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Media Report
February 02 , 2017
  • Politico：Can Jim Mattis Fix Asia?
    Politico comments: "As a general, Defense Secretary James Mattis was known as the 'warrior monk,' a celebrated combat leader and renowned student of war, but he embarks this week on a sensitive diplomatic mission: reassuring America's allies in Asia that the Trump administration has their backs. Beneath his colorful demeanor, Mattis is a smart, nuanced thinker, qualities that he'll need to convince Japan and South Korea that the new team in Washington knows what it's doing...[Asia will] want to hear not only that America's new leader remains committed to their security, but also that he has a realistic strategy for managing the most important relationship in the world: Washington and Beijing. While it remains unclear who will be calling the shots in the Trump era, Mattis' trip will be our first chance to see what happens when the president's rhetoric on China meets the real world...Trump and his advisers appear to believe that halting any further shift in power away from the United States is their highest priority in Asia. Whether intimating a trade war or musing about scrapping the One China policy, the president is assuming that Beijing knows it has more to lose than America does by further confrontation, and therefore will be the first to blink. It is a risky bet. The crucial question is whether Trump is misreading China's nationalistic leadership. Any retreat in the face of U.S. accusations would open up China to pressure from aggrieved nations around Asia, while potentially hastening the formation of a more formal anti-China bloc. Given President Xi Jinping's avowed nationalism and track record so far, there is little reason to believe he is willing to accept being the Chinese leader who 'lost' Asia...So Secretary Mattis must tread carefully over the next few days."
  • Reuters：Faced with U.S. retreat on climate change, EU looks to China
    Reuters reports: "Faced with a U.S. retreat from international efforts to tackle climate change, European Union officials are looking to China, fearing a leadership vacuum will embolden those within the bloc seeking to slow the fight against global warming...But with fault lines over Brexit, dependence on Russian energy and protecting industry threatening the bloc's own common policy, some EU diplomats worry Europe is too weak to lead on its own in tackling climate change. Instead, they are pinning their hopes on China, concerned that without the backing of the world's second-biggest economy support for the global pact to avert droughts, rising seas and other affects of climate change will flounder...The EU's top climate diplomat Miguel Arias Canete will travel to Beijing at the end of March, EU sources said. Offering EU expertise on its plans to build a 'cap-and-trade' system is one area officials see for expanded cooperation. Enticed by huge investments in solar and wind power in economies such as China and India, Germany, Britain and France are seeking closer ties to gain a share of the business. But hurdles stand in the way of an EU clean energy alliance with China after the two sides narrowly averted a trade war in 2013 over EU allegations of solar panel dumping by China. 'We need to embrace the fact that China has invested very heavily in clean energy,' Gregory Barker, climate change minister to former British Prime Minister David Cameron, told Reuters on the sidelines the environment conference in Brussels organized by conservative politicians. 'If America won't lead then it's clear that China will.' 'WE LOST A MAJOR ALLY' "
  • The Financial Times：China labour unrest spreads to 'new economy'
    The Financial Times reports: "Chinese labour unrest extended its footprint last year as workforce tensions that have long beset the manufacturing and construction industries began to hit the fast-growing sectors on which Beijing has pinned its hopes for future growth. While the 2,663 strikes and protests recorded in 2016 by China Labour Bulletin marked a fall of 112 on the previous year, the total was still almost double that of 2014, with the spread to new sectors partly offsetting a drop in manufacturing unrest. 'The new economy is rife with the old labour problems of the past,' said Keegan Elmer, a researcher at the Hong Kong-based workers' rights organisation. China's labour supply is tightening as fewer young hands join the migrant workforce on which manufacturing and construction have long relied — driving up wages, prompting salary arrears and threatening older workers' social insurance payments when employers close shop or move without warning. Yet couriers and salespeople employed in sectors such as retail and logistics are increasingly faced with similar issues. China's only sanctioned union, the state-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions, has not opposed workers protesting against Walmart but it has also refrained from offering them substantial support. The ACFTU's inability to prevent arrears is reflected annually by a peak in labour unrest around the lunar new year, particularly in the construction sector where full payment for a project is often not made until just before the long national holiday when hundreds of millions of migrant workers head home to visit family."
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