Blocked in China

You can do a simple check to see if the Chinese block your website at https://www.comparitech.com/privacy-security-tools/blockedinchina/

My Blogger site is blocked in every site they tested.  Not a big surprise, but it is still nice to know and not have to guess.

Chinese influence on the World's Press

A good report on Chinese methods to limit access to news and espouse its own views to the world.  Interesting because it was written by journalists and not politicians.

- Exporting the “Chinese media model” 
 Combatting “hostile” Western forces
 “Made in China” media events
 Censorship and surveillance: successful exports
Cambodia aligns its media with China’s
 Disinformation and harassment: Chinese-style “sharp power”
2 - Chinese propaganda in the 21st century 
Journalists doing the Party’s bidding
Chinese chatbots dream of America 
The world’s biggest prison for journalists 
 China’s media: heavyweight arrivals on the international stage 
INTERVIEW - “Africa: Chinese media’s laboratory” 
Belt and Road... and media 30 Training foreign journalists in China: a charm offensive
 INTERVIEW - Can you really learn journalism in Beijing?
“Tell the China story well”
3 - Trojan horse policy
 Advertorials “with Chinese characteristics”
 Investing in foreign media
Taiwan’s China Times adopts the Party line
 Art of commercial blackmail
4 - Resistance strategies
 Democracies react
 Two journalism defence initiatives
 RSF’s recommendations

Immigration, Yes

There are two interesting studies on immigration that Pew released in January.  The first says the US population believes that immigration strengthens the country.  The second says that most of the world, including the US, favors immigrants who are high-skilled.  That makes the immigration issue more difficult for the poor, unskilled labor that is coming across the border on the US southern border.  I think this says more to our elected leaders than the din of public comment about "immigrants" who vary quite a bit by education and workforce skill.  We cannot lump them all together and say what we want in the way of legislation to solve the immigration problems. 

Chinese Educators put US Teachers on Notice

In an article of the typical Chinese approach to the rest of the world, The Wall Street Journal has an example of how Chinese businesses try to implement public policy on places not in China.  For a simple example, the Chinese are pushing US teachers to show Taiwan as part of China.  Get over it.  The US is not going to teach it that way in schools just because China thinks it is necessary.  It is the height of arrogance. 

Taking the Next Step Against Chinese Muslims

There is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today about the next step against Muslims in China.  This article points out China has started to destroy communities - tearing them down - and rebuilding them into high-rises.  Whether this is a good thing or not is subject to some interpretation. What they are doing is erasing a way of life - the village - and replacing it with vertical residences that isolate individuals and get them off the street where they communicate. 

We used to live in a neighborhood with a number of immigrants and embassy staff from the Middle East.  We were surprised at how many people did their business outside the office, literally standing outside to talk to people as they came by.  We don't see that much in Falls Church.  We had high-rises all around us and lived in one, and the occasional vendor would walk the common areas shaking hands and introducing themselves.  It seemed odd, but not threatening.

We don't hear much from the human rights advocates about what China has done to the Muslim population.  It is good to see the Journal writing about it.

Note:  I forgot to mention the picture in this article.  It shows how bit some of the camps are.  Row after row of barracks as far as the eye can see with support buildings and a city built up where one did not exist before.  This is a really big business.  As one of my friends said the other day, "If any other country in the world put a million Muslims in detention centers, there would be an uproar.  Not so with China."  It shows the power China has over the world press. 

Chinese Theft of Trade Secrets Made Easy

This is the best article I have seen on how Chinese espionage and theft of trade secrets actually works.  It is a couple of months old and I read it when it first came out.  There is a previous post on it.  I was glad to see it has finally been released for general viewing. 

https://www.wired.com/story/us-china-cybertheft-su-bin/?mbid=BottomRelatedStories_Sections_2&intcid=inline_amp

More Chinese in Camps

There are several articles today about camps in north-west China.  The numbers of "terrorists" arrested by China seem to have a link to their religion and not their political affiliations.  Pictures show a small number of handguns seized during these arrests.  One, I noted, was a flintlock which is not really a very dangerous weapon in a gun fight.  The Chicago Police seize more weapons than that in a short sweep through the neighborhoods.  There are supposed to have been 13,000 terrorists arrested.  That is a big number if they really were terrorists. 

Blogger link

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9033304048882784982#allposts

Hearing on Russia-China Cooperation

he U.S.-China Commission will be holding a hearing entitled “An Emerging China-Russia Axis? Implications for the United States in an Era of Strategic Competition” on Thursday, March 21, in Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 419, starting at 9:30 AM.

US Aids Ukraine Navy

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the U.S. is helping to build up the Ukrainian navy to help them with Russian efforts to squeeze them in the south where they have ports.  The Russians seized ships and crews which have not yet been released after four months.  Anywhere else, this would be an act of war, but we don't hear the UN or the EU saying this is even an international incident. 

Brits Give Some Back to Russians

Good story in the Wall Street Journal about what was done to counter am organized information attack on the UK. 

" The British response to last year’s attack on the Skripals, however, gave the Kremlin a taste of something new. As Russia launched its disinformation campaign, the British struck back. They took the Russians to task at the United Nations, expelled Russian diplomats, rallied support among European and North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners, and set up a central communications team to coordinate the release of details about the two men linked by closed-circuit television footage to the attack. "

China's New Ownership Restrictions

While we have been hearing about all the wonderful changes China is making, leading up to the trade agreement, we might look at what China has not done.  There was a short article in the Wall Street Journal that reminds us that there are many more restrictions on foreign entities in China than elsewhere. 

"Beijing caps foreign shareholdings for onshore stocks at 30% in total, and 10% for any single shareholder. Chinese stocks are growing in importance to global investors, but outsiders face other constraints in betting on Chinese markets, including trading suspensions and a lack of ways to hedge their risks through futures and options."

This is just one small example of how China is a great at asking for foreign concessions on trade, but is often unwilling to make them themselves. 

The Russians Never Stop

It is possible to believe the Russians have done quite a bit of disruption in the U.S. by bots and real people pretending to  be somebody they aren't.  But, really they did stories on children's vaccinations?  Yes, they did. 

Both sides of the argument on whether the vaccinations are good or bad for taking with minimal risk.  It turns out the Russians did fund these campaigns and actually got the target audience to reconsider getting them for children.  That led to outbreaks of measles that were difficult to control.  This is the kind of Information War we could do without.  When they go after children, we need some help in finding them so we can do them physical harm.  Sometimes it is enough to just recognize what they are doing so we can be better prepared;  sometimes we want to have retaliation; and, on a few rare cases, we want to hurt someone who does this kind of thing.  This is one of those times.

Huawei's Little Lambs

Nice the hear that Huawei will not  "be victimized like silent lambs" an image that is more rhetorical than legitimate dialog.  Huawei has an innocence campaign pushing to convince the world that it is "just like any other company" - not influenced by the Communist Party or the State.  The problem they have faced is that is not believable. 

The Chinese think if they say something long enough, repeating it in different ways, it will become truth to most of the world. First, the US government already knows the truth of that influence and what Huawei is doing at the behest of the intelligence services of China.  This suit against the US government is a thinly disguised attempt to force the US to disclose some of that knowledge in public.  It won't happen, and the Chinese know it.  This is not something that is allowed to be shown in public proceedings.  If the Federal government decides to be sued (not a given by any means) they are not going to drag our intelligence services into court to prove what we know about Huawei.  That is a national security issue.  Other countries understand these kinds of secrets, and as hard as the Chinese try to say "there is no proof that Huawei has done anything", those countries know a good bit about what Huawei has been doing. The US shares intelligence with them. 

The New McCarthyism

I grew up with McCarthyism in my school.  McCarthy eventually got his when people woke up
to the ethics of what he was doing.  We can only Hope the fate of Jerrod Nadler is the same.

Facebook Nails Chinese Companies Creating Fake Accounts

It seems Chinese companies have been creating fake accounts for use in influence campaigns.  The Journal says, "Starting in 2017, the companies marketed and sold fake accounts in large quantities through six websites with similar domain names to Facebook such as myfacebook.cc and 9xiufacebook.com, according to the complaint filed Friday in San Francisco federal court." 

You have to say these kinds of accounts are far from covert since they are advertised and openly sold.  We can applaud Facebook for doing something about it, but this kind of thing appears to be
simple exploitation for profit and not anything tied to a real government campaign of influence.  Governments don't advertise accounts for use by anyone who can afford them.  They hide the owner and the people using them with fake names and dummy addresses. 

Former Director CIA Speaks about Huawei

Secretary of State Pompeo spoke about Huawei's connections to the Chinese intelligence services and is owned by the state.  Huawei has long said it was an employee owned company and was not managed or influenced by the Chinese government but in this sentence Pompeo puts that to rest: “Huawei is owned by the state of China and has deep connections to their intelligence service. That should send off flares for everybody who understands what the Chinese military and Chinese intelligence services do. We have to take that threat seriou

The New York Times ran a series of articles about Huawei and how the US knows what Huawei really does and where it gets its tasking.  If you missed it, Huawei is about to try to sue the U.S. government which is clearly an attempt to try to expose how the U.S. knows anything about Huawei and how it is motivated and controlled by China's central government. 

New Huawei Indictment

It's long but worth reading just for the spelling out of charges that Huawei faces.  https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-telecommunications-conglomerate-huawei-and-huawei-cfo-wanzhou-meng-charged-financial

China Steals Secrets, Then Uses Them for Profit

One of the steps we miss when we think of the theft of trade secrets by China is how those are being used to benefit Chinese industry.  They don't just steal this stuff for fun.  A case in Tennessee tells how that is done. 

"Details of the conspiracy are included in the indictment on file with the U.S. District Court.  The indictment alleges that You, Liu, and a third co-conspirator formulated a plan in which You would exploit her employment with the two American employers to steal trade secrets and provide the information for the economic benefit of trade secrets the Chinese company that Liu managed, which would manufacture and profit from products developed using the stolen trade secrets.  In exchange, Liu would cause the Chinese company to reward You for her theft, by helping her receive the Thousand Talent and another financial award, based on the trade secrets she stole, and by giving You an ownership share of a new company that would “own” the stolen trade secrets in China.  The conspirators also agreed to compete with U.S. and foreign companies, including some of the owners of the stolen stolen trade secrets, in China and elsewhere, by selling products designed, developed and manufactured using the stolen trade secrets.

So, it appears the charges outline several things:  (1) the Chinese are knowingly stealing trade secrets and paying people to do it (2) they file Chinese patents on things they steal (3) they use the stolen information to build new items based on the Chinese patents.  I wrote about this in my first book, some 10 years ago.  They haven't stopped and no agreements are going to stop it any time soon. 

Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov Speaks on Information War

This won't be the first time we have heard the Russian Chief of General Staff talk on the subject of Information Operations.  What he describes is almost exactly what his boss has said the Russians were not doing - interfering with elections in many countries, using covert forces to make military incursions, and campaigns in the Ukraine and Syria.  In a subtle way, he confirms most all of our suspicions about Russian Information War.

The Times article says this:  "In the 2013 article, General Gerasimov wrote that there were no clear borders between war and peace in the modern world. Militaries fight in peacetime, he said, and political and economic means are deployed in war."  President Putin has been listening and other branches of the government have been pulled in to do their part. 

Citizen Lab Targeted

There is an interesting story about the Citizen Lab, part of the University of Toronto. Citizen Lab has done good work looking at a number of state-sponsored hacking efforts all over the world.  One of those must have hit home. 

It looks like the Israelis did not like what was being said about NSO, an Israeli security company.  They tried to get a couple of employees at Citizen Lab to say they hated Israel or distrusted Israel for some reason.  They are fortunate the guys picked up on their contacts (in person and on-line) and reported them.  They should have given it to RCMP and let these people be arrested. 

Huawei Tries, but Fails to Convince

Huawei's Chief Security Officer, Andy Purdy, was on Fox Business today trying to explain why Huawei was not a risk to those buying their equipment.  Fox was not very kind to him, pointing out that he says he has members of the Chinese Communist Party on the Board, something unavoidable in China, and Huawei "has never had a security incident" in any country.  Everyone on Fox's panel laughed at that. 

He did say one thing that bothered me, his claim that Telecom providers do the security for networks and nothing Huawei could do would undo that.  That is preposterous.  If Huawei is making its equipment to benefit the Chinese intelligence services, there is very little a telecom can do to stop that information going back to China.  The network traffic has been diverted 3 or 4 times in the last couple of years.  That does not even speak to the individual servers sending information back to China. 

The US intelligence community knows exactly what Huawei is doing.  The New York Times published a series of David Sanger articles on this and it is clear our government knows what they are doing.  It is worse than anyone from Huawei could ever overcome.  They were better off when they said nothing. 

Plagiarism in China's Leadership

The Financial Times had an article yesterday saying they had reviewed 10 on-line PhD theses of the Chinese Politburo ( not all of them had their theses on line) and found plagiarism in three of them.  That is a pretty high rate, even if it is a small sample. 

I wish the academic communities of the world did more reviews of plagiarism in its colleges and universities.  China is certainly not the only example of senior officials getting a degree using someone else's work.  These are academic cheaters.  You would think a university would do a little checking since the work has to be reviewed by graduate professors.  They should know that the words are a little too familiar and need to be checked. 

This is not the same as buying a degree.  I once sat on a contract award where we reviewed proposals.  In one of them were six PhDs from the same university - that I had never heard of.   I checked it out and talked to the contracting officer.  She contacted the company and asked for an explanation in writing of the credentials of this university.  They withdrew their proposal the next day, without explanation. 

This is not just a Chinese problem but it is an indication of the real thought that went into the PhDs of some of the leaders.   It is a fraud on the themselves and on the people they govern.