Day: July 4, 2022

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China Foreign Affairs University Posts, And Then Deletes, Draconian Coronavirus Restrictions

A list of ten “forbidden” behaviors posted to (and then deleted from) the public WeChat account of China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) in Beijing seemed to reveal discontent with strict pandemic controls among the country’s future diplomats. The list detailed the rigid restrictions imposed on students and the attempt to stop them from engaging in “inappropriate speech that distorts or negates government pandemic control policy.”

Students across China have rebelled against similar controls. At Shanghai’s prestigious Tongji University, students engaged in a protest art movement in opposition to a campus lockdown, with some students adopting a meme critical of foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s assertion that they should be happy to be living in China during the pandemic. At Peking University, students demanded administrators “tear down the wall” that was preventing them from leaving campus (while allowing teachers and staff to come and go as they pleased).

Life for Chinese diplomats is often quite restrictive, even in non-pandemic times. In Peter Martin’s book on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he noted that the common practice of “doubling,” whereby diplomats are supervised by at least one colleague on all their sojourns, saw one diplomat accompanied by four minders on his first date. The pandemic restrictions at CFAU are quite possibly more onerous: students need permission for any movement, even between villages, and are banned from purchasing overseas goods due to the government’s persistent (and unproven) assertion that COVID can be traced to packages arriving from overseas.

CDT has translated China Foreign Affairs University’s “Ten Forbiddens” in full: 

  1. It is forbidden to ignore or fail to abide by pandemic prevention work requirements as implemented by higher-ups or school administrators; to ignore orders or breach quarantine; to respond to pandemic prevention measures in a perfunctory, deceptive, or disobedient manner; or to treat pandemic prevention measures as a mere formality.

  2. It is forbidden to conceal, lie, delay, omit, fabricate, or falsify information when reporting your or your co-residents’ travel history, recent contacts, health status, or other pandemic control-related information. It is forbidden to refuse pandemic-related measures including contact tracing, monitoring, quarantine, or observation.

  3. In the absence of prior authorization, it is forbidden to post, republish, or share nonpublic pandemic control information on Wechat (WeChat groups or WeChat moments), Weibo, QQ, Douyin, Kuaishou, BiliBili, or on other websites, social media platforms, or social media groups. It is likewise forbidden to fabricate, propagate, or disseminate, in any form, false or unconfirmed pandemic-related information, or to engage in inappropriate speech that distorts or negates government pandemic control policy.

  4. It is forbidden to violate pandemic prevention requirements by organizing or attending group dinners, parties, or similar gatherings. It is forbidden to organize or attend unauthorized large-scale gatherings. Minimize the use of public transportation and participation in off-campus activities. Do not enter bars, internet cafés, karaoke parlors, “scripted murder” gaming rooms, card rooms, public swimming pools, saunas, steam rooms, hot springs, or other crowded places.

  5. It is forbidden to leave at-home isolation or quarantine without prior permission or before the period of observation or quarantine has elapsed.

  6. It is forbidden to leave or enter the school campus, leave or return to Beijing, leave the country, or cross border zones (this includes provincial, city, county, town, and village borders) without prior authorization. Travel to medium- or high-risk areas is forbidden.

  7. It is forbidden to borrow or appropriate other people’s student IDs, health codes, or travel itineraries, or to refuse to submit to inspections of this documentation.

  8. It is forbidden to buy overseas goods. Continue to avoid purchasing items from overseas or receiving international packages, and minimize the use of any delivery services.

  9. It is forbidden to give personal interviews (including phone interviews) to domestic or foreign news outlets without prior authorization. It is forbidden to privately share information or tips with the media, or to submit manuscripts, give interviews, or spread irresponsible remarks to the media.

  10. It is forbidden to obstruct local cadres, medical workers, volunteers, or other pandemic-prevention personnel from carrying out their duties. Any other behavior that impedes pandemic-prevention work or violates pandemic-prevention regulations is forbidden. [Chinese]

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Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Enters Into Force

On Tuesday, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) went into effect in the U.S. The bill was conceived in 2019, approved by the Senate last July, and passed by Congress in December before being signed into law by President Joe Biden later that month. Its survival in the face of polarized politics and hostile business interests demonstrates Washington’s growing resolve to “no longer remain complicit in the Chinese Communist Party’s use of slave labour and egregious crimes against humanity,” as U.S. lawmakers stated last week. Starting now, the onus will be on companies, instead of the U.S. government, to prove that goods imported into the U.S. contain no trace of forced labor from Xinjiang, a requirement that is expected to have a significant impact on global supply chains. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency summarized the essence of the law:

It establishes a rebuttable presumption that the importation of any goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China, or produced by certain entities, is prohibited by Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 and that such goods, wares, articles, and merchandise are not entitled to entry to the United States. The presumption applies unless the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) determines that the importer of record has complied with specified conditions and, by clear and convincing evidence, that the goods, wares, articles, or merchandise were not produced using forced labor. [Source]

Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released its official strategy outlining how it will enforce the UFLPA. Describing this in more detail in his newsletter “Forced Labor and Trade,” John Foote, a partner and head of the customs practice at the law firm Kelley Drye & Warren, showed how the U.S. government has invested unprecedented levels of resources into the implementation of the UFLPA: 

Longtime readers will recall my update from March 11 of this year, when I sounded the alarm about current FY budget allocations to CBP for forced labor enforcement at the relatively unprecedented funding level of $24.7M. According to the long-awaited UFLPA strategy published last Friday, the Biden Administration is now seeking $70.3 million in funding in the FY 2023 budget so CBP can hire 300 full time personnel to do battle against shipments from China that may be linkable to Xinjiang or to entities listed by the United States for affiliation with forced labor in China.

That might not sound like much, especially against the shock and awe campaign of Section 301 and Section 232 tariffs, which have now netted over $150 billion in import tariffs since July 2018 (over 90% of that is Section 301). But this is an unprecedented level of funding for the enforcement of a single trade law, and augurs a devastating level of supply chain disruption for importers that are ill-prepared.

If approved, this funding level will exceed by some $30M the entire budget of the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, charged with enforcing U.S. sanctions laws. It is roughly equivalent to the entire budget of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) within the U.S. Department of Commerce, charged with enforcing U.S. export controls laws. [Source]

Human Rights Watch described how it will be virtually impossible for companies sourcing from Xinjiang to evade the law:

If customs officials identify a product as produced in whole or in part in Xinjiang or from an entity listed as linked to forced labor, the law requires importers to provide “clear and convincing evidence” that goods are free from forced labor. The US government’s guidance lists the evidence that importers could rely on, including supply chain mapping indicating the factories or other facilities where the goods were produced; information on the workers at each facility, including on wage payments and recruitment practices; and audits to identify and remediate forced labor.

For companies sourcing from Xinjiang, however, providing “clear and convincing evidence” is a near impossible bar to clear. The extent of Chinese government surveillance and threats to workers and auditors currently prevents companies from meaningfully evaluating the use of forced labor at factories or other facilities in Xinjiang. Even elsewhere in China, the arrests of labor activists, a prohibition on independent trade unions, government surveillance, and the Chinese government’s anti-sanctions laws pose serious obstacles to identifying and remediating the risk of forced labor and other human rights abuses. Companies with operations, suppliers, or sub-suppliers in Xinjiang should instead relocate their facilities or supply chains elsewhere, Human Rights Watch said. [Source]

The UFLPA has sent companies scrambling to adapt to the new import requirements. Business executives claim the law will disrupt supply chains and threaten the $500 billion in annual shipments from China to the U.S. Some complained that a messy implementation of the law would contribute to inflation. As Haley Byrd Wilt reported for The Dispatch, human rights advocates grew exasperated at how unable or unwilling many companies were to contend with the law and the abuses that motivated it, despite having seen years worth of headlines on the increasingly egregious human rights issues in Xinjiang:

In early 2021, [Sophie] Richardson—the China director at Human Rights Watch—began to receive the first of more than 100 calls from banking institutions, manufacturers, companies, and other corporate entities about forced labor in Xinjiang. She was alarmed by how ignorant they were about the genocide—and by their continued unwillingness to leave the region, even after being told how dire the situation was.

[…] “For so long, tougher human rights policies had foundered in the face of U.S. businesses saying, ‘No no no no, we have to be able to trade and engage, and it will all turn out okay in the end, really, we promise,’” Richardson says.

[…] “You guys are fucked,” [Nury Turkel, a Uyghur advocate and member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom,] told two D.C. lawyers representing American businesses in China. “China is kicking your ass on the one side and on the other, U.S. consumers all over the place are waking up to what is happening, and this is the one issue that unites Congress.”

“Cut the crap. Either pull the plug, or use your influence to change the Chinese behavior and say, ‘No, not in my name.’ Tell China, ‘You need my business and what you are forcing me to do is illegal, and I am under pressure at home.’” [Source]

The pervasiveness of Uyghur forced labor in China and America’s reliance on China for a variety of important products add to the potential for a broad application of the UFLPA. Earlier this month, Adrian Zenz provided new evidence on the evolution of labor transfer programs that have consigned tens of thousands of Uyghurs to forced labor in factories in Xinjiang and across other provinces. Last week, researchers at Sheffield Hallam University released a report detailing the increased use of Uyghur forced labor in the manufacturing of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in Xinjiang. It also noted that the plurality, 10 percent, of the world’s PVC comes from Xinjiang, and that over 25 percent of all flooring sold in the U.S. contains PVC from China. Reporting on one Xinjiang-based metals company that employs forced labor, Ana Swanson and Chris Buckley from The New York Times described how much of the global supply chain for certain critical materials is tainted by Uyghur forced labor, and how the products of their labor wind up in foreign markets: 

To understand how reliant the battery industry is on China, consider the country’s role in producing the materials that are critical to the technology. While many of the metals used in batteries today are mined elsewhere, almost all of the processing required to turn those materials into batteries takes place in China. The country processes 50 to 100 percent of the world’s lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite, and makes 80 percent of the cells that power lithium ion batteries, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a research firm.

[…] The materials Xinjiang Nonferrous has produced — including a dizzying array of valuable minerals, like zinc, beryllium, cobalt, vanadium, lead, copper, gold, platinum and palladium — have gone into a wide variety of consumer products, including pharmaceuticals, jewelry, building materials and electronics. The company also claims to be one of China’s largest producers of lithium metal, and its second-largest producer of nickel cathode, which can be used to make batteries, stainless steel and other goods.

[…] The raw materials that these laborers produce disappear into complex and secretive supply chains, often passing through multiple companies as they are turned into auto parts, electronics and other goods. While that makes them difficult to trace, records show that Xinjiang Nonferrous has developed multiple potential channels to the United States. Many more of the company’s materials are likely transformed in Chinese factories into other products before they are sent abroad. [Source]

Stringent and broad enforcement of the UFLPA would likely accelerate the decoupling of American and Chinese economies by forcing companies to source their materials from outside of China. There is also a risk that until other countries, such as those in the EU, adopt similar laws banning forced-labor-produced goods from Xinjiang, they will serve as a dumping ground for these products. This phenomenon is already borne out by recent data: in 2021, while Xinjiang’s trade with the U.S. decreased by 60 percent, its trade with the EU increased by 13 percent. While the EU Parliament recently passed a resolution calling for an EU-wide instrument banning products made by forced labor, concrete proposals by the European Commission are unlikely to materialize before September. 

Ji Siqi, Luna Sun, He Huifeng, and Kandy Wong reported for the South China Morning Post that the UFLPA could potentially cripple China’s textile industry:

“In the textile and apparel export industry, the European and American markets bring considerable profits. If orders from Europe and the American market continue to contract, it means that China’s textile and apparel export enterprises will no longer be profitable,” [said Liu Kaiming, a supply-chain specialist and founder of the Institute of Contemporary Observation, a think tank and action group dedicated to labour development and corporate social responsibility in China]. “It will just result in a growing number of Chinese enterprises reducing their production capacity or even shutting down.

[…] And while downstream manufacturers have been trying to adapt to the shift – such as by refining the raw-material procurement processes by using Xinjiang cotton entirely for domestic demand, and imported cotton for export orders – it is unlikely that the Chinese domestic market will be able to absorb all of the excess capacity from Xinjiang, industry insiders said.

“The domestic market can consume only about 3 million tonnes [of cotton] each year, at most,” the Xinjiang cotton mill owner said.

That total is a little over half of the annual output of the region, and it’s nearly the same amount of unsold cotton taking up inventory space at Xinjiang cotton mills by the end of May – 3.3 million tonnes, according to figures from Beijing Cotton Outlook. [Source]

Meanwhile, Uyghur groups are still seeking justice for crimes against humanity committed in Xinjiang. On Monday, lawyers filed new evidence at the International Criminal Court in another attempt to convince ICC prosecutors to open an investigation into abuses against ethnic groups in Xinjiang. While China is not an ICC member, the lawyers argue that the Chinese government’s transnational repression against Uyghurs has occurred in states, such as Tajikistan, that are ICC members. The lawyers aim to use the precedent of the ICC’s case against Myanmar, which was allowed to proceed on the grounds that the persecuted Rohingya minority were forced to flee to Bangladesh (an ICC member), even though Myanmar is not an ICC member.

 

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Tangshan Assault Case: Good Samaritans in China Fear That The Law Is Not on Their Side

The brutal beating of four young women, after one of the women rejected unwelcome advances from a drunken male diner at a hotpot restaurant in Tangshan, Hebei province, continued to spark outrage on Chinese social media. Tangshan police announced that nine perpetrators—some of whom have criminal records—have since been arrested, but online discussions about gender-based violence, as well as gang activity and police corruption, have continued despite intense censorship.

On Tuesday, Hebei’s provincial public security department released an update stating that the four victims suffered minor injuries. The report largely failed to quell public anger or check the spread of online rumors as netizens shared graphic photos of the women in hospital beds and decried the lack of independent reporting by the press. 

In the wake of accusations about the slow pace of the investigation, lack of public information, and possible collusion or foot-dragging by local law enforcement, Hebei’s provincial discipline commission announced that five local officials in Tangshan are being investigated for “seriously violating discipline and law” in their handling of the attack.  

In addition to fury against the abusers and the Tangshan authorities, some internet users also directed their ire at the bystanders who failed to intervene in the attack. Others cautioned against pointing fingers at regular citizens, given the fact that the law is often not on their side.

In a now-deleted essay archived by CDT, prominent author and social critic Li Chengpeng outlined a series of cases in which citizens attempting to be “good Samaritans” were hit with fines or otherwise punished by the law. The following is a chronological summary of some of the cases that corresponded with contemporaneous press reports:

In 2014, Xiaotu (pseudonym), a resident of Shenzhen, witnessed a sexual assault in progress in a public park and intervened by tackling the rapist, resulting in injuries to the attacker. Xiaotu was detained for 14 days, although the case against him was later dropped by prosecutors.

In the same year, Wu Weiqing, a resident of Guangdong province, aided an elderly man who appeared to have been knocked down in the street. The man then claimed that it was Wu who knocked him over, and demanded that Wu pay his hospital fees. Wu later commited suicide as police were set to investigate him, and the elderly man subsequently recanted his accusation. 

In 2015, a young man surnamed Guo, then a student at a martial arts school in Sichuan, witnessed a sexual assault on a bus and intervened. During the physical altercation that followed, Guo kicked the attacker in the head, resulting in an injury to the man’s brain. Guo was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and ordered to pay over 150,000 yuan (approximately $23,000 U.S. dollars) in damages.

In 2018, Zhao Yu, a 21-year-old man living in Fujian, got into physical altercation with a man outside his apartment building after he heard a woman shouting that she was being raped. Zhao injured the attacker and was detained for 14 days on assault charges, but the case against him was later dropped. He eventually received an award of 30,000 yuan (approximately $4,600 U.S. dollars) from the government for his heroism. 

In 2019, a 17-year-old Henan man, surnamed Wang, got into a fight with another man who was molesting a female friend of his, and broke the molester’s nose. Wang was arrested on assault charges and reportedly expelled from school. The result of the case against him is unclear. 

In 2020, a high-school senior surnamed Hu tackled a man who was molesting his female friend in a shopping mall in Hunan, injuring the molester. Hu was detained on assault charges. The case was later dropped.

The same year, Su Lei, a manager at a supermarket in Yunnan, was detained by police after he apprehended and injured an alleged shoplifter. Su later apologized to the man and paid 66,000 yuan in damages (approximately $9,800 U.S. dollars), a condition set by the police for his release. [Chinese]

Better known to the Chinese public is the controversial 2007 case of a man named Peng Yu. Peng, a resident of Nanjing in Jiangsu province, assisted a fallen elderly woman (Xu Shoulan) by taking her to the hospital. Xu later accused Peng of causing her to fall, and demanded compensation. A judge of the Nanjing District Court, arguing that Peng coming to the woman’s assistance constituted “unreasonable” behavior, ruled in Xu’s favor and ordered Peng to pay her partial damages. The case was later settled through mediation. According to public records, as part of the mediation, Peng admitted to having caused the woman to fall.

More contentious than the details of the case was the court’s reasoning. The court judgment stated that under normal circumstances, no reasonable person would take a stranger to the hospital or pay for their medical bills unless that person were somehow responsible for the injury, a statement that shocked the Chinese public. 

An essay on the WeChat blog 基本常识 (Jiben changshi, Weixin ID: GetCommonSense) also cautioned against blaming bystanders for not intervening:

The real problem is not that no one was willing to step up, but that no one dared to.

In a country as vast as China, it’s likely that the bullying and abuse of women, or fights such as the one in the Tangshan hotpot restaurant, are taking place on a nightly basis, but very few become the focus of public opinion. And in these cases unknown to the public, it stands to reason that there are many bystanders who stepped forward to put a stop to the violence, and may have brought trouble upon themselves or paid the price for it. We know this from years of observation and personal experience living in this society. [Chinese]

A 29-year-old man who claimed to be at the scene when the beating took place recounted his experience in a viral essay published on the WeChat blog 真实故事计划 (zhenshi gushi jihua, Weixin ID: zhenshigushi1). The man admitted to feeling guilty as social media bombarded bystanders for not stepping up to help the victims. However, he stated that after further reflection, he had come to the conclusion that there was little he and other patrons could have done to stop the thugs:

Even as a 29-year-old man in his prime, even assuming that I could summon all the young people at the scene for help, and assuming that they lacked fighting experience, I wouldn’t stand a chance against a group of thugs. Later, I saw many people on the internet accusing us of failing to help or intervene. 

[…] I have to admit that what I could have done was very limited. In the face of extreme violence, anyone would have felt frightened and powerless. [Chinese]

A now-deleted Weibo comment archived by CDT echoed similar sentiments about the potential consequences of intervening as a good Samaritan:

If you were in the Tangshan BBQ restaurant, would you have stepped forward and intervened? The answer is: No. We all have been living in China for so long, let’s not pretend to be [naive] foreign tourists. Stepping forward would have inevitably resulted in a physical altercation with those drunken thugs. As an individual, you wouldn’t stand a chance against a mob of people, much less a mob of violent criminals. You would have ended up in a hospital, or even a morgue. But let’s suppose you’re a great fighter, and that you were somehow able to knock them all out. You would have been arrested by the cops who rushed to the scene, because in their eyes, a brawl is a brawl. You would have ended up paying damages or even going to jail. You may think you’re being a good Samaritan, but in the eyes of the cops, you’re just a troublemaker. [Chinese]

A Beijing-based law firm published an article on the judicial dilemma of how to define the fine line between protecting good Samaritans and indulging vigilantism. The article called for a more liberal interpretation of the “necessity” requirement in determining whether use of violence is justified in a given case. From WeChat blog 北京和昶律师事务所 (Weixin ID: Trusmaticlawfirm):

In order to guard against unrestrained behavior that could lead to the proliferation of vigilantism, which would pose a potential danger to everyone, the law requires that good Samaritans meet the requirement that their intervention was undertaken out of “necessity.” 

In judicial practice, “necessity” is defined very narrowly, and only applies in certain strict circumstances. This leads to situations in which “whoever was killed or injured is in the right” or “whoever makes the biggest fuss is in the right,” thus threatening laypeople’s simple conception of justice.

[…] We urge [the judiciary] to relax the “necessity” requirement in cases of justified defense or self-defense, lest the tragedy of Tangshan be repeated.  [Chinese]

With additional translation by Cindy Carter.