China Reform Monitor: No. 1061

September 27:

NATO member Turkey has chosen China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp (CPMIEC) to build a $4 billion long-range air and missile defense system, rejecting rival bids from Russian, U.S., and European firms, Reuters reports. The winning Chinese FD-2000 system beat Raytheon’s Patriot system, Russia’s S-400, and the French-Italian Eurosam Samp-T. CPMIEC does not make missiles; it acts as the marketing arm of China’s missile manufacturing industry led by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, which makes intercontinental ballistic missiles, and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, which focuses on short and intermediate-range rockets. CPMIEC is under U.S. sanctions for violating the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act. Last year China became the world’s fifth largest arms supplier with five percent of the market. Pakistan was the largest importer of Chinese arms.
.
September 28:

Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping has presided over four and a half days of “democratic life meetings” in Shijiazhuang, Hebei. Senior officials are being televised nationwide sweating and “almost in tears,” confessing their mistakes and accusing others, the South China Morning Post reports. Hebei senior officials started preparing for the meetings in mid-July when a central supervisory team began collecting 171,200 suggestions and grass-roots complaints from 8,000 villages via 24,000 village officials. They then ordered self-criticism reports, most of which had to be revised several times. Executive deputy governor Yang Congyong said last year that the Hebei government overspent its budget by over two times and propaganda head Ai Wenli admitted spending 3.3 million yuan on entertainment for a spring festival gala. “After being posted to Hebei I cared too much about economic growth. I didn't pay enough attention to normal people’s concerns,” said Zhou Benshun, former secretary general of the party’s Political and Legal Affairs Commission, who was criticized for not being “democratic.”

[Editor’s Note: This campaign is part of an effort to secure loyalty before the third plenary meeting of the 18th party congress when major reforms are expected. The party introduced the “democratic life meeting” in Yanan in the early 1940s as a tool to bring democracy to the party by allowing people to voice their opinions in an open forum. Although meetings used to be behind closed-doors they are now platforms for power struggles. In January 1987 late party chief Hu Yaobang was sacked at such a meeting.]

October 3:

China has spent more than $50 billion in the past three months on energy and infrastructure deals in Central Asia as Beijing seeks to establish a “new Silk Road” through the region, Britain’s Independent reports. These renewed efforts come despite unresolved tensions between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan that have delayed implementation of the transcontinental rail project since 1996, when the first trilateral meetings were held. “The trilateral format rail artery has still not progressed to the first stage of construction,” Russia’s Politkom reported last month. Deliberations on the track’s route from Kashgar, Xinjiang to Andijon, Uzbekistan have caused years of delays. Uzbekistan had supported one route and stopped cooperating after another, through Torugart, Kyrgyzstan, was selected. “All China’s power-engineering initiatives in Central Asia, which appeared after the idea of building a railroad to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, have exceed[ed] their work schedules or are on the brink of doing so.” While in Tashkent and Bishkek earlier this month, Xi Jinping again called for the three sides to come together to build the railroad.

October 4:

Myanmar has resumed the Latpadaungtaung copper mine project in Monywa, Sagaing with Chinese partner Wanbao Mining Ltd. The original project contract was signed in 2010 and implemented in March 2012 but was interrupted after protests in November 2012 “causing great losses” for investors. Myanmar’s Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi led a probe to investigate and released a report in March suggesting the project go forward. According to the terms of the revised contract signed on July 24 by Myanmar Mining Enterprise, Myanmar Economic Holding, and China’s Wanbao Mining Ltd., the profit sharing ratio between the three parties was revised to 51:19:30, respectively. Under the new contract, “Wanbao company will invest $2 million annually for mine reclamation by opening an account with Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank and also invest $1 million annually for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) before beginning extraction,” the official Xinhua news agency reports. Afterward investors must use 2 percent of the net profit for local CSR initiatives.

October 5:

On September 22, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) conducted a “large-scale, long-range joint assault operation” codenamed Mission Action-2013C (Shiming Xingdong-2013C) that subjected PLAAF pilots to “near genuine battle conditions.” The drill made use of various methods including “information support, air attack, and air delivery to carry out large-scale long-range surprise attacks.” CCTV4 reports that the drills represent the modernization of the PLAAF battle philosophy: “In order for China to fight a successful battle, it needs to match up to international standards in terms of technology and capabilities. The PLAAF has gained a brand new understanding of weaponry development and joint assault operation.”