Welcome to the 192nd edition of Trade War.
China mourns Henry Kissinger. Xi Jinping sends condolences to Joe Biden. And just what is an “old friend of the Chinese people.”
The Third Plenum may be delayed in sign of disunity over Chinese economy. And top China investment bank tells employees don’t say bad things about the economy or flaunt your wealth.
An analysis comparing Xi’s recent speech to CEOs in San Francisco, to an internal speech by a top economist to party cadres, reveals anti-Western strain in “Chinese-style modernization.”
Jack Ma breaks silence as troubled Alibaba eclipsed by Pinduoduo. And a federal judge blocks Montana TikTok ban.
iPhone-maker Foxconn struggles with diversification into India.
Party turns to foreign influencers as important propagandizing force.
And Beijing wants women to be “docile, baby-breeding guarantors of social, economic and demographic stability.”
China mourns ‘old friend’ Kissinger
China is mourning its “old friend” Henry Kissinger after the former national security advisor, secretary of state, and businessman died in his home in Connecticut at the age of 100.
“Chinese president Xi Jinping sent a message of condolences to U.S. President Joe Biden Thursday over the death of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,” the official China Daily reported.
“On behalf of the Chinese government and people, and in his own name, Xi extended profound condolences and expressed sincere sympathy to Kissinger's family.”
"Dr. Kissinger was a good old friend of the Chinese people. He is a pioneer and builder of Sino-U.S. relations," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in a press conference in Beijing.
Kissinger’s role in the normalization of China-U.S. ties was “historic” and the Chinese people will remember him for his “sincere devotion and important contribution,” Wang added.
Kissinger’s secret visit to Beijing in 1971 helped pave the way for president Richard Nixon’s visit a year later that eventually culminated in the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China in 1979.
Kissinger’s death is a “tremendous loss” for both countries and for the world, wrote Xie Feng, Chinese ambassador to the United States, in a post on X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter.
“History will remember what the centenarian had contributed to China-U.S. relations, and he will always remain alive in the hearts of the Chinese people as a most valued old friend,” the ambassador wrote.
“In more than 100 visits to China over more than 50 years, Kissinger met all of its modern leaders: Mao, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi,” reports NBC.
What China’s leaders are really mourning is the bygone era of what in many ways was a friendlier and simpler relationship with the U.S. For them, that time will forever be associated with Kissinger, who wrote in his 600-plus-page book On China published in 2011, that “relations between China and the United States need not—and should not—become a zero-sum game.”
What is an ‘old friend of the Chinese people’?
What exactly is an “old friend of the Chinese people” and why is not just Kissinger but King of Cambodia Norodom Sihanouk, former U.S. president George Bush, and Microsoft’s Bill Gates, all touted as one by Beijing?
As China Media Project wrote in September, “This term, first emerging under Mao Zedong in the 1950s, is frequently used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to pay tribute to foreigners seen as having been amiable to China, and beneficial to the interests of the Party.”
Also notable: the fact that the majority of these “old friends,” come from countries that have long had complicated relationships with China. CMP’s Ryan Ho Kilpatrick explains:
“With over 100 ‘old friends,’ China’s historical enemy Japan is home to more than anywhere else in the world—by a long shot. Coming in second, with half that amount, is Beijing’s more recent great-power rival, the United States of America.”
“Why are there more ‘old friends’ where friendship most eludes China? Because these places are precisely where friends are most useful. They can be summoned for meetings to undermine their own government’s current foreign policy tack, for example—think Kissinger back in July 2023, some might say. Or they can serve as a symbolic gesture that Beijing is ready for rapprochement with their home country.”
"We never forget our old friends, nor your historic contributions to promoting the growth of China-U.S. relations and enhancing friendship between the two peoples," Xi said to Kissinger when he made his last visit to Beijing in July.
The very first “old friend” of China, as described by the People’s Daily (Chinese) in 1956? Canadian missionary and CCP supporter James Gareth Endicott.
Third Plenum delay suggests disunity
Xi Jinping looks set to postpone a key party confab held every five years to lay out the path for China’s economy; the delay suggests the leadership has yet to come to agreement over what reforms or policies should come next.
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