U.S. requires Confucius Institute center to register as foreign mission

The United States said on Thursday it was requiring the center that manages Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes in the United States to register as a foreign mission, the latest sign of deteriorating relations between Washington and Beijing. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a statement, labeled the Confucius Institute U.S. Center in Washington “an entity advancing Beijing’s global propaganda and malign influence campaign on U.S. campuses and K-12 classrooms.” David Stilwell, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, told a briefing the dozens of Confucius Institutes in the United States were not being kicked out, but said U.S. universities should take a “hard look” at what they were doing on campus. Academic exchanges needed to take place without government intrusion, Stilwell said.

Pompeo said the goal of the move was to ensure American schools “can make informed choices about whether these CCP (Chinese Communist Party)-backed programs should be allowed to continue, and if so, in what fashion.” “The United States wants to ensure that students on U.S. campuses have access to Chinese language and cultural offerings free from the manipulation of the Chinese Communist Party and its proxies,” he said. Pompeo said the Trump administration had made it a priority to seek fair and reciprocal treatment from China and Beijing had enjoyed free and open access to U.S. society while denying that same access to Americans and other foreigners in China. Last year, the U.S. State and Education Departments promised stricter monitoring of the institutes, which have been criticized in Congress and elsewhere as de facto propaganda arms of China’s Communist government. In June, the State Department announced it would start treating four major Chinese media outlets as foreign embassies, calling them mouthpieces for Beijing.

U.S.-China relations are at their lowest ebb in decades, with President Donald Trump taking a tough line on Beijing ahead of his Nov. 3 re-election bid. The world’s top two economies are at loggerheads on issues ranging from the handling of the coronavirus pandemic to China’s crackdown on freedoms in Hong Kong and what U.S. officials say is rampant espionage activity to steal U.S. business and military secrets. In his briefing, Stilwell said China had taken no action to address fundamental U.S. concerns about where bilateral ties were going and also referred to U.S. allegations that Chinese diplomats were involved activities that undermined medical research and freedom of speech. “We are having discussions and we’re emphasizing to them that they need to address our fundamental concerns, and we will take steps if they do not,” Stilwell said, when asked about a recent statement by China’s Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng on the need to ensure the relationship does not derail. Stilwell said there were about 500 Confucius classrooms in the United States affiliated with a university-based Confucius Institute.

According to the U.S. non-profit organization, the National Association of Scholars, there were 75 Confucius Institutes in the United States as of June, including 66 at colleges and universities. The association contends that the institutes compromise academic freedom, defy Western norms of transparency, and are inappropriate on campuses. China rejects that criticism, calling it politicized and baseless.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-confucius-idUSKCN2592BW

North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Center: Significant Flooding of the Kuryong River

Commercial satellite imagery of the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center from August 6 reveals significant flooding along the Kuryong River, perhaps the worst in the past several years. Despite ongoing efforts to improve the embankment along the river against annual flooding, they failed to meet the challenge of this year’s rising waters, which reached the pump houses. More importantly, the flooding exposed how vulnerable the nuclear reactors’ cooling systems are to extreme weather events, in this case, for the potential for damage to the pumps and their power systems, or for clogging of piping systems that draw water from the river. Although the 5 MWe Reactor does not appear to have been operating for quite some time and the Experimental Light Water Reactor (ELWR) has yet to come online, both would need consistent water flow to operate. Therefore, if or when either of the reactors is operating, clogged intakes and/or broken or damaged pumps would necessitate a shutdown. Partial coverage of the area from August 8 and 1 shows the waters have retreated, suggesting that the major facilities within the complex, such as the Uranium Enrichment Plant (UEP), have been spared.

Reactor Area The August 6 imagery, when compared to imagery from July 22, shows a dramatic rise in the water level of the Kuryong River that flows alongside the Yongbyon complex. Although the security wall around the reactor complex was not breached, the water had reached the two pump houses that service the reactors and completely submerged their respective bases. The overfall dam that was built to ensure a constant reservoir of water and is available for cooling the reactors was also fully underwater. Damage to the pumps and piping within the pump houses presents the biggest vulnerability to the reactors. If the reactors were operating, for instance, the inability to cool them would require them to be shut down. And while the river waters may recede rapidly, if damaged, the pumps themselves could be out of service for some time, depending on their level of damage and whether replacement parts were readily available. While the service channels were totally submerged, they were probably not damaged, although they could be clogged with debris due to the flooding.

Uranium Enrichment Plant Further downstream, the river overflowed its banks at several locations, although not to the point of reaching the UEP area. Construction on a new bridge and causeway, which spans the river at a particularly wide bend, was completely underwater. On imagery from August 8, the two river channels that had been created to funnel the water around the bridges appeared undamaged, and the two bridges remained in place, although the extent of damage, if any, could not be assessed based on the imagery. Activity within the UEP was light with a few vehicles present. The imagery resolution was insufficient to determine the full extent of changes to the area where one of the cooling units was previously reported as being removed and others may have been placed nearby.

https://www.38north.org/2020/08/yongbyon081220/

Empty apartments in Manhattan reach record high, topping 13,000

The number of apartments for rent, or listing inventory, more than doubled over last year and set a record for the 14 years since data started being collected, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. While hundreds of thousands of residents left the city in March and April in the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, brokers and landlords hoped many would start returning in July and August. July’s weakness, and what brokers say is already a slow August, suggests that Manhattan’s real estate and economic troubles could extend well into the fall or beyond.

The number of empty apartments for rent in Manhattan soared to their highest level in recent history, topping 13,000, as residents fled the city and landlords struggled to find new tenants. The number of apartments for rent, or listing inventory, more than doubled over last year and set a record for the 14 years since data started being collected, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. As the number of apartments listed for rent hit 13,117, the number of new leases signed fell by 23%. July also saw the largest fall in rental rates in nearly a decade, dropping 10%. Landlords are now offering an average of 1.7 months of free rent to try to lure tenants, according to the report, which is also a recent high. While hundreds of thousands of residents left the city in March and April in the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, brokers and landlords hoped many would start returning in July and August, as the city’s lockdown eased and brokers could start showing apartments again. July and August are usually the busiest rental months of the year, as families get ready for school. But July’s weakness, and what brokers say is already a slow August, suggests that Manhattan’s real estate and economic troubles could extend well into the fall or beyond. “The outbound migration is higher than the inbound migration right now,” said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, the appraisal and research company.

Manhattan apartment rentals are still far from cheap. The average rental price for a two-bedroom apartment is $4,620. Yet the so-called effective median rent — what people pay with concessions — fell 10% over last year, according to Miller. Aside from offering free rent, brokers are offering to pay broker fees, adding gift cards to Home Depot and other retailers, and offering initial cleaning services, brokers say. All segments of the market, from the high end to the low end, saw declines. And all areas of Manhattan had a sharp drop in new leases. But the Upper East Side was hit hardest, with a 39% fall in new leases. The surge in empty apartments in the nation’s largest rental market is likely to have ripple effects throughout the economy. Housing experts estimate that about half of Manhattan’s apartment rentals are owned by small business owners, rather than large publicly traded companies or the big, well-funded real estate families. As the small landlords lose income, they may be unable to pay property taxes, which is New York City’s largest source of revenue. A drop in property taxes could result in cuts to services, which could make New York less attractive to new residents. “This could be a difficult couple of years for landlords,” Miller said.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/13/empty-apartments-in-manhattan-reach-record-high-topping-13000.html