U.S.-China military thaw, Nexperia exports resume, and Beijing's global repression
Signs of thaw in U.S.-China military communication come as Beijing faces renewed scrutiny over its transnational repression
Welcome back to What’s Happening in China, your weekly China brief.
Jumping straight in this week.
— PC
Through the Lens
In Focus
I. Beijing’s transnational repression
A British university complied with a demand from Beijing to halt research about human rights abuses in China, leading to a major project being dropped, the Guardian can reveal.
In February, Sheffield Hallam University, home to the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (HKC), a leading research institution focused on human rights, ordered one of its best-known professors, Laura Murphy, to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China.
Murphy’s work focuses on Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim minority in China, being co-opted into forced labour programmes. Her research, and that of colleagues at the HKC, has been cited widely by western governments and the UN, and has helped to shape policies designed to root out goods made by forced labour from international supply chains. The Chinese government rejects accusations of forced labour, and says that Uyghur work programmes are for poverty alleviation.
Read: UK university halted human rights research after pressure from China (The Guardian)
Related:
China-critical UK academics describe ‘extremely heavy’ pressure from Beijing (The Guardian)
China’s threat to academic freedom in the UK (The Guardian)
Film festival in New York cancelled after China puts pressure on directors (The Guardian)
Trump pardons ex-NYPD officer who was convicted of helping China stalk an expat (ABC News)
II. The EU, China, and rare earths
The European Union is privately warning that there’s little it can do in the near term to compel China to ease export controls on critical rare earths, a move that’s caused major disruptions for Europe’s industry, including auto and defense manufacturers.
Senior EU officials have told member states that efforts to diversify away from China are difficult and the bloc’s economic security plans have so far fallen short, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Beijing has been throttling shipments of rare earth magnets that are used in everything from electric vehicle batteries to defense manufacturing, requiring companies to obtain import permits. While the EU will benefit from an agreement between US President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping to pause stringent new export controls China announced in October, earlier restrictions imposed in April will remain, said the people.
Discussions between Chinese and EU officials in recent days have failed to move the needle, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
A spokesman for the European Commission, Olof Gill, said discussions with China on rare earth exports have intensified in an effort to simplify procedures and provide more certainty to European industry. Those engagements will continue, he said.
Read: EU Warns It Lacks Near-Term Power to Sway China on Rare Earths (Bloomberg)
Related: How China’s Rare Earth Chokehold Could Strangle Europe’s Military Buildup (The New York Times)
III. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang: “China is going to win the AI race.”
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has warned that China will beat the US in the artificial intelligence race, thanks to lower energy costs and looser regulations.
In the starkest comments yet from the head of the world’s most valuable company, Huang told the FT: “China is going to win the AI race.”
Huang’s remarks come after the Trump administration maintained a ban on California-based Nvidia selling its most advanced chips to Beijing following a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping last week.
The Nvidia chief said that the west, including the US and UK, was being held back by “cynicism”. “We need more optimism,” Huang said on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Financial Times’ Future of AI Summit.
Huang singled out new rules on AI by US states that could result in “50 new regulations”. He contrasted that approach with Chinese energy subsidies that made it more affordable for local tech companies to run Chinese alternatives to Nvidia’s AI chips. “Power is free,” he said.
The FT reported this week that China has boosted energy subsidies for several large data centres run by Chinese tech giants including ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent.
Local governments have beefed up power incentives after Chinese tech groups complained to regulators about the increased costs of using domestic semiconductors from companies such as Huawei and Cambricon, people familiar with the matter said. Most such systems are less energy-efficient than those made by Nvidia.
Read: Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says China ‘will win’ AI race with US (Financial Times)
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