China has protected its choice to target an extra $50 billion worth of US goods with tariffs and accused US of “blackmail” as the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies shows no signs of decelerating.

Beijing recently exposed more than 5,200 American-made products would be hit with new charges in response to a threat by Donald Trump’s administration to impose supplementary duties on $200 billion of Chinese goods.
China has now proposed tariffs on $110 billion of US goods. Last year, China imported some $130 billion in goods from the United States. Beijing has asserted its actions are “normal” and advised the US its tactics would not work. The latest charges come as the trade war continues to intensify and Mr Trump efforts to force Xi Jining to change its policies.
But commentaries in Chinese state TV asserted Beijing is not willing to give up.
In the meantime, Chinese state TV said: “The White House’s dangerous pressure and intimidation are already clear to the world: “Such methods of dangerous intimidation will not bear fruit against China.”

#China, #US, #TradeWar, #Trump, #XiJining

US manufacturers are influenced by the rise in imported products. Since the start of the year, the price of steel has increased by 33%, that of aluminum by 11% which is a disaster for US. We must not ignore the rule of EU in this war that has recently sided with US not secretly!

California almonds are knockout in turn by China by the commercial war unleashed by US president. Victims of the 50% taxes duties imposed by the Chinese gov. Beijing is conducting a serious war: it has closed a “hole” in its rules that until now allowed imports of almonds via Vietnam via semi-legal privileges and now supplies itself in Australia or Africa. Consequently, Americans who are by far the largest producers in the world suffer a price drop of 10%, unable to sell their production.

According to the Wall Street Journal, California cherries and Florida lemons now hurt delays before being cleared in Chinese ports. As for Ford vehicles, it would be a question of dismantling them to inspect their components in Tianjin, the port of Beijing.

The trade war is hitting American exporters, mainly agriculturalists, who are victims of foreign retaliation. But also producers, affected by the surge in imported crops they need to supply their local market, starting with steel and aluminum. Since the beginning of the year, the prices of these vital materials have risen by one third and 11% separately.

#China #US #TradeWar

In early June 2017, China implemented its new cybersecurity law. It stipulates that cross-border transfer of data collected in China is only permitted where such transfer is necessary for the smooth conduct of a transaction. In addition, it describes the state authorities that are responsible for overseeing the safety inspection, the safety inspection criteria and the types of transfers that must necessarily undergo a prior safety inspection.

According to Reuters, under this law, all enterprises designated by the Chinese government as “critical information infrastructures” have the absolute obligation to store their data locally, if such data is collected or generated in China and constitute “personal information” or “critical data”.

Also, to comply with Chinese law and continue to operate in China, Apple has announced that it will now host iCloud data from Chinese users locally. In early January, we informed you that Apple’s iCloud services in China would soon be operated by a local public firm, as confirmed by the iOS publisher. It is Guizhou on the Cloud Big Data Company (GCBD), owned by the government of Guizhou, a province in southern China, which will have to tackle this task in partnership with Apple. It should be noted that it is in this same province that the iPhone manufacturer launched the project to create a datacenter at a cost of nearly $ 1 billion a few months ago in order to comply with the regulation of the empire. middle.

Reuters said this migration will take place at the end of the month, and said that the rank of migrated data include encryption keys to access these accounts. The iCloud data will be hosted on servers located in Guizhou from February 28th.

Currently, encryption keys are stored on US servers and are not accessible to government requests, except court decision. Because, if Apple has publicly opposed the establishment of “backdoor” to allow national authorities to access the content of iPhone, the company provides access to data stored on the cloud, subject to a judicial decision.

The Chinese case will be different: once the data, and the keys migrated, they will be accessible much more simply for the authorities of the country. “Now, according to Apple, encryption keys for Chinese iCloud accounts will be stored directly in China. This means that the Chinese authorities will no longer need to go through US courts to request access to iCloud data from their nationals; instead, they can use their own legal system to request access to these data, “experts said.

Human rights activists fear that the authorities could use this power to hunt down dissidents, citing cases from more than a decade ago when Yahoo inc. transmitted user data that led to two arrests and jail sentences. Jing Zhao, a human rights activist and Apple shareholder, said he could consider more serious human rights issues stemming from Apple’s transmission of iCloud data than in the Yahoo case.

In a statement, Apple said it had to comply with recently introduced Chinese laws that require that cloud services offered to Chinese citizens be operated by Chinese companies and that the data be stored in China. The company said that although company values ​​do not change in different parts of the world, it remains subject to the laws of each country.

Apple, which claims to have defended that iCloud is subject to these laws, admits to having failed. The publisher believes it is better to offer iCloud as part of the new system, as disabling this system would result in a poor user experience and reduce privacy and data security for its Chinese customers.

Note that the company has taken the trouble to tell its customers the way to go if they want to do without iCloud and store their data only on their device.

Apple’s decision highlights a difficult reality for many foreign technology companies operating in China. If they do not accept applications for partnership with Chinese companies and data storage in China, they risk losing access to a lucrative Chinese market.

It was in 2014 for the first time that the Chinese government announced its “social credit system” project aimed at setting up a national system to rate its citizens. Indeed, this project consists in assigning a score to each citizen, based on data available to the government on the Chinese. The system is based on a mass monitoring tool and uses Big Data analytics technologies. It also helps to rate companies operating in the Chinese market.

The system will have to be fully operational in 2020, but it is already tested on millions of people. Like private credit scores, a person’s social score may increase or decrease depending on their behavior. In particular, it can decrease in the case of offenses such as bad driving, smoking in non-smoking areas, buying too many video games and posting fake news online. The method of scoring remains secret.

This program can reward or punish the citizen at the same time, but for the moment, the sanctions to which the citizen is exposed are frightening, undermining his basic needs. As sanctions, we can mention inter alia the ban on taking the plane or the train. Indeed, based on official statistics, Channel News Asia claims that nine million people with low ratings have been denied the right to buy airline tickets for flights in the territory.

As other sanctions, the ban or the lack of access to the best schools. According to Beijing News, seventeen people who refused to perform military service last year were banned from enrolling in higher education, applying for high school or pursuing further studies. . In addition, people with low social credit would not be allowed to enroll their children in some private schools.
In addition, the prohibition of executive positions in state-owned enterprises and big banks is possible in the case of certain crimes such as fraud and embezzlement. Also, companies will be able to consult a blacklist before hiring people or giving them contracts, which is encouraged by the government. However, individuals will be notified by the courts before being added to the list and may appeal the decision within ten days of receiving the notice.

Read more at  Businessinsider.