China
Japan needs to navigate a pathway between the United States and China
Author: Editorial Board, ANU
Japan’s Fast Retailing CEO Tadashi Yanai, who runs the Uniqlo clothing chain, declared that his company wouldn’t be choosing between the United States and China in an interview with financial daily Nikkei Asia last week. ‘Japan can’t survive without being an open country’, Yanai said. Japanese companies caught between the United States and China ‘need to acknowledge that Japan has nothing. Japan has no choice but to make money in markets across the world’.
Yanai’s decision to make no comment on whether the company uses cotton from Xinjiang is emblematic of his approach to geopolitical affairs. ‘I want to be neutral between the United States and China’, he said. ‘The US approach is to force companies to show their allegiance. I wanted to show that I won’t play that game’.
When it comes to the economic crunch point, what’s good for Uniqlo is probably also good for Japan. But the Japanese government is yet to define a pathway through US–China rivalry and political assertiveness that might make Yanai’s posture a viable national strategy.
The Japanese prosperity that has come with globalisation and technological advancement has fundamentally changed the regional and global balance of power. The rise of China as the world’s second largest and soon to be largest economy poses a major challenge to the established global order.
The whole region is navigating these tricky changes, but Japan is in the cockpit.
The pressures on global markets and political and multilateral institutions and systems are unprecedented. China’s political system amplifies the uncertainty the region faces about how tensions with Beijing can be dealt with. Political and military power has followed China’s economic power, and the country is no longer hiding its strength and biding its time.
China is Japan’s and Asia’s largest trading and economic partner; Japan is the largest source of foreign direct investment for China. It is reasonable for China to have its power reflected in international efforts to shape global rules and for it to want to secure its interests in its immediate neighbourhood.
But the tip towards political coercion is a tip too far. China’s assertiveness in international dealings and its use of coercion, particularly in its immediate regional neighbourhood — earlier against Japan and recently more blatantly against Australia — have aggravated uncertainties about the nature of its rise. There is a growing attenuation of trust between China and other powers.
The United States’ responses to the rise of China have varied, grappling for a balance between engagement, competition and containment. In recent years, fears of the consequences of China’s challenge to US economic power have led to a trade war, technological decoupling and strategic competition and pressure on US allies and partners to make choices that favour the United States whatever the cost.
Although the rise of Japan in the 1980s was also met with a similarly confrontational American response, Japan was under the American security umbrella and had a political system that was a little less unfamiliar. The rise of protectionism in the United States, driven by an uneven recovery from the global financial crisis in 2008 and politically exploitable domestic socioeconomic disparities, has added to these pressures.
The pressure on US allies to decouple their trade and technology from China has grown. The multilateralism that helps to restrain and shape great power settlements and is essential to Japan’s prosperity and security, is harder to sustain.
At a time when strategic innovation is much needed to define a pathway through, Japanese political leadership is entangled in established ways of thinking from the past.
In our lead article this week, Ben Ascione observes that ‘unless [Japanese Prime Minister Fumio] Kishida can assert his control over the LDP after the July 2022 upper house election and build more than lukewarm public support he will find it difficult to exercise the levers of the prime minister’s office to strike a new policy course’.
‘Japanese democracy is at its weakest point in the post-war era’, Ascione laments, and there is no cut-through, hard-edged political debate about domestic or pressing foreign policy issues. Though he hails from a fine liberal tradition in Japanese conservative politics (the Kochikai faction which boasts former prime ministers Hayato Ikeda, Masayoshi Ohira, Zenko Suzuki and Kiichi Miyazawa) Kishida appears bound to the nationalist conservative…
China
New Report from Dezan Shira & Associates: China Takes the Lead in Emerging Asia Manufacturing Index 2024
China has been the world’s largest manufacturer for 14 years, producing one-third of global manufacturing output. In the Emerging Asia Manufacturing Index 2024, China ranks highest among eight emerging countries in the region. Challenges for these countries include global demand disparities affecting industrial output and export orders.
Known as the “World’s Factory”, China has held the title of the world’s largest manufacturer for 14 consecutive years, starting from 2010. Its factories churn out approximately one-third of the global manufacturing output, a testament to its industrial might and capacity.
China’s dominant role as the world’s sole manufacturing power is reaffirmed in Dezan Shira & Associates’ Emerging Asia Manufacturing Index 2024 report (“EAMI 2024”), in which China secures the top spot among eight emerging countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The other seven economies are India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Bangladesh.
The EAMI 2024 aims to assess the potential of these eight economies, navigate the risks, and pinpoint specific factors affecting the manufacturing landscape.
In this article, we delve into the key findings of the EAMI 2024 report and navigate China’s advantages and disadvantages in the manufacturing sector, placing them within the Asia-Pacific comparative context.
Emerging Asia countries face various challenges, especially in the current phase of increased volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). One notable challenge is the impact of global demand disparities on the manufacturing sector, affecting industrial output and export orders.
This article is republished from China Briefing. Read the rest of the original article.
China Briefing is written and produced by Dezan Shira & Associates. The practice assists foreign investors into China and has done since 1992 through offices in Beijing, Tianjin, Dalian, Qingdao, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Suzhou, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. Please contact the firm for assistance in China at china@dezshira.com.
China
Is journalist Vicky Xu preparing to return to China?
Chinese social media influencers have recently claimed that prominent Chinese-born Australian journalist Vicky Xu had posted a message saying she planned to return to China.
There is no evidence for this. The source did not provide evidence to support the claim, and Xu herself later confirmed to AFCL that she has no such plans.
Currently working as an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, or ASPI, Xu has previously written for both the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, or ABC, and The New York Times.
A Chinese language netizen on X initially claimed on March 31 that the changing geopolitical relations between Sydney and Beijing had caused Xu to become an expendable asset and that she had posted a message expressing a strong desire to return to China. An illegible, blurred photo of the supposed message accompanied the post.
This claim was retweeted by a widely followed influencer on the popular Chinese social media site Weibo one day later, who additionally commented that Xu was a “traitor” who had been abandoned by Australian media.
Following the publication of an ASPI article in 2021 which exposed forced labor conditions in Xinjiang co-authored by Xu, the journalist was labeled “morally bankrupt” and “anti-China” by the Chinese state owned media outlet Global Times and subjected to an influx of threatening messages and digital abuse, eventually forcing her to temporarily close several of her social media accounts.
AFCL found that neither Xu’s active X nor LinkedIn account has any mention of her supposed return to China, and received the following response from Xu herself about the rumor:
“I can confirm that I don’t have plans to go back to China. I think if I do go back I’ll most definitely be detained or imprisoned – so the only career I’ll be having is probably going to be prison labor or something like that, which wouldn’t be ideal.”
Neither a keyword search nor reverse image search on the photo attached to the original X post turned up any text from Xu supporting the netizens’ claims.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Malcolm Foster.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
Read the rest of this article here >>> Is journalist Vicky Xu preparing to return to China?
China
Guide for Foreign Residents: Obtaining a Certificate of No Criminal Record in China
Foreign residents in China can request a criminal record check from their local security bureau. This certificate may be required for visa applications or job opportunities. Requirements and procedures vary by city. In Shanghai, foreigners must have lived there for 180 days with a valid visa to obtain the certificate.
Foreign residents living in China can request a criminal record check from the local security bureau in the city in which they have lived for at least 180 days. Certificates of no criminal record may be required for people leaving China, or those who are starting a new position in China and applying for a new visa or residence permit. Taking Shanghai as an example, we outline the requirements for obtaining a China criminal record check.
Securing a Certificate of No Criminal Record, often referred to as a criminal record or criminal background check, is a crucial step for various employment opportunities, as well as visa applications and residency permits in China. Nevertheless, navigating the process can be a daunting task due to bureaucratic procedures and language barriers.
In this article, we use Shanghai as an example to explore the essential information and steps required to successfully obtain a no-criminal record check. Requirements and procedures may differ in other cities and counties in China.
Note that foreigners who are not currently living in China and need a criminal record check to apply for a Chinese visa must obtain the certificate from their country of residence or nationality, and have it notarized by a Chinese embassy or consulate in that country.
Foreigners who have a valid residence permit and have lived in Shanghai for at least 180 days can request a criminal record check in the city. This means that the applicant will also need to currently have a work, study, or other form of visa or stay permit that allows them to live in China long-term.
If a foreigner has lived in another part of China and is planning to or has recently moved to Shanghai, they will need to request a criminal record check in the place where they previously spent at least 180 days.
There are two steps to obtaining a criminal record certificate in Shanghai: requesting the criminal record check from the Public Security Bureau (PSB) and getting the resulting Certificate of No Criminal Record notarized by an authorized notary agency.
This article is republished from China Briefing. Read the rest of the original article.
China Briefing is written and produced by Dezan Shira & Associates. The practice assists foreign investors into China and has done since 1992 through offices in Beijing, Tianjin, Dalian, Qingdao, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Suzhou, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. Please contact the firm for assistance in China at china@dezshira.com.
- New Report from Dezan Shira & Associates: China Takes the Lead in Emerging Asia Manufacturing Index 2024
- Is journalist Vicky Xu preparing to return to China?
- Guide for Foreign Residents: Obtaining a Certificate of No Criminal Record in China
- China Unveils Plan to Upgrade Industrial Equipment
- China deepens engagement with new Indonesian president as top diplomat visits Jakarta
- New Publication: A Guide for Foreign Investors on Navigating China’s New Company Law
