24 September, 2021 – Stealth War 56: Cryptocurrency Trading Ban; Coal Power Plants Abroad; PLAAF Swarms Taiwan; BRI in Africa; Outrage toward Evergrande

* China Bans Cryptocurrency Trading

* Xi Pledges to Stop Building Coal Power Plants Abroad as China Engages in Domestic Coal Binge

* PLAAF Swarms Taiwan After CPTPP Membership Application

* BRI: The Belt and Road Gets Bumpy in Africa

* Popular Outrage toward Evergrande Rises in China

Xi Pledges to Stop Building Coal Power Plants Abroad  even as China Engages in Domestic Coal Binge 

In a virtual address to the UN General Assembly, General Secretary Xi Jinping pledged that China “will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.” The promise by China, which is the last major exporter of coal power generation technology, follows similar pledges by Japan and South Korea earlier this year. Xi’s vague promise was greeted with guarded enthusiasm by climate change experts and advocates. However, in covering Xi’s UNGA speech, the international media largely neglected to note that China is building coal power plants on a massive scale domestically. Per Yale’s Environment 360 blog: “A total of 247 gigawatts of coal power is now in planning or development, nearly six times Germany’s entire coal-fired capacity.” This continued reliance on coal, which makes up the majority of China’s energy mix, actually precipitated a 4% increase in China’s CO2 emissions in the second half of 2020. With Beijing’s concerns over energy security mounting amidst US-China competition, and energy demand remaining high, China is unlikely to wean itself off of its coal addiction any time soon.

This Thursday, China sent 24 warplanes into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in a display of force. China has sent warplanes into Taiwan’s airspace frequently over the past year, and has made larger scale intrusions following political events that it views as violating its sovereignty. The most recent incursion followed Taiwan’s announcement last Thursday that it had submitted an application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). As expected, this triggered a quick response from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) which considers Taiwan part of China. The PRC also submitted an application to join the CPTPP on Tuesday.

The CPTPP is an important opportunity for Taiwan, which is excluded from most international organizations. The decision rests on the eleven members, who must make a unanimous decision to allow new members to join. The PRC claims that Taiwan is using the CPTPP application as a secession move toward secession.

BRI: The Belt and Road Gets Bumpy in Africa

Several countries in Africa— notably Ghana and the DRC— have decided to cancel their contracts with China for major infrastructure projects due to concerns over excess debt, and unfair business practices. “Those with whom his country signed contracts are getting richer while DRC people remain poor,” said the DRC president, Felix Tshisekedi.

Ghana has canceled the $100 million contract with China’s Every Way Traffic and Lighting Tech Co Ltd, which was set to create an intelligent traffic management system for the country. Meanwhile, the President of the DRC has announced that he wants a 2008 contract with China to be re-evaluated, citing that the deal signed with Sinohydro Corp and China Railway group was exploitative and unfair. The companies agreed to build roads, hospitals and bridges in the DRC in exchange for a majority stake in the country’s Sicomines business. While the Chinese companies are profiting off the DRC’s mining business, very little infrastructure projects have been completed.

This is not the first time a major Chinese project has faced skepticism in Africa. In 2020, a Kenyan high court canceled a $3.2 billion railway contract with China. In 2018, a $400 million airport funded by China was canceled by the country’s government after the president deemed the project unviable.

There’s no sign of this trend slowing down. With the announcement that China’s exports will cease to rely on coal, plans to construct a $15 million coal powered plant in Zimbabwe could run the risk of will almost assuredly being canceled. Zimbabwe, along with several other African partners, will likely have to cancel scheduled or ongoing coal-powered projects with China. 

As Evergrande missed its payment deadline on Thursday, investors and regulators have been focused on whether the company will collapse due to its debt load of over $300 billion. Home buyers are waiting on as many as 1.6 million apartments to be completed and around 70 to 80 percent of Evergrande employees across China were asked to lend money to help fund Evergrande operations; they were told to give a short-term loan if they wanted to keep their bonuses this year. Revelations of the company’s financial woes have generated anger that has sparked protests by employees and home buyers at Evergrande’s headquarters in Shenzhen. Protesters claimed that Evergrande owed them money, and were removed by security.

Popular anger toward Evergrande’s CEO Xu Jiayin in particular, may play into  Xi’s “common prosperity “campaign, which seeks to narrow China’s massive wealth gap by targeting the mega-rich, and private sector industries such as technology, entertainment and for-profit education sectors.