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Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.
The highlights this week: The leadership in North Korea and Myanmar rankles Chinese officials, Kazakhstan declines to join BRICS and sends a signal to Russia and China, and a Chinese bot network targets down-ballot races in the U.S. election.
China’s Troublesome Neighbors
This week, China and India announced a deal to reduce tensions and resume mutual patrols along their disputed border in Ladakh—so far with few details. This is welcome news in Beijing, but lately, its most troublesome neighbors have been its supposed friends: North Korea and Myanmar are both causing head-scratching and even anger among Chinese officials.
China has not offered formal comment on the recent reports suggesting that North Korean troops are headed to Ukraine to fight on Russia’s behalf, but it is causing real concern in Beijing. China has sought to simultaneously offer rhetorical—and to a degree, material—support to Russia while not wrecking its ties with the West. North Korea’s actions certainly cross that line.
North Korea is China’s only treaty ally, with a mutual defense agreement that dates to 1961; it is also nominally an ideological partner. But tensions have long marked the Beijing-Pyongyang relationship. North Koreans resent China positioning itself as a communist big brother to the smaller nation—in much the same way that the Chinese came to resent the Soviet Union.
Behind closed doors, North Korean leaders sometimes trot out the line that Japan is a “century-old enemy,” while China is a “thousand-year-old enemy,” referring to China’s historical imperialism in the Korean Peninsula. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has reportedly used a similar phrase himself.
In China, North Korea has become a byword for totalitarian repression—so much so that some young Chinese use the term “West Korea” to criticize the political leadership’s swing toward greater authoritarianism. Chinese analysts and officials often privately criticize North Korea’s failure to follow China’s 1980s path of “reform and opening,” depicting Pyongyang as intransigent and paranoid.
The Ukraine news also comes as Chinese experts express worry about growing aggression from North Korea against South Korea. Part of that concern is that Pyongyang can now use Moscow’s need for allies to play the Kremlin against Beijing—reducing China’s already limited leverage over North Korea.
Meanwhile, a bombing attack in Myanmar last week targeting the Chinese consulate in Mandalay—which damaged the building but caused no fatalities—still doesn’t have a clear culprit. China has called for an investigation and lodged “serious representations” with Myanmar’s ruling military junta, which took power in a 2021 coup.
The attack will stir further concerns in Beijing that the military leadership is unreliable—and possibly losing the country’s civil war. China has close ties to Myanmar’s generals, greased by mutual corruption among both militaries. Beijing initially hoped that the coup would allow Chinese-funded megaprojects in Myanmar to move forward. But it turns out that war is bad for infrastructure, and there has been little progress on any of the Chinese investments.
China is also irate about the military regime’s failure to protect Chinese property and citizens—and especially about criminal groups kidnapping Chinese workers for cyber scams. As a result, Beijing is building greater ties with ethnic militias and other anti-government armed forces in Myanmar, building on existing agreements (and private deals) between the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and these militias.
China’s biggest concern is along its border with Myanmar, where it has tried unsuccessfully but sincerely to broker a peace that would both prevent violence from spilling over and allow for trade to reopen. Rebel forces in Myanmar have made considerable gains along the frontier, including seizing a border post this week.
As with North Korea, China’s preference in Myanmar would be for all involved to stop yelling and at least pretend to get along. But that is not happening, Beijing is discovering that even superpowers can’t just make things go the way that they want on the ground.
What We’re Following
Kazakhstan’s balancing act. Kazakhstan has said it will not join BRICS this year and paused its membership application—though it maintains observer status at the group, which held a leaders’ summit in Kazan, Russia, this week. Under pressure from a public that distrusts both Russia and China, Kazakh leaders are trying to make sure the door to the West stays open too.
This signal is mostly aimed at Russia, with which Kazakhstan has been on the outs since the invasion of Ukraine, but it affects Astana’s relationship with Beijing as well. Kazakhstan has extensive economic ties with China: Their trade jumped to more than $31 billion last year, though part of that likely comes from sanctions avoidance for funds ultimately bound for Russia.
However, some ethnic Kazakhs have been swept up in China’s concentration camps in Xinjiang, and despite Astana’s efforts to cover this up, it has affected the Kazakh public’s perception of Beijing. China’s Belt and Road Initiative remains unpopular despite billions of dollars flowing into Kazakhstan; the signature border city of Khorgos, set up as a trade zone, is a backwater.
Child trafficking trial. Yu Huaying, a woman who in the past year has become the face of China’s long-running child-trafficking crisis, is back on trial for six additional offenses after she was sentenced to death last year for kidnapping and trafficking 11 children in the 1990s. Yu mostly targeted the children of migrant workers, who often work multiple jobs with long hours that make watching children difficult.
Execution is uncommon in China, even after a “death sentence,” which usually results in long jail terms instead. But Yu’s case has struck a chord with the public, and online commentators have overwhelmingly called for her to be executed.
In 2016, the Ministry of Public Security launched a popular program that attempted to locate kidnapped children, making up in some part for past neglect of the crisis. More than 8,000 children, now mostly teenagers or young adults, have been reunited with their parents.
Tech and Business
U.S. election influence ops. The infamous Chinese bot network known as Spamouflage is largely targeting down-ballot races in this year’s U.S. elections—with an eye on politicians known for strong positions on human rights in China, such as Sen. Marco Rubio, or those who have targeted Chinese tech. Spamouflage has been running since 2017 and is mostly used for the harassment of Chinese dissidents.
Like many tech-centered influence operations, Spamouflage’s operations often appear ineffective; few posts go viral, and they are largely reproduced by other bots in the same network. Still, the targeting can be indicative: In this case, it shows that China may be more interested in harming individual politicians and securing local power than in who wins the U.S. presidency.
New restrictions on Chinese AI. Washington’s flurry of rulemaking targeted at Chinese technology continues—and will likely go on regardless of the outcome of the Nov. 5 election, as it remains one of few issues with genuine bipartisan consensus. The latest round of restrictions is aimed largely at artificial intelligence, curtailing U.S. investments in China.
The U.S. Justice Department has also proposed new rules to redefine data protection for U.S. citizens against Chinese firms—which is a tricky issue given how little user data is protected by U.S. firms.
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A Bit of Culture
Another spooky excerpt this Halloween season comes from the 4th-century collection of tales Soushen Ji (“In Search of the Supernatural”). At the time, belief in ghosts was widespread in China, but as the tale shows, it was not universal.—Brendan O’Kane, translator
Ruan Zhan, whose byname was Qianli, was a long-standing opponent of the existence of ghosts. There was no augment for which he did not have a counterargument, and at each triumph he proclaimed that life and death had been fully explained by Reason.
One day, a visitor came, gave his name, and engaged Zhan in debate. After some initial pleasantries, the discussion turned to matters of metaphysics. The visitor proved to be an able debater: He and Zhan went back and forth for quite some time, until the conversation turned to ghosts and spirits.
At this, the back and forth turned heated. Finally, the visitor broke off and with a strange expression asked, “The sages and worthies of the ages have all taught of the existence of ghosts and spirits, sir. How is it that you alone deny their existence? Well, your servant here happens to be a ghost.” He transformed into a bizarre form, then vanished in the blink of an eye.
Zhan fell silent, a terrible look on his face. He died of illness a little more than a year later.