Editor’s note for April 28, 2023
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
Dear reader,
It’s been a week of mixed messages from Beijing. Just seven days ago, the Chinese ambassador to France caused fury in Europe when he questioned whether former Soviet Union states were real countries. Then on Wednesday, in what many see as an attempt at damage control, Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 finally called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, more than a year after media reports suggested it would happen.
Meanwhile, despite recent government pledges that China still welcomes foreign business, the Wall Street Journal’s Lingling Wei yesterday noted that in recent weeks, “Chinese authorities have questioned staff at consulting firm Bain & Co.’s Shanghai office in a surprise visit, launched a cybersecurity review of imports from chip maker Micron Technology Inc., detained an employee of Japanese drugmaker Astellas Pharma Inc. and raided the Beijing office of U.S. due-diligence company Mintz Group [and] broadened its spy law to counter perceived foreign threats.”
Today, Wei tweeted an April 14 article from state news agency Xinhua published as part of “National Security Day,” which falls on April 15. The piece calls on Chinese citizens to be vigilant about “these behaviors that endanger national security,” and notes:
“Nowadays, the actions of overseas spy intelligence agencies and anti-China hostile forces that endanger China’s national security are no longer limited to the traditional security field. Some organizations and personnel, under the guise of foreign non-governmental organizations, investigation and consulting companies, and high-tech companies operating in the fields of economy, biology, and technology try to ‘make an issue’ in the fields of human rights, industrial chains, and supply chains, etc.”
The article helpfully provides the national security hotline number: If you want to report any suspicious foreign consulting or high-tech companies in China, you can call 12339. Very convenient, but not very reassuring for a number of foreign companies operating in China.
Our Phrase of the Week is about something much more pleasant, the popularity of barbecue and tourism in the city of Zibo in Shandong Province: The right timing, the right place, the right people (天时地利人和 tiānshí dìlì rénhé).
