The US-China currency war is set to begin! With the recent joint venture between the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) and several Chinese financial institutions, the U.S. dollar has previously dominated SWIFT settlements; can the Chinese Communist Party successfully challenge the U.S.?
Hide what? The Chinese Communist Party has refused to submit raw and personalized data on patients in the early stages of the Chinese Communist virus (COVID-19) to a WHO expert panel. Meanwhile WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus reverses his stance on the theory that the virus was leaked from the laboratory.
China and India agree to withdraw troops from Bangong Lake as Russian media reveal Communist death toll. CGTN is taken off the air in Germany after being taken off the air in the UK.
Aiding and abetting the enemy! The Chinese Communist Party provides technology to help the Burmese military government implement cyber surveillance.
SWIFT and China Dance Together, U.S.-China Currency War to Begin
According to a recent report by Reuters, SWIFT, the General Clearing Center of the Central Bank of China, the Cross-border Interbank Payments System (CIPS) and the Central Bank’s Digital Currency Research Institute have registered a joint venture company, Financial Gateway Information Services Co. The registered capital is 10 million euros, while the four major shareholders hold 55%, 34%, 5% and 3% of the shares respectively.
The chairman of the joint venture is Huang Meilun, CEO of SWIFT China, and the company’s business scope includes information system integration, data processing and technical consulting.
Voice of America reported on Feb. 11 that Abishur Prakash, co-founder of the Center for Innovating the Future in Canada, believes China’s (CCP) move is to lay the groundwork for the globalization of the digital yuan, whose main target is the U.S. dollar, and the digital yuan against the U.S. dollar. It could become another battleground between the U.S. and China, and will be a “hot war.
He sees two major geopolitical implications of this event. First, China has laid the groundwork for the globalization of its digital currency. Second, it is clear that its main target is the U.S. dollar, but it also reflects the fact that the U.S. is losing control of the system it created.
Prakash said that if the digital yuan is successfully rolled out, the world’s currency map could be reshuffled. The digital renminbi versus the U.S. dollar could open up another battleground in the U.S.-China technology war, and it would be a “hot war,” not just a cold war. However, there is no global consensus for the RMB to be the main international currency, nor is there a trend to de-dollarize. Therefore, the challenge for the RMB to compete with the US dollar for supremacy is still very big.
He also suggested that U.S. policymakers should not ignore the digital renminbi and the possible impact of China (the Chinese Communist Party) expanding its influence on SWIFT.
Belgium-based SWIFT mainly provides a telegraphic transfer system for global financial institutions. Cross-border remittances between companies or individuals need to go through the SWIFT system, and its services cover most of the world’s dollar-denominated cross-border transactions.
The Nikkei Shimbun published an article by Gunther Schnabl, director of the Institute for Economic Policy at the University of Leipzig (Universität Leipzig, Germany) on January 28, which mentioned that the Chinese Communist Party has let the yuan appreciate since late May 2020, and that the Biden administration wants the Federal Reserve to help finance economic stimulus and climate goals. The Biden Administration wants the Federal Reserve to help fund economic stimulus and climate goals, which is likely to put further pressure on the U.S. dollar to depreciate, while the Chinese Communist Party may take the opportunity to boost the international status of the yuan.
David Roche, president and global strategist at financial firm Independent Strategy, told CNBC last November: “[The yuan] has a very difficult Time beating the dollar, as the euro has tried to do, but its share of international affairs is a pitiful 18-20 percent.
With the yuan currently accounting for 2 percent of international trade settlements and even less of financial investments, the yuan beating the dollar is in a sense a fantasy.”
The deteriorating human rights record of the Chinese Communist Party and its tightening control over dissidents and society make it impossible not to question that the Chinese government itself is more likely to use the digital yuan as its latest tool to monitor its people, and that the globalization of the digital yuan may also allow China to further export its authoritarian system to other countries, said the analysis cited by Voice of America.
Taiwan‘s Institute of Financial Research and Training Director Lin Shih-Chieh said: “At present, the private sector is not very receptive to the (Communist Party of China) central bank to come out with the e-wallet thing, and there is a big reason for this is the issue of personal information privacy.”
According to mainland media, the digital yuan and third-party payment methods such as Alipay and WeChat Pay are the relationship between “money” and “wallet”.
Nadia Schadlow, the White House deputy national security adviser during the Trump administration, wrote in January that “fintech is China’s Trojan horse” and that Beijing would use it to take the high ground in global commerce, strengthen surveillance and lay the groundwork to challenge the dollar’s s status as the world’s reserve currency.
Fooling the WHO! Chinese Communist Party Refuses to Submit Initial Raw Data
China has refused to submit to a panel of experts raw and personalized data on patients in the early stages of the new coronavirus (COVID-19), which could help determine how and when the virus began to spread in China, U.S. media reported Feb. 12, citing World health Organization (WHO) investigative experts.
Photo: Portuguese patients with the new coronavirus in the intensive care unit on Feb. 11.
The Wall Street Journal quoted panelists as saying that Chinese officials and scientists provided them with extensive summaries and case analyses, as well as aggregate data from medical records prior to the first case in December 2019, saying that no evidence of the virus’ existence was found at that time.
Dominic Dwyer, one of the microbiology and epidemiology experts who was part of the investigation in China, said China refused to submit raw and personalized data on the 174 early cases, as well as on patients who presented with respiratory and other signs of illness before December 2019. He mentioned that the panel had heated arguments with Beijing over this and that they left China with no agreement still in place.
When WHO conducts investigations in member countries, the other side usually provides the relevant data. Dwyer believes that the Chinese side only provided partial examples, and even though there may be opinions that the data is sufficient, it is difficult for experts to analyze from the limited information they have.
The Wall Street Journal also reported on the 10th that some panel members pointed out that two months before the first case in Wuhan, about 90 local patients staying in hospital showed signs of infection with the new coronavirus.
Urgent turn: WHO says it will still investigate lab leak theory
The head of the WHO expert panel, Peter Ben Embarek, said on the 9th that the virus is likely to be transmitted from animals to humans, or via frozen Food to China, and the director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on the 12th that no hypothesis can be ruled out and analysis and research will continue. He believes that some of the work may fall outside the scope of the expert group, stressing that the group will not find all the answers, but will add important information on understanding the origin of the virus.
Photo: Tedros Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization.
Earlier, a joint World Health Organization-China expert group on the traceability of the new coronavirus went to Wuhan, Hubei province, and said the theory that the new coronavirus could have been accidentally leaked from a laboratory was “highly unlikely” and did not warrant further investigation. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus announced Thursday (Feb. 11) that further investigation is necessary into all theories of the origin of the new coronavirus.
Tedros also said that the summary of the panel’s report could be made public as soon as next week, while the final report will be available within a few weeks.
China, India agree to withdraw troops from Bangong Lake, Russian media reveal Chinese Communist death toll
The Chinese Communist Party military and the Indian military have reached an agreement on the withdrawal of their troops from the northern and southern shores of Bangong Lake in eastern Ladakh. In June last year, there were serious violent clashes along the Sino-Indian border, in which 20 Indian troops were killed, while the Chinese Communist Party did not announce the death toll.
Photo: Bangong Lake in the India-China border area.
On Thursday (Feb. 11), Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh confirmed to Parliament that India and China will withdraw their troops in a phased, coordinated and checked manner, returning to the state of military deployment at the beginning of the standoff last year, Reuters reported.
According to Singh’s presentation, as per the agreement, both sides have already taken the same withdrawal action on the southern shore of the Bangong Lake and have also dismantled all the structures built on the southern and northern shores of the lake since April last year to restore the natural terrain of the area. The commanders of both sides will hold consultations on the withdrawal of troops from other areas within 48 hours after the soldiers of both sides have completely disengaged in the Bangong Lake area.
Singh said both India and China agreed to suspend military activities on the northern shore of Lake Bangong, including patrols in traditional areas. And the above-mentioned series of actions, has been launched on Wednesday.
Singh also acknowledged that there are still some outstanding issues regarding military deployment and patrols in other areas along the India-China Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh, and these issues will be the focus of the next discussions between India and China.
On the same day, the Chinese Communist Party’s Ministry of Defense also confirmed to the public that Chinese and Indian border garrisons had simultaneously withdrawn from the shores of Bangong Lake on Wednesday.
In addition, Russia’s TASS news agency revealed in a related report on Wednesday that a total of 45 Chinese communist soldiers died in violent clashes in the Garhwan Valley in Ladakh region on June 15 last year. Previously, the Chinese Communist Party had refused to release the number of casualties among its soldiers in that deadly clash.
CGTN taken off air in Germany after being taken off the air in Britain
On Friday (Feb. 12), Vodafone Germany said it had also taken CGTN off the air in Germany due to license issues after Ofcom revoked its license to broadcast in the U.K. last week, the Communist Party’s official media, Global Television Network (CGTN).
Photo: CCTV building, CGTN is the big outreach of the Communist Party’s central TV network.
Vodafone Germany said in a statement Friday that it hopes to resume broadcasting because it does not have a legal license, so it is currently communicating with local authorities in Germany and representatives of CGTN about the license to clarify the current legal situation.
A spokesman for the regulator in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (which has been taken off the air) said CGTN had previously been operating under a British license, but that no longer applies.
It’s unclear whether CGTN’s current situation in Germany is due to the UK’s revocation of CGTN’s license or to the UK’s departure from the EU’s single market (where single market member states recognize each other’s regulation).
What’s even less clear is whether CGTN will be taken off the air in more European countries if it follows this rule until it gets a new license in one of the countries that signed up for ECTT.
Myanmar Military Pushes Cyber Censorship Law, Cyber Security Expert: Communist China Provides Technology
Myanmar’s military is preparing to pass a bill on cyber censorship that would give the country’s telecoms department the power to monitor data access, online content and services on the Web. Myanmar cybersecurity experts say the Chinese Communist government is helping the Myanmar military build a firewall to implement the bill, and that Chinese Communist Party IT technicians and hardware equipment have arrived in the country.
Photo: Burmese people hold up signs in front of the Chinese Communist Party’s embassy in Yangon on Feb. 12, 2021, to protest the Chinese Communist Party’s help to the Burmese military government in cyber censorship.
According to Nikkei on Friday (Feb. 12), the draft cybersecurity bill to be passed by the Burmese military shows that it would require Burma’s ISPs and telecoms operators to store user data for three years at a government-designated location and allow the government to access Internet users’ personal information “for security reasons. The draft bill also requires service providers to “promptly block the access of personal information” of Internet users.
The draft also requires service providers to “promptly block, remove, disrupt and stop” offending content on their platforms, including content that is said to “incite hatred, undermine unity, stability or peace,” as well as any “written or oral statements” that violate the law. “written or oral statements”. The bill also gives the government the power to monitor or shut down online services of network providers for a variety of reasons.
Also under the bill, individuals could be sentenced to up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 10 million kyats ($7,500), or both, if convicted of failing to manage data in accordance with the law, Reuters reported.
The tough cyber censorship bill, which the Burmese military is proposing to pass, is widely opposed by all sectors of Burmese society.
These are firewall devices from China,” the Voice of America quoted the interviewee as saying. These firewall devices started being sent to network service providers, as well as telecom operators like Ooredoo and Telenor, in the past two days.” “All these (firewall devices) were instructed to be put into service by Feb. 15.”
The content of the bill, introduced by the Burmese military, quickly sparked strong opposition when it was leaked. Some 150 civil society groups in Myanmar issued a joint statement Wednesday, saying the bill, proposed by the military government, includes numerous provisions that violate human rights, the rights to freedom of expression, data protection and privacy, as well as other democratic principles and human rights.
It comes after the Burmese military ordered Internet service providers to block Facebook in Myanmar on Feb. 4, and the following day the military ordered mobile operators and Internet service providers to be banned from providing access to Twitter and Instagram in Myanmar.
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