Fifth Plenum; "Fox Hunt" in New Jersey; Indo-Pacific; Hong Kong

It is another relatively slow day as we await the end of the Fifth Plenum. By this time tomorrow we should have at at least an official bulletin from the meeting.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has added Vietnam to his whirlwind Indo-Pacific tour. He has visited India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, next is Indonesia and then Vietnam. China is not pleased, both because of Pompeo’s rhetoric but also due to the substance of his trip, especially in India.

The US Department of Justice today unveiled an indictment of several people for their involvement in efforts on US soil to convince a PRC citizen and former official to return to China to face corruption charges. The complaint really does read like something out of a movie, and the PRC efforts are remarkable in their brazenness.

According to the complaint the PRC officials involved in the “Fox Hunt” campaign to return corrupt officials back to China sent PRC citizens to the US who coordinated with PRC citizens residing in the US and with…