Last year, with more than $1 billion in debt to China, Sri Lanka handed over a port to companies owned by the Chinese government. Now Djibouti, home to the US military’s main base in Africa, looks about to cede control of another key port to a Beijing-linked company, and the US is not happy about it.
 
Beijing “encourages dependency using opaque contracts, predatory loan practices, and corrupt deals that mire nations in debt and undercut their sovereignty, denying them their long-term, self-sustaining growth,” said US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on March 6. ”Chinese investment does have the potential to address Africa’s infrastructure gap, but its approach has led to mounting debt and few, if any, jobs in most countries,” he added.

But not everyone is convinced that Belt and Road is such a great plan — either for China or the countries in which it’s investing. And with Malaysia announcing Tuesday that it has shelved two major infrastructure projects being built by Chinese companies because of high costs, many more leaders around the world may be wondering whether Chinese investment is a good deal.
 
But Malaysia’s decision shows how the plan can come apart. For one thing, Belt and Road projects have sometimes made no economic sense. In Sri Lanka, China poured money into an airport designed to handle 1 million passengers a year. Now it has been dubbed the world’s emptiest international airport. “Business is so slow that the airport has made more money from renting out the unused cargo terminals for rice storage than from flight-related activities,” wrote Bangkok-based writer Brook Larmer.
 
Another Belt and Road project in Sri Lanka, a deepwater port, is now in the hands of a state-owned Chinese company on a 99-year lease after it failed to attract enough business to make its loan payments. This could swell into a bigger problem: A study released by the Center for Global Development in March suggested that Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Montenegro, Pakistan and Tajikistan would also struggle to repay Chinese Belt and Road loans.

Le secrétaire américain à la Santé Alex Azar est arrivé dimanche à Taïwan, à la tête de la plus éminente délégation américaine sur l’île depuis que Washington a cessé de la reconnaître en 1979. Pékin a vivement condamné cette visite.
 
Au cours de ces trois jours à Taïwan, Alex Azar doit rencontrer la présidente Tsai Ing-wen, bête noire de la Chine qui l’accuse de rechercher l’indépendance formelle de l’île de 23 millions d’habitants. Il y a quelques jours, le gouvernement chinois a présenté sa visite comme une menace pour «la paix et la stabilité».
 
Alex Azar est le responsable américain de plus haut rang à se rendre à Taïwan depuis 1979, année où les Etats-Unis avaient rompu leurs relations diplomatiques avec Taipei pour reconnaître le gouvernement communiste basé à Pékin comme le seul représentant de la Chine. Ils restent toutefois, avec une certaine ambiguïté, l’allié le plus puissant du territoire et son principal fournisseur d’armes.

TikTok, the popular Chinese-owned social network, instructs its moderators to censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, or the banned religious group Falun Gong, according to leaked documents detailing the site’s moderation guidelines.
 
The documents, revealed by the Guardian for the first time, lay out how ByteDance, the Beijing-headquartered technology company that owns TikTok, is advancing Chinese foreign policy aims abroad through the app.
 
The revelations come amid rising suspicion that discussion of the Hong Kong protests on TikTok is being censored for political reasons: a Washington Post report earlier this month noted that a search on the site for the city-state revealed “barely a hint of unrest in sight”.
 
The guidelines divide banned material into two categories: some content is marked as a “violation”, which sees it deleted from the site entirely, and can lead to a user being banned from the service. But lesser infringements are marked as “visible to self”, which leaves the content up but limits its distribution through TikTok’s algorithmically-curated feed.

TikTok memo directed censorship of users deemed ugly, overweight, or disabled, and banned users for livestreams that criticized governments
 
The policies were first published by The Intercept on Monday. Policies specifically told moderators to avoid promoting "abnormal body shape, chubby, have obvious beer belly, obese, or too thin." The policies also specifically targeted users with disabilities, saying enforcement of such policies was not just "limited to" people with dwarfism or with "acromegaly."  
 

Employees of TikTok in the US were reportedly pressured to censor 'culturally problematic' content that might offend the Chinese government
 
Six ex-TikTok employees told the Washington Post that Chinese workers had the "final call" on what content was blocked or otherwise restricted. Employees in the US said that as recently as this spring, they were told to restrict content showing vaping, "heavy kissing and more suggestive dance moves," or "social and political topics."
 
Former US TikTok employees told the Post that they were forced to adhere to rules set by China-based moderators and managers, who instructed them to demote or remove certain content, whether the videos were specifically Chinese-related or not. The company has aimed to maintain TikTok as "a haven of light and positive video," according to the Post.
 
The Post reported that US workers felt "subordinate" to Chinese employees, and often strugggled with "cultural conflicts, shifting guidelines and inconsistencies" with how ByteDance applied its rules to TikTok, a non-Chinese platform.

China warns US against 'dangerous moves' on Taiwan: Xinhua
Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe warned his US counterpart in a phone call Thursday to avoid firing up bilateral tensions, a day after Washington angered Beijing by announcing it would send a senior official to visit Taiwan.
 
Wei told US Defense Secretary Mark Esper in a 90-minute phone call to "stop erroneous words and deeds" and "avoid taking dangerous moves that may escalate the situation," referring directly to Taiwan and the South China Sea, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

When Azar and other members of the US delegation disembarked their plane, they wore face masks and were administered Covid-19 tests, as was required as part of their visit, the department said in a statement. An HHS spokesman said everyone in the delegation must test negative for coronavirus on arrival to Taiwan and that the delegation will wear masks throughout the trip except in "rare circumstances."

EN CHINE, LES FABRICANTS DE MASQUES FONT GRISE MINE
Des centaines d'entreprises se sont lancées en début d'année dans une course effrénée à la fabrication de masques, au moment où les besoins de protection contre le virus explosaient aux quatre coins de la planète et que les prix s'envolaient.
 
La plupart des firmes étaient novices en la matière, à l'image du groupe automobile BYD, devenu en quelques semaines le plus gros fabricant mondial de masques, avec une capacité de 5 millions d'unités par jour.
 
Selon la base de données sur les entreprises Tianyancha, près de 74.000 sociétés se sont inscrites en tant que fabricant de masques au premier semestre, contre moins de 6.000 un an plus tôt. Et le mois d'avril a représenté à lui seul la moitié des créations
 
Le responsable commercial d'une entreprise de produits médicaux basée dans le Hebei, près de Pékin, assure vendre aujourd'hui ses masques à perte, avec un prix de vente "autour de 0,4 yuan (0,05 euro) contre 1,7 yuan au plus fort de l'épidémie".
 
"Les pays européens produisent désormais leurs propres masques grâce à des machines achetées en Chine", se désole Yang Hao.
Le quotidien anglophone Global Times estimait récemment que 95% des fabricants chinois pourraient mettre la clé sous la porte d'ici la fin de l'année. "Les fabricants  

The Royal Australian Navy warship HMAS Parramatta has conducted exercises with three US Navy ships in the South China Sea. The show of force comes at a time when China has been criticized for boosting its presence in disputed waters while surrounding nations are busy dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
On Saturday, China announced that it had established administrative districts on the Paracel and Spratly Island groups. Dubbed Sansha city, China's youngest city, there are now 1,800 permanent residents.
 
Vietnam voiced its objection to the move, with a foreign ministry spokesperson saying: "The establishment of the so-called Sansha city and related activities seriously violated Vietnam's sovereignty."  
 
China has also recently established two new research stations on artificial reefs in disputed territory in the South China Sea. Additionally, a Chinese survey vessel has returned to Vietnamese waters, reigniting hostilities between the two nations after a series of confrontations over the last year.