How China locked down internally for COVID-19, but pushed foreign travel - "There is new evidence to show that China locked down all domestic traffic internally by end January 2020 but pushed to open foreign travel till end March. Data from Tom Tom traffic index, a traffic location site that covers 416 cities across 57 countries show that as a result of this strategy, China, intentionally or otherwise, was able to lockdown its cities unknown to the world. While this reduced the spread of the Corona virus within China, China’s aggressive foreign travel policy lead to a virus explosion worldwide... On January 22 at a meeting to decide the measures to be taken, WHO was not able warn the world of the severity of COVID-19 apparently because of resistance from Beijing. (WHO referred to it as “divergent views”)... China’s vice-minister of foreign affairs Qin Gang met Italy’s ambassador to China Luca Ferrari in Beijing following the flight ban. “Italy’s decision to stop flights without contacting China in advance caused great inconvenience to citizens of both countries. Many Chinese are still stranded in Italy,” the foreign ministry said on its website the following day. The U.S. issued a travel advisory against China travel on the 2nd of February but did not ban all services. While Chinese authorities limited domestic flights from Wuhan to other Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai in an effort to contain the outbreak in January, it urged international carriers to maintain their flying schedules... While implementing a total domestic lockdown in February, China kept assuring the world that the situation was not serious and fully under control. China kept on the facade of hiding the severity of the virus attack till mid March"
So much for the "conspiracy" that China infected the world on purpose
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Investigating Nigeria's protest shootings - "‘We’re in the northern Frontier Province of Inner Mongolia, which borders the country of Mongolia, because parents have been protesting outside schools and withholding their children from class. This follows the government order to reduce the number of classes taught in the Mongolian language in favor of Mandarin. Ethnic Mongolians now make up less than 20% of the population in this region, and only half of them speak their own language. The fear has been that if you reduce teaching in Mongolian, it could even further erode the level of Mongolian proficiency in the province. Some activists have gone further and said that this is a deliberate move by Beijing to hasten the assimilation of Mongolians into the dominant Han Chinese culture. The authorities however, argue that these concerns have been completely overblown. They say it's only a few subjects which will now switch over to Chinese’
First, they came for the Tibetans...
Kimchi wars: South Korean academic takes spat with China to new level with tart ad in New York Times - "A renowned South Koreanacademic activist has taken the simmering row with Chinaover which country invented kimchi to a new level – by placing an advertisement in The New York Times promoting it as a purely Korean culinary offering.Seo Kyoung-duk, a professor at Sungshin University in Seoul who specialises in publicity, said he launched the campaign announcing Kimchi as an “iconic food of Korea and its culture”, as acknowledged by Unesco, “in order to let all the peoples in the world know clearly that kimchi belongs to Koreans, pure and simple”... Seo said he felt compelled to place the ad in response to China taking credit for being the origin of the fermented vegetable dish, whose popularity is gaining worldwide... Beijing recently won certification from the International Organization for Standardisation (ISO) for pao cai, a pickled vegetable dish from Sichuan province in southwestern China, an achievement Global Times, a tabloid affiliated with Communist Party mouthpiece People‘s Daily, reported as “an international standard for the kimchi industry led by China”. That claim was refuted by the ISO, which clarified that the certification was for pao cai, not kimchi. Pao cai is a typical Chinese pickled vegetable dish, but differs from kimchi in its preparation method and ingredients used... A kimchi-making video uploaded by Chinese internet culinary sensation Li Ziqi with the hashtag #ChineseFood also added fuel to the flare-up online, with critics saying the 19-minute video insulted Korean culture.Meanwhile, China has pulled the plug on a South Korean social media influencer after she added a thumbs-up emoji to comments online criticising China for claiming to be the origin of kimchi and ssam, a pork-and-vegetables wrap.The influencer, nicknamed Hamzy, was kicked off Chinese microblogging site Weibo and video-sharing website Bilibili, with all her postings erased... The Shanghai-based company Suxian Advertising, which runs Hamzy‘s video accounts and her online shop on the e-commerce site Taobao, also said it planned to terminate its contract with her, shut down her online shop and delete her videos... kimchi is not the only Korean cultural item China claims as its own, noting that Korea‘s flowing traditional robe, the Hanbok, and its ancient solo opera form Pansori are also said by many Chinese people to have their origins in the mainland. He attributed the seeming cultural appropriation to nationalist envy. “Chinese people may feel threatened by the rise of K-pop, including boy band group BTS, K-drama and K-films such as the Oscar-winner Parasite, as Asian culture was almost synonymous with Chinese culture in the past”... “If China ends up alienating many Koreans over kimchi, it would satisfy Chinese people‘s nationalistic ego for a moment but it would not be helpful for China’s ling-term national interests”"
Dangers Of Building Ultra Patriotism As Chinese Claim Vladivostok As Haishenwai - "The Russian Embassy to China posted a video on Weibo on July 2 – the date of the anniversary, resulting in a wave of abuse from Chinese social media users across various platforms who claimed that the territory of Primorsky Krai of which Vladivostok is the administrative capital, historically belonged to China... The CPC has long encouraged a form of patriotism among its citizens as most nations do. The difficulty comes when China is faced with its own colonial past – and when that rubs up against today’s Communist Party"
Germany ends China honeymoon with new Indo-Pacific strategy - "After years of shaping its Asian strategy around China, Germany has made a sharp break and will focus instead on stronger partnerships with democracies in the region such as Japan and South Korea to promote the rule of law.The shift comes as part of a rising sense of alarm throughout Europe about economic dependence on China and the country's track record on human rights... economic growth has not opened the Chinese market as hoped. German companies operating there have been forced to hand over technology by China's government. Negotiations for an investment treaty between the European Union and China to address such issues have stalled, fueling concerns about becoming too economically dependent on Beijing... Europe as a whole appears to be reevaluating its ties to China. The European Union in 2019 labeled China a "strategic competitor," highlighting its trade and technological rivalry with the Asian giant. A shift toward a more sober strategy on Beijing has occurred, said Patrick Koellner at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies... The U.K. and France also have begun freezing Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technology out of their 5G networks"
Hillel Neuer on Twitter - "Ahead of the election, some businesses in the US are boarding up their store windows fearing post-election unrest. This kind of unrest is usually complication of elections in poor countries, but people are worried it may appear in the US. The US is in degradation." "you don't even have elections"
China Has Built a Massive Global Database for Hybrid Warfare, International Media Reports - "A major international media investigation has revealed that a technology firm linked to the Chinese Communist Party has created and mined a global database of 2.4 million individuals – many of them political leaders, scientists, journalists and others in positions of influence – based on their online presence in order to monitor them and their networks... AFR notes that out of the 35,000 Australians, the database refers to 656 as “special interest” or “politically exposed” – terms whose exact meaning remains unknown. The special tags suggest that the database was mostly likely designed to be used by the Chinese government for clandestine targeting of individuals for various intelligence operations. The database also includes names of 52,000 Americans, along with nationals from the U.K., Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia and even Papua New Guinea, AFR reports. It also notes that in one instance the database was used to monitor “the career progression of a U.S. naval officer” who was “flagged as a future commander of a nuclear aircraft carrier.” This suggests that the database was created for predictive analytics of the kind used by social media giants."
Project Insight!
Calls for UK ban on all Chinese data firms after leak reveals 40,000 Britons in intelligence files - "No Chinese company dealing with data should be allowed to operate in the UK, a senior Conservative MP has said, following revelations that a firm has collected intelligence on 40,000 people in Britain.Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, said all Chinese internet and data companies should be ejected from the UK to protect British citizens' cyber security... “Given grave concerns about the ability of the Chinese state to obtain data held by Chinese companies, it stands to reason that we should be wary of allowing any such companies to operate in the UK.""
How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company - WSJ - "The deal was a sham. It was a trap designed to secure my intellectual property, then use intimidation tactics and lies to nullify the agreement and seize control... the joint venture applied for 510 Chinese patents for my designs, technologies, trade secrets and engineering developments. Most of the patent filings didn’t even list me as the inventor. With many of these Chinese patents approved, Rugao was ready to take over the joint venture and steal the intellectual property. Rugao is now claiming the initial valuation of my contributions was based on false information. But the city government itself requested, verified and accepted the valuation, picking at the outset three separate firms to conduct independent appraisals. The government never contested any of what these reviews found. In the past three months, Rugao has demanded the valuation companies say their findings were based on false information.You could ask Grace Yin Xu about this—if you could find her. Grace is a Chinese national who serves as the director of corporate affairs for Jiangsu Saleen. In the early stages of the deal Grace was a liaison between the joint venture and the valuation firms. Chinese law enforcement recently instructed Grace to say that my business partner provided false information and embezzled money. She refused to lie. She entered a government building in Rugao on the morning of June 22 and hasn’t been heard from since. Rugao law enforcement also detained Frank Sterzer, our vice president of manufacturing, for intimidation on June 29. Frank, a German citizen, was released after six hours with no explanation for the detention after he managed to contact the German Embassy using a cellphone the police forgot to confiscate... China’s aggressive theft of intellectual property is well documented. In a 2019 survey of the CNBC Global CFO Council, 1 in 5 North American corporations said China had stolen their intellectual property within the past year. By one estimate this stealing costs the American economy $600 billion annually.China can no longer go unchecked... The U.S. should also deny thieves access to banking systems and require the Securities and Exchange Commission to judge whether a company’s use of stolen intellectual property is a material condition that should be publicly reported. In addition to blocking such goods from the U.S. market, Congress should pass legislation to block banks, investment companies and other financial institutions and stock exchanges from using asset valuation reports prepared by any Chinese asset valuation firms. These reports are easily manipulated by the Chinese government.Such measures may not be enough to protect my 40 years of work and the brand I have built. But it isn’t too late for other American entrepreneurs whose livelihoods are at stake. Congress, and the Trump administration should send a clear message to China: If you want to be in the race, play by the rules."
The perils of doing business in China
Facebook - "I am mortified by this news. Had no idea that the Chinese intelligence apparatus was using SINGAPOREANS to SPY here in the United States? Turns out that Dickson Yeo happens to be a Facebook friend of mine. And here is the news of his conviction by the Department of Justice for spying on behalf of the Chinese... According to court documents, he was recruited in 2015 by China intelligence operatives on a visit to Beijing where he gave a presentation on the political situation in South-east Asia. He continued to meet them during his various trips to China over the next few years, and regularly received special treatment when entering China. His Chinese handlers asked him to get non-public information about the US Commerce Department, artificial intelligence, and the US-China trade war, even instructing him to create a fake consulting company in 2018. Yeo eventually moved to Washington DC where he attended multiple events at think-tanks to network and recruit more people to write reports... While examples of how the Chinese Communist Party exploits the openness of American society abound, this time, it's clear that they are also using FOREIGN nationals (in this case, Singaporean) of Chinese descent. Seriously this is not the first time I caught a Chinese spy lurking among my friends. Another was a friend who was in the MIT network."
Twitter removes China US embassy post saying Uighur women no longer 'baby-making machines' - "The post linked to an article by state mouthpiece China Daily, and said: “Study shows that in the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines. They are more confident and independent.”... An extensive investigation by Associated Press found authorities subjected hundreds of thousands of Uighur women to pregnancy checks, and forced intrauterine devices, sterilisation and abortion. The AP found birthrates collapsed by more than 60% between 2015 and 2018 in the mostly Uighur regions of Hotan and Kashgar, compared with a fall of 4.2% nationwide. The AP said its findings were on based on government statistics, state documents and interviews with 30 ex-detainees, family members and a former detention camp instructor... In September one Uighur woman, Sidik, told the Guardian she was coerced into having an IUD at the age of 47, and being sterilised three years later. She said a text message – seen by the Guardian – came from authorities and told her: “Do not gamble with your life, don’t even try.”"
China knows how to mobilise wokeness for its benefit
