatic rendezvous and docking. Nine months later, Tiangong-1 completed the first manual rendezvous and docking with Shenzhou-9, a crewed spacecraft carrying China's first female astronaut. Tiangong-1 was later docked with Shenzhou-10 whose astronauts conducted multiple scientific experiments, gave lectures to students in China, and performed more docking tests before returning to the Earth safely after 15 days in space.

 

2016: Although Tiangong 1 was considered as a space station prototype, its functionality was still remarkably weaker than decent space laboratories. Tiangong-2, the first real space laboratory of China, goes into orbit on September 15. It was visited by Shenzhou-11’s crew a month later. Two astronauts entered Tiangong 2 and were stationed for about 30 days, breaking China's record for the longest human spaceflight mission while conducting diverse types of human-attended experiments.

 

2017: China's first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou-1 (天舟一号), docks with Tiangong-2 and completes multiple in-orbit propellant refuelling tests. The space laboratory missions verified China's capability of medium-term life support and resource resupply in space. The successful completion paved the way for the construction of China Space Station in the coming decade.

 (3)  Shooting for the Moon and Mars

2007: China launches its first lunar orbiter Chnag’e-1 (嫦娥一号). It performs a series of surveys and produced China's first lunar map. After it has served its purpose, the orbiter lands on the lunar surface.

 

2010: China's second lunar probe, Chang’e-2 reaches the moon.

 

2013: Chang’e-3 successfully lands on the Sinus Iridum region of the Moon, making China the third country that makes soft-landing on an extraterrestrial body. A day later, the Yutu (玉兔) rover was deployed to the lunar surface and started its survey.

 

2019: Chang’e-4 takes off.

 

Although humans have already got quite an amount of knowledge about the overall condition of the far side of the Moon in early 21st century with the help of numerous visits by lunar orbiters since the 1960s, no country had ever explored the area in close distance due to lack of communications on the far side. This missing piece was filled by China's Chang’e-4 mission that year. To solve the communications problem, China launched Queqiao (鹊桥), a relay satellite to enable communications. In January 2019, Chang'e 4 successfully soft-landed on the far side of the Moon, A rover named Yutu-2 was deployed onto the lunar surface.

 

China made its first attempt of interplanetary exploration during the same period. China had made an earlier attempt to Mars with Yinghuo-1 (萤火一号) on board of a Russian spacecraft in November 2011. However, due to an error of the onboard computer, the Russian spacecraft failed to start its main engine and was stranded in the low Earth orbit after launch. It eventually re-entered and burned up in the Earth atmosphere.

 

Chang'e 2, which was in an extended mission after the conclusion of its primary tasks in lunar orbit, made a flyby of asteroid Toutatis with closest approach being 3.2 km, making it China's first interplanetary probe.

 (4)  The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System

The first two satellites of the system BeiDou-1 were launched in October and December 2000. It offered basic positioning, navigation and timing services to limited areas in and around China. A more advanced system, BeiDou-2, was developed to serve the Asia-Pacific region and its first two satellites were launched in in 2007 and 2009, respectively.

 

The Beidou Navigation Satellite System proceeded in extraordinary speed. As many as five Beidou-2 navigation satellites were launched in 2010 alone. In late 2012, the Beidou-2 navigation system consisting of 14 satellites was completed and started providing service to Asia-Pacific region. The construction of more advanced Beidou-3 started since November 2017. Its buildup speed was even more astonishing than before as China launched twenty-four satellites into medium Earth orbit, three into inclined geosynchronous orbit, and three into geostationary orbit within just three years. The final satellite of Beidou-3 was successfully launched on June 23, 2020. The completed Beidou-3 navigation system integrates navigation and communication function, and possesses multiple service capabilities, including positioning, navigation and timing, short message communication, international search and rescue, satellite-based augmentation, ground augmentation and precise point positioning.

 (5)  Other Feats

Despite the harsh sanction imposed by the United States since 1999, China in May 2007 launched NigComSat-1satellite, which was first time China provided the full service from satellite manufacture to launch for international customers.

In May 2010, China initiated the High-resolution Earth Observation System program, commonly known as Gaofen (高分). Its purpose is to establish an all-day, all-weather coverage Earth observation system for satisfying the requirements of social development as part of the Chinese space infrastructures. The first Gaofen satellite was launched into orbit in 2013, followed by more satellites being launched into different orbits in the next few years to cover different spectra. As of today, more than 30 Gaofen satellites are being operated by China as the completion of the space-based section of Gaofen was announced in late 2022.

 

Apart from these, in August 2016, China launched world's first quantum communications satellite Mozi (墨子号) and in June 2017, it launched the first Chinese X-ray astronomy satellite. In 2018, China performed more orbital launches than any other countries for the first time in history. On June 5, 2019, China conducted its first Sea Launch in the Yellow Sea.

 And the Vertical Take-off…

The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program continued unabated. In November 2020, Chang’e-5, an 8.2 tonne spacecraft went into orbit, and its lander landed on the moon surface and collected samples. The ascent vehicle attached to the lander then took off from lunar surface and entered lunar orbit, carrying the container with collected samples. This was the first time that China launched a spacecraft from an extraterrestrial body. The ascent vehicle successfully docked with the orbiter in lunar orbit and transferred the sample container to the return capsule, accomplishing the first robotic rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit in history. The orbiter, along with the return module, entered the orbit back to Earth after main engine burned. The return capsule eventually landed intact in Inner Mongolia on December 17, sealing the perfect completion of the mission.

Prior to the launch of Chang'e-5, which targeted the Moon 380,000 km away from the Earth, China's first Mars probe had departed, heading to the Mars 400 million km away. On July 23, 2020, Tianwen-1 (天问一号) was launched and after a seven-month journey, Tianwen-1 entered the Mars orbit, and later its lander Zhurong successfully touched down on Mars and on May 25, 2021, its rover drove onto the Martian surface. Tianwen-1 completed the daunting process involving the orbiting, landing, and roving in highly sophisticated manner on one single attempt, making China the second nation to land and drive a Mars rover on Martian surface after the United States.

And the Construction of China’s Space Station

The "Third Step" of China Manned Space Program kicked off in 2020. Long March 5B, a variant of Long March 5, conducted its maiden flight successfully that year. Its high payload capacity and large payload fairing space enabled the delivery of Chinese space station modules to low Earth orbit. On April 29, 2021, 22-tonne Tianhe (天和) was successfully launched into Low Earth orbit, marking the beginning of the construction of the China Space Station, also known as Tiangong (天宫). A month later, China launched Tianzhou-2, the first cargo mission to the space station. In June, Shenzhou-12, the first crewed mission to the Chinese Space Station housing three astronauts was launched from Jiuquan. The crew docked with Tianhe and entered the core module about 9 hours after launch, becoming the first residents of the station. The crew lived and worked on the space station for three months, conducted two spacewalks, and returned to Earth safely on September 17, 2021, breaking the record of longest Chinese human spaceflight mission (33 days) previously made by Shenzhou-11. Roughly a month later, the Shenzhou-13 crewed was launched to the station. Three astronauts spent over 180 days before returning to Earth in April 2022.

Starting from May 2022, the China Manned Space Program had entered the space station assembly and construction phase. On June 5, 2022, Shenzhou-13 was launched and docked to Tianhe core module. The crew welcomed the arrival of two space station modules during the six-month mission. On July 24, the third Long March 5B rocket lifted off from Wenchang, carrying the 23.2 tonne Wentian (问天) laboratory module, the largest and heaviest spacecraft ever built and launched by China, into orbit. On September 30, the new Wentian module was rotated from the forward docking port to starboard parking port. On October 31, the Mengtian (梦天) laboratory module, the third and final module of China Space Station, was launched docked with the space station. On November 3, the 'T-shape' China Space Station was completed. On November 29, Shenzhou-15 was launched and later docked with China Space Station. Three astronauts were welcomed by the Shenzhou-14 crew on board the station, completing the first crew gathering and handover in space.

And Astronauts on the Moon by 2030

China has also initiated the Moon landing phase of China's crewed lunar exploration program, which aims to land Chinese astronauts on the Moon by 2030. 

America can say that they have been there already; but what China will achieve is likely to make NASA nervous.

Acknowledgement: To my good friend Chris Kwok Chu Chin who has made many good suggestions and helped me to correct typos.