Links - 2nd August 2020 (2) (China's 'Peaceful' Rise)

'No remedy, no rights': China blocks foreigners from leaving - "Mandy Luo was supposed to get on a plane back to Seattle with her mother and finish high school like everyone else.But at the airport in Shanghai, a security officer told Luo’s mother, Jodie Chen, that she could not leave China. Neither could her stepfather, a U.S. citizen named Daniel Hsu... Luo was effectively orphaned in suburban Seattle at the age of 16 because of Chinese laws that give authorities broad discretion to block both Chinese and foreign nationals from leaving the country. Critics say the practice reeks of hostage-taking and collective punishment, in violation of international law. They also warn it lays bare China’s will to exert influence, not just over Chinese citizens in China, but also against permanent residents and citizens of other countries... People didn’t realize they couldn’t leave China until they were blocked at the airport. They received no formal notification of why they were being held in China. There was no limit on the duration of exit bans and no clear mechanism for resolving, or disputing, them. People were held even if they themselves had not been accused of wrongdoing.“This is shocking and unacceptable behavior by the Chinese government and a clear violation of international law,” said James P. McGovern, chair of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China... “In the past they focused on dissidents within China,” said Feng Chongyi, an academic and Australian permanent resident who was blocked from leaving China in 2017 and interrogated. “They start to use this measure to silence overseas Chinese as well. It’s an expansion of Chinese political power.”The United States, Canada and Australia have issued travel advisories, warning that foreign citizens can be blocked from leaving China over disputes they may not be directly involved in. The number of foreign citizens subject to exit bans is difficult to track because China does not report cases to consular authorities, but diplomats from three countries told AP that, anecdotally, the number of cases has been rising... Many countries can bar people accused of crimes or needed as witnesses to legal proceedings from leaving. But scholars say China’s use of travel bans exceeds these international norms.“China is taking advantage of its growing strength in the international community to violate the law and not pay a heavy price for it,” said Thomas Kellogg, executive director of the Center for Asian Law at Georgetown University."

IT BEGINS: Japan Pays Billions To Firms To Leave China, Relocate Production Elsewhere - "Japan has earmarked hundreds of billions of yen of its coronavirus stimulus relief to go toward helping its manufacturing companies move their production plants out of communist China and back to Japan or to other countries... “Japan exports a far larger share of parts and partially finished goods to China than other major industrial nations, according to data compiled for the panel. A February survey by Tokyo Shoko Research found 37 per cent of the more than 2,600 companies that responded were diversifying procurement to places other than China amid the coronavirus crisis.”... China allegedly had blocked U.S. manufacturers from being able to export medical safety gear out of the country as the pandemic exploded worldwide... “We have — right now as we speak, over 50 countries have already imposed some forms of export restrictions in their country against the rest of the world. And what we’ve — what we’re learning from that is that no matter how many treaties you have, no matter how many alliances, no matter how many phone calls, when push comes to shove you run the risk, as a nation, of not having what you need.”"

Republicans and Democrats are in wide agreement on China policy - The Washington Post - "there is clear evidence that China is planning to use the crisis to its economic and political advantage worldwide... outside the Beltway, the coronavirus crisis is actually bringing Americans together on the China issue. Republicans and Democrats now largely agree that the Chinese government bears responsibility for the spread of the pandemic, that it can’t be trusted on this or any other issue, and that the U.S. government should maintain a tough position on China on trade and overall, especially if Beijing again falters in its commitments.“It’s as much of a consensus issue as you can get in today’s divided world,” said Mark Penn, chairman of the Harris Poll. “Overall, there’s very little trust for anything that the Chinese government says or does, especially its premier. Xi Jinping has less than half the credibility of President Trump in this poll.”... The political question for Biden, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, and other party leaders is whether they will take this opportunity to close ranks on the China issue, taking away the Republicans’ political advantage, or instead adopt what some on the far left are pushing — a pro-engagement strategy that paints the United States, not Beijing, as the bigger part of the problem.“That kind of policy doesn’t have a lot of political currency outside of some support among some younger voters,” Penn said. “The majority support here is for making China live up to its promises, regarding China as basically untrustworthy and having a tougher trade policy against them.”... Outrage at the Chinese government’s internment of over 1 million Uighur and other ethnic Muslims in Xinjiang province has brought together the likes of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)... Leaders in both parties should take a look at the data, listen to their constituents and then stop using China as a political weapon against their opponents, because that’s exactly what the CCP wants us to do. Working together to confront China’s bad behavior is not just a national security imperative. It’s also smart politics."

Top Chinese model Li Jingwen bares her freckles for Zara and all hell breaks loose - "International fashion brand Zara has come under fire in China for using one of the country’s top models in a lipstick commercial without first covering up her freckles.Social media users on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, accused the Spanish company of “uglifying China” by depicting Li Jingwen with little make-up and clearly visible freckles in its advertisement... “Does it mean that us Asian women all have dull eyes and have faces fully covered by freckles?”... “Sorry that we Asian women don’t have freckles – or only a small proportion of us have,” wrote another user. “You spent such an effort finding a model with freckles, just like searching for a needle in the sea. How hard you’ve been working on this!”... “Selling products in China had better respect Chinese people’s aesthetic taste. I don’t understand why Zara showed this face with a lot of freckles?”... “Spanish people have different beauty standards and they did not intend to make this model look ugly”... An editorial in China Youth Daily said accusations that Zara was “humiliating China” with the advertisement were groundless... Comparisons were also drawn on social media with the scandal that engulfed Italian brand Dolce & Gabbana in November, when it released a controversial campaign showing a Chinese woman in a red dress trying to eat typical Italian foods – including pizza, spaghetti and a giant version of cannoli – with chopsticks.Dolce & Gabbana’s woes were compounded when its designer Stefano Gabbana described China as “a country of s***” on Instagram. The brand’s sales have yet to recover on the mainland. “The people saying Zara is insulting China are overreacting and they are probably paranoid about being persecuted in the aftermath of D&G incident. They should be more confident with their own country”"
When differing beauty standards interact with insecure people. When virtue signalling for one audience angers another

Vogue magazine accused of racism, 'uglifying' Chinese people in Instagram post - "American Vogue has come under fire on Instagram for a photo and accompanying profile of Chinese model Qizhen Gao... With her wide-set eyes and indiscernible nosebridge, Gao is no conventional beauty by Chinese standards, as commenters were left perplexed, once again, by the perception of 'Asian beauty' through Western eyes.It stirred debate as to whether Vogue was being cluelessly discriminatory despite its best efforts of being inclusive. Some even accused the magazine of "uglifying" the Chinese race (ouch). Vogue's description of Gao having "singular appeal" in the caption was also perceived to carry negative undertones... On Weibo, the discussion centred around whether her face was chosen for being 'high fashion' or if it was an image that once again perpetuated the racist stereotype of 'Asian-ness'."Western media love to portray Asian faces that are far from what is deemed beautiful to us, does that constitute racism?""

Here’s why it matters that China is admitting that its statistics are ‘unreliable’ - The Washington Post - "The Chinese government itself has just publicly acknowledged that its statistics aren’t always reliable. And it has done so not just in English but in Chinese... I show that when leaders change, local GDP growth estimates jump more than electricity and other measured statistics — despite the fact that those other statistics ought to track with GDP. To put it more clearly, energy use and economic growth ought to be closely tied. But only improved GDP statistics will help local bureaucrats advance their careers. And so when those officially reported statistics diverge, one might assume that the GDP figures have been manipulated.Local leaders are given GDP growth targets. Not so coincidentally, as a working paper by Zhang et al. shows, almost every provincial leader beats those targets. Below, a dramatic jump is seen at the target growth rate. Very few provinces report growth below the target, while many provinces report growth just above the target line. This pattern could be the result of “real” improvements in the economy. Alternatively, it could be the result of bureaucrats manipulating — or “juking” — the stats. When Chinese government officials question their own statistics, the rest of us should as well. For example, in a cable released by Wikileaks, the U.S. Embassy described Premier Li Keqiang as “smiling” at “man-made,” unreliable GDP figures from Liaoning, which he was governing at the time... The Chinese expression used to describe this phenomenon is oddly appropriate for the holiday season: Injecting water into the statistics (注水数据), which is reminiscent of the 6 percent water that meat processors added to your Christmas ham to increase profit margins."
Maybe China shills will claim that China didn't actually admit this

How China Built a Twitter Propaganda Machine Then Let It Loose on Coronavirus - "Since August 2019, ProPublica has tracked more than 10,000 suspected fake Twitter accounts involved in a coordinated influence campaign with ties to the Chinese government. Among those are the hacked accounts of users from around the world that now post propaganda and disinformation about the coronavirus outbreak, the Hong Kong protests and other topics of state interest... Suspected Chinese operatives have stepped up their efforts in recent days, according to private messages shared with ProPublica, offering influential Chinese-speaking Twitter users cash for favorable posts. These efforts appear to be aimed at disparate audiences outside the country. Most of the posts we found are in Chinese and appear aimed at influencing the millions of ethnic Chinese who live outside of China’s borders. Others are in English. The tweets are seen by few people living in China; the Great Firewall blocks Twitter from the Chinese internet, though tech-savvy domestic users find workarounds.Twitter is well aware of China’s influence operations. In August and September, the platform announced that it had suspended more than 5,000 suspected Chinese state-controlled accounts and released data about them. Twitter also banned around 200,000 related accounts that had been created but were not yet very active. An analysis by ProPublica shows that the Chinese government’s covert attempts to wield influence on Twitter have persisted. Our examination of an interlocking group of accounts within our data linked the effort to OneSight (Beijing) Technology Ltd., a Beijing-based internet marketing company... Butler’s posts were written to sound like a Hong Konger — in vernacular Cantonese with the traditional Chinese characters widely used in Hong Kong. But whoever was writing the posts occasionally slipped and included some of the simplified Chinese characters used in mainland China. And though the account was ostensibly created by a person named Melinda Butler, the profile photo showed a middle-aged Chinese woman wearing a beige baseball cap... Many of the fake Twitter accounts that ProPublica identified, such as Butler’s, appeared to have been automatically generated using a bank of fake profile photos and usernames. But others, like Keegan’s, belonged to real Twitter users at some point, indicating that the accounts had likely been hijacked... Those accounts’ content and behavior closely mirrored the tactics of the Chinese government influence campaigns publicly unmasked by Twitter in August and September 2019... Thomas’ analysis found covert Twitter campaigns by the Chinese government going back at least two years: “These actors appear to have been active for much longer than we previously realized”... Posts in the network were often accompanied by a chorus of approving comments from obviously fake accounts. The same comments were used over and over to create false engagement... Some of the people banned by Twitter have popped up under new handles. Consider Amanda Chen, a widely followed account claiming to belong to the wife of a Hong Kong policeman. Its Twitter posts attracted attention from pro-Beijing media during the 2019 protests. The persona has tweeted under at least two other handles (@HKvigilance and @AmandaChen202) previously suspended by Twitter. Whoever she is, she now posts with the handle @Nuca12345, an account that was created a decade ago but had no activity before October 2019. @Nuca12345 has amassed more than 4,000 followers in its brief posting history. We have found no independent evidence that the real Amanda Chen exists."

Violence erupts as Chinese officials raid Christian church, drag out members - "Xingguang Church attendees were seen as they attempted to block the entrance as police "officers confiscated phones and used brutal force against some Christian women as well""

WeChat monitors foreign accounts to know what to block in China - Research from Citizen Lab found that sensitive content shared with international WeChat users wound up blocked for Chinese accounts - "WeChat screens images and documents shared by accounts registered outside China after they are sent, then adds the digital signature – or “hash” – of any files deemed sensitive to a blacklist. Those files then cannot be sent or received by China-registered users... Beyond matters of data security, the issue was a moral one, said Deibert: “I would urge international users to consider that, as you use this platform, you’re actually helping to strengthen digital repression in China.”... As is the case with many internet platforms in China, it is all but impossible to ascertain what – if any – restrictions are enacted at the explicit direction of government or Communist Party officials and what come from companies taking steps on their own based on their reading of cyberspace regulations... “If one were to examine closely those terms of service, you’d have no idea that this type of political surveillance is going on.“That's a pretty serious violation that should trigger the attention of government regulators.”... Despite those concerns, Cook predicted that usage of the app among the Chinese diaspora would largely continue, given its crucial role as a bridge to those in China.“They don’t have the liberty to stop using WeChat,” she said. “Because for a lot of people it’s a lifeline.”"

45 Chinese nationals in Nepal demand flights to go home, throw stones - "The protesters, stranded in the country because of flight restrictions, said they had run out of money and didn’t have the means to stay in the country any longer. Their embassy, they said according to reports reaching here, wasn’t helping them. While several countries, including the US, the UK, Australia and France have chartered evacuation flights for their citizens in Nepal, no official flights have been made to rescue stranded Chinese nationals.The protest - some of them held placards such as “I want to go home!” - turned violent when the police stopped them entering a prohibited zone of Singha Darbar that also houses the Prime Minister’s Office."

Can You Hear Me Now? (Ep. 406) - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "[Huawei] and other Chinese companies in particular have presented special concerns. And one part of the F.C.C.’s decision last year involved getting a survey from these rural companies about what Huawei equipment they might have in their networks, and equipment from Z.T.E., and figuring out the costs of removing that equipment from the network. And we are taking that step because we do think that these Chinese companies in particular present a risk. Any Chinese company is subject to China’s national intelligence law. One article of that law requires Huawei and Z.T.E., any company subject to Chinese jurisdiction, to comply with requests from the intelligence services. Another article of that law prohibits any recipient of such a request from disclosing it to their customers. And I think, given the Chinese government’s recent actions on everything from Taiwanese flag emojis on Apple iPhones manufactured in Hong Kong, to N.B.A. stars voicing opinions about Hong Kong, to the use of facial-recognition technology in Xinjiang and others, I think it’s very clear that the Chinese Communist Party is more than happy to promulgate such requests, and that is not a risk, I don’t think, that the American consumer or the American government should take... back in 2015, during the Obama administration, you might have seen that the SF-86 for any applicant for a federal job for many years, including the personal information of their family members and friends, etc., who are listed on those forms, was taken en masse from the Office of Personnel Management. And the speculation was that the People’s Liberation Army of China managed this hack and that the hacked information — was now sitting on servers somewhere in China to be analyzed. And you think about all of the people across the government, U.S. government, who that involves. That is a major data breach, to say the least. I was worried about it when it happened five years ago, and I remain worried about it today...
[On liberal whataboutism, i.e. the US does dastardly things too so what China is doing is fine] Obviously each country has an intelligence service and they pursue activities that those countries believe is in their national interest. But I think there is a distinction between those traditional techniques of intelligence gathering and analysis and what we see from the Chinese Communist Party, from the Russian government, and others. I have put out on my Twitter account, for example, a long-running series of practices by the Chinese Communist Party that combine not just the ability to conduct some of the intelligence activities with what I believe is a malign intent, either to use those technologies to harm their own people, but also to compromise and to steal, in many cases, technologies from other countries. For example, last year, the Department of Justice announced an indictment of certain company officials from Huawei. Huawei officials stole a bunch of sensitive information from T-Mobile, one of our biggest carriers, gave them incentives to steal. Those are the types of things we’re talking about here at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party. And I think, to be honest, we’re dealing with a different kind of threat in this case, from some of the other typical activities we’ve seen."

22 airlines correct their listings for Taiwan - "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has successfully convinced 22 airlines to correct their references to Taiwan, despite Beijing's concerted campaign to intimidate international air carriers into altering them to erroneously include it as part of the communist country.On April 25, 2018, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) sent a threatening letter to 36 international airlines demanding they change their listing for Taiwan on their websites to "Taiwan, China" or "Taiwan Area." On May 5, the White House condemned Beijing's bullying of airlines as "Orwellian nonsense."... Chiu added that Taiwan's national carrier, China Airlines (CAL), should change its name to help clarify the difference between Taiwan and China to the international community"

Europe Joins U.S. Companies Moving Out Of China - "Make no mistake about it, the trade war is absolutely remapping global supply chains ... to the detriment of Chinese manufacturing.The percentage of China-leaving businesses surveyed by quality control and supply chain auditor QIMA was 80% for American companies and 67% for those based in the European Union... European companies are less affected by the trade war because their countries have not slapped tariffs on Chinese imports. But QIMA thinks they have their own reasons to reduce their dependence on China manufacturing. Most are diversifying throughout southeast Asia and closer to home... Companies were moving as China’s labor costs rose and as the government made strides in catching up to Western-style environmental laws.That is not the case in smaller southeast Asian nations, though a move there is not necessarily a step back in time to the 1990s, where China was all cheap labor and ignored pollution and labor rights... Some European companies are also bringing their supply chains closer to home.Turkey and some African countries recorded growth above 40% in inspection and audit demand. QIMA noted that EU textile and apparel makers have increased their sourcing from Romania and Portugal this year.But leaving China is not easy.Besides the fact that companies here have spent more than 20 years getting to know their Chinese partners, Chinese companies have vastly improved their manufacturing quality. The $10 beach chairs found at surf shops at beach tourist towns in the U.S. are still made in China, but so are the $80 ones. And the $80 ones are not getting made in Pakistan. Some countries don’t have the tech or the skill sets to replace China’s move up the value chain. Product quality in South Asia has even deteriorated since the start of 2019, with inspection failure rates over 33% and 37% in India and Pakistan... in Cambodia, over 40% of all goods inspected in the second quarter of this year were unacceptable... Turkey has handled the increased production pace better that most. Following a brief spike in quality issues late last year, local suppliers have succeeded at pushing the inspection failure rate below 25% this year.Made-in-China quality, meanwhile, is getting better. According to QIMA, China manufacturers showed a 13% improvement in the second quarter of 2019. Still, around 25% of Chinese manufacturers still fail to meet standards in quality inspection reports"