Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Since when did China start saying "Please.."?
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
i don't think they did!., Toi let didKashi wrote:Since when did China start saying "Please.."?
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
China signs defense agreement with South Korea as U.S. angers Seoul with demand for $5 billion troop payment
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-signs- ... 03276.html
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-signs- ... 03276.html
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
The Asahi Shimbun reports:
http://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/AJ ... 90037.html
http://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/AJ ... 90037.html
Chinese officials have warned Japan and South Korea that their relations with Beijing will deteriorate if they allow the United States to base intermediate-range missiles on their soil, several sources said.
Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
The Pressure on China - George Friedman
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has begun minor operations to try to quell the unrest in Hong Kong. This is a step that the Chinese hoped to avoid. For one thing, they wanted to portray the unrest as minor, not requiring their intervention. For another, they did not want issues raised about Chinese human rights violations, which inevitably emerge in such interventions. At a time when China is trying to portray itself as the global alternative to the United States, it doesn’t want other countries, particularly those in Europe, noticing human rights abuses.
This strategy took another huge blow with the leak over the weekend of government documents describing in detail a broad Chinese assault that has been underway for several years on the ethnic minority Uighur community in the western province of Xinjiang. The documents gave detailed accounts of massive detention camps for “retraining” purposes and the separation of families on a scale that is startling even for China. Beijing clearly wants to break the back of Islam in the province.
Chinese detention of Uighurs is not new. We have been hearing about this for over a year. What is startling is the leak of documents so sensitive that they validate claims of mistreatment that the Chinese long denied, for obvious reasons. This raises a key question: Who released the documents? They might have been leaked by Chinese officials, appalled at what is going on in Xinjiang. They might have been released by the Chinese government as a warning to other dissident groups. They may have been released by senior members of the Chinese government who have become disillusioned by President Xi Jinping, hoping to force him out.
All three are possible, but to understand the events in Xinjiang, we need to also consider what’s happening in Hong Kong. The Xinjiang detentions predate protests in Hong Kong by quite a while but demonstrated a turn of the Chinese government away from liberalization. Xi had already taken that turn during his massive anti-corruption purge, which obviously was a cover for a systematic purge of real and potential opponents. The demonstrators in Hong Kong watched the purges and the events in Xinjiang, and realized that the fairly radical extradition bill, which sparked the initial protests, was the cutting edge of an attempt to force Hong Kong to submit to the Chinese framework and to Beijing’s power.
That is what is happening in Xinjiang, a province that is formally part of China but not Han Chinese, the majority ethnic group in China. Han China is surrounded by four buffer states: Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang. Its eastern coast is dotted by former European enclaves, such as Hong Kong and Macao. Over the years, the Chinese struggled to retain these buffers. Japan seized much of Manchuria in World War II, with less than unanimous opposition. There have been uprisings and resistance in Tibet. Xinjiang was rumbling with Islamist sentiment. And while Macao accepted mildly the redefinition of its status, Hong Kong exploded at what it saw as an attempt to redefine its status prior to negotiated dates.
Tibet’s resistance, led by the Dalai Lama, remains. Manchuria and Inner Mongolia are pacified. But Hong Kong and Xinjiang are the real dangers. They cannot be left to fester, lest Islamist terrorism spread to Chinse cities, or Hong Kong serve as an inspiration to other cities in eastern China. The efforts needed to pacify them, however, carry costs outside of China. The Belt and Road Initiative could turn from being an ambitious Chinese project into a symbol of Chinese repression. This is not an image China wants to project.
For months, riots on the streets of Hong Kong have been broadcast on global television and discussed over social media. Those who have been paying attention have known about the repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang for a while, but it had not entered the global zeitgeist. Until now. Xi, who came into office as the central power that would modernize China and make it a great power, is now facing three domestic problems. The first is the fading memory of the anti-corruption purges. The second was the festering repression in Xinjiang now made virally public. The third is the riots in Hong Kong. In the first two cases, China is made to seem Stalinist and fascist. In the last case, it appears inept, unable to bring the matter to a close. To put it another way, the Chinese clearly wanted Hong Kong to settle down without action from Beijing to drive home the message that China is modernizing despite the Xinjiang affair and the purges. But Hong Kong may not fade away and the PLA might have to enter Hong Kong in force.
China needed to present itself to the world as a burgeoning economic power and a benign political power, overseeing a united mass of people moving forward in history. The purges raised eyebrows but could be dismissed as what they were claimed to be: an anti-corruption campaign. Xinjiang was far away and, for most people, out of focus. But Hong Kong is not far away or out of focus. It forces us to see the other two issues in a different light. Now we see China not as a symbol of progress, but as a fearful nation struggling to repress discordant elements.
This brings us back to the question of who leaked the documents. There are three possible explanations for the leak. First, Xi’s team might have leaked them to show his determination. Second, they might have been leaked by someone in the government who was appalled by what they saw. Finally, they could have been leaked by an emerging anti-Xi faction in the Central Committee, appalled by Xi’s handling of the United States and Hong Kong and using the documents to weaken him. Of the three, I favor the third explanation. Too many important things are going wrong in China for such a faction, however small at this point, not be forming.
Xi’s incompetence is manifest. The major task of the Chinese president is to handle the American president, and Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were handled. He failed to bring Donald Trump under control with promises of future meetings and postponed studies. As a result, China is in a trade war with its largest customer. In addition, quite apart from the trade issue, the Chinese financial system is unstable and growth is slowing. Now, Hong Kong is out of control, and the global talk is of Chinese concentration camps. This is not what was expected from Xi.
The Central Committee is the ultimate arbiter of what China does, particularly if the president weakens and loses his way. There must be some in the Central Committee who remember Xi’s inauguration and have concluded that China’s evolution has not gone the way they expected and Xi promised. The Central Committee is usually opaque, as it is now, but if there is opposition developing to Xi, and it is hard to imagine there is not, then release of these documents merely turns a known event into a global event, further showing Xi’s incompetence.
All of this is framed by a primordial fear. Before Mao’s victory, regional conflicts tore China apart and allowed the Japanese to seize major parts of the country. Regional conflicts in the future are the single biggest threat that China does not want to face again. The Chinese are suppressing the threat in Xinjiang, and now maybe in Hong Kong. But China does not want to have to suppress regional threats. Xi, however, is doing just that and he also came in suppressing political threats with the purges. Between that and mishandling the Americans, many nerves are being touched. I would bet that the leak came from the Central Committee, and that Xi has enemies.
Cheers
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has begun minor operations to try to quell the unrest in Hong Kong. This is a step that the Chinese hoped to avoid. For one thing, they wanted to portray the unrest as minor, not requiring their intervention. For another, they did not want issues raised about Chinese human rights violations, which inevitably emerge in such interventions. At a time when China is trying to portray itself as the global alternative to the United States, it doesn’t want other countries, particularly those in Europe, noticing human rights abuses.
This strategy took another huge blow with the leak over the weekend of government documents describing in detail a broad Chinese assault that has been underway for several years on the ethnic minority Uighur community in the western province of Xinjiang. The documents gave detailed accounts of massive detention camps for “retraining” purposes and the separation of families on a scale that is startling even for China. Beijing clearly wants to break the back of Islam in the province.
Chinese detention of Uighurs is not new. We have been hearing about this for over a year. What is startling is the leak of documents so sensitive that they validate claims of mistreatment that the Chinese long denied, for obvious reasons. This raises a key question: Who released the documents? They might have been leaked by Chinese officials, appalled at what is going on in Xinjiang. They might have been released by the Chinese government as a warning to other dissident groups. They may have been released by senior members of the Chinese government who have become disillusioned by President Xi Jinping, hoping to force him out.
All three are possible, but to understand the events in Xinjiang, we need to also consider what’s happening in Hong Kong. The Xinjiang detentions predate protests in Hong Kong by quite a while but demonstrated a turn of the Chinese government away from liberalization. Xi had already taken that turn during his massive anti-corruption purge, which obviously was a cover for a systematic purge of real and potential opponents. The demonstrators in Hong Kong watched the purges and the events in Xinjiang, and realized that the fairly radical extradition bill, which sparked the initial protests, was the cutting edge of an attempt to force Hong Kong to submit to the Chinese framework and to Beijing’s power.
That is what is happening in Xinjiang, a province that is formally part of China but not Han Chinese, the majority ethnic group in China. Han China is surrounded by four buffer states: Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang. Its eastern coast is dotted by former European enclaves, such as Hong Kong and Macao. Over the years, the Chinese struggled to retain these buffers. Japan seized much of Manchuria in World War II, with less than unanimous opposition. There have been uprisings and resistance in Tibet. Xinjiang was rumbling with Islamist sentiment. And while Macao accepted mildly the redefinition of its status, Hong Kong exploded at what it saw as an attempt to redefine its status prior to negotiated dates.
Tibet’s resistance, led by the Dalai Lama, remains. Manchuria and Inner Mongolia are pacified. But Hong Kong and Xinjiang are the real dangers. They cannot be left to fester, lest Islamist terrorism spread to Chinse cities, or Hong Kong serve as an inspiration to other cities in eastern China. The efforts needed to pacify them, however, carry costs outside of China. The Belt and Road Initiative could turn from being an ambitious Chinese project into a symbol of Chinese repression. This is not an image China wants to project.
For months, riots on the streets of Hong Kong have been broadcast on global television and discussed over social media. Those who have been paying attention have known about the repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang for a while, but it had not entered the global zeitgeist. Until now. Xi, who came into office as the central power that would modernize China and make it a great power, is now facing three domestic problems. The first is the fading memory of the anti-corruption purges. The second was the festering repression in Xinjiang now made virally public. The third is the riots in Hong Kong. In the first two cases, China is made to seem Stalinist and fascist. In the last case, it appears inept, unable to bring the matter to a close. To put it another way, the Chinese clearly wanted Hong Kong to settle down without action from Beijing to drive home the message that China is modernizing despite the Xinjiang affair and the purges. But Hong Kong may not fade away and the PLA might have to enter Hong Kong in force.
China needed to present itself to the world as a burgeoning economic power and a benign political power, overseeing a united mass of people moving forward in history. The purges raised eyebrows but could be dismissed as what they were claimed to be: an anti-corruption campaign. Xinjiang was far away and, for most people, out of focus. But Hong Kong is not far away or out of focus. It forces us to see the other two issues in a different light. Now we see China not as a symbol of progress, but as a fearful nation struggling to repress discordant elements.
This brings us back to the question of who leaked the documents. There are three possible explanations for the leak. First, Xi’s team might have leaked them to show his determination. Second, they might have been leaked by someone in the government who was appalled by what they saw. Finally, they could have been leaked by an emerging anti-Xi faction in the Central Committee, appalled by Xi’s handling of the United States and Hong Kong and using the documents to weaken him. Of the three, I favor the third explanation. Too many important things are going wrong in China for such a faction, however small at this point, not be forming.
Xi’s incompetence is manifest. The major task of the Chinese president is to handle the American president, and Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were handled. He failed to bring Donald Trump under control with promises of future meetings and postponed studies. As a result, China is in a trade war with its largest customer. In addition, quite apart from the trade issue, the Chinese financial system is unstable and growth is slowing. Now, Hong Kong is out of control, and the global talk is of Chinese concentration camps. This is not what was expected from Xi.
The Central Committee is the ultimate arbiter of what China does, particularly if the president weakens and loses his way. There must be some in the Central Committee who remember Xi’s inauguration and have concluded that China’s evolution has not gone the way they expected and Xi promised. The Central Committee is usually opaque, as it is now, but if there is opposition developing to Xi, and it is hard to imagine there is not, then release of these documents merely turns a known event into a global event, further showing Xi’s incompetence.
All of this is framed by a primordial fear. Before Mao’s victory, regional conflicts tore China apart and allowed the Japanese to seize major parts of the country. Regional conflicts in the future are the single biggest threat that China does not want to face again. The Chinese are suppressing the threat in Xinjiang, and now maybe in Hong Kong. But China does not want to have to suppress regional threats. Xi, however, is doing just that and he also came in suppressing political threats with the purges. Between that and mishandling the Americans, many nerves are being touched. I would bet that the leak came from the Central Committee, and that Xi has enemies.
Cheers
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Interestingly Xinjiang wasn't a single homogenous land earlier. Southern Tarim basin was populated by muslims while the northern Dzungaria was populated by steppe dwellers who were buddhists. The Tianshan separates the two regions. And even earlier, prior to the islamification of CA, the entire region was buddhist. Look at the two maps below - See how contiguous Xinjiang and Tibet were/are.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
CPEC not a burden; relations with China will never fray: Pakistan - ANI
Pakistan on Saturday rejected United States' notion of Beijing being the sole benefactor of its China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and asserted that its relations with China within the purview of the project will never fray.
Addressing a press conference two days after US Acting Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs, Alice Wells, strongly criticised China's international development projects and lending practices under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Pakistan's newly appointed Minister for Planning Asad Umar said that CPEC would not prove to be a burden for the country but help in providing a strong basis for industrial growth for the coming years.
Dawn reported Umar as saying that Pakistan "has always recognised that this (the CPEC) is not an aid" and "this government has always maintained that it wishes to move past the initial scope of the arrangement."
"The aid that Pakistan received in the past did not really contribute in real terms towards the country's progress and she was right to point out that we must stand on our own two feet," Umar said.
"We have said this on many occasions in the past [...] that both countries have benefitted [from CPEC]. Chinese firms got business as their machinery was exported and came to Pakistan. The lack of infrastructure in Pakistan, especially in the power sector, was where a lot of the country's needs were met," he added.
In her address at an event in Washington, Wells had deemed CPEC a form of financing ensuring guaranteed profits for Chinese state-owned enterprises, and pointed out that the multi-billion dollar project is certain to take a toll on Pakistan's economy at the time of the repayment of the debt and dividend in the coming years.
She had raised concerns over the lack of transparency in the project, saying that it could foster corruption and increase the project cost, thereby resulting in an even heavier debt burden for Pakistan.
The CPEC is a multi-billion dollar development project, with a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with Pakistan's strategic Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Chinese are very diligent in looting those who are getting looted willing ly. How does it matter more to Chinese than those willing to be looted in multi billion $$ cpec.Wells had deemed CPEC a form of financing ensuring guaranteed profits for Chinese state-owned enterprises
..
She had raised concerns over the lack of transparency in the project
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Their problems are of the east india lore., people willing to sell out their country, they don't realise it's their children's future.vishvak wrote:Chinese are very diligent in looting those who are getting looted willing ly. How does it matter more to Chinese than those willing to be looted in multi billion $$ cpec.Wells had deemed CPEC a form of financing ensuring guaranteed profits for Chinese state-owned enterprises
..
She had raised concerns over the lack of transparency in the project
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Yes if you do 1+11 you may realise that
* Chinese loot big
* Chinese lack transparency
* Chinese use their own labour, AND laws
* China do fancy project calculations that few in pakilands have clarity on finance part
Or the other way round.
* Chinese loot big
* Chinese lack transparency
* Chinese use their own labour, AND laws
* China do fancy project calculations that few in pakilands have clarity on finance part
Or the other way round.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Defecting Chinese spy offers information trove to Australian government
A Chinese spy has risked his life to defect to Australia and is now offering a trove of unprecedented inside intelligence on how China conducts its interference operations abroad.
Wang “William” Liqiang is the first Chinese operative to ever blow his cover. He has revealed the identities of China’s senior military intelligence officers in Hong Kong, as well as providing details of how they fund and conduct political interference operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia.
Wang Liqiang in Sydney.
Mr Wang has taken his material to Australia's counter-espionage agency, ASIO, and is seeking political asylum – potentially opening another front in Australia’s challenging bilateral relationship with China.
A sworn statement Mr Wang provided ASIO in October states: “I have personally been involved and participated in a series of espionage activities”. He faces certain detention and possible execution if he returns to China.
Mr Wang is currently at an undisclosed location in Sydney on a tourist visa and seeking urgent protection from the Australian government – a plea he says he has passed on in multiple meetings with ASIO.
In interviews with The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes, he has revealed in granular detail how Beijing covertly controls listed companies to fund intelligence operations, including the surveillance and profiling of dissidents and the co-opting of media organisations.
He has given previously unheard details about the kidnapping of five booksellers from Hong Kong and their rendition to the Chinese mainland. His testimony shows how Beijing’s spies are infiltrating Hong Kong’s democracy movement, manipulating Taiwan’s elections and operating with impunity in Australia.
ASIO has repeatedly warned that the current threat of foreign interference is “unprecedented” and that the number of foreign intelligence officers currently operating in Australia is higher than it was during the Cold War. ASIO has never publicly named China as a primary source of its concerns, as the government grapples with how to balance public awareness with the risk of diplomatic and economic retaliation.
However, on Friday, former ASIO boss Duncan Lewis said the Chinese government was seeking to "take over" Australia's political system through its "insidious" foreign interference operations.
Among his key revelations, Mr Wang said he had met the head of a deep-cover spy ring operating with impunity in Australia.
Mr Wang said he was part of an intelligence operation hidden within a Hong Kong-listed company, China Innovation Investment Limited (CIIL), which infiltrated Hong Kong’s universities and media with pro-Chinese Communist Party operatives who could be activated to counter the democracy movement. He says he had personal involvement in an October 2015 operation to kidnap and abduct to the Chinese mainland a Hong Kong bookseller, Lee Bo, and played a role in a clandestine organisation that also directed bashings or cyber attacks on Hong Kong dissidents.
His handlers in China issued him a fake South Korean passport to gain entry to Taiwan and help China’s efforts to systematically infiltrate its political system, including directing a “cyber army” and Taiwanese operatives to meddle in the 2018 municipal elections. Plans are underway to influence the 2020 presidential election - plans that partly motivated him to defect to Australia.
Mr Wang said the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping “infiltrates all countries in areas such as military, business and culture, in order to achieve its goal.”
“You shouldn’t underestimate our organisation ... We were cultivated and trained by the organisation for many years before taking up important positions”. The Chinese Communist Party “wants to ensure no one threatens its authority”.
Hong Kong’s Mr Big
Mr Wang claimed his cover in Hong Kong was as a businessman working for CIIL, which he described as a front company used by various Chinese intelligence agencies and Communist Party officials. His boss, Xiang Xin, was a senior intelligence operative, he said.
Mr Wang’s main task was coordinating the relationships between his organisation and other intelligence agencies and “collecting information related to pro-independence” activists. He took instructions from Chinese military intelligence officials.
A key area of operations, he said, were Hong Kong universities. Mr Wang claimed his organisation had “infiltrated into all universities, including student associations and other student groups and bodies.” He had responsibility for recruiting mainland students using scholarships, travel grants, alumni associations and an education foundation.
“I influenced them with patriotism, guiding them to love the country, love the Party and our leaders, and fight back strongly against those independence and democracy activists in Hong Kong.”
His organisation directed cyber and physical attacks on independence movement leaders.
“We sent some students to join the student association and they pretended to support Hong Kong independence,” Mr Wang said. “They found out information about those pro-independence activists … and made public all their personal data, their parents’ and family members’.”
He said he personally helped to organise the infamous kidnapping to the mainland of Causeway Bay Bookshop owner Lee Bo. Mr Wang says one of the aims of his intelligence work and the targeting of dissidents was to spread fear: “to make all troublemakers in Hong Kong terrified.”
A spokesman for CIIL said Mr Xiang did not want to answer questions from The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes over the phone, because he had never spoken to the journalists who were calling, and when questions were emailed to Mr Xiang, the spokesman said Mr Xiang would not answer because he could not verify that the email was not sent covertly by the Australian government in order to obtain intelligence.
After the story was initially published, an email response from a man called Edison Li said, "Anyone with a little common sense will know that these problems are ridiculous and untrue, and the accuser very likely did this for economic purposes. We will refer the matter to the lawyer."
Infiltrating the media
Mr Wang claimed his organisation had infiltrated Hong Kong media outlets, financing some and planting operatives in others. A senior manager at a major Asian television network “is a current military cadre with a Division Commander rank,” said Wang.
“He was the one responsible for organising the agents to kidnap and persecute Hong Kong democracy activists,” he said.
In Taiwan, Mr Wang said his intelligence operation was in contact with media executives in order to influence Taiwan’s political system as part of a systemic election meddling campaign being waged by Beijing to topple candidates (including President Tsai Ing-Wen) considered hostile. He said his operation had backed presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu.
Mr Wang said he was responsible for coordinating a “cyber army” to shift political opinion, similar to Russia’s cyber interference operations in the US elections.
“Our work on Taiwan was the most important work of ours – the infiltration into media, temples and grassroots organisations,” said Wang.
Mr Wang said his operation successfully meddled in the “nine-in-one” elections in Taiwan in 2018, leading to victories for pro-Beijing candidates. In May, he was given a fake South Korean passport and ordered to commence an operation on the ground in Taipei to influence the 2020 presidential elections with the aim of bringing down President Tsai Ing-wen.
“I was requested to change my name and whole identity to go to Taiwan and be a spy there,” he says.
Mr Wang said he had also met a high ranking intelligence operative he believed was conducting spy operations in Australia via a front company in the energy sector.
“He told me at the time he is based in Canberra. I know his position is very important.”
Mr Wang said that his organisation had dealings with several significant Australian political donors, including a one-time staffer in a federal MP's office. Mr Wang provided bank account transactions to back his claims.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Rony wrote:Defecting Chinese spy offers information trove to Australian government
A Chinese spy has risked his life to defect to Australia and is now offering a trove of unprecedented inside intelligence on how China conducts its interference operations abroad.
Wang “William” Liqiang is the first Chinese operative to ever blow his cover. He has revealed the identities of China’s senior military intelligence officers in Hong Kong, as well as providing details of how they fund and conduct political interference operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia.
Wang Liqiang in Sydney.
Mr Wang has taken his material to Australia's counter-espionage agency, ASIO, and is seeking political asylum – potentially opening another front in Australia’s challenging bilateral relationship with China.
A sworn statement Mr Wang provided ASIO in October states: “I have personally been involved and participated in a series of espionage activities”. He faces certain detention and possible execution if he returns to China.
Mr Wang is currently at an undisclosed location in Sydney on a tourist visa and seeking urgent protection from the Australian government – a plea he says he has passed on in multiple meetings with ASIO.
In interviews with The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes, he has revealed in granular detail how Beijing covertly controls listed companies to fund intelligence operations, including the surveillance and profiling of dissidents and the co-opting of media organisations.
He has given previously unheard details about the kidnapping of five booksellers from Hong Kong and their rendition to the Chinese mainland. His testimony shows how Beijing’s spies are infiltrating Hong Kong’s democracy movement, manipulating Taiwan’s elections and operating with impunity in Australia.
ASIO has repeatedly warned that the current threat of foreign interference is “unprecedented” and that the number of foreign intelligence officers currently operating in Australia is higher than it was during the Cold War. ASIO has never publicly named China as a primary source of its concerns, as the government grapples with how to balance public awareness with the risk of diplomatic and economic retaliation.
However, on Friday, former ASIO boss Duncan Lewis said the Chinese government was seeking to "take over" Australia's political system through its "insidious" foreign interference operations.
Among his key revelations, Mr Wang said he had met the head of a deep-cover spy ring operating with impunity in Australia.
Mr Wang said he was part of an intelligence operation hidden within a Hong Kong-listed company, China Innovation Investment Limited (CIIL), which infiltrated Hong Kong’s universities and media with pro-Chinese Communist Party operatives who could be activated to counter the democracy movement. He says he had personal involvement in an October 2015 operation to kidnap and abduct to the Chinese mainland a Hong Kong bookseller, Lee Bo, and played a role in a clandestine organisation that also directed bashings or cyber attacks on Hong Kong dissidents.
His handlers in China issued him a fake South Korean passport to gain entry to Taiwan and help China’s efforts to systematically infiltrate its political system, including directing a “cyber army” and Taiwanese operatives to meddle in the 2018 municipal elections. Plans are underway to influence the 2020 presidential election - plans that partly motivated him to defect to Australia.
Mr Wang said the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping “infiltrates all countries in areas such as military, business and culture, in order to achieve its goal.”
“You shouldn’t underestimate our organisation ... We were cultivated and trained by the organisation for many years before taking up important positions”. The Chinese Communist Party “wants to ensure no one threatens its authority”.
Hong Kong’s Mr Big
Mr Wang claimed his cover in Hong Kong was as a businessman working for CIIL, which he described as a front company used by various Chinese intelligence agencies and Communist Party officials. His boss, Xiang Xin, was a senior intelligence operative, he said.
Mr Wang’s main task was coordinating the relationships between his organisation and other intelligence agencies and “collecting information related to pro-independence” activists. He took instructions from Chinese military intelligence officials.
A key area of operations, he said, were Hong Kong universities. Mr Wang claimed his organisation had “infiltrated into all universities, including student associations and other student groups and bodies.” He had responsibility for recruiting mainland students using scholarships, travel grants, alumni associations and an education foundation.
“I influenced them with patriotism, guiding them to love the country, love the Party and our leaders, and fight back strongly against those independence and democracy activists in Hong Kong.”
His organisation directed cyber and physical attacks on independence movement leaders.
“We sent some students to join the student association and they pretended to support Hong Kong independence,” Mr Wang said. “They found out information about those pro-independence activists … and made public all their personal data, their parents’ and family members’.”
He said he personally helped to organise the infamous kidnapping to the mainland of Causeway Bay Bookshop owner Lee Bo. Mr Wang says one of the aims of his intelligence work and the targeting of dissidents was to spread fear: “to make all troublemakers in Hong Kong terrified.”
A spokesman for CIIL said Mr Xiang did not want to answer questions from The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes over the phone, because he had never spoken to the journalists who were calling, and when questions were emailed to Mr Xiang, the spokesman said Mr Xiang would not answer because he could not verify that the email was not sent covertly by the Australian government in order to obtain intelligence.
After the story was initially published, an email response from a man called Edison Li said, "Anyone with a little common sense will know that these problems are ridiculous and untrue, and the accuser very likely did this for economic purposes. We will refer the matter to the lawyer."
Infiltrating the media
Mr Wang claimed his organisation had infiltrated Hong Kong media outlets, financing some and planting operatives in others. A senior manager at a major Asian television network “is a current military cadre with a Division Commander rank,” said Wang.
“He was the one responsible for organising the agents to kidnap and persecute Hong Kong democracy activists,” he said.
In Taiwan, Mr Wang said his intelligence operation was in contact with media executives in order to influence Taiwan’s political system as part of a systemic election meddling campaign being waged by Beijing to topple candidates (including President Tsai Ing-Wen) considered hostile. He said his operation had backed presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu.
Mr Wang said he was responsible for coordinating a “cyber army” to shift political opinion, similar to Russia’s cyber interference operations in the US elections.
“Our work on Taiwan was the most important work of ours – the infiltration into media, temples and grassroots organisations,” said Wang.
Mr Wang said his operation successfully meddled in the “nine-in-one” elections in Taiwan in 2018, leading to victories for pro-Beijing candidates. In May, he was given a fake South Korean passport and ordered to commence an operation on the ground in Taipei to influence the 2020 presidential elections with the aim of bringing down President Tsai Ing-wen.
“I was requested to change my name and whole identity to go to Taiwan and be a spy there,” he says.
Mr Wang said he had also met a high ranking intelligence operative he believed was conducting spy operations in Australia via a front company in the energy sector.
“He told me at the time he is based in Canberra. I know his position is very important.”
Mr Wang said that his organisation had dealings with several significant Australian political donors, including a one-time staffer in a federal MP's office. Mr Wang provided bank account transactions to back his claims.
Could be China's Snowden or a Double (Triple?) Agent.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
would be interesting to hear if he has anything to talk about the DCNS leak...hope people remember the DCNS leaks...
Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Ballot-box rebels
Voters in Hong Kong deliver a powerful snub to Beijing
Pro-democracy politicians sweep district-level polls
WHEN THE “silent majority” found its voice, it did not use it as the authorities hoped. The Hong Kong government of Carrie Lam, the chief executive, had hoped that a populace cowed into silence by six months of increasingly violent unrest would use local elections on November 24th to show their exasperation with anti-government protesters. Instead, they delivered a stunning victory to campaigners for democracy, who support the demonstrators’ aims.
The polls were held to pick about 450 representatives to district councils, rather feeble bodies that deal with local services. Normally pro-democracy politicians pay little attention to such elections. This time they wanted to turn them into a referendum on the protests. The result was a record turnout, and a near-total sweep of the seats.
It was evidence that despite the chaos, transport disruption and economic pain they have caused, the protesters retain strong support. Correspondingly, distrust of the local government and its backers in Beijing is widespread. After casting her own ballot, the city’s Mrs Lam dismissed the idea that this was a confidence vote. Few would agree. Pro-democracy platforms took control of 17 of the 18 councils, none of which they had previously won.
No longer do pro-government parties dominate local-level politics. Hong Kong’s complicated electoral system means this also has an impact at other levels. Six of the 70 seats in the Legislative Council (Legco) are reserved for district councillors. In the most recent general election, in 2016, half of them went to pro-establishment parties; in the next, in 2020, the pro-democracy camp is likely to do better. District councillors also hold around 10% of 1,200 seats on the election committee that picks the chief executive, and is mostly stacked with those ready to back the government’s favoured candidate.
The turnout was unprecedented. Nearly 3m voters—71.2% of those registered—participated. At the last district-level election, in November 2015, 47% of the 3.1m people eligible to vote did so. Overall, pro-government candidates still won some 40% of the popular vote.
This year 386,000 new voters had registered and for the first time every seat was being contested (in 2015 15% were not). Fears that the vote might be disrupted brought voters out even before polls opened at 7.30am. Some queued for over an hour to cast their ballot. By the time the voting ended at 10.30pm the turnout in some middle-class constituencies had tipped over 80%.
The election was held peacefully, in glorious autumn sunshine in a city which felt more at ease than it had for weeks. The polarisation and violence of the past few months were reduced to enthusiastic banner-waving and slogan-shouting—from both camps, side by side, on the streets. Just a week ago, amid some of the worst violence of the protests, such scenes were unimaginable. The governments in both Hong Kong and Beijing had suggested that the polls could go ahead only if there was no violence. In the event, the police stationed at every polling station were thankfully underemployed.
District councils advise the government on a wide range of issues, especially matters relating to public services such as managing traffic lights, parks, libraries and rubbish collection. Elections to them are freely contested, without the Byzantine arrangements that skew the outcomes of Legco elections in favour of pro-government candidates. Each council is composed of directly elected members voted for by local residents as well as a small number of appointees from other political bodies. Control of a council allows its chairman to set its agenda and decisions.
In most constituencies electors faced a choice between “yellow”, or pro-democracy, candidates, and “blue” ones sympathetic to the Communist Party in Beijing. Many blue candidates ran on a platform of ending the chaos and violence. Of the pro-democracy candidates, some had no political experience and almost no funding. A few had almost no manifesto, stating their platform simply to be the fulfilment of the “five demands” of the protesters, which include an independent investigation into the police handing of the protests and direct elections for both the chief executive and the Legco.
Some of the blue side’s best-known names lost seats. The largest and best-funded pro-establishment party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), fielded 181 candidates but won just 21 seats. Thirteen pro-government legislative councillors, who can also hold positions on district councils, stood for election. Nine of them were defeated, including Holden Chow and Horace Cheung, both vice-chairmen of the DAB. Mr Cheung is also a member of Mrs Lam’s cabinet, known as the Executive Council. Starry Lee, the chairwoman of the DAB, did hold on to her seat but promptly offered to resign, an offer she said was rejected by the party’s central committee.
In Tuen Mun, a suburb close to the border with mainland China, Junius Ho, a pro-establishment lawyer and Legco member who is detested by protesters, lost to Lo Chun-yu, a member of the Democratic Party, one of the oldest and biggest of the opposition groups. After the result Mr Ho described the result as having turned “heaven and earth upside down”.
After the results, Mrs Lam promised to “strengthen co-operation” with the district councils and promised that the government would reflect on its shortcomings. Many people will expect her to do more than that—at a minimum, by reshuffling her advisory boards, including the Executive Council, to include voices from outside the establishment, and by launching an independent inquiry into the police’s handling of the protests. These results are likely to make it more difficult for Mrs Lam to justify intransigence. The government’s reluctance to clear the university campus where a number of protesters have been hiding for over a week suggests that it may already be considering a less forceful approach.
Leaders in Beijing must be mulling how to respond. It will be harder to turn these results to the Communist Party’s own propaganda ends than it was to blame the protests on “black hands” and “terrorists”. The results may prompt some members of the pro-establishment camp to put pressure on Mrs Lam to stand down. But it is not clear that any possible successor would have more credibility.
The pro-democracy camp, too, will be under pressure, to take the job of running its districts seriously and show that its candidates deserve their new positions. These elections prove that Hong Kongers are enthusiastic about democracy. Yet, as things stand, they will have the chance to vote next year for only half the seats in Legco and in 2022 will be excluded completely from the next scheduled election for the post of chief executive—the only people allowed to vote in that will be members of a committee stacked with pro-establishment figures. Many of those who have risked their safety and their futures to take to the streets might find that intolerable.
Cheers
Voters in Hong Kong deliver a powerful snub to Beijing
Pro-democracy politicians sweep district-level polls
WHEN THE “silent majority” found its voice, it did not use it as the authorities hoped. The Hong Kong government of Carrie Lam, the chief executive, had hoped that a populace cowed into silence by six months of increasingly violent unrest would use local elections on November 24th to show their exasperation with anti-government protesters. Instead, they delivered a stunning victory to campaigners for democracy, who support the demonstrators’ aims.
The polls were held to pick about 450 representatives to district councils, rather feeble bodies that deal with local services. Normally pro-democracy politicians pay little attention to such elections. This time they wanted to turn them into a referendum on the protests. The result was a record turnout, and a near-total sweep of the seats.
It was evidence that despite the chaos, transport disruption and economic pain they have caused, the protesters retain strong support. Correspondingly, distrust of the local government and its backers in Beijing is widespread. After casting her own ballot, the city’s Mrs Lam dismissed the idea that this was a confidence vote. Few would agree. Pro-democracy platforms took control of 17 of the 18 councils, none of which they had previously won.
No longer do pro-government parties dominate local-level politics. Hong Kong’s complicated electoral system means this also has an impact at other levels. Six of the 70 seats in the Legislative Council (Legco) are reserved for district councillors. In the most recent general election, in 2016, half of them went to pro-establishment parties; in the next, in 2020, the pro-democracy camp is likely to do better. District councillors also hold around 10% of 1,200 seats on the election committee that picks the chief executive, and is mostly stacked with those ready to back the government’s favoured candidate.
The turnout was unprecedented. Nearly 3m voters—71.2% of those registered—participated. At the last district-level election, in November 2015, 47% of the 3.1m people eligible to vote did so. Overall, pro-government candidates still won some 40% of the popular vote.
This year 386,000 new voters had registered and for the first time every seat was being contested (in 2015 15% were not). Fears that the vote might be disrupted brought voters out even before polls opened at 7.30am. Some queued for over an hour to cast their ballot. By the time the voting ended at 10.30pm the turnout in some middle-class constituencies had tipped over 80%.
The election was held peacefully, in glorious autumn sunshine in a city which felt more at ease than it had for weeks. The polarisation and violence of the past few months were reduced to enthusiastic banner-waving and slogan-shouting—from both camps, side by side, on the streets. Just a week ago, amid some of the worst violence of the protests, such scenes were unimaginable. The governments in both Hong Kong and Beijing had suggested that the polls could go ahead only if there was no violence. In the event, the police stationed at every polling station were thankfully underemployed.
District councils advise the government on a wide range of issues, especially matters relating to public services such as managing traffic lights, parks, libraries and rubbish collection. Elections to them are freely contested, without the Byzantine arrangements that skew the outcomes of Legco elections in favour of pro-government candidates. Each council is composed of directly elected members voted for by local residents as well as a small number of appointees from other political bodies. Control of a council allows its chairman to set its agenda and decisions.
In most constituencies electors faced a choice between “yellow”, or pro-democracy, candidates, and “blue” ones sympathetic to the Communist Party in Beijing. Many blue candidates ran on a platform of ending the chaos and violence. Of the pro-democracy candidates, some had no political experience and almost no funding. A few had almost no manifesto, stating their platform simply to be the fulfilment of the “five demands” of the protesters, which include an independent investigation into the police handing of the protests and direct elections for both the chief executive and the Legco.
Some of the blue side’s best-known names lost seats. The largest and best-funded pro-establishment party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), fielded 181 candidates but won just 21 seats. Thirteen pro-government legislative councillors, who can also hold positions on district councils, stood for election. Nine of them were defeated, including Holden Chow and Horace Cheung, both vice-chairmen of the DAB. Mr Cheung is also a member of Mrs Lam’s cabinet, known as the Executive Council. Starry Lee, the chairwoman of the DAB, did hold on to her seat but promptly offered to resign, an offer she said was rejected by the party’s central committee.
In Tuen Mun, a suburb close to the border with mainland China, Junius Ho, a pro-establishment lawyer and Legco member who is detested by protesters, lost to Lo Chun-yu, a member of the Democratic Party, one of the oldest and biggest of the opposition groups. After the result Mr Ho described the result as having turned “heaven and earth upside down”.
After the results, Mrs Lam promised to “strengthen co-operation” with the district councils and promised that the government would reflect on its shortcomings. Many people will expect her to do more than that—at a minimum, by reshuffling her advisory boards, including the Executive Council, to include voices from outside the establishment, and by launching an independent inquiry into the police’s handling of the protests. These results are likely to make it more difficult for Mrs Lam to justify intransigence. The government’s reluctance to clear the university campus where a number of protesters have been hiding for over a week suggests that it may already be considering a less forceful approach.
Leaders in Beijing must be mulling how to respond. It will be harder to turn these results to the Communist Party’s own propaganda ends than it was to blame the protests on “black hands” and “terrorists”. The results may prompt some members of the pro-establishment camp to put pressure on Mrs Lam to stand down. But it is not clear that any possible successor would have more credibility.
The pro-democracy camp, too, will be under pressure, to take the job of running its districts seriously and show that its candidates deserve their new positions. These elections prove that Hong Kongers are enthusiastic about democracy. Yet, as things stand, they will have the chance to vote next year for only half the seats in Legco and in 2022 will be excluded completely from the next scheduled election for the post of chief executive—the only people allowed to vote in that will be members of a committee stacked with pro-establishment figures. Many of those who have risked their safety and their futures to take to the streets might find that intolerable.
Cheers
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman ... ew-report/
Just a few days after the devastating leak of the so-called China Cables, a cache of documents exposing the truth of the surveillance regime deployed in Xinjiang to suppress the minority Uighur population, tech giant Huawei has become embroiled in the controversy. Huawei’s technology has been linked to Xinjiang before, but the company has always claimed this is only through third-parties, that Huawei itself is not involved. Not so, says a damaging new report, it is much worse than that.
The China Cables, published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, include operations manuals and status reports for Xinjiang’s surveillance ecosystem and detention camps. The far-reaching use of technology to underpin all of this is a consistent theme throughout. This includes AI-based surveillance, intrusive data collection and smartphone and general communications monitoring. Any missteps seemingly run the risk of internment. And once detained, only modified thinking and behaviours seem likely to secure a person’s release.
Now, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has followed up the leaked documents with a report on the main technology providers supporting the region. And Huawei is front and centre. “Huawei’s work in Xinjiang is extensive and includes working directly with the Chinese Government’s public security bureaus in the region,” the report says. “Huawei’s Xinjiang activities should be taken into consideration during debates about Huawei and 5G technologies.”
Today In: Innovation
Huawei is not alone, of course. The other headline act in the ASPI report is TikTok owner ByteDance, accused of deploying a “public security and Internet social governance model” in Xinjiang under a strategic cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Public Security’s Press and Publicity Bureau. These are the same allegations of Beijing propaganda, censorship and influence that have hit ByteDance in the U.S., leading the company to distance its Western business from China.
A ByteDance spokesperson told me that in China its “user-generated content platform allows individuals, organizations and institutions, including civic and law enforcement groups, to set up user accounts. This practice is comparable to how social media platforms in other countries allow similar organizations, including law enforcement, to create accounts for purposes such as crime prevention alerts.”
Four Takeaways From Our Conversation With ‘American Factory’ Directors Julia Reichert And Steven Bognar
Huawei is more newsworthy than ByteDance for one reason. The allegations against ByteDance are consistent with its current U.S. challenges. For Huawei, though, its public standoff with the U.S. has largely ignored Xinjiang and focused instead on allegations of Chinese government control and the risk of the company being asked to collect intelligence on its behalf. The company’s defence has been consistent—we are independent, we do not and will not spy, we are not a threat, where’s the evidence?
Huawei is just one of many Chinese companies that have been working in Xinjiang. The blacklisting of fellow network giant ZTE, of the world’s leading camera makers Hikvision and Dahua, of the leading surveillance unicorns SenseTime, Megvii and Yitu, has its roots in such allegations. But for Huawei, the narrative has been different.
In April, I reported on Huawei’s links to Xinjiang. This included the May 2018 strategic cooperation agreement for a joint innovation laboratory signed between Xinjiang's Public Security Department and Huawei. And the August 2018 launch of Huawei’s Urumqi DevCloud to “promote the development of the software information industry in the district and all of Urumqi.”
These links always seemed direct between the company and the end users. At the signing ceremony for the joint laboratory, a Huawei representative said the company "will integrate resources, provide industry-leading products and services, and cooperate extensively with local high-tech enterprises to build a safer and smarter society with the public security department of the autonomous region." That “safer” society, it is claimed, has resulted in somewhere between 900,000 and 1.8 million people being subjected to intrusive monitoring or interred in camps.
The new ASPI report adds more fuel to this particular fire, noting that some of Huawei’s own PR lauds Public Security Bureau projects in Xinjiang, “such as the Modular Data Center for the Public Security Bureau of Aksu Prefecture,” and that “Huawei also provides police in Xinjiang with technical support to help ‘meet the digitization requirements of the public security industry’.”
Back in 2014, ASPI says, before Xinjiang hit the international headlines, Huawei took part in an early counter-terrorism conference that helped instigate “‘Safe Xinjiang’—code for a police surveillance system.” ASPI reports that Huawei was praised at the time by the head of Xinjiang’s provincial police department, for reportedly being able “to process and analyse footage quickly and conduct precise searches.”
I approached Huawei and asked for comment on the ASPI report—I was told that the company does not comment on “speculation.” These new revelations are damaging, though, and could not come at a worse time. The U.S. has widened its sanctions against Chinese companies implicated in the region’s oppressive security programs, but the focus on Huawei—despite the small print—has largely been that intangible threat to national security. These new revelations claim there is tangible evidence of wrongdoing, that there is a smoking gun, just a different kind of smoking gun.
“As companies such as Huawei seek to expand overseas,” ASPI suggests, “foreign governments can play a more active role in rejecting those that participate in the Chinese Government’s repressive Xinjiang policies.”
The Chinese authorities continue the fiction that what is taking place in Xinjiang is simply an intensive counter-terrorism program, which has local public support and which has made the region safe. “There are no so-called ‘detention camps’ in Xinjiang,” was the official response to the leaked documents. “Vocational education and training centres have been established for the prevention of terrorism—[Xinjiang was] a battleground—[with] thousands of terrorist incidents between 1990s and 2016—Since the measures have been taken, there’s no single terrorist incident.”
For Huawei, if the dialogue now does turn in part to Xinjiang, it becomes much harder for the company to play victim against U.S. abuse of power. There is no abuse of power anywhere in the world that touches on what China is doing in Xinjiang. And if this escalates, a “no comment” response—given what’s in the public domain—will not play well with governments readying their 5G check books. And what about consumers? Forget the loss of Google, does Xinjiang take a toll on the willingness of Western buyers to opt for Huawei devices?
ByteDance’s spokesperson told me that the company “does not produce, operate or disseminate any products or services related to surveillance—[nor does it] endorse the content generated by its users, but rather, similar to Twitter or Facebook, provides a platform to all of its users.”
Huawei cannot say the same on surveillance, but it does need to make a statement. It needs to withdraw from Xinjiang and the programs being deployed directly or in its name. It needs to refuse to sell its technologies into the highly lucrative surveillance programs that are underway or envisaged. If not, then its case for sympathy against the U.S. government’s abuse of power becomes hollow and hard to swallow.
Just a few days after the devastating leak of the so-called China Cables, a cache of documents exposing the truth of the surveillance regime deployed in Xinjiang to suppress the minority Uighur population, tech giant Huawei has become embroiled in the controversy. Huawei’s technology has been linked to Xinjiang before, but the company has always claimed this is only through third-parties, that Huawei itself is not involved. Not so, says a damaging new report, it is much worse than that.
The China Cables, published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, include operations manuals and status reports for Xinjiang’s surveillance ecosystem and detention camps. The far-reaching use of technology to underpin all of this is a consistent theme throughout. This includes AI-based surveillance, intrusive data collection and smartphone and general communications monitoring. Any missteps seemingly run the risk of internment. And once detained, only modified thinking and behaviours seem likely to secure a person’s release.
Now, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has followed up the leaked documents with a report on the main technology providers supporting the region. And Huawei is front and centre. “Huawei’s work in Xinjiang is extensive and includes working directly with the Chinese Government’s public security bureaus in the region,” the report says. “Huawei’s Xinjiang activities should be taken into consideration during debates about Huawei and 5G technologies.”
Today In: Innovation
Huawei is not alone, of course. The other headline act in the ASPI report is TikTok owner ByteDance, accused of deploying a “public security and Internet social governance model” in Xinjiang under a strategic cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Public Security’s Press and Publicity Bureau. These are the same allegations of Beijing propaganda, censorship and influence that have hit ByteDance in the U.S., leading the company to distance its Western business from China.
A ByteDance spokesperson told me that in China its “user-generated content platform allows individuals, organizations and institutions, including civic and law enforcement groups, to set up user accounts. This practice is comparable to how social media platforms in other countries allow similar organizations, including law enforcement, to create accounts for purposes such as crime prevention alerts.”
Four Takeaways From Our Conversation With ‘American Factory’ Directors Julia Reichert And Steven Bognar
Huawei is more newsworthy than ByteDance for one reason. The allegations against ByteDance are consistent with its current U.S. challenges. For Huawei, though, its public standoff with the U.S. has largely ignored Xinjiang and focused instead on allegations of Chinese government control and the risk of the company being asked to collect intelligence on its behalf. The company’s defence has been consistent—we are independent, we do not and will not spy, we are not a threat, where’s the evidence?
Huawei is just one of many Chinese companies that have been working in Xinjiang. The blacklisting of fellow network giant ZTE, of the world’s leading camera makers Hikvision and Dahua, of the leading surveillance unicorns SenseTime, Megvii and Yitu, has its roots in such allegations. But for Huawei, the narrative has been different.
In April, I reported on Huawei’s links to Xinjiang. This included the May 2018 strategic cooperation agreement for a joint innovation laboratory signed between Xinjiang's Public Security Department and Huawei. And the August 2018 launch of Huawei’s Urumqi DevCloud to “promote the development of the software information industry in the district and all of Urumqi.”
These links always seemed direct between the company and the end users. At the signing ceremony for the joint laboratory, a Huawei representative said the company "will integrate resources, provide industry-leading products and services, and cooperate extensively with local high-tech enterprises to build a safer and smarter society with the public security department of the autonomous region." That “safer” society, it is claimed, has resulted in somewhere between 900,000 and 1.8 million people being subjected to intrusive monitoring or interred in camps.
The new ASPI report adds more fuel to this particular fire, noting that some of Huawei’s own PR lauds Public Security Bureau projects in Xinjiang, “such as the Modular Data Center for the Public Security Bureau of Aksu Prefecture,” and that “Huawei also provides police in Xinjiang with technical support to help ‘meet the digitization requirements of the public security industry’.”
Back in 2014, ASPI says, before Xinjiang hit the international headlines, Huawei took part in an early counter-terrorism conference that helped instigate “‘Safe Xinjiang’—code for a police surveillance system.” ASPI reports that Huawei was praised at the time by the head of Xinjiang’s provincial police department, for reportedly being able “to process and analyse footage quickly and conduct precise searches.”
I approached Huawei and asked for comment on the ASPI report—I was told that the company does not comment on “speculation.” These new revelations are damaging, though, and could not come at a worse time. The U.S. has widened its sanctions against Chinese companies implicated in the region’s oppressive security programs, but the focus on Huawei—despite the small print—has largely been that intangible threat to national security. These new revelations claim there is tangible evidence of wrongdoing, that there is a smoking gun, just a different kind of smoking gun.
“As companies such as Huawei seek to expand overseas,” ASPI suggests, “foreign governments can play a more active role in rejecting those that participate in the Chinese Government’s repressive Xinjiang policies.”
The Chinese authorities continue the fiction that what is taking place in Xinjiang is simply an intensive counter-terrorism program, which has local public support and which has made the region safe. “There are no so-called ‘detention camps’ in Xinjiang,” was the official response to the leaked documents. “Vocational education and training centres have been established for the prevention of terrorism—[Xinjiang was] a battleground—[with] thousands of terrorist incidents between 1990s and 2016—Since the measures have been taken, there’s no single terrorist incident.”
For Huawei, if the dialogue now does turn in part to Xinjiang, it becomes much harder for the company to play victim against U.S. abuse of power. There is no abuse of power anywhere in the world that touches on what China is doing in Xinjiang. And if this escalates, a “no comment” response—given what’s in the public domain—will not play well with governments readying their 5G check books. And what about consumers? Forget the loss of Google, does Xinjiang take a toll on the willingness of Western buyers to opt for Huawei devices?
ByteDance’s spokesperson told me that the company “does not produce, operate or disseminate any products or services related to surveillance—[nor does it] endorse the content generated by its users, but rather, similar to Twitter or Facebook, provides a platform to all of its users.”
Huawei cannot say the same on surveillance, but it does need to make a statement. It needs to withdraw from Xinjiang and the programs being deployed directly or in its name. It needs to refuse to sell its technologies into the highly lucrative surveillance programs that are underway or envisaged. If not, then its case for sympathy against the U.S. government’s abuse of power becomes hollow and hard to swallow.
Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Failing upwards
Bond defaults have soared in China
But officials and some investors see it as a sign of a healthier market
ON NOVEMBER 25TH China National Radio launched a mini-series to laud President Xi Jinping’s stewardship of the economy. For a state broadcaster, that might sound perfectly normal. But the theme of its first report was neither China’s stellar growth nor its sparkling innovations. Rather than such standard fare for propagandists, it focused on creditor committees, which aim to restructure companies that have run into financial difficulties. It was the latest sign of China’s rapid shift from denying that it had a debt problem just a few years ago to grappling with it publicly.
The bond market bears out the change. It was only in 2014 that China experienced its first default on a domestically traded bond. In 2018 defaults hit 117bn yuan ($16.5bn), triple the previous high. This year defaults are on track to reach roughly the same value. About 1% of all issuers defaulted in the first three quarters of this year, just a little below the global level, according to Fitch, a ratings agency. Bond defaults, says S & P Global, another ratings company, are “becoming a norm”.
China’s central bank has tried to convey the message that this new norm is healthy. In its annual financial-stability report, published on November 25th, it said that the rise in defaults reflected the market’s maturation. As investors become more sensitive to risk, it added, they will steer capital towards more deserving firms, making for a stronger economy.
The central bank is right—up to a point. Defaults are part of any efficient bond market. The problem for China is that the broader trend masks a chasm between state-owned and private companies. Of the firms that have missed payments on bonds this year, 89% have come from the private sector, according to Fitch. S&P Global calculates that 12% of private issuers since 2014 have defaulted, compared with just 0.2% of state firms. Over the past two years, private Chinese companies have been more likely than global issuers of junk-rated bonds to default.
This has only reinforced investors’ tendency to prefer state firms, in the belief that the government will usually act as a backstop. State firms have issued the vast majority of bonds in China this year; private firms have been all but shut out. In other words, it is not necessarily the most deserving firms that are attracting capital, as the central bank would like, but rather the best-connected firms.
The simplest way for China to change this is to allow more state-owned companies to default. The few that have missed bond payments in recent years have not been enough to persuade investors that government is cutting them loose.
So it was notable on November 22nd when Tewoo Group, a commodities trader owned by the city of Tianjin, asked creditors to take haircuts of up to 64% on their principal. Although its bonds were sold offshore, the impact will be felt domestically, because many creditors were Chinese. An eventual default would be the biggest on overseas bonds issued by a Chinese state firm since the late 1990s. But it is also only one step. Propaganda will serve as a good test: when the state broadcaster starts loudly reporting on the woes of state-owned firms, it will be clear that China has truly turned a corner.
Cheers
Bond defaults have soared in China
But officials and some investors see it as a sign of a healthier market
ON NOVEMBER 25TH China National Radio launched a mini-series to laud President Xi Jinping’s stewardship of the economy. For a state broadcaster, that might sound perfectly normal. But the theme of its first report was neither China’s stellar growth nor its sparkling innovations. Rather than such standard fare for propagandists, it focused on creditor committees, which aim to restructure companies that have run into financial difficulties. It was the latest sign of China’s rapid shift from denying that it had a debt problem just a few years ago to grappling with it publicly.
The bond market bears out the change. It was only in 2014 that China experienced its first default on a domestically traded bond. In 2018 defaults hit 117bn yuan ($16.5bn), triple the previous high. This year defaults are on track to reach roughly the same value. About 1% of all issuers defaulted in the first three quarters of this year, just a little below the global level, according to Fitch, a ratings agency. Bond defaults, says S & P Global, another ratings company, are “becoming a norm”.
China’s central bank has tried to convey the message that this new norm is healthy. In its annual financial-stability report, published on November 25th, it said that the rise in defaults reflected the market’s maturation. As investors become more sensitive to risk, it added, they will steer capital towards more deserving firms, making for a stronger economy.
The central bank is right—up to a point. Defaults are part of any efficient bond market. The problem for China is that the broader trend masks a chasm between state-owned and private companies. Of the firms that have missed payments on bonds this year, 89% have come from the private sector, according to Fitch. S&P Global calculates that 12% of private issuers since 2014 have defaulted, compared with just 0.2% of state firms. Over the past two years, private Chinese companies have been more likely than global issuers of junk-rated bonds to default.
This has only reinforced investors’ tendency to prefer state firms, in the belief that the government will usually act as a backstop. State firms have issued the vast majority of bonds in China this year; private firms have been all but shut out. In other words, it is not necessarily the most deserving firms that are attracting capital, as the central bank would like, but rather the best-connected firms.
The simplest way for China to change this is to allow more state-owned companies to default. The few that have missed bond payments in recent years have not been enough to persuade investors that government is cutting them loose.
So it was notable on November 22nd when Tewoo Group, a commodities trader owned by the city of Tianjin, asked creditors to take haircuts of up to 64% on their principal. Although its bonds were sold offshore, the impact will be felt domestically, because many creditors were Chinese. An eventual default would be the biggest on overseas bonds issued by a Chinese state firm since the late 1990s. But it is also only one step. Propaganda will serve as a good test: when the state broadcaster starts loudly reporting on the woes of state-owned firms, it will be clear that China has truly turned a corner.
Cheers
Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
On Hong Kong streets, protesters say 'Thank you' to Donald Trump
- Three marches planned for Sunday, police have approved all
- Anti-government protests come after week of calm
- Over 1,000 protesters march to US consulate to show gratitude
HONG KONG: Hundreds of people in Hong Kong, including many elderly residents, marched to the U.S. consulate on Sunday to show "gratitude" for U.S. support of anti-government protests that have roiled the financial hub for nearly six months.
Waving American flags, with some donning Donald Trump logo hats and t-shirts, protesters unfurled a banner depicting the U.S. president standing astride a tank with a US flag behind him.
Another banner read "President Trump, please liberate Hong Kong."
Trump this week signed into law congressional legislation that supported protesters in the China-ruled city, despite angry objections from Beijing.
"Thank you President Trump for your big gift to Hong Kong and God bless America," shouted a speaker holding a microphone as he addressed a crowd at the start of the march.
Earlier on Sunday, hundreds of protesters, including many families with children, marched in protest against police use of tear gas.
Carrying yellow balloons and waving banners that read "No tear gas, save our children", the protesters streamed through the city's central business district towards government headquarters on the main Hong Kong island.
There has been relative calm in Hong Kong for the past week but activists have pledged to maintain the momentum of the movement with three marches planned for Sunday. All have been approved by authorities.
Anti-government protests have rocked the former British colony since June, at times forcing government offices, businesses, schools and even the international airport to shut.
"We want the police to stop using tear gas," said a woman surnamed Wong, who marched with her husband and five year old son.
"It's not a good way to solve the problem. The government needs to listen to the people. It is ridiculous."
Police have fired around 10,000 rounds of tear gas since June, the city's Secretary for Security, John Lee, said this week.
FURTHER PROTESTS
Sunday's marches came as a top Hong Kong official said the government was looking into setting up an independent committee to review the handling of the crisis, in which demonstrations have become increasingly violent.
The protesters in Hong Kong are angry at what they see as Chinese meddling in the freedoms promised to the former British colony when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
China denies interfering and says it is committed to the “one country, two systems” formula put in place at that time and has blamed foreign forces for fomenting unrest.
On Saturday, secondary school students and retirees joined forces to protest against what they called police brutality and unlawful arrests.
While Saturday's rallies were mostly peaceful, public broadcaster RTHK reported that police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters after a vigil outside the Prince Edward metro station. Some residents believe that some protesters were killed by police there three months ago. Police have denied that account.
Further protests are planned through the week and a big test of support for the anti-government campaign is expected on December 8 with a rally planned by Civil Human Rights Front, the group that organised million-strong marches in June.
Another march is planned on Sunday in the popular shopping district of Tsim Sha Tsui.
That march is scheduled to end in Hung Hom, a district near the ruined campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
The campus turned into a battleground in mid-November when protesters barricaded themselves in and faced off riot police in violent clashes of petrol bombs, water cannon and tear gas.
About 1,100 people were arrested last week, some while trying to escape.
On Friday police withdrew from the university after collecting evidence and removing dangerous items including thousands of petrol bombs, arrows and chemicals which had been strewn around the site.
Cheers
- Three marches planned for Sunday, police have approved all
- Anti-government protests come after week of calm
- Over 1,000 protesters march to US consulate to show gratitude
HONG KONG: Hundreds of people in Hong Kong, including many elderly residents, marched to the U.S. consulate on Sunday to show "gratitude" for U.S. support of anti-government protests that have roiled the financial hub for nearly six months.
Waving American flags, with some donning Donald Trump logo hats and t-shirts, protesters unfurled a banner depicting the U.S. president standing astride a tank with a US flag behind him.
Another banner read "President Trump, please liberate Hong Kong."
Trump this week signed into law congressional legislation that supported protesters in the China-ruled city, despite angry objections from Beijing.
"Thank you President Trump for your big gift to Hong Kong and God bless America," shouted a speaker holding a microphone as he addressed a crowd at the start of the march.
Earlier on Sunday, hundreds of protesters, including many families with children, marched in protest against police use of tear gas.
Carrying yellow balloons and waving banners that read "No tear gas, save our children", the protesters streamed through the city's central business district towards government headquarters on the main Hong Kong island.
There has been relative calm in Hong Kong for the past week but activists have pledged to maintain the momentum of the movement with three marches planned for Sunday. All have been approved by authorities.
Anti-government protests have rocked the former British colony since June, at times forcing government offices, businesses, schools and even the international airport to shut.
"We want the police to stop using tear gas," said a woman surnamed Wong, who marched with her husband and five year old son.
"It's not a good way to solve the problem. The government needs to listen to the people. It is ridiculous."
Police have fired around 10,000 rounds of tear gas since June, the city's Secretary for Security, John Lee, said this week.
FURTHER PROTESTS
Sunday's marches came as a top Hong Kong official said the government was looking into setting up an independent committee to review the handling of the crisis, in which demonstrations have become increasingly violent.
The protesters in Hong Kong are angry at what they see as Chinese meddling in the freedoms promised to the former British colony when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
China denies interfering and says it is committed to the “one country, two systems” formula put in place at that time and has blamed foreign forces for fomenting unrest.
On Saturday, secondary school students and retirees joined forces to protest against what they called police brutality and unlawful arrests.
While Saturday's rallies were mostly peaceful, public broadcaster RTHK reported that police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters after a vigil outside the Prince Edward metro station. Some residents believe that some protesters were killed by police there three months ago. Police have denied that account.
Further protests are planned through the week and a big test of support for the anti-government campaign is expected on December 8 with a rally planned by Civil Human Rights Front, the group that organised million-strong marches in June.
Another march is planned on Sunday in the popular shopping district of Tsim Sha Tsui.
That march is scheduled to end in Hung Hom, a district near the ruined campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
The campus turned into a battleground in mid-November when protesters barricaded themselves in and faced off riot police in violent clashes of petrol bombs, water cannon and tear gas.
About 1,100 people were arrested last week, some while trying to escape.
On Friday police withdrew from the university after collecting evidence and removing dangerous items including thousands of petrol bombs, arrows and chemicals which had been strewn around the site.
Cheers
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Mass protest breaks out in Chinese province near Hong Kong
Watch the video kooks like the demonstrators did their thing
Watch the video kooks like the demonstrators did their thing
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
A look into Japan's investment into China. The Japanese had a huge hand in developing China into the industrial power it is today and they are still helping Cheen during Trump's trade war.
Cheen will always have this advantage with Japan, Korea and Taiwan and I suspect Singapore too.
It is those countries passing technology and investment into China that allowed it to move into the global supply chain then up the technology ladder.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/why-t ... -tensions/
Cheen will always have this advantage with Japan, Korea and Taiwan and I suspect Singapore too.
It is those countries passing technology and investment into China that allowed it to move into the global supply chain then up the technology ladder.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/why-t ... -tensions/
Why the China–Japan economic relationship overrides political tension
3 Dec 2019|Amy King
For more than a century, close economic ties between China and Japan have developed in the absence of cooperative political and security relations, suggesting that the first is not a necessary precondition for the second.
...
Deep patterns of economic integration between China and Japan offer three critical lessons for thinking about the factors that might help to build habits of cooperation in Asia.
First, individual businesspeople have helped to sustain close economic ties between the two countries despite major changes in governing regimes, political systems and economic ideology over the past century. In the 1930s and 1940s, Japanese business leaders travelled to China as part of Japan’s colonial empire in Manchuria. They established the industries in China that would extract Chinese soybeans and iron ore in exchange for Japanese machinery and steel. In the 1950s and 1960s, these same Japanese were among those who sought to rekindle trading ties between communist China and post-war Japan. They would also develop government and business relationships that flourished following China’s economic reforms in the 1970s and 1980s.
As Kristin Vekasi has shown, Japanese firms with a high degree of familiarity with China’s business and political environment are much less risk-averse than firms that have limited experience in China. Japanese firms that are deeply integrated into Chinese society and business communities have been willing to maintain or increase their economic presence in China, even as they have experienced costly anti-Japanese riots, boycotts and physical damage to their firms and products.
Second, flows of goods and people between China and Japan have been accompanied by flows of economic ideas. Japan has been a major influence on Chinese thinking about industrial-led development, the role of science and technology in a modernising economy, and linkages between the military and civilian segments of an industrialised economy.
As China’s largest-ever provider of official development assistance, Japan played a major role in shaping China’s contemporary approaches to foreign aid and development, including its large-scale Belt and Road Initiative. Beginning in 1979, Japan provided bilateral loans to finance the building of roads, railways, ports and other major infrastructure projects in China.
Japan’s focus on infrastructure-led development stemmed from its own experience of economic development. Japan had a view that infrastructure it provided would enable it to facilitate trade with, and extract natural resources from, recipient countries. Japanese firms also frequently won contracts to build large-scale infrastructure projects in China.
China’s firsthand experience of Japanese development assistance—and the hundreds of Chinese officials who worked closely with Japanese government agencies to administer infrastructure-led development in the 1980s and 1990s—have shaped China’s own infrastructure-based development assistance as it shifted from recipient to donor country.
Third, deep patterns of economic cooperation between China and Japan have created a separate sphere of regional economic activity that has often worked against the grain of the global order. During the first half of the Cold War, when global trading relations became divided into rival US-led and Soviet-led blocs, Japan and China continued to trade across Cold War lines.
Maintaining these trade ties wasn’t easy in the absence of diplomatic relations—a result of the wishes of Japan’s ally, the United States—and given China’s Soviet-style planned economy. But the persistence of China–Japan trade helped to chip away at US expectations that its allies would undertake wholesale economic containment of China. It also provided China with important economic alternatives to the Soviet Union and laid the foundations for supply chains that would later underpin a distinct East Asian economic order.
Japan and China continue to exhibit similar patterns of strengthened regional economic activity in the face of a fracturing global order. Since 2018, they have established mechanisms that facilitate joint investment in third-country infrastructure projects. Agencies such as the Japan External Trade Organization and the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade are collaborating on joint business development in Southeast Asia. The China Development Bank and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation have agreed on common principles, initiated by Japan, to guide ‘high quality’ infrastructure investment.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Navy drives away suspicious Chinese vessel from Indian waters
NEW DELHI: In a significant development, the Indian Navy recently drove away a suspicious Chinese vessel operating in the Indian waters near Port Blair.
The Chinese research vessel Shi Yan 1 was carrying out research activities in the Indian waters near Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar Islands and was detected by maritime surveillance aircraft operating there, government sources told ANI.
Sources said the vessel could have also been used by the Chinese to spy on the Indian activities in the Island territory from where India can keep a close eye on the maritime movements in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and South-East Asian region.
After the vessel was detected by the agencies and found out that it was carrying out research activities in the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone, an Indian Navy warship was sent there to monitor it.
Since laws do not allow foreign countries to carry out any research or exploration activities in the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the Indian Navy warship asked the Chinese research vessel to move out of Indian waters.
After being cautioned by the Indian Navy, the Chinese Shi Yan 1 vessel left Indian waters and moved to its other destination probably towards China, the sources said.
The Indian Navy keeps a constant vigil on the Chinese vessels which enter the Indian Ocean Region from the Malacca Straits near the Indian Navy's area of responsibility.
Recently, the Indian Navy's P-8I maritime surveillance aircraft had detected seven Chinese Navy warships operating in and around the Indian Ocean Region.
ANI has first reported about the Indian Navy's constant monitoring capabilities with exclusive pictures of the Chinese Landing Platform Dock Xian-32.
The P-8I anti-submarine warfare and long-range surveillance aircraft had clicked the pictures and are constantly tracking activities and movements of the Chinese vessels while operating here.
The Chinese Navy frequently enters Indian waters with the stated aim of going for anti-piracy patrols but the Indian side does not buy this fully as the Chinese warships are accompanied by nuclear and conventional submarines which do not make sense in anti-piracy operations.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Research is wrong word , replace that with Spying .Ashokk wrote:Navy drives away suspicious Chinese vessel from Indian waters
NEW DELHI: In a significant development, the Indian Navy recently drove away a suspicious Chinese vessel operating in the Indian waters near Port Blair.
The Chinese research vessel Shi Yan 1 was carrying out research activities in the Indian waters near Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar Islands and was detected by maritime surveillance aircraft operating there, government sources told ANI.
Sources said the vessel could have also been used by the Chinese to spy on the Indian activities in the Island territory from where India can keep a close eye on the maritime movements in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and South-East Asian region.
After the vessel was detected by the agencies and found out that it was carrying outresearchSpying activities in the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone, an Indian Navy warship was sent there to monitor it.
Since laws do not allow foreign countries to carry out anyresearchSpying or exploration activities in the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the Indian Navy warship asked the Chinese research vessel to move out of Indian waters.
After being cautioned by the Indian Navy, the Chinese Shi Yan 1 vessel left Indian waters and moved to its other destination probably towards China, the sources said.
The Indian Navy keeps a constant vigil on the Chinese vessels which enter the Indian Ocean Region from the Malacca Straits near the Indian Navy's area of responsibility.
Recently, the Indian Navy's P-8I maritime surveillance aircraft had detected seven Chinese Navy warships operating in and around the Indian Ocean Region.
ANI has first reported about the Indian Navy's constant monitoring capabilities with exclusive pictures of the Chinese Landing Platform Dock Xian-32.
The P-8I anti-submarine warfare and long-range surveillance aircraft had clicked the pictures and are constantly tracking activities and movements of the Chinese vessels while operating here.
The Chinese Navy frequently enters Indian waters with the stated aim of going for anti-piracy patrols but the Indian side does not buy this fully as the Chinese warships are accompanied by nuclear and conventional submarines which do not make sense in anti-piracy operations.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Wonder why India n side effects no-sub allowed situation by enforcing the above logic somehow and then tightening screws - putting ASW assets on their for practice (demo charges ) and such.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
How Good Is Taiwan's New Hypersonic Missile?
Please read onTaiwan has begun production of a new land-attack cruise missile. But the island country still is badly outgunned by China’s own, much larger missile arsenal.
Taiwanese media on Aug. 4, 2019 reported that the country’s National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology had cleared the
Feng cruise missile for mass production.
The supersonic land-attack missile has been under development since the 1990s. It can fly as far as 1,200 miles, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
That range could allow Taiwan to threaten many of the airbases, ports and other facilities from which China likely would stage any attempt to invade Taiwan.
Taipei reportedly is building an initial 20
Feng missiles as well as 10 truck-based launchers. Taiwan’s Up Media described the missiles as “the top priority of the various studios of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.”
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Chen Quanguo : Official heading China's Xinjiang crackdown
HIGHLIGHTS
- Chen Quanguo's tenure has been marked by reports that more than a million ethnic Uighurs and other minorities have been rounded up into a network of internment camps in the far west region.
- Before Xinjiang, the politician was tasked with pacifying neighbouring Tibet following protests and a string of self-immolations by Buddhist monks.
- The 64-year-old is now in the limelight after the US House of Representatives passed a bill calling for sanctions against Chinese officials.
BEIJING: The Chinese Communist Party official facing possible US sanctions for allegedly overseeing the mass detention of Muslims in Xinjiang region is a soldier turned-politician known as a security enforcer.
Chen Quanguo was appointed party chief in Xinjiang in August 2016, and his tenure has been marked by reports that more than a million ethnic Uighurs and other minorities have been rounded up into a network of internment camps in the far west region.
It is not his first assignment in a region with a history of ethnic tensions: Before Xinjiang, the politician was tasked with pacifying neighbouring Tibet following protests and a string of self-immolations by Buddhist monks. In 2017, Chen was promoted to the upper echelons of the CCP, becoming one of 25 members of the Politburo.
"Within the party, Chen has gained a reputation as an 'ethnic policy innovator' who can make sure that minorities who earlier clamoured for independence in western China will now toe the party line," Adrian Zenz, an independent German researcher specialising in Xinjiang, told AFP.
Little known outside China, the 64-year-old is now in the limelight after the US House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday calling for sanctions against Chinese officials behind the crackdown in Xinjiang.
The legislation, which must be reconciled with the Senate before its final passage, urges the US secretary of state to impose sanctions on Chen and other officials "credibly alleged to be responsible for human rights abuses in Xinjiang".
The foreign ministry said the bill "wantonly smears" China's efforts to eradicate extremism in the region, which was rocked by a spate of deadly attacks and riots in previous years.
The Xinjiang government said Wednesday no "terrorist incidents" have occurred in the past three years after the region endured "several thousand" attacks from 1990 to the end of 2016.
Chinese officials deny the sprawling facilities that mark Xinjiang are "concentration camps", describing them instead as "vocational education centres" where "students" learn Mandarin and job skills in an effort to steer them away from religious extremism.
But Chen once said the centres should "teach like a school, be managed like the military, and be defended like a prison", according to official documents seen by AFP.
According to separate documents leaked to the New York Times, Chen also urged officials to "round up everyone who should be rounded up" after President Xi Jinping urged officials to show "absolutely no mercy" against extremism following an attack in 2014.
"In terms of extrajudicial and arbitrary detention, Chen is the most aggressive (Xinjiang governor) in the recent 40 years," said Shawn Zhang, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, who used satellite imagery to find dozens of internments camps.
Xinjiang imposes stringent restrictions on religious practices, forbidding beards, the wearing of veils and the distribution of "extremist" religious content including everything from songs with Arabic lyrics to unofficial editions of the Koran.
Members of the Uighur diaspora have said that relatives have been arrested for seemingly innocuous acts such as sending Ramadan greetings to friends or downloading popular music.
For those living outside the camps, ubiquitous ID checks and tight security are a part of daily life.
In his first 12 months in charge of Xinjiang Chen "advertised the same number of security positions per capita that he put out in Tibet in five years," said Zenz.
Born into a poor family in rural Henan province, Chen joined an artillery regiment in the Chinese army at 18. After a four-year stint in the military, he joined an auto-parts factory.
He made his first foray into politics in 1981, as party boss of a small prefecture in Henan before becoming governor in Hebei.
Chen's big break came in 2011 when he was appointed party chief of Tibet. Tibet served as a test bed for his "strongman style of leadership," said Zenz.
Chen built community police stations every 500 metres in towns in Tibet. The same is now seen in Xinjiang.
He also hired locals to keep tabs on their communities, a strategy known as "gridstyle social management."
He was then handed the reins of Xinjiang, which sits at the centre of Xi's signature Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative.
Billions of dollars have been pledged to build road and rail routes and oil and gas pipelines in the province, connecting China to Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
"Xi has staked his reputation on Chen Quanguo's abilities and successes," said Zenz.
Cheers
HIGHLIGHTS
- Chen Quanguo's tenure has been marked by reports that more than a million ethnic Uighurs and other minorities have been rounded up into a network of internment camps in the far west region.
- Before Xinjiang, the politician was tasked with pacifying neighbouring Tibet following protests and a string of self-immolations by Buddhist monks.
- The 64-year-old is now in the limelight after the US House of Representatives passed a bill calling for sanctions against Chinese officials.
BEIJING: The Chinese Communist Party official facing possible US sanctions for allegedly overseeing the mass detention of Muslims in Xinjiang region is a soldier turned-politician known as a security enforcer.
Chen Quanguo was appointed party chief in Xinjiang in August 2016, and his tenure has been marked by reports that more than a million ethnic Uighurs and other minorities have been rounded up into a network of internment camps in the far west region.
It is not his first assignment in a region with a history of ethnic tensions: Before Xinjiang, the politician was tasked with pacifying neighbouring Tibet following protests and a string of self-immolations by Buddhist monks. In 2017, Chen was promoted to the upper echelons of the CCP, becoming one of 25 members of the Politburo.
"Within the party, Chen has gained a reputation as an 'ethnic policy innovator' who can make sure that minorities who earlier clamoured for independence in western China will now toe the party line," Adrian Zenz, an independent German researcher specialising in Xinjiang, told AFP.
Little known outside China, the 64-year-old is now in the limelight after the US House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday calling for sanctions against Chinese officials behind the crackdown in Xinjiang.
The legislation, which must be reconciled with the Senate before its final passage, urges the US secretary of state to impose sanctions on Chen and other officials "credibly alleged to be responsible for human rights abuses in Xinjiang".
The foreign ministry said the bill "wantonly smears" China's efforts to eradicate extremism in the region, which was rocked by a spate of deadly attacks and riots in previous years.
The Xinjiang government said Wednesday no "terrorist incidents" have occurred in the past three years after the region endured "several thousand" attacks from 1990 to the end of 2016.
Chinese officials deny the sprawling facilities that mark Xinjiang are "concentration camps", describing them instead as "vocational education centres" where "students" learn Mandarin and job skills in an effort to steer them away from religious extremism.
But Chen once said the centres should "teach like a school, be managed like the military, and be defended like a prison", according to official documents seen by AFP.
According to separate documents leaked to the New York Times, Chen also urged officials to "round up everyone who should be rounded up" after President Xi Jinping urged officials to show "absolutely no mercy" against extremism following an attack in 2014.
"In terms of extrajudicial and arbitrary detention, Chen is the most aggressive (Xinjiang governor) in the recent 40 years," said Shawn Zhang, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, who used satellite imagery to find dozens of internments camps.
Xinjiang imposes stringent restrictions on religious practices, forbidding beards, the wearing of veils and the distribution of "extremist" religious content including everything from songs with Arabic lyrics to unofficial editions of the Koran.
Members of the Uighur diaspora have said that relatives have been arrested for seemingly innocuous acts such as sending Ramadan greetings to friends or downloading popular music.
For those living outside the camps, ubiquitous ID checks and tight security are a part of daily life.
In his first 12 months in charge of Xinjiang Chen "advertised the same number of security positions per capita that he put out in Tibet in five years," said Zenz.
Born into a poor family in rural Henan province, Chen joined an artillery regiment in the Chinese army at 18. After a four-year stint in the military, he joined an auto-parts factory.
He made his first foray into politics in 1981, as party boss of a small prefecture in Henan before becoming governor in Hebei.
Chen's big break came in 2011 when he was appointed party chief of Tibet. Tibet served as a test bed for his "strongman style of leadership," said Zenz.
Chen built community police stations every 500 metres in towns in Tibet. The same is now seen in Xinjiang.
He also hired locals to keep tabs on their communities, a strategy known as "gridstyle social management."
He was then handed the reins of Xinjiang, which sits at the centre of Xi's signature Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative.
Billions of dollars have been pledged to build road and rail routes and oil and gas pipelines in the province, connecting China to Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
"Xi has staked his reputation on Chen Quanguo's abilities and successes," said Zenz.
Cheers
Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
A new battleground
In the UN, China uses threats and cajolery to promote its worldview
Some countries are pushing back China
Despite its veto-wielding power in the United Nations, China has long been reluctant to stick its neck out. It has been 20 years since it last stood alone in exercising that right. But in the UN’s backrooms, the country’s diplomats are showing greater willingness to flex muscle, and their Western counterparts to fight back. Not since the cold war has the organisation become such a battleground for competing visions of the international order.
A struggle in October over China’s mass internment of Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic minority, suggests how intense the fight has become. It involved Britain taking an unusual leading role in condemning China’s human-rights record. The British representative at the UN, Karen Pierce, issued a statement, signed by 22 other countries including America, calling for unfettered UN access to the prison camps in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang. A diplomatic brawl ensued. Chinese diplomats persuaded dozens of authoritarian countries, including mostly Muslim ones in the Middle East, to sign a counter-statement praising China’s actions in Xinjiang as an enlightened effort to fight terrorism and eradicate religious extremism.
There were threats and reprisals, too. Chinese diplomats are said to have told Austrian counterparts that if their country were to sign Britain’s statement, the Austrian government would not get land it wanted for a new embassy in Beijing. The Austrians signed anyway. Chinese officials cancelled a bilateral event in Beijing with Albania, another of the signatories. “A lot of countries came under a lot of pressure today,” tweeted Jonathan Allen, Britain’s deputy ambassador to the UN, on the day of his country’s statement. “But we must stand up for our values and for human rights.”
China’s efforts span a broad range of UN activity, from human rights to matters relating to economic development. They appear to have two main aims. One is to create a safe space for the Chinese Communist Party by ensuring that other countries do not criticise its rule. The country has long bristled at any such “interference”. Its officials are now becoming tougher in their response. China’s other objective is to inject wording into UN documents that echoes the language of the country’s leader, Xi Jinping. China is trying to “make Chinese policies UN policies,” says a diplomat on the UN Security Council.
China senses that President Donald Trump’s aversion to multilateral institutions such as the UN has given it more room to manoeuvre in them. Since Mr Xi took office in 2012 the country has dramatically increased its spending at the UN. It is now the second-largest contributor, after America, to both the general budget and the peacekeeping one. It has also secured leading roles for its diplomats in several UN bodies, including the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (beating a candidate backed by America, to many people’s surprise). Next year the country will join the three-member Board of Auditors, which keeps an eye on the UN’s accounts.
The senior jobs being taken by China’s diplomats are mostly boring ones in institutions that few countries care much about. But each post gives China control of tiny levers of bureaucratic power as well as the ability to dispense favours. “Each one of these slots has influence with somebody somewhere,” says a European diplomat. When votes are taken on matters China regards as important, its diplomats often use a blunt transactional approach—offering financing for projects, or threatening to turn off the tap. This buys China clout, if not affection, other diplomats say.
Mr Xi’s influence is evident. Much of the language that Chinese officials try to insert into UN documents uses his catchphrases, such as “win-win co-operation” and “a community with a shared future for mankind” (keep your hands off China, is the underlying sentiment). For three years in a row, Chinese diplomats managed to inject favourable references to Mr Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a “win-win” global infrastructure-building scheme, into resolutions on Afghanistan. They have persuaded senior UN officials, including the secretary-general, António Guterres, to praise the BRI in speeches as a model for global development. In 2018 China convinced the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva (from which America withdrew later that year) to endorse its preferred approach of “promoting mutually beneficial co-operation” in this field, ie, refraining from criticism.
More than merely language is involved. In 2017 China sought successfully to cut funding for a job intended to ensure that all of the UN’s agencies and programmes promote human rights. That same year Wu Hongbo, a Chinese diplomat who was then in charge of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, expelled Dolkun Isa, a Uighur activist, from a UN forum to which Mr Isa was an invited delegate, representing a German NGO (Mr Isa was eventually let back in after protests from American and German diplomats). Mr Wu, whose post required him to be non-partisan, later boasted about his actions on Chinese state television. “We have to strongly defend the motherland’s interests,” he said.
Opposition to China’s more assertive approach may grow. “I think they are overdoing it and I think at some stage people will start to resist,” says the Security Council diplomat. But some others at the UN do not share that view. Smaller states in Africa and the Middle East, many of them dictatorships, resent America’s post-cold-war dominance of the UN. Why should China not push back, asks a diplomat from one country in that part of the world. The envoy says that countries may be subjected to pressure from China when it wants something, but that America, albeit not as blunt, can also be transactional. Some smaller countries may welcome having two great powers competing for their favour again.
“There’s a degree of hypocrisy about it,” says Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group, a conflict-prevention NGO. “It would be weird to imagine that China as a rising power wouldn’t want a bigger stake in the multilateral system.” Few would imagine that now.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Abe, Modi get higher ratings than Xi in Asia-Pacific - Straits Times
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi are generally viewed positively across the Asia-Pacific, according to the Pew Research Centre's latest report on global attitudes.
In some places, confidence in China's President Xi Jinping has also risen, most notably in the sub-Saharan African, Middle Eastern and North African countries.
This possibly reflects China's economic investment footprint; 61 per cent of those polled in Nigeria - one of China's largest investment partners on the African continent - have a favourable view of Mr Xi.
Significant double-digit increases in confidence towards the Chinese leader since last year have occurred in Argentina, Mexico, Spain and Italy, the report said.
And when going back to 2014, Mr Xi fares even better, gaining 15 points or more in the Philippines, South Africa, Argentina, Mexico, Tunisia, Russia and Nigeria.
Yet, across all 34 countries surveyed for the report, the view of the Chinese leader is, on balance, still negative, with respondents in six Asia-Pacific countries surveyed showing less confidence in him than in Mr Abe or Mr Modi.
"A median of 45 per cent say they lack confidence in him (President Xi) when it comes to world affairs, compared with a median of 29 per cent who say they trust him to do the right thing," the report said.
In the US, Canada and Western Europe, half or more of respondents in almost all countries say they have no confidence in President Xi. Six in 10 Canadians and half of Americans gave him negative marks.
In Western Europe, a median of 61 per cent say they lack confidence in him. This includes majorities in France, Sweden, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Only in Russia does Mr Xi get positive marks, with 59 per cent voicing confidence in him.
In the six Asia-Pacific countries surveyed - India, Australia, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan and the Philippines - most have little confidence in Mr Xi when it comes to "world affairs", the report said.
"Just 29 per cent have confidence in him to do what is right, which falls far short of the ratings for Japan's Abe or India's Modi.
"And in the Philippines, Indonesia, India and South Korea, nearly equal numbers have confidence in North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as in Xi," the report said.
Most Japanese (81 per cent), South Koreans (74 per cent) and Australians (54 per cent) say they do not have confidence in Mr Xi.
South Korea stands out as one place where views of Mr Xi have decreased significantly in both the past year and the past five years.
Japanese confidence in Mr Xi has risen since 2014, but still, only 14 per cent say they trust him to do what is right in world affairs.
Filipinos stand out for their enthusiasm towards Mr Xi, with 58 per cent having confidence in the Chinese leader.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
India-China border talks likely on December 21 - Sachin Parashar, ToI
After the false starts earlier, India and China finally seem to have zeroed in on a date for the next round of boundary talks between NSA Ajit Doval and Chinese foreign minister and state councillor Wang Yi. Official sources said the dialogue between the special representatives will take place tentatively on December 21.
Although a last-minute rescheduling is still not ruled out, sources said it’s now certain that Wang will visit India at the invitation of Doval any time between December 20 and 23.
Wang was scheduled to travel to Delhi for the 22nd round of boundary talks in the second week of September but the visit had to be postponed apparently because of scheduling issues. India also wasn’t particularly pleased with the fact that Wang had clubbed his proposed visit to India with his visit to Pakistan. Bilateral ties were also hit by the fact that China had questioned India’s decision to reorganise what was the state of J&K, or more specifically Ladakh, and even accused the Indian government of undermining its sovereignty.
Official sources said Doval and Wang will look to take the development partnership forward in keeping with the guidance provided by PM Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping at the second informal summit in Mamallapuram in October this year. Xi and Modi had underlined the significance of the dialogue between the special representatives even when they met in Brasilia, on the margins of Brics summit last month, for maintaining peace and security in the border areas.
The dialogue is meant to intensify efforts to achieve a “`fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution’’ to the India-China boundary question at an early date. The dialogue is also crucial for maintaining peace in border areas and preventing any military flare-up which could jeopardise the overall development of bilateral ties.
At the last meeting of the special representatives, which took place in Chengdu in 2018, Doval and Wang had directed the bilateral Working Mechanism on Consultation and Coordination for Border Affairs to work for more confidence-building measures which could promote communication between Indian and Chinese border personnel.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
U.S. Says Accused Apple Secrets Thief Had Patriot Missile File
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ssile-file
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ssile-file
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Apple is worried 2 ex-employees will flee to China after allegedly stealing secrets from its self-driving car project
https://www.businessinsider.my/apple-ha ... e-2019-12/
https://www.businessinsider.my/apple-ha ... e-2019-12/
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Judge Favors Strict Monitoring of Accused Apple Secrets Thieves
Bloomberg December 9, 2019, 11:41 PM UTC
(Bloomberg) -- A U.S. judge voiced concern that it would be risky to end electronic location monitoring for two engineers awaiting criminal trials on charges they stole trade secrets from Apple Inc.’s autonomous-driving project for new jobs in China.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila seemed skeptical at a hearing Monday of a recommendation by the office that supervises defendants on bail to discontinue monitoring for the two men in light of their compliance with other conditions of their release.
“I do have continued concerns about their release from location monitoring,” the judge told lawyers. He didn’t issue an immediate ruling.
Prosecutors previously said a search of the Maryland home of one of the ex-Apple engineers turned up a classified file from the Patriot missile program that belonged to his ex-employer, Raytheon Co.
“The government fears that if the conditions of location monitoring are removed these defendants will flee and once they are gone, they are gone,” prosecutor Marissa Harris told the judge Monday.
Read More: U.S. Says Accused Apple Secrets Thief Had Patriot Missile File
To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Blumberg in San Francisco at pblumberg1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
How come china has the best 5G technology when they are stealing IP from others?
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
^^^ Because they steal from the best and can make them into reality.
Stealing IP means nothing unless they can make the product. If you gave the Sioux or Bantu plans to the Winchester repeating rifle, they would have still lost to the white man because they had nothing to make the thing.
Cheen has a wide and deep industrial base that can actually build everything they steal along with what they had domestically. They people they steal from might not have that capacity at least not in the volume that can lower price and create demand.
Stealing IP means nothing unless they can make the product. If you gave the Sioux or Bantu plans to the Winchester repeating rifle, they would have still lost to the white man because they had nothing to make the thing.
Cheen has a wide and deep industrial base that can actually build everything they steal along with what they had domestically. They people they steal from might not have that capacity at least not in the volume that can lower price and create demand.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
It is here that the genius of China lies... the Chinese Manufacturing / Industrial Complex can actually deliver a product/system in volume and quality from design/conceptualization stage at a speed 3X-4X faster than any competing ecosystem. 1) Digesting the design, 2) sourcing components (sub vendors), 3) setting up the production line, 4) packing and shipping 5) Client financing. Whether it is a toy, electronic items, Ships/Drones/Subs/Air Carriers, Roads and Infra they can take from conceptualization to user ready state faster than anyone else on the planet.chola wrote:^^^ Because they steal from the best and can make them into reality.
Stealing IP means nothing unless they can make the product. If you gave the Sioux or Bantu plans to the Winchester repeating rifle, they would have still lost to the white man because they had nothing to make the thing.
Cheen has a wide and deep industrial base that can actually build everything they steal along with what they had domestically. They people they steal from might not have that capacity at least not in the volume that can lower price and create demand.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Huawei (subs HiSilicon) are at par with Qcomm today because they hvae been funded massively for eons. They take in the best of their talent and develop tech. They acquired tech by hook and crook and developed a ton on their own. THat is how they're good. Their AI co processor for phones came out before sammie or qcomm did.
Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
The subdued fringe
China’s successful repression in Tibet provides a model for Xinjiang
A little-remarked anniversary is a reminder of China’s victory against dissent
IN AN ANNUAL ritual, hardy groups of activists gathered outside Chinese embassies around the world to mark International Human Rights Day on December 10th. They protested about many Chinese abuses: the encroachment on the freedoms promised Hong Kong; the persecution of the mostly Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang; and the repression of religious and political freedom in Tibet.
For Tibetans, this year marks an important and poignant anniversary: 30 years to the day since their exiled spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama, was in Oslo to receive the Nobel peace prize. It is also an occasion to reflect on how little their cause has advanced since then. If the successful suppression of almost all dissent counts as winning, then China seems to have won in Tibet. And it appears to think it can replicate the success in the neighbouring region that has also seen unrest in recent years, Xinjiang. So it is worth pondering how that “victory” has been achieved.
In 1989 Tibet was a big international issue. That year the violent repression of protests and the imposition of martial law in the capital, Lhasa, had drawn attention to Tibetans’ grievances. A few months later, the massacre that ended demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Beijing reinforced to the world the Chinese government’s image as a brutal dictatorship. The Dalai Lama, a man of peace, dignity and good humour, who counted among his friends and admirers leading politicians and Hollywood stars, furnished an appealing figurehead.
Thirty years on, Tibetans enjoy no more freedom than they did then. Nothing suggests that the reverence most feel for the Dalai Lama has diminished. But his return remains impossible and his image and writings banned. Tibetans continue to complain of restrictions on their religious freedoms and even of discrimination against their own language. But few mass protests have been reported since a vicious outbreak of anti-Chinese violence in Lhasa in 2008. Instead, dissent has been manifested in the sad stories of Tibetans—often Buddhist monks or nuns—setting themselves on fire. Last month the 166th Tibetan (including ten in India or Nepal) to self-immolate since 2008, and the first this year, died in a part of historical Tibet now in China’s Sichuan province.
But, abroad, both repression and unrest in Tibet tend these days largely to be overlooked. Rather, attention has focused on Xinjiang, as news of an internal-security repression of almost unimaginable proportions has slowly leaked out. Hundreds of thousands have been interned in “vocational-training” centres that look very much like prison camps. This week China’s officials claimed that all the detainees there had “graduated” and, since then, “have achieved stable employment, improved their quality of life and have been living a happy life.” It seems unlikely that this means, as some foreign outlets have reported, that they have all been freed. But Tibet has shown that it is possible to subdue a resentful local population without mass incarceration (though active malcontents will surely remain locked up in both places); indeed, many of the techniques from Tibet have already been adopted, and extended, in Xinjiang.
The “Tibet model” of repression relies on four elements: deflect any international pressure; limit foreign contact, monitoring and interference; swamp the territory’s native majority with both economic development and migrants from elsewhere in China; blanket it with surveillance mechanisms and personnel.
In Tibet, the first of these, cutting off international support, was not easy, such was the prestige and personal charm of the Dalai Lama. But China has managed it. That is partly because, at 84, the Dalai Lama is not the tireless globe-trotter he once was. But it is also because of China’s persistence in browbeating and even imposing sanctions on any country that accords him anything resembling an official status.
Unlike his predecessors (Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama), President Donald Trump has not met the Dalai Lama—and has shown no interest in doing so. It is not just politicians who risk China’s wrath. Lady Gaga, a singer very popular in China, has been banned there since meeting the Dalai Lama in Indianapolis in 2016.
Meanwhile, Tibet remains cut off. Individual foreign tourists—never mind journalists or human-rights investigators—are banned (though group tourism from elsewhere in China is booming). The stream of exiles who used to escape through Nepal to India has slowed to a trickle as China guards its border more tightly and bullies Nepal to be less welcoming. Earlier this year Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, a monitoring group, said that working on Tibet was becoming like working on North Korea.
Thanks to tourism and investment in infrastructure, Tibet’s economy last year grew at 9%, faster than all but one Chinese province. The growth brings both jobs, and an influx of Han Chinese, whose presence sparked the resentment that exploded in 2008.
Last, China has in Tibet honed many of the internal-security techniques used in Xinjiang to monitor and forestall protests: stationing work teams in villages and sensitive spots such as monasteries; expanding police presence; and making people sit through hours of political indoctrination. Chen Quanguo, the Communist Party chief in Tibet until August 2016, has since held the same post in Xinjiang. He has brought his skills in containing unrest with him, bolstered by the rapid improvements in the technology of surveillance, through facial-recognition software and the like.
In Hong Kong, six months of protest have made front pages around the world. The threats people there face seem distant and almost trivial compared with the hardships seen in Tibet and Xinjiang. When protesters have scrawled graffiti reading “Today’s Xinjiang, tomorrow’s Hong Kong” it has seemed an overwrought evocation of an impossibly dystopian future. But they have had a point. What has happened in Xinjiang has shown how far Beijing will go to make sure it faces no serious resistance to its authority.
Tibet had taught the same lesson earlier. But China’s rule and Mr Chen’s legacy have yet to pass one difficult test: the death of the current Dalai Lama, and his reincarnation. The 14th has said he might be reincarnated outside China. The Chinese Communist Party, bizarrely, arrogates to itself the right to approve his successor. So it may be that two rival candidates vie for Tibetans’ affections. Perhaps more important, this Dalai Lama, who renounced Tibet’s claim to independence in favour of genuine autonomy under Chinese sovereignty, has been a consistent advocate of dialogue and peace. Without his restraining influence, more Tibetans may be radicalised. Having long hoped that the Dalai Lama’s passing might solve its Tibetan problem, China ought now to be hoping he lives for many December 10ths to come.
Cheers
China’s successful repression in Tibet provides a model for Xinjiang
A little-remarked anniversary is a reminder of China’s victory against dissent
IN AN ANNUAL ritual, hardy groups of activists gathered outside Chinese embassies around the world to mark International Human Rights Day on December 10th. They protested about many Chinese abuses: the encroachment on the freedoms promised Hong Kong; the persecution of the mostly Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang; and the repression of religious and political freedom in Tibet.
For Tibetans, this year marks an important and poignant anniversary: 30 years to the day since their exiled spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama, was in Oslo to receive the Nobel peace prize. It is also an occasion to reflect on how little their cause has advanced since then. If the successful suppression of almost all dissent counts as winning, then China seems to have won in Tibet. And it appears to think it can replicate the success in the neighbouring region that has also seen unrest in recent years, Xinjiang. So it is worth pondering how that “victory” has been achieved.
In 1989 Tibet was a big international issue. That year the violent repression of protests and the imposition of martial law in the capital, Lhasa, had drawn attention to Tibetans’ grievances. A few months later, the massacre that ended demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Beijing reinforced to the world the Chinese government’s image as a brutal dictatorship. The Dalai Lama, a man of peace, dignity and good humour, who counted among his friends and admirers leading politicians and Hollywood stars, furnished an appealing figurehead.
Thirty years on, Tibetans enjoy no more freedom than they did then. Nothing suggests that the reverence most feel for the Dalai Lama has diminished. But his return remains impossible and his image and writings banned. Tibetans continue to complain of restrictions on their religious freedoms and even of discrimination against their own language. But few mass protests have been reported since a vicious outbreak of anti-Chinese violence in Lhasa in 2008. Instead, dissent has been manifested in the sad stories of Tibetans—often Buddhist monks or nuns—setting themselves on fire. Last month the 166th Tibetan (including ten in India or Nepal) to self-immolate since 2008, and the first this year, died in a part of historical Tibet now in China’s Sichuan province.
But, abroad, both repression and unrest in Tibet tend these days largely to be overlooked. Rather, attention has focused on Xinjiang, as news of an internal-security repression of almost unimaginable proportions has slowly leaked out. Hundreds of thousands have been interned in “vocational-training” centres that look very much like prison camps. This week China’s officials claimed that all the detainees there had “graduated” and, since then, “have achieved stable employment, improved their quality of life and have been living a happy life.” It seems unlikely that this means, as some foreign outlets have reported, that they have all been freed. But Tibet has shown that it is possible to subdue a resentful local population without mass incarceration (though active malcontents will surely remain locked up in both places); indeed, many of the techniques from Tibet have already been adopted, and extended, in Xinjiang.
The “Tibet model” of repression relies on four elements: deflect any international pressure; limit foreign contact, monitoring and interference; swamp the territory’s native majority with both economic development and migrants from elsewhere in China; blanket it with surveillance mechanisms and personnel.
In Tibet, the first of these, cutting off international support, was not easy, such was the prestige and personal charm of the Dalai Lama. But China has managed it. That is partly because, at 84, the Dalai Lama is not the tireless globe-trotter he once was. But it is also because of China’s persistence in browbeating and even imposing sanctions on any country that accords him anything resembling an official status.
Unlike his predecessors (Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama), President Donald Trump has not met the Dalai Lama—and has shown no interest in doing so. It is not just politicians who risk China’s wrath. Lady Gaga, a singer very popular in China, has been banned there since meeting the Dalai Lama in Indianapolis in 2016.
Meanwhile, Tibet remains cut off. Individual foreign tourists—never mind journalists or human-rights investigators—are banned (though group tourism from elsewhere in China is booming). The stream of exiles who used to escape through Nepal to India has slowed to a trickle as China guards its border more tightly and bullies Nepal to be less welcoming. Earlier this year Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, a monitoring group, said that working on Tibet was becoming like working on North Korea.
Thanks to tourism and investment in infrastructure, Tibet’s economy last year grew at 9%, faster than all but one Chinese province. The growth brings both jobs, and an influx of Han Chinese, whose presence sparked the resentment that exploded in 2008.
Last, China has in Tibet honed many of the internal-security techniques used in Xinjiang to monitor and forestall protests: stationing work teams in villages and sensitive spots such as monasteries; expanding police presence; and making people sit through hours of political indoctrination. Chen Quanguo, the Communist Party chief in Tibet until August 2016, has since held the same post in Xinjiang. He has brought his skills in containing unrest with him, bolstered by the rapid improvements in the technology of surveillance, through facial-recognition software and the like.
In Hong Kong, six months of protest have made front pages around the world. The threats people there face seem distant and almost trivial compared with the hardships seen in Tibet and Xinjiang. When protesters have scrawled graffiti reading “Today’s Xinjiang, tomorrow’s Hong Kong” it has seemed an overwrought evocation of an impossibly dystopian future. But they have had a point. What has happened in Xinjiang has shown how far Beijing will go to make sure it faces no serious resistance to its authority.
Tibet had taught the same lesson earlier. But China’s rule and Mr Chen’s legacy have yet to pass one difficult test: the death of the current Dalai Lama, and his reincarnation. The 14th has said he might be reincarnated outside China. The Chinese Communist Party, bizarrely, arrogates to itself the right to approve his successor. So it may be that two rival candidates vie for Tibetans’ affections. Perhaps more important, this Dalai Lama, who renounced Tibet’s claim to independence in favour of genuine autonomy under Chinese sovereignty, has been a consistent advocate of dialogue and peace. Without his restraining influence, more Tibetans may be radicalised. Having long hoped that the Dalai Lama’s passing might solve its Tibetan problem, China ought now to be hoping he lives for many December 10ths to come.
Cheers
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Neutering and defanging China is a sick joke when it comes to our " Ministry of Eunuchs and Asses", the MEA.Abandoning Iran when America farted, Iran is now turning to Pak and China.Iran was our route into Central Asia and Afghanistan outflanking Pak,with the Chahbahar port, etc., but thanks to the pro-American MEA that we have, Iran is now conducting joint naval exercises with China and Russia in the Gulf. The Iranian naval chief has also asked China for destroyers and subs..like the ones Pak is getting. Instead of India giving China sleepless nights over the " Malacca dilemma", it is India who will now have sleepless nights in the future worrying about a Paki- Sino- Iranian naval axis threatening energy supplies from the Gulf upon which India is almost totally dependent.Our embrace with the despotic Saudi regime, the birthplace of Sunni Wahaabi terrorism that plagues India, yet again shafting Iran will cost us very dearly. The supreme leader of Iran has called the Beijing- Teheran relations as " strategic", according to the Iranian chieh-of-staff of its armed forces, Md. Baqeiri. What our dangerously tilted foreign policy has also created is the closer military ties between Russia and China who are coming together to combat US moves to isolate and punish Russia in parricular. This will have huge consequences for India if the relationship further develops into a military axis.We will be left high and dry.
India's policy of combating China's cancerous advance across Asia and into the IOR has been an unmitigated disaster. Our weak, spineless foreign policy vis-a-vis China, treating and appeasing the Asian Hitler Xi like an emperor at Mahabalipuram was a huge mistake. Unless we talk less and act more taking urgent military measures, modernisation and expansion especially for the navy, plus cement military relationships with nations like Vietnam as a counter to Pak and Gwadar/ Jiwani,plus realign our tilted foreign policy, we will be beating the retreat
when the Chinese make their move into the IOR and Gulf.An America in political chaos and in military retreat across the region is the worst ally to run after like a loyal lackey.
India's policy of combating China's cancerous advance across Asia and into the IOR has been an unmitigated disaster. Our weak, spineless foreign policy vis-a-vis China, treating and appeasing the Asian Hitler Xi like an emperor at Mahabalipuram was a huge mistake. Unless we talk less and act more taking urgent military measures, modernisation and expansion especially for the navy, plus cement military relationships with nations like Vietnam as a counter to Pak and Gwadar/ Jiwani,plus realign our tilted foreign policy, we will be beating the retreat
when the Chinese make their move into the IOR and Gulf.An America in political chaos and in military retreat across the region is the worst ally to run after like a loyal lackey.
Last edited by Philip on 12 Dec 2019 07:50, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Heard from kids at A&M and friends at UT MD in Houston, almost impossible for Chinese students to get into any meaningful P.hD/Research program. This might be true at other schools too across the country. Similarly, jobs requiring interaction with the federal government with the big consulting firms make sure no Chinese connection is present, heard from someone who works for them.chola wrote:^^^ Because they steal from the best and can make them into reality.
Stealing IP means nothing unless they can make the product. If you gave the Sioux or Bantu plans to the Winchester repeating rifle, they would have still lost to the white man because they had nothing to make the thing.
Cheen has a wide and deep industrial base that can actually build everything they steal along with what they had domestically. The people they steal from might not have that capacity at least not in the volume that can lower prices and create demand.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
i have seen the same at some federal institutions.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Yes. And it is reversing their brain drain.mappunni wrote:Heard from kids at A&M and friends at UT MD in Houston, almost impossible for Chinese students to get into any meaningful P.hD/Research program. This might be true at other schools too across the country. Similarly, jobs requiring interaction with the federal government with the big consulting firms make sure no Chinese connection is present, heard from someone who works for them.chola wrote:^^^ Because they steal from the best and can make them into reality.
Stealing IP means nothing unless they can make the product. If you gave the Sioux or Bantu plans to the Winchester repeating rifle, they would have still lost to the white man because they had nothing to make the thing.
Cheen has a wide and deep industrial base that can actually build everything they steal along with what they had domestically. The people they steal from might not have that capacity at least not in the volume that can lower prices and create demand.
Cheen and Bharat are the largest contributors of Unkil's STEM researchers. Their best and brightest are being forced back to the PRC while ours continue to flow to the US.
In the short term it'll benefit their indigenization programs. Long term though they might lose access to cutting edge US innovations from its campuses. Then again, it'll just steal them as it does now with hacks. So even long term it could advantage them because keeping their best at home could elevate their universities who are already starting to appear on global lists.
We'll see what happens as the US and Cheen decouples. Most Wall Street analysts think it is a 50:50 proposition that Cheen will be weakened or strengthened by this.
Remember, like other non-gora nations Cheen had serious issues retaining talent. It needed the programs like "Thousand Talents" to attract overseas chinis to return. Now the US is making them return.
Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)
Indeed, as China develops links with other countries it will not be isolated in any way whatever the US does in its efforts to curtail Chinese access to.high tech, even America would not be able to fully proof itself due to the high economic interlinks between the two countries. Leaks and counter leaks will happen BOTH ways ( don't think for one second that uncle is a saint when it comes to stealing economic and military secrets., the FIVE EYES program is primarily designed exactly for what China has been doing now), The world will become truly multipolar with a new economic cold war. Market access will become premium as manufacturing capacities exceed the demand and AI continues to cut away jobs in most sectors. The "human factor " will be all too evident as major nation's fight for market access by force or alliances.