Experts debunk myth that Chinese buyers drive up Australian property prices

Jonathan Pearlman

For years, Australians have blamed soaring property prices on an influx of cashed-up Chinese property buyers.

A survey in July, for instance, found that 73 per cent of Australians believed that “foreign buyers from China drive up Australian housing prices”, with only 8 per cent believing that Chinese buyers do not add to prices and 19 per cent expressing a neutral view. 

Carried out by the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, the survey also found that 78 per cent of Australians believe the amount of Chinese investment in residential real estate should be restricted, with 8 per cent disagreeing and 14 per cent expressing neutrality.

But it turns out that Chinese investment has had little to no effect on Australia’s decades-long property boom.

A new study published in June in the journal Housing Studies examined how Beijing’s 2017 crackdown on money leaving China affected property prices in each of Sydney’s 678 suburbs.

Eighteen months after the crackdown, which led to a fall in overall Chinese investment in Australia, restrictions had caused prices to drop by 3 per cent in areas with Chinese communities, but had no impact on property prices elsewhere.

Associate Professor Song Shi from the University of Technology Sydney, co-author of the study, said the impact of Chinese investors in Australia has been “much less – and less widespread – than many Australians think”.

“Our findings... suggest ongoing concerns about Chinese capital and Chinese investors driving up Australian home prices and exacerbating affordability problems are overstated,” he wrote last Monday in The Conversation, a website that publishes research and analyses by academics.

Other researchers had similar findings.

Dr Mona Chung, the director of consulting firm Cross Culture International who in 2017 conducted a study of the impact of Chinese investment in Australia, said perceptions of Chinese buyers driving up Australian property prices is a “media myth” that dates back decades.

She said the myth emerged as China grew wealthier and its citizens were able to afford to buy property in Australia.

“You had no Chinese buying houses in Australia, and then you had pockets of Chinese buying in areas in Sydney and Melbourne – they became more noticeable,” she told The Straits Times.

“People often look for a cause of blame for why they can’t do something (such as buy a house).” 

Property prices in Australia have been soaring in recent decades. 

In Sydney, the average house price increased from A$166,000 in 1993 to A$1.36 million (S$1.19 million) today. The average price of an apartment soared during this period as well, from A$163,000 to A$822,000.

In Melbourne, the average house price rose from A$117,000 in 1993 to A$925,000 today. Apartment prices increased from A$116,000 to A$604,000.

These increases happened to occur as Chinese migration began to surge.

Since 2011, China has been one of the largest sources of migrants to Australia. As at June 2021, Australia had 596,000 China-born residents, an increase of 208,000 since 2011.

Of Australia’s 26.8 million residents, about 1.4 million have Chinese ancestry.

This Chinese influx has often been blamed for the property boom even though, according to analysts, it has played a minor – if any – role in the price surges.

Dr Shane Oliver, the chief economist at financial services company AMP, said public debate in Australia often focuses on “nice, simple explanations” for the property boom, such as Chinese buyers, tax incentives for property owners and investors, or rules regulating land development.

But he said the surges in prices were primarily due to two factors: “The shift from high to low interest rates, and the fundamental shortfall of supply relative to demand.

“Blaming house price rises on foreigners is attractive to some people, but it doesn’t stack up,” he told ST.

“When you look at the overall housing finance numbers at times when house prices surge, the surge is usually due to domestic borrowers getting money from domestic banks.”

He added: “Foreign buyers have an impact on property prices, but it is relatively minor.”

Dr Chung believes the frosty ties between Canberra and Beijing in recent years may have caused people in Australia to be more likely to accept the myth that Chinese buyers have fuelled a housing boom.

“Blaming Chinese buyers is not new, but in the last few years, the reason for it has become more political,” she said.

Love(less) In China: Why Aren’t Young Chinese Getting Married? | Insight...

She met over 100 guys but didn’t find love. In China, marriage is pie in the sky for many more

With the country’s marriage rate at an all-time low, the programme Insight explores the factors in play, from the changing attitudes of young Chinese to the cost of housing, and how authorities and parents are trying to reverse the trend.

Last year, as her career took off following her move to Shanghai, China’s financial capital, finance executive Zhao Miaomiao felt it was time to look for a significant other.

So she went on a series of blind dates. Using a dating app, she met “quite a lot” of guys in person — more than 100 — within three to four months.

After they all struck out with her, she “realised that finding a partner is a really difficult task”.

“The first thing (guys) look at is whether the woman is attractive. And then they proceed to understand her personality and family background,” said the 28-year-old.

“However, … (women) prioritise the sincerity of the man. For example, they hope that the man who pursues them demonstrates effort and sincerity.”

Over in Beijing, media executive Liu Shutong has a boyfriend, but “it doesn’t matter” to her whether she gets married or not in future.

“First of all, what I want is to live in the present,” she declared. And that is a general attitude she sees among her peers.

“Nowadays, young people prioritise their current happiness, embracing a hedonistic lifestyle,” said the 24-year-old, who herself takes pleasure in ballet, yoga and shopping with friends. “We feel that … whether you choose marriage or not, you’re still happy.”

Whether by choice or otherwise, more young Chinese clearly are not getting married. In the past decade, the number of marriages has halved. Last year, 6.83 million couples tied the knot — an all-time low since records began in 1986.

Compared with Singapore, where 6.5 marriages per 1,000 residents were registered in 2021, the corresponding figure in China was 5.4 marriages per 1,000 people.

Among the urban youth, 44 per cent of Chinese women do not plan to marry, compared with nearly a quarter of the men, according to a 2021 survey conducted by the Communist Youth League.

While a decline in marriage has become a global phenomenon — almost 90 per cent of the world’s population live in countries with falling marriage rates — and the reasons can be complex, there are also particular factors in play in China.

The programme Insight finds out what is getting in the way of young Chinese finding love, and the different ways the authorities — and parents — are trying to reverse the trend.

A GROWING MISMATCH

One person who can offer an insight into why young Chinese are not coupling up is professional matchmaker Qian Lei, 27.

“In general, if a man tries to find a partner in the matchmaking market, he may say he doesn’t need a rich or beautiful woman, but he’s actually picky,” she said.

“He’s looking for someone who gives him a good first impression, and this is when he becomes more selective.”

As to why girls may reject a guy, it may be “because he doesn’t meet their height requirements”, said Qian. “Girls tend to value height a lot, and they often prefer guys who are at least 1.7 metres tall.”

Such eligibility “criteria” may seem superficial but are one aspect of the changing views on love and marriage in China.

The country’s rapid development has also created a mismatch between what men and women want in marriage, with China’s social conservatism at odds with decades of female empowerment.

“China’s transition from traditional to modern values has been very short. Other countries and regions may have taken 50 or 100 years, but we’ve experienced this phenomenon in just 20 to 30 years,” said sociologist Zhu Hong at Nanjing University.

Prior to 1999, when the government decided to expand the higher education system, women made up as little as 20 per cent of university admissions.

Female enrolment has since overtaken male enrolment at universities, hovering at 52 per cent for some years now. Accordingly, women’s economic independence has increased, and Mao Zedong’s famous phrase, “women hold up half the sky”, has become a reality.

But gender roles have not kept up with women’s socio-economic status — “all the housework” and the responsibility for child-rearing will fall mainly to them after marriage, said Jean Yeung, a Provost-Chair Professor of sociology at the National University of Singapore.

“The opportunity cost of getting married is really, really high for a woman these days. And so, since marriage is no longer a necessity, a lot of women hesitate to go in (on it).”

The difference between what men and women want is especially clear in the cities, added Hang Seng Bank (China) chief economist Wang Dan. “Most women are looking for love, and most men are looking for a wife.

“The difference in their purpose also causes a very different attitude. And we’ve seen a lot of frustration when it comes to closing the deal, on both sides, on whether they want to get married.”

More time spent at school and the focus on careers also mean a delay in marriage, which is common as countries develop.

But in China, this has led to the term “sheng nu” (leftover women), used to describe single women in their late 20s and 30s. They are deemed undesirable owing to fertility concerns over their age.

THE ONE-CHILD POLICY

China’s falling marriage rate could also be partly due to the one-child policy, which was implemented nationwide in 1980 and ended on Jan 1, 2016.

A whole generation of only children “grew up on their own”, noted Wang. “Naturally, they’re more individualistic than the previous generations.”

And according to one study by the Ohio State University, only children are less likely to get married, compared to those with siblings. Each additional sibling is associated with a 3 per cent increase in the odds of getting married.

The argument is that siblings provide children with opportunities to negotiate conflict at home, which could help in navigating friendships and romantic relationships later in life.

Only children are also likely to be more independent and value their alone time.

“To establish a marriage, they have to give up a bit of their individuality, a bit of their freedom. They also need to pay attention to the needs of their partner,” said Zhu.

But she doubts their ability to do so. “Being an only child is truly special. … Grandparents and other relatives revolve around the child. That’s why we call them ‘little sun,’” she said.

“In this generation, when it comes to responsibility, selflessness and compromise, they may lack these social skills.”

They may find a partner “too bothersome” instead. “That’s why there are so many young people nowadays who have cats and dogs as pets,” she added.

THE "MOONLIGHT CLAN"

As they chase individual desires, a growing number of Chinese youths are now calling themselves the “Moonlight clan”, or “yue guang zu”. “It usually refers to young people (who’ll) spend everything they earn every month,” said Wang.

“Some of them are also deeply in debt because they now have access to online borrowing, (with) platforms like Alipay (and) JD Finance.”

One of the youths who identify as part of the Moonlight clan is Liu. She told Insight: “People who spend all their money each month consider it normal not to have savings. And they don’t save.”

Their live-for-today attitude leaves them ambivalent about the future. And as they delay financial security, they end up delaying marriage.

“If you’re someone who lives a ‘pay cheque to pay cheque’ lifestyle, your potential partner might realise it isn’t a good fit,” said Qian.

“In a way, it can be (a challenge) for a Moonlight clan person to find a partner. After all, building a life together involves managing finances.”

According to a China Central Television report in 2021, two in five singles in China’s first-tier cities belong to the Moonlight clan. In fourth- and fifth-tier cities, 76 per cent of single young people blow their pay cheque every month.

This adds up to a sizeable number, given that China had 220 million singles that year.

THE ECONOMIC IMPACT

China’s economic slowdown, coming hard on the heels of the pandemic, has compounded the situation. “Every time there are financial difficulties, the marriage rates are going to go down because people will usually delay these major life events,” said Yeung.

Unemployment among Chinese urbanites aged 16 to 24 stands at more than 20 per cent, which is a record and higher than in most European countries.

With the gloomy economic outlook, some men may be especially pessimistic about their marriage prospects.

“They may think, as a man, they need to take responsibility for their wife and … their children. Suddenly, they realise they don’t have the budget,” said Yeung.

In this regard, the cost of housing is “a big issue these days”. Studies have shown that when home prices go up, the number of marriages falls.

Even for Chinese youths who are “serious about their financial stability” and still thinking of marriage, “the ability to save up for a house, for their children’s education and all of that … isn’t there”, added Yeung.

China’s hustle culture known as “996” — which refers to working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week — has left young working adults, meanwhile, with hardly any time for themselves, much less the energy for a relationship.

“You do have to feel a bit more sympathetic (about) their status now,” said Wang. “The economic cost and the pressure to maintain a balanced life are just so high.”

"SWIPE LEFT, SWIPE RIGHT"

Still, most Chinese youths have not given up on love. And many who are time-starved hope to get hitched with the help of dating apps.

The three most popular platforms, Momo, Soul and Tantan, have over 150 million monthly active users in total as at last year.

In a 2021 survey conducted by a Chinese research institute, 89 per cent of respondents said they had used a dating app before.

“You’ll see and hear examples of success. People do find long-term partners or even husbands and wives,” said Wang. “But most of the time, it’s more like a social app. People get together, become friends or establish some short-term relationships.”

There is also an argument that dating apps promote a hook-up culture, where users are interested in flings rather than something long-term. This has been Zhao’s experience, which led her to lament that guys “primarily consider” the sexual aspect.

She had thought using a dating app would be an efficient process because of the “large user base”. But the platform is not quite a godsend to the loveless in China.

“Dating apps give … the illusion that you’ll always have the next choice. Just swipe left, swipe right, then you’ll always have more choices down the line,” said Wang.

“It doesn’t necessarily create more happiness among couples or among the young generation. But I guess it’s one of these new realities that China as a whole has to (become) accustomed to.”

MATCHMAKING CORNERS

Even as dating apps have increased in popularity, there is a reason that traditional methods remain important in China.

“When you look at different surveys, the ways people meet a potential mate isn’t that different from 20 years ago. They still meet new people at work, through friends (and) through family,” cited Wang.

Parental matchmaking in particular has seen a revival since the mid-2000s, when worried parents with dreams of becoming grandparents began organising matchmaking corners in city parks.

Just like in a flea market, they advertised their children’s virtues, hoping to attract prospective takers.

“This trend still continues … because for many of the urban young generation, they don’t have enough time to really get into the dating market (through) trial and error, basically,” said Wang.

Matchmaking corners can be found in major Chinese cities, such as Guangzhou and Shanghai. In Beijing, one famous spot is Zhongshan Park, which artist Hao Wenxi, 35, knows well because his father used to frequent its matchmaking corner.

Hao shared that he had been looking for Miss Right since his early 20s but was unlucky in love for almost eight years. “I met a lot of different people, but the chances of success were relatively low,” he said.

“I didn’t know how to date. I didn’t know how to (be) charming and be emotionally present. I might’ve only known that I earn more than you. I own property.

“It was really no different to dating 100 years ago — saying that you have cows and land.”

But he wanted to find love, so he was game to try different dating options. He met around 20 to 30 people over a period of two to three years.

Dating apps yielded a mixed bag of results. Eventually, it was his father’s efforts in Zhongshan Park that paid off, and he met his current wife, a doctor. They dated for a year before tying the knot.

They now have a four-year-old son and are thinking of having another child, perhaps in the next three or four years.

EXTRA LEAVE AND OTHER NUDGES

Hao’s happy ever after highlights one particular dimension to China’s concern over its falling marriage rate: If people do not get married, they do not have children.

“The correlation between marriage and birth rates isn’t as strong (in Western society),” noted Wang. “People can still have children even if they aren’t married. … But in China, the correlation is almost 100 per cent.”

Besides conservatism, the Hukou system — the household registration system that allows citizens to access healthcare and education — is one big reason why. Until recently, only married women were allowed to register their children.

But last year, China’s population declined for the first time in six decades. And the falling marriage rate combined with an ageing population has the government fretting even more.

So authorities are trying various means to encourage marriage and childbirth, including efforts to control house prices.

By May last year, at least 13 Chinese cities were providing housing subsidies for families with multiple children. Local governments have also given one-time coupons to families for home purchases.

More subsidies and incentives, said Yeung, would help young people to think they could settle down. Zhu has some ideas, such as “marriage housing” specifically for young people, which she believes the government may introduce “in the near future”.

“If you’re willing to get married, then this house will be rented to you at a very low cost. If you’re willing to have children, perhaps this house will be sold to you at a very affordable price,” Zhu elaborated.

As for falling in love in the first place, some schools have given students extra vacation time to socialise, while some companies have offered single female employees extra days of annual leave, for them to “go home and date”.

Still, employees of enterprises in China are working, on average, 48.7 hours a week this year, even with the “996” work culture officially outlawed.

While China’s labour laws now require companies to pay extra for hours worked beyond an eight-hour working day, “when it comes to the execution stage, … the 996 culture is still quite prevalent”, said Wang.

“As a result, I think we’re now in this sort of … stalemate when it comes to the reality in dating.”

Many other Asian countries have tried ways to improve marriage rates, with more failures than successes. It remains to be seen whether China will buck the trend.

Zhao thinks it is “worth encouraging” youths who still believe in love. But for her part, she is having a break from the dating scene after using a matchmaker’s services on top of her use of dating apps.

“I want a high-quality marriage. But the people I currently know can’t meet my expectations. So even though they want to be with me, I still reject them,” she said.

“Being single is a good state for me right now. I enjoy my current single status, and I feel happy.”

US should drop pursuit of ‘American primacy’ in Southeast Asia

• Asia Society report says US should acknowledge it is ‘one of many regional actors’ and reduce ‘rules-based order’ rhetoric that Southeast Asians regard as hypocritical
• US should consider joining CPTPP, RCEP trade alliances and explain what Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework offers to region, report adds

Khushboo Razdan

The US should abandon the idea of “American primacy” if it hopes to counter China’s sway in the “multi-actor” Southeast Asia region, the Asia Society has urged in a new report.

Observing that the region is now “genuinely multipolar, and China may, in fact, be the region’s primary power”, the report, titled Prioritizing Southeast Asia in American China Strategy and released on Tuesday, concluded that “America is only one of many regional actors”.

The report, a product of the society’s Centre on US-China Relations and the 21st Century China Centre at the University of California at San Diego, also advised Washington to “tone down rhetoric” about the international “rules-based order”.

“Southeast Asians see hypocrisy in such American protestations and view these as Western rules imposed on non-Western countries,” it noted.

Sitting on geographic chokepoints vital for global trade and transportation, Southeast Asia finds itself at the centre of competition for influence between Beijing and Washington.

And with US concerns over China’s expanding influence, preserving the rules-based order in favour of a free and open Indo-Pacific remains a key element of the strategy for the region developed by US President Joe Biden and his administration.

But in its recommendations, the report called on Washington to regard the region as more than a geopolitical arena.

“Southeast Asia should be seen and respected on its own intrinsic merits – and not viewed solely through the prism of Sino-American competition,” the report suggested, asking the US to “play to its strengths, be confident and proactive, and adopt a comprehensive and positive approach to the region – not just reactive to China”.

Walking a diplomatic tightrope, Southeast Asian nations have responded to the US-China rivalry with ambiguity and flexibility to avoid picking a side.

To ease the pressure of choosing one of the competing global powers, the report advised the US to be “a more dependable and benign partner”, involving itself in the regional economic architecture.

That architecture now involves two trade alliances that the US is not party to: the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP); and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

“The US should join CPTPP and consider joining RCEP,” the report said.

The CPTPP rose from the ashes of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-member alliance Donald Trump withdrew the US from on his first day as president in 2017.

Biden, who took office in 2021, has ruled out joining the group. However, China has applied for membership.

Charlene Barshefsky, a former US trade representative who contributed to the report, said that withdrawal from the TPP was “certainly” a factor in Washington’s declining economic influence in the region.

Barshefsky said that China’s growing economic dominance “exerts extraordinary impact on these countries, making them reluctant to speak out, oftentimes, making them reluctant to push back in ways that might engender Chinese retaliation or Chinese coercion”, adding that the US “really has not mustered a response to it”.

China is also a member of RCEP, a free-trade agreement whose ranks include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – all members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Other members are Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

As an alternative to both groups, the Biden administration last year launched an economic initiative called the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF).

Unlike CPTPP and RCEP, though, IPEF is not a free-trade agreement. Instead, it focuses on “four pillars” of economics – fair and resilient trade, supply chains resilience, clean energy and anti-corruption.

Fourteen countries, including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, have participated in IPEF meetings and ministerials.

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai characterised the framework in May as “not a traditional trade deal”, saying “we’re not just trying to maximise efficiencies and liberalisation”.

“We’re trying to promote sustainability, resilience and inclusiveness,” she added.

Naomi Wilson, vice-president for Asia policy at the Information Technology Industry Council, a Washington-based global trade association, observed that countries in the Asia-Pacific were “no longer willing to bend to US demands without getting something in return”.

Thus, US policymakers “cannot afford to close the door on trade deals when the policy objectives of competing with China require greater market access elsewhere”, she said, contending that such goals were “too important to rest on the hope” that frameworks like IPEF would “accomplish the same ends”.

Indeed, the report advised the US to make IPEF “more economically concrete and credible” and to “explain in clear terms what it offers to regional states”.

The report also said that regional views of IPEF were “largely dismissive”.

David Shambaugh, director of the China policy programme at George Washington University and the leader of the report, said that the US faced a “public diplomacy problem” in the region.

Describing IPEF as a “rather complex initiative” which does not just involve trade deals, Shambaugh said that “the economics of IPEF are kind of buried and they aren’t very clear”.

“The US government and the Commerce Department have some real public policy work to do to try and spell out in much clearer and rather simplified terms,” he said, and just “give the bottom lines about what it can do economically for the partner countries”.

The report also recommended that Washington “dramatically increase” US diplomacy across the region since it was “underperforming and becoming a liability”.

Daniel Russel, a former assistant secretary of state and an Asia Society vice-president who worked on the report, said that the story of what the US was “doing for the region in the region” was not getting told, “certainly not well enough to penetrate widely and to have adequate impact”.

He attributed this lacking to multiple factors, adding that American diplomats are “not present or visible, at least not enough”.

Finally, the report suggested, the US should also “carefully consider commencing negotiations for a Reciprocal Trade Agreement with Asean or a subset of Asean states, with mutual market access”.

China has had a free-trade agreement with Asean since 2010. The report also noted that despite significantly trailing China in trade with Asean, the US is still a leading investor in the group – a fact the report said remained unrecognised.

The total stock of US foreign direct investment in the region “totals US$328.5 billion (2020) – greater than China, Japan, and South Korea combined. Annual US investments in the region average around US$25 billion per year (greater than China’s),” it noted.

Shambaugh called this “another unappreciated fact that Southeast Asians don’t know”.

“So you can’t just look at the economic realm through trade numbers or even the regional architecture,” he said, adding that the US was “definitely hurting itself” by not getting more deeply involved in the entire economic domain.

US-controlled ‘empire of hackers’ attacking China, other countries

• Investigators accuse CIA of advanced spy tactics against governments, infrastructure, research institutions, and tech and oil companies since 2011
• China’s foreign ministry calls on US to stop using cyberweapons for global espionage

Zhang Tong

The CIA has used powerful cyberweapons to attack other countries including China, according to a report released on Thursday in China.

The report, jointly released by China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre (CVERC) and cybersecurity company 360, accused the US Central Intelligence Agency of secretly orchestrating “peaceful evolution” and “colour revolutions” around the world with the use of superior technology.

According to the report, which was focused on numerous cyberattacks within China, investigators captured and extracted a large number of Trojan programs, functional plug-ins, and attack platform samples that they said were closely associated with the CIA, revealing an “empire of hackers” under US control.

“These cyberweapons have undergone strict, standardised, and professional software engineering management, which is uniquely followed by the CIA in developing cyberattack weapons,” the report said.

The investigators said their analysis revealed that the CIA’s cyberweapons used state-of-the-art espionage technology in attacks that were closely connected and integrated.

“They have now covered almost all internet and IoT [Internet of Things] assets globally, allowing control over foreign networks and theft of important, sensitive data at any time,” the report said.

“Targets of these attacks include critical information infrastructure, aerospace, research institutions, oil and petrochemical industries, large internet companies, and government agencies in various countries. These attacks can be traced back to 2011 and have continued until now.”

It said the information collected from foreign governments, companies and citizens would be provided to US decision-makers for national security intelligence and security risk assessments. At the request of the US president, the CIA also carried out and supervises secret cross-border activities, the report said.

The report also said that, for decades, the CIA had overthrown or tried to overthrow more than 50 legitimate foreign governments – only seven instances of which are acknowledged by the CIA – causing turmoil in the affected countries.

While helping other nations in inciting unrest, the CIA provided various information and communication technologies and even on-site command help, the investigators said.

For example, a US military-affiliated company developed an untraceable TOR technology to help protesters in some Middle Eastern countries maintain communication and evade tracking and arrest, it said. The servers encrypted all information passing through them, ensuring anonymous internet access for specific users, according to the report.

The Rand Corporation had spent years developing “Stampede” software that helped many young people stay connected during protests, greatly improving the efficiency of on-site command, the report said.

“The CIA has long been collecting intelligence information from foreign governments, companies and citizens, and organising, implementing and supervising cross-border secret activities while engaging in continuous espionage and theft,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Thursday.

“The international community should be highly vigilant of these activities. The large number of real cases disclosed in the report is yet another example of the CIA’s long-term global cyberattack campaign. The US should pay attention and respond to international concerns, and stop using cyberweapons for global espionage and cyberattacks,” she added.

In recent years, Beijing has increasingly accused the United States of cyberattacks. In June 2022, China’s Northwestern Polytechnical University issued a public statement claiming it had been targeted by overseas cyberattacks.

A report by CVERC that followed in September said the US National Security Agency had carried out tens of thousands of malicious cyberattacks against Chinese targets in recent years, controlling countless network devices including servers, terminals, switches, telephone exchanges, routers and firewalls.

Washington has reciprocated with its own accusations. In October 2022, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released an advisory on their website emphasising the cybersecurity threat from China.

Amnesty says West’s Ukraine response exposes ‘double standards’

• Amnesty International’s Annual Report for 2022 highlights double standards throughout the world on human rights
• Western states have been ignoring ‘Israel’s abuses of apartheid against Palestinians’, human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, report says

APF

Global outrage over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year has only served to expose the West’s “double standards” towards human rights abuses throughout the world, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

In its annual world report for 2022, Amnesty pointed to what it described as the West’s silence on Saudi Arabia’s rights record, repression in Egypt and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

“The West’s formidable response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underscored double standards, exposing in comparison how inconsequential their reactions have been to so many other violations of the UN Charter,” said Amnesty secretary general Agnes Callamard as she presented the group’s world report in Paris.

Russia’s assault that began on February 24, 2022 “gave us an all too rare view of what becomes possible when there is political will to act” as the West closed ranks to support Ukraine, she added.

Many countries imposed sanctions on Moscow and opened their borders to Ukrainian refugees after the invasion, while the International Criminal Court launched an investigation into war crimes in Ukraine.

But Amnesty said the conflict had highlighted shortcomings in responding to abuses in other parts of the globe.

It singled out the West’s “deafening silence on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, inaction on Egypt and the refusal to confront Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians”.

Amnesty, fellow rights watchdog Human Rights Watch and a UN special rapporteur have concluded that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians amounts to policies of apartheid, the segregation of black people and whites in white-ruled South Africa, a charge the Israeli state denies.

Last year, “successive Israeli governments rolled out measures forcing more Palestinians from their homes, expanding illegal settlements, and legalising existing settlements and outposts across the occupied West Bank,” Amnesty said.

But despite this – and Israeli forces killing Palestinians in the occupied West Bank – Western nations failed to demand an end to that “system of oppression”, it said.

In Saudi Arabia, human rights activists continued to languish in prison, people were jailed for their opinions after “grossly unfair trials”, 81 men were put to death in a single day, and migrants died in custody.

In Egypt, the group said, thousands of human rights defenders, journalists, protesters and alleged dissidents lingered behind bars, and “torture remained rampant”.

Although European countries welcomed Ukrainian refugees, they did not show the same kindness to people fleeing fighting in Syria, Afghanistan and Libya, Amnesty said.

The United States also welcomed Ukrainians, “yet under policies and practices rooted in anti-black racism, it expelled more than 25,000 Haitians between September 2021 and May 2022, and subjected many to torture and other ill-treatment”, the group said.

In Iran “women died for dancing, for singing, for not wearing a veil” as people rose up in protests against the country’s Islamic system, Callamard said.

Amnesty also stressed the failure of global institutions “to respond adequately to conflicts killing thousands of people including in Ethiopia, Myanmar and Yemen”.

The war in Ukraine “diverted resources and attention away from the climate crisis, other long-standing conflicts and human suffering the world over,” Amnesty said.

“There was no evidence to be found in 2022, that the international response to the Ukraine crisis would become a blueprint for consistent and coherent responses to conflicts and crises,” said Callamard.

Additional reporting by dpa

After South China Sea setback, Beijing seeks to arm itself with international law – like the West

China is learning from Western powers that it can ignore decisions it doesn’t like and manipulate international law – as long as it cultivates an army of patriotic lawyers

Mark J. Valencia

A recent Chinese government decision to raise the status of international law studies has potentially significant implications for China and its foreign relations.

Its acceptance of the need to upgrade its capacity in international law is not likely to be driven by a new-found desire to abide by it. Rather, it is likely to stem from more practical political motives, such as defending against its use by Western powers, particularly when it comes to the law of the sea, and an intention to emulate them by using international law to protect China’s interests and achieve its goals.

International law is a set of rules, norms and standards governing the conduct of states and their relations with each other. It is guided by treaties and conventions, customs (state practices), general principles of law, and judicial decisions and teachings.

But there is often disagreement over it. When powerful countries cannot manipulate international law in their favour, they often refuse to recognise it or abide by its decisions – as the United States, Russia, Britain, France and now China have all done.

Moreover, there is no universal supranational enforcement mechanism. Indeed, some cynics describe international law as “the arms of politics”: where nations use self-serving interpretations and practices to achieve their political goals.

China has been unmercifully bashed by the West for its transgressions while other states seem to have all but buried theirs. The US has been particularly adept at manipulating international law, especially the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), to which it is not even a party.

During the Cold War, when some developing countries wanted to restrict the entry of foreign navies to their territorial seas, the US and Soviet Union issued a joint statement clarifying and cementing their interpretation of Unclos that they could not do that.

China now recognises the value of “lawfare”, or the strategic use of legal proceedings to intimidate, hinder, damage or delegitimise an opponent.

In doing so, China is merely following the examples of the West, particularly the US. America even transgresses the UN Charter’s prohibitions on threat or use of force and its duty to respect other states’ sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence.

Recent and ongoing examples include the invasion of Iraq, secret operations to overthrow other governments, and transnational drone strikes. Given this history and context, bashing China for its Unclos violations is outrageously hypocritical.

Unsurprisingly, China views much of the international legal system as being created and manipulated by the West to its detriment and that of developing countries.

In China’s view, the US-led West heavily influenced the content of Unclos and persuaded China and others to agree to compulsory dispute settlement. China was dragged before an international arbitration panel that invalidated its historic claim to much of the South China Sea – and it was a shock to its system. Beijing played legal catch-up, arguing that it had not consented to third-party arbitration. But the reputational damage was done and China has struggled to mitigate it ever since.

China would like to change those aspects used against it or interpret them in its favour. In this, it could borrow from the US playbook, persuading like-minded countries to issue a joint Unclos interpretation that opposes compulsory arbitration or broadens the exceptions.

It could also forge a multinational statement opposing the arbitration panel’s unpopular decision on the South China Sea, which essentially says that only features with a history of a self-sustaining indigenous population are legal islands generating exclusive economic zones. Raising the status of international law studies and its role in international relations may help accomplish this.

China is encouraging its universities and graduate schools to “cultivate a new generation of legal professionals who have both a global outlook and expertise in international and national law, filling the critical shortage of experts in this field”, according to a directive issued by the General Office of the Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council Office.

It decrees that legal education and research must always align with the “correct” political direction, and requires legal education institutions, teachers, students and researchers to take a clear stance on principled issues and major issues, and to formally oppose and reject Western views.

Here, China is only stating a counter bias to that of most Western government lawyers. One just has to think about the public actions and words of many international lawyers, especially those in government service. They are paid to represent the interests of their client – the government they work for, not to be objective or balanced.

I know this first-hand from interacting with US Navy and US State Department lawyers on Unclos, a convention the US has failed to ratify but which its lawyers freely cite and interpret to the US’ advantage.

China has competent Western-educated international lawyers, well-versed in the law of the sea but it needs more and must make better use of them in policymaking. Most are in academia or think tanks, not in important government positions, and in China, there is a general disconnect between academics and government officials.

Like many of their Western counterparts, on issues that concern national interests, Chinese academics know which side their bread is buttered and use international law to support the government position. Of course, like the US, China will still need an unblinkered in-house analysis of the issues to determine the best legal strategy to promote national interests.

In sum, this new decision indicates that China has caught on and intends to catch up. For the West, the chickens are coming home to roost.

Mark J. Valencia is a non-resident senior research fellow at the Huayang Institute for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance

Australia should seek security in Asia with its sovereignty, not ‘rubbish’ defence deals like Aukus: former PM Paul Keating

• The Aukus submarine deal, which could cost up to A$368 billion (US$245 billion), would be ineffective in the event of a war with China, Keating says
• He also says that Canberra is forsaking a proper defence strategy to help the US maintain ‘strategic hegemony’ in Asia

Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has issued a blistering criticism of Australian foreign policy and the Aukus submarine pact, saying Canberra was forsaking a proper national defence strategy to help the United States maintain “strategic hegemony” in Asia.

Keating, prime minister from 1991 to 1996 and a former leader of the Labor Party currently in power, said in a National Press Club event that the Aukus pact with the US and the UK was the “worst international decision” by a Labor administration in recent times.

The pact was first agreed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s predecessor from the Liberal Party, and has been fully backed by the current administration.

“China has committed, in the eyes of the United States, the great sin of internationalism. And what is that sin? To develop an economy as big as the United States,” he said.

“The Americans will never condone or accept a state as large as them. That’s what China presents. They would have preferred that [China] - 20 per cent of humanity - remained in poverty forever. But the fact that China is now an industrial economy larger than the United States … it is not in the playbook.”

“This is what [Aukus] is about, the maintenance of the US strategic hegemony in Asia.”

Keating urged Australia to seek its security in Asia utilising its sovereignty, and not with defence deals with the likes of the US, which he said hoped to be the “primary strategic power in Asia” despite having “no land in the metropolitan zone of Asia” and is 10,000 kilometres away.

He also pointed to a similar move by the UK to edge into Asia, on the premise of putting together a “global Britain”.

“So they’re looking around for suckers and they found all here,” he said.

“So here we are, 230 years after we left Britain .. we are returning to Cornwall [G7 meeting] and now Rishi Sunak, to find our security in Asia. How deeply pathetic is that?” he said.

While the Albanese government had promoted the potentially A$368 billion (US$245 billion) Aukus submarine deal as necessary to protect Australia’s national security, it would be ineffective in the event of a war with China, Keating said.

The war in Ukraine has showcased how invasions would involve Chinese land troops and troop ships coming to Australia, with their advance taken down by Australian planes and missiles long before they get to the shores of Australia. There was also the problem of the long stretch of ocean between the two countries, he added.

“The idea that we need American submarines to protect us – three [submarines] are going to protect us from the might of China. The rubbish of it, the rubbish,” he said.

The submarines – which would not arrive until 2030s – are also large and detectable from space unlike Australia’s traditional Collins-class submarines that were designed to sit on Australia’s continental shelves and repel invasions, Keating said.

The Collins-class submarines were ageing and were due to be replaced by an original order of diesel-powered submarines from France, until that contract was torn up by the former Scott Morrison government in favour of Aukus.

It sent Australia’s diplomatic relations with France into a tailspin.

Keating also said the Australian government failed to tell the Australian public that the Aukus submarines – designed to sit off the coast of China to take down Chinese threats – could also be spotted quickly on the shallower Chinese ocean shelves.

On Australia’s response when China acts aggressively in the South China Sea over territorial disputes, Keating said it was important to know that it was not a problem until Chinese activity interfered with US presence in the sea.

“The US Defense department’s annual report to Congress in late 2022 said ‘the PRC aims to restrict the United States from having a presence on China’s periphery’. In other words, China aims to keep US navy ships off its coast. Shocking. Imagine how the US would react if China’s blue water navy did its sightseeing off the coast of California,” he said.

It was also wrong to categorise China’s recent trade restrictions as threats that warranted military retaliation or defence, he added.

“You can’t impute that a tax or a tariff on wine or barley is equivalent to an invasion of the country. China does not threaten Australia, has not threatened Australia, does not intend to threaten Australia,” he said, pointing out that commercial rows between countries are common.

China had restricted imports of Australian lobsters, timber and coal among others, after the two countries fell out in 2020 when Australia pushed for an international investigation into the origins of the coronavirus just as the pandemic was raging in Wuhan, while asking for weapons inspectors to visit the city.

China also imposed anti-dumping duties on Australian barley and wine for unfair dominance in the Chinese market. These have reduced Australian exports to near zero.

Against Beijing’s two wine and barley complaints at the World Trade Organization, Australia in turn brought 87 anti-dumping cases against the world’s second largest economy.

When asked how he was so sure that China did not pose a military threat, Keating said: “What would be the point? They get the iron ore, the coal or wheat? What would be the point of China wanting to occupy Sydney and Melbourne militarily?”

US, West ‘uncomfortable’ with changing world, view China as a threat: Singapore’s George Yeo

• George Yeo said the US and the West are ‘uncomfortable’ with the idea of a multipolar world given their long dominance
• The ex-foreign minister of Singapore also said the rise of China has prompted countries to increasingly view Beijing as a challenge and even a threat

Dewey Sim in Singapore

The United States and other Western nations are “uncomfortable” with the idea of a multipolar world given their long dominance but they should not resist it, Singapore’s ex-foreign minister has said.

George Yeo, who was the country’s top diplomat from 2004 to 2011, said the West had been used to the “dominance of their values being universal [and] of judging others against their own standards”.

“But it’s changing,” he told a forum on Tuesday organised by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

While the rise of China has been the starkest – which has prompted countries to increasingly view Beijing as a challenge and even a threat – recent developments including the war in Ukraine has shown that other powers, like India, were a “satellite of nobody”.

"The US doesn’t like multipolarity and is fighting it. My fear is it will exhaust itself fighting because it will fail,” he said.

China, on the other hand, has always dealt with multiple influences due to the fact that it borders so many nations.

Yeo also spoke about the inevitability of a multipolar world, pointing to some estimates which suggested that by 2050, one in two babies born would be Muslim.

“Whether we like it or not, the world is going to change and the multipolar world, to me, is on the cards. It’s already been born. It’s growing up,” he said.

Instead of resisting, Yeo said it would be better for the US to help crystallise a multipolar world because Washington would naturally be the first among equals for various reasons including its existing power and the wide use of the English language.

“The quicker the US and maybe the collective West grasp this and work to shape it, the better they are to preserve their position,” he added.

In the slow shift towards a multipolar world, Yeo said Southeast Asia would play an important role. His rationale was how countries have shown the ability to intricately handle geopolitical tensions. At November’s G20 summit in Bali, host country Indonesia had to deal with a “complicated field”, such as how the US wanted to exclude Russia from the forum.

To a greater degree, Southeast Asia has a rich history and diverse cultures that have connected with the wider world. Yeo cited how all forms of Christianity, Buddhism and Islam can be found in the region.

“It’s not just the balmy atmosphere … It is the acceptance of those who are not like ourselves. This gives us a special position as the world enters into a troubled phase,” he said.