The Indian federal home ministry told the country's Supreme Court that "a man does not have a fundamental right" to force sex on his wife, but there were enough laws to protect married women against sexual violence.
The top court is hearing petitions seeking to amend a British-era law that says a man cannot be prosecuted for rape within marriage.
Violence within marriage is rampant in India - according to a recent government survey, one in 25 women have faced sexual violence from their husbands.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3477581
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20241004154827/https://www.bestit.wang/2024/09/27/10000-foreigners-detained-across-ccp-prison-network-journalist/)
**Addition**: This is a [Witness Statement to the U.S. Congressional Executive Commission on China (pdf)](https://www.cecc.gov/sites/evo-subsites/www.cecc.gov/files/evo-media-document/Cedric%20Witek%20-%20Statement%20to%20the%20US%20Congressional%20Executive%20Commission%20on%20David%20McMahon%20Case_0.pdf) by Cedric Witek, a French national and corporate-crime investigator who has helped foreign nationals imprisoned in China.
>
> An Australian Senate Committee has been told that around 10,000 foreigners, including Australians, are currently held in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) prison system.
>
> At an inquiry hearing on Sept. 26, Peter Humphrey, a former British journalist and businessman involved with China for 50 years, shared his experience of being wrongfully detained by the communist regime.
> Humphrey and his Chinese American wife were arrested in 2013 on false charges of illegal “information gathering.”
>
> [...]
>
> Humphrey also said the CCP did not provide Australians or foreigners with proper legal proceedings.
> “Not a single Australian prisoner has had a fair and transparent trial. Some are in dire health. Some are over 50, aging rapidly,” he told the Senate Committee.
>
> [...]
>
> The former businessman explained that all organs of the judicial system–the police, the prosecution, the judiciary, the prisons, and Chinese lawyers–formed an organic whole under the regime’s complete control.
>
> “No judge is independent or impartial. He is just a messenger of the party,” he said.
>
> **“The system is exploited by connected individuals to harm people they have a grudge against."**
>
> “Cases are built upon forced confessions, often televised and upon forced witness statements.”
>
> At the same time, Humphrey shared about the harsh living conditions of prisioners [...] in CCP’s prisons, where they had to sleep on the floor in a small cell full of people and eat filthy, appalling food.
>
> [...]
>
> There was also the withholding of proper medical treatment [from prisoners], even for cancer, Humphrey added.
>
> [...]
>
> Furthermore, Humphrey said Australia and other countries had a mindset of putting commercial relations above the interests of individual citizens who had been wrongfully detained.
>
> [...]
>
> Specifically, Humphrey said there needed to be legislation that would put a greater onus on the Australian government to act, and legislation that would punish China for its acts of arbitrarily and unjustly detaining Australian citizens.
>
> “You need to send out the message that if you touch an Australian, we’re going to make you and your friends’ life hell,” he said.
> “Western democracies should link hands in this approach and put on a united front.
>
> [...]
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3451147
> [Archived link](http://web.archive.org/web/20241004114341/https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/10/04/brussels-breaks-impasse-after-eu-countries-fail-to-agree-on-chinese-ev-tariffs)
>
> European Union countries failed to agree on whether to slap China-made electric vehicles (EVs) with steeper tariffs during a closely watched vote that ended with too many abstentions, forcing the European Commission to overcome the political impasse and push its proposal over the finish line.
>
> The outcome of Friday's vote was not publicly available, although several diplomats told Euronews how each member state positioned itself:
>
> - 10 were in favour: Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, the Netherlands and Poland. (45.99% of the EU population)
> - 12 abstained: Belgium, the Czech Republic, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Austria, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and Finland. (31.36%)
> - Five were against: Germany, Hungary, Malta, Slovenia and Slovakia. (22.65%)
>
> The high number of abstentions reflects long-standing qualms about how Europe should stand up to China. Although the political consensus says that Beijing's unfair trade practices merit a forceful, united response, threats of commercial retaliation appear to have dampened the resolve of many capitals as the make-or-break date neared closer.
>
> It was up to the Commission, which has exclusive powers to set the bloc's commercial policy, to break the gridlock and ensure the duties go through.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3446104
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20241003064010/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/09/21/british-travel-bloggers-sugarcoating-china-uyghur-problem/)
>
> In the heart of Xinjiang, the Chinese region where more than one million Uyghurs are believed to be detained in re-education camps, two carefree British travel vloggers cheerfully introduce their viewers to “one of the most controversial areas” of the country.
>
> Journalists are harassed and heavily monitored in the rugged western province, where Western governments and rights groups have accused the authorities of suppressing Muslim minorities through mass surveillance, abuse and political indoctrination.
>
> But foreign YouTube influencers are warmly welcomed by the normally censor-happy Chinese government, which seizes on their happy-go-lucky content to legitimise its own narrative that no human rights abuses are taking place.
>
> [...]
>
> As the country reopens for travel after years of pandemic isolation, foreign influencers, including many Brits, are heading East armed with cameras and tripods, eyeing an increasingly lucrative YouTube market with an eager audience ready to increase their ratings.
>
> The Chinese government has given them a helping hand with a raft of new visa-free policies, and the country received over 17 million foreign travellers in the first seven months of this year, up by almost 130% year-on-year, according to foreign ministry figures.
>
> [...]
>
> But a growing number are entering lesser-known regions including Xinjiang, which for years has been beset by allegations of severe human rights abuses and repression that Beijing justifies as necessary to fight terrorism.
>
> Some YouTubers setting foot in the rugged region attempt to draw viewers with sensational titles about exposing Western media “lies” about Xinjiang or by alluding to the risks of travelling there.
>
> [...]
>
> There is no suggestion any of the vloggers are acting at the behest of the Chinese government or receiving its money, but titles about media deception echo official state messaging about the West’s perceived anti-China narrative, particularly on fundamental rights.
>
> For China, the influx of influencers offers the opportunity to rebut overseas criticisms and reinforce its stance through highlighting the unimpeded visits of awestruck foreigners.
>
> The footage, amplified by Chinese social media platforms and state-run outlets, receive hundreds of thousands of views and screeds of favourable comments.
>
> An increasing number of international vloggers were visiting Xinjiang “with great curiosity,” noted a recent article in the [state-controlled] Global Times.
>
> [...]
>
> Daria Impiombato, a cyber analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, has co-written several reports on China’s multilayered ways of folding local and foreign influencers into its propaganda strategy.
>
> She said vloggers with large platforms had a responsibility to inform themselves and to be sceptical.
>
> “There needs to be a reckoning with that type of platform,” she said. **“It’s like influencers who are going to Syria, just doing travel vlogs from Syria without talking about years and years of war and devastation. You can’t do that, and you can’t do that in Xinjiang either.”**
>
> [...]
>
> Maya Wang, the associate China director at Human Rights Watch, urged travellers to be more aware in societies suffering human right abuses and “not be complicit in the censorship and disinformation that the Chinese government hopes to achieve.”
>
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3446914
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20241004072108/https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/10/03/moldova-uncovers-unprecedented-pro-russia-vote-rigging-a86567)
>
> **Moldovan police carried out dozens of raids Thursday after discovering that at least $15 million was transferred from Russia to Moldovan citizens in an "unprecedented" effort to tamper with presidential elections this month.**
>
> Moldova's pro-European President Maia Sandu, who is seeking a second term, has repeatedly accused Russia of political interference in the country, which lies between war-torn Ukraine and EU member Romania.
>
> [...]
>
> More than 100,000 people with the right to vote were thought to be involved in the vote-buying scheme, [police chief Viorel] Cernauteanu said.
>
> Police raided 25 locations over what he called an "unprecedented" and "large-scale phenomenon... to disrupt the electoral process."
>
> The money was funneled into the country of 2.6 million by people affiliated with Ilan Shor, a fugitive businessman and former politician, police said.
>
> People affiliated with his “criminal organization” recruited 70,000 sympathizers to cast their ballots for a specific candidate in exchange for money. Voters were also told to reject joining the European Union in a referendum set for October 20, the same day as the presidential elections.
>
> [...]
>
> Moldovan police also seized about $1 million of what they called "illegal political financing" from people returning from the April gathering.
>
> In June, the United States, Britain and Canada warned of a Russian "plot" to influence Moldova's presidential elections and "incite protests" if a pro-Russian candidate failed to win.
>
> [Corrected broken link.]
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3446962
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20241002205833/https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/10/02/it-could-become-a-trigger-fearing-public-discontent-the-kremlin-tells-russian-state-media-not-to-report-on-its-defense-spending-hike)
>
> In late September, the Russian government submitted a draft budget for 2025–2027 to the State Duma for approval. The plan calls for a **record-setting 41 percent of federal spending to go to national security and defense**, leaving little doubt that the war in Ukraine is the Kremlin’s top priority. With many citizens struggling economically amid ongoing inflation and labor shortages, however, the Putin administration fears that news of a military spending boost will hurt the authorities’ approval ratings — and has instructed the pro-Kremlin media to cover the budget accordingly, Meduza’s sources say.
>
> **The Putin administration is worried the government’s new budget will “create a negative perception among citizens”** and could lead to a decline in the government’s approval ratings, two sources close to the president’s political team told Meduza.
>
> Immediately after Bloomberg published an article on the planned defense spending increase on September 23, the Putin administration sent instructions to Russia’s state-backed and pro-Kremlin media telling them to ignore the report, the sources said. Two sources from these media outlets confirmed this to Meduza; one said that officials told reporters “not to touch this topic” because “the budget hasn’t been passed yet.”
>
> [...]
>
> According to another source close to the president’s team, the Kremlin wants media coverage of the budget to inspire “social optimism, not pessimism, in the context that everything is going towards the war.” The source continued: “The messaging around the special military operation’s goals is still unclear. So far, it’s been possible to portray military activity as happening somewhere far away and not affecting people directly. But the increase in military spending could become a trigger: What is the money being spent on and why?”
>
> [...]
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3445013
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20241001070006/https://apnews.com/article/china-disinformation-fake-news-russia-3085f10d6edca36f6415d6410e5ef874)
>
> Shannon Van Sant, an adviser to the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, tracked a network of dozens of sites that posed as news organizations. One site mimicked The New York Times, using a similar font and design in what she called an attempt at legitimacy. The site carried strongly pro-Chinese messages.
>
> When Van Sant researched the site’s reporters she found no information. Their names didn’t belong to any known journalists working in China, and their photos bore telltale signs of being created with AI.
>
> “**Manipulation of the media is ultimately a manipulation of readers and the audience, and this is damaging to democracy and society**,” Van Sant said.
>
> [...]
>
> In addition to its state media, Beijing has turned to foreign players — real or not — to relay messages and lend credibility to narratives favoring the Communist Party, said Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. Xiao also is editor-in-chief of China Digital Times, a bilingual news website that aggregates information from and about China.
>
> [...]
>
> Beijing’s methods are wide-ranging and links to the government are often difficult to prove, Xiao said. But whether it’s journalists with American-sounding names or an Indian influencer, the consistently pro-Beijing messages give them away.
>
> “The implicit message is the same — that the Chinese Communist Party works for its people,” Xiao said.
>
> Analysts at the cybersecurity firm Logically identified 1,200 websites that had carried Russian or Chinese state media stories. The sites often target specific audiences and have names that sound like traditional news organizations or defunct newspapers.
>
> Unlike Russia or Iran, which have displayed clear preferences in the U.S. presidential campaign, Beijing is more cautious and focused on spreading positive content about China.
>
> [...]
>
> Beijing has invested in state media such as the Xinhua news agency and China Central Television to convey its messages to global audiences in various languages and platforms. Media groups at the local level are creating “international communication centers” to build an overseas presence with websites, news channels and social media accounts.
>
> Beijing also has struck media partnerships worldwide.
>
> [...]
>
> **To tell its story, Beijing has not shied away from using fake personas**. A 2023 State Department report detailed the case of a published writer named Yi Fan, originally described as a Chinese foreign ministry analyst. Yi morphed into a journalist, then became an independent analyst.
>
> Yi’s details changed, but the message did not. Through published commentaries and writings, Yi trumpeted close ties between China and Africa, praised Beijing’s approach to environmental sustainability and argued that China must counter distorted Western narratives.
>
> Then there was Wilson Edwards, a supposed Swiss virologist quoted in Chinese media as a COVID-19 expert who criticized the U.S. response. But Swiss officials found no evidence he existed.
>
> “If you exist, we would like to meet you!” the Swiss Embassy in Beijing wrote on social media.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3444980
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20241004051018/https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2024/10/04/2003824760)
>
> **The Taiwanese government warned Chinese not to say anything that would be harmful to the autonomous status of Taiwan or undermine its sovereignty.**
>
> A Chinese couple accused of disrupting a pro-democracy event in Taipei organized by Hong Kong residents has been deported, the National Immigration Agency said in a statement yesterday afternoon.
>
> A Chinese man, surnamed Yao (姚), and his wife were escorted by immigration officials to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, where they boarded a flight to China before noon yesterday, the agency said.
>
> The agency said that it had annulled the couple’s entry permits, citing alleged contraventions of the Regulations Governing the Approval of Entry of People of the Mainland Area into the Taiwan Area.
>
> [...]
>
> The Chinese nationals were aware they were contravening the rules when they applied for temporary entry permits based on visiting family members living in Taiwan, it said.
>
> In a separate statement issued yesterday, the Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) denounced the couple, accusing them of “abusing” the immigration system.
>
> [...]
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3422615
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20241002094937/https://muse.jhu.edu/article/937730)
>
> ***Essay by Carl Minzner, Professor at Fordham Law School and a senior fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.***
>
> **China is steadily sliding deeper into the counterreform era. Economically, it is slowing down. Ideologically, it is closing up. Politically, it is steadily pivoting back toward personalistic one-man rule. As these trends deepen, Beijing’s leaders are erasing core elements of both the reform and revolutionary eras, reviving ruinous Maoist governance practices of the 1950s, and turning back to China’s imperial history in an effort to build a new ideological foundation for their authoritarian rule. Far from paving the way for China’s twenty-first-century rise, Beijing’s counterreforms are exacerbating its structural problems, weakening the nation and undermining its stability.**
>
> [...]
>
> This era—the time of Xi Jinping—is the age of counterreform. Beijing's prime goal is no longer revolutionary social change or even economic growth, but regime stability [...] As Beijing ... slides deeper into the morass of the counterreform era, the PRC [People's Republic of China] is in fact becoming far weaker and less stable.
>
> [...]
>
> The trend toward closure is spreading. Security officials regularly fan fears of foreign espionage, particularly around April 15, designated since 2016 as National Security Education Day. A 2023 anti-espionage crackdown on consulting firms shocked foreign corporations trying to conduct statistical research and due diligence. China's LGBTQ+ groups, meanwhile, are worried by fresh official messages that not only their organizational activities but their members' own sexual and gender identities themselves may be politically problematic. New laws criminalize defamation of regime-designated martyrs and heroes.
>
> [...]
>
> Economically, China continues to slow. Covid lockdowns, a rapidly aging population, and the implosion of a massive property bubble have taken a toll on the once buzzing economy. Annual growth, which registered 6.7 percent as recently as 2016, has steadily fallen. For 2024, the official rate is expected to come in at no higher than 5 percent (the IMF projection) and could be as low as 3 percent.
>
> [...]
>
> Slowing growth is causing real pain. In 2023, youth unemployment [End Page 7] surged to a record high, topping 21 percent. Local governments reliant on land sales to finance rising expenditures are finding themselves strapped for cash. With surging local-government debt has come unpaid wages and pensions and utility price hikes, which ranged from 10 to 50 percent this year in Shanghai and Guangzhou. China's economy continues to boast real strengths, of course. It leads the world in the manufacture of batteries, solar cells, and electric vehicles. **But with graying demographics, unfavorable geopolitical winds, and national leaders who resist a shift to a growth model focused on domestic consumption,** China faces a slower, more stagnant economic future.
>
> [...]
>
> The party-state's propaganda organs have been infusing portrayals of Xi with the strengthening aroma of a cult of personality. Official portraits of him grow ever larger while CCP [Chinese Communist Party] publications grow ever more replete with his quotations. And woe be to the careless cadre who misprints the supreme leader's name. When, in March 2023, a single sentence in the CCP-flagship People's Daily that was supposed to mention him nonetheless failed to do so, millions of copies were recalled.
>
> [...]
>
> The ruthless and comprehensive "rectification" of Hong Kong since 2019, however, has been the most spectacular example of Beijing's erosion of prior bureaucratic and technocratic norms.
>
> [...]
>
> Stronger controls over private life are returning as well. To ward off the specter of social unrest, Xi has been reviving Maoist models of neighborhood surveillance. Since 2017, moreover, **mass political detentions in the far northwestern region of Xinjiang have seen more than a million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities sent to reeducation camps**. Well-off urban Chinese citizens initially brushed these off as anachronistic ideological throwbacks or necessary measures to tame ethnic trouble in remote borderlands.
>
> [...]
>
> What I see [...] is a China in decay. The country today resembles less a rapidly rising power such as the Soviet Union or Japan in the 1950s—full of vigor, on the cusp of a decades-long expansion—and more a mix of stagnant Brezhnevera USSR and 1990s Japan, after its economic bubble collapsed and it entered a long period of sluggish growth. Resting crazy-quilt style atop the whole thing is a patchwork of unresolved Maoist politics, latent reform-era social tensions (inequality is now as sharp as it is in the United States), and the approaching reality of China's becoming (by about 2050) the world's most aged society.
>
> [...]
>
> **As China heads deeper into the counterreform era, the country's worst enemies are neither the foreign threats that Beijing imagines around every corner nor the rising domestic tensions that the regime wants so desperately to suppress. Rather, they are China's own historical and institutional demons that the PRC's leaders are in the process of reviving.**
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3414111
> **Reports suggest that Russia plans to spend more than US$500 million in 2024 alone on so-called “patriot projects.” Much of this effort focuses on two areas: the creation of Russian nationalist youth groups, and the politicization of the nation’s schools – both of which have been increasingly prioritized since the war in Ukraine began.**
>
> [...]
>
> [The most recent organization to faciliate the Russia's politiccization of the youth] is called the Movement of the First. The organization was launched at Putin’s behest in 2022, months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is modeled on the Young Pioneers – a youth organization of Stalinist ideology during the Soviet years.
>
> Putin has boasted that the organization constitutes a “huge army” and routinely praises its activities, which include everything from more traditional civic activities, like tree planting, to explicitly ideological goals. Children, for example, write letters to service members deployed in the invasion of Ukraine.
>
> [...] Another youth group, the Volunteers of Victory, was established by the Russian state in 2015 and has a similar tie-in to Ukraine, as it was launched shortly after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
>
> [...] Among Russia’s biggest youth organization is the The Youth Army, which claims more than 1.6 million members. It was established in 2016 under Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, with the goal of training children for future careers in the uniformed military.
>
> The organization tries to entice young people to join by touting self-actualization and social belonging in the military. Members are instructed in ideological topics like nationalism and more hands-on training like how to handle weapons.
>
> [...]
>
> In 2023, officials in Russia’s far-eastern regions came up with another general curriculum patriotic project, “The ABC of the Important Matters”. The alphabet, which includes words like “army,” “faith,” “honor,” “fatherland,” “homeland” and “traditions,” is already being taught in many kindergartens and elementary schools.
>
> [...]
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3413944
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20241003050147/https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2024/10/03/2003824722)
>
> Chinese tourists allegedly interrupted a protest in Taiwan held by Hong Kongers, knocked down several flags and shouted: “Taiwan and Hong Kong belong to China"
>
> Hong Kong democracy activists were holding a demonstration as Tuesday was China’s National Day.
>
> A video posted online by civic group Hong Kong Outlanders shows a couple, who are allegedly Chinese, during the demonstration.
>
> “Today is China’s National Day, and I won’t allow the displaying of these flags,” the male yells in the video before pushing some demonstrators and knocking down a few flagpoles.
>
> [...]
>
> “Today is to commemorate Hong Kong’s martyrs. We do not celebrate China’s National Day,” it quoted a demonstrator as saying. “We are in Taiwan, and people are free to express their opinion.”
>
> Taiwanese independence advocate Lee Wen-pin (李文賓) and the man reportedly pushed and slapped each other.
>
> “You cannot touch other people’s belongings... We are asking you to leave now,” Lee said, before he called the police.
>
> The man refused to leave and kept saying that “China has sovereignty over Taiwan,” and that “Taiwan and Hong Kong belong to China.”
>
> “Taiwan belongs to Taiwanese, and Hong Kong belongs to Hong Kongers,” the demonstrators said in response.
>
> Later, police officers arrived at the scene and persuaded the couple to leave.
>
> [...]
[Archived link](http://web.archive.org/web/20240930171544/https://tfc-taiwan.org.tw/articles/11065)
The pager and walkie-talkie explosions that occurred in Lebanon on September 17 and 18 resulted in serious casualties and shocked the world. False information quickly circulated over social media among Chinese language users. [...] **For Chinese nationalists, the explosions provided an opportunity to justify the concerns about Western products and demonstrate that only Chinese-made electronic equipment can provide consumer safety.**
Several themes emerged from the Chinese disinformation pieces:
1. The scenes that falsely depicted the explosions
2. The incorrect allegation that Taiwan, Israel, Japan, and the United States were part of a conspiracy network
3. Concerns that iPhones could also explode
4. The claim that wealthy Middle Eastern countries have quickly abandoned Western-made electronic devices in favor of Chinese products, particularly those made by Huawei
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3384598
> China’s sputtering economy has its worried leaders pulling out all the stops.
>
> They have unveiled stimulus measures, offered rare cash handouts [highly unusual as the Chinese Communist Party rejects any kind of social welfare because -according to the party's narrative- it makes people lazy], held a surprise meeting to kickstart growth and tried to shake up an ailing property market with a raft of decisions - they did all of this in the last week.
>
> On Monday, Xi himself spoke of "potential dangers" and being "well-prepared" to overcome grave challenges, which many believe was a reference to the economy.
>
> [...]
>
> Beyond the crisis in real estate, steep public debt and rising unemployment have hit savings and spending. The world’s second-largest economy may miss its own growth target - 5% - this year.
>
> [...]
>
> [...] New pieces of research [...] found that Chinese people were growing pessimistic and disillusioned about their prospects. The second is a record of protests, both physical and online, that noted a rise in incidents driven by economic grievances.
>
> [...]
>
> Researchers conducted their surveys in 2004 and 2009, before Xi Jinping became China’s leader, and during his rule in 2014 and 2023. The sample sizes varied, ranging between 3,000 and 7,500.
>
> In 2004, nearly 60% of the respondents said their families’ economic situation had improved over the past five years - and just as many of them felt optimistic about the next five years.
>
> The figures jumped in 2009 and 2014 - with 72.4% and 76.5% respectively saying things had improved, while 68.8% and 73% were hopeful about the future.
>
> However in 2023, only 38.8% felt life had got better for their families. And less than half - about 47% - believed things would improve over the next five years.
>
> Meanwhile, the proportion of those who felt pessimistic about the future rose, from just 2.3% in 2004 to 16% in 2023.
>
> [...]
>
> Respondents were from 26 Chinese provinces and administrative regions. The 2023 surveys excluded Xinjiang and parts of Tibet.
>
> [...]
>
> Those who were not willing to speak their minds did not participate in the survey, the researchers said. Those who did shared their views when they were told it was for academic purposes, and would remain confidential.
>
> Their anxieties are reflected in the choices that are being made by many young Chinese people. With unemployment on the rise, millions of college graduates have been forced to accept low-wage jobs, while others have embraced a “lie flat” attitude, pushing back against relentless work. Still others have opted to be “full-time children”, returning home to their parents because they cannot find a job, or are burnt out.
>
> [...]
>
> Analysts believe China’s iron-fisted management of Covid-19 played a big role in undoing people’s optimism.
>
> “[It] was a turning point for many… It reminded everyone of how authoritarian the state was. People felt policed like never before,” said Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.
>
> Many people were depressed and the subsequent pay cuts "reinforced the confidence crisis,” he added.
>
> [...]
>
> **Does hard work pay off? Chinese people now say ‘no’**
>
> In 2004, 2009 and 2014, more than six in 10 respondents agreed that "effort is always rewarded" in China. Those who disagreed hovered around 15%.
>
> Come 2023, the sentiment flipped. Only 28.3% believed that their hard work would pay off, while a third of them disagreed. The disagreement was strongest among lower-income families, who earned less than 50,000 yuan ($6,989; £5,442) a year.
>
> [...]
>
> In 2023, a majority of the respondents in the Whyte and Rozelle study believed people were rich because of the privilege afforded by their families and connections. A decade earlier, respondents had attributed wealth to ability, talent, a good education and hard work.
>
> **This is despite Xi’s signature “common prosperity” policy aimed at narrowing the wealth gap, although critics say it has only resulted in a crackdown on businesses.**
>
> [...]
>
> [Researchers also] saw a rise in protests led by rural residents and blue-collar workers over land grabs and low wages, but also noted middle-class citizens organising because of the real estate crisis. Protests by homeowners and construction workers made up 44% of the cases across more than 370 cities.
>
> [...]
>
> Chinese leaders are certainly concerned [...] **Censors have been cracking down on any source of financial frustration - vocal online posts are promptly scrubbed, while influencers have been blocked on social media for flaunting luxurious tastes**. State media has defended the bans as part of the effort to create a “civilised, healthy and harmonious” environment. More alarming perhaps are reports last week that a top economist, Zhu Hengpeng, has been detained for critcising Xi's handling of the economy.
>
> The Communist Party tries to control the narrative by “shaping what information people have access to, or what is perceived as negative”, Mr Slaten said.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3363029
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240924230734/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/25/a-path-towards-freedom-the-new-route-to-europe-for-desperate-chinese-migrants)
>
> The fear of what the future held for Zhang (not his real name) and his children propelled the 39-year-old Chinese citizen from Shandong province on a journey so difficult and dangerous that many struggle to understand why someone from China would embark on it. Most of Zhang’s new neighbours in the European Balkans come from war-torn countries in the Middle East. Until recently, Zhang had a stable job working for a private company in the world’s second-biggest economy, earning an above average salary. But the political environment in China left him feeling that he had no choice other than to leave.
>
> Zhang is one of a small but growing number of Chinese people who are travelling to the Balkans with the hope of getting into the EU by whatever means necessary.
>
> [...]
>
> David Stroup, a lecturer of Chinese politics at the University of Manchester, says that the rapid expansion of China’s surveillance state during the pandemic combined with a gloomy economic outlook were some of the driving forces for this new wave of Chinese migrants.
>
> “The lockdowns created a sense that ordinary people who were just living their lives could somehow find themselves under heavy observation of the state or subjected to long arbitrary periods of lockdown and confinement,” Stroup said.
>
> [...]
>
> Part of the reason that Bosnia is an attractive staging post for Chinese migrants, is that like its neighbour Serbia, it offers visa-free travel. Aleksandra Kovačević, spokesperson for Bosnia’s Service for Foreigner’s Affairs, a government department, said that Chinese people were “gaining statistical significance as persons who increasingly violate migration regulations of Bosnia and Herzegovina”. She said that along with Turkish citizens, Chinese people were trying to use legal entry into Bosnia as a way to “illegally continue their journey to the countries of western Europe”.
>
> [...]
>
> Many ordinary Chinese occasionally feel the rough end of the government’s tight control over public speech. Most learn to keep their head down and, begrudgingly or not, quietly navigate the invisible red lines that dictate what can be freely talked about. But Zhang couldn’t bear it.
>
> [...]
>
> “China’s control over speech is getting tighter and tighter. They don’t allow people to talk about political parties, and no matter if the government is doing a good or bad job, they don’t allow people to talk about it. It is limiting people’s freedom of speech tremendously, and that’s the most important thing I can’t accept,” Zhang says. “The economy is secondary”.
>
> [...]
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3360939
> Chinese woman has been arrested in the German city of Leipzig on suspicion of foreign agent activities and allegedly passing on information regarding arms deliveries, the prosecutor general said in a statement on Tuesday.
>
> The suspect, named only as Yaqi X, is accused of passing on information she obtained while working for a logistics company at Leipzig/Halle airport to a member of the Chinese secret service, who is being prosecuted separately, the statement said.
>
> The information passed along in 2023 and 2024 included flight, cargo and passenger data as well as details on the transportation of military equipment and people with ties to a German arms company, it added.
>
> The Chinese Embassy in Berlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
>
> Tensions have been simmering between Berlin and Beijing over the past year after Chancellor Olaf Scholz unveiled a strategy towards de-risking Germany's economic relationship with China, calling Beijing a "partner, competitor and systemic rival".
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3355025
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240930120210/https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/china_satellite_censorship/)
>
> **Beijing has published its proposed regulations for satellite broadband, including a requirement that operators conduct censorship in real time.**
>
> **It has been suggested that the constellation system will help run and export the nation's content censorship system, known as the Great Firewall.**
>
> [...]
>
> In its latest draft rules, the Cyberspace Administration of China proposes any organization or individual using terminal equipment with direct connection to satellite services is not allowed to "produce, copy, publish, or disseminate content prohibited by laws and administrative regulations, such as content that incites subversion of state power, overthrows the socialist system, endangers national security and interests, damages the national image, incites secession of the country, undermines national unity and social stability, promotes terrorism, extremism, ethnic hatred, ethnic discrimination, violence, pornography, and false information."
>
> It clarifies that terminal equipment includes civilian handheld, portable, and fixed terminals, as well as terminals installed on aircraft, ships, and vehicles – essentially any device that enables users to access satellite communication systems for voice calls, text messaging, and data exchange.
>
> [...]
>
> The draft rules further include articles that would make tracking of providers and users easier. This includes requiring providers to:
>
> - Obtain licenses and approvals, whether telco, radio frequency related or otherwise;
> - Collect real identity information from those using its services, as China already requires of telcos;
> - Integrate monitoring and supervision into their platforms to allow Beijing's oversight;
> - Locate ground facilities – such as gateway stations and Earth stations – and user data on Chinese soil. Any data that does need to go overseas must be processed through a gateway approved by the telecommunications regulatory department of the State Council.
>
> [...]
- Indonesia has imposed curbs on cheap imports to rein in e-commerce platforms
- There is growing resentment across Southeast Asia against Chinese e-commerce firms
- Import tariffs can create tensions and hurt some local businesses
- Other countries in Southeast Asia are also cracking down with higher import duties and outright bans on some China imports
The Indonesian government says it wants to protect its local business from cheap Chinese online imports, with a plan to impose import duties of up to 200% on a broad range of goods including textiles, clothing, footwear, cosmetics, and electronics. The measures are largely aimed at Chinese imports, which have surged in recent years as e-commerce platforms gained in popularity.
“If we are flooded with imported goods, our micro, small and medium enterprises could collapse,” Zulkifli Hasan, Indonesia’s trade minister, said in a briefing in July. These businesses make up about 60% of the country’s gross domestic product, and employ around 120 million people, according to government data.
Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce market, accounting for nearly half the gross merchandise value of the eight top platforms, according to advisory firm Momentum Works. The value of e-commerce sales in Indonesia hit $77 billion last year, authorities say.
Chinese imports had enjoyed low, or zero, duties in Indonesia under regional trade agreements. But as sales of cheap clothes, shoes, and electronics surged online, the government stepped in to protect local businesses. President Joko Widodo has repeatedly raised concerns about low-priced Chinese-made goods, and urged consumers to shun imported products. The country has imposed the strictest curbs on cross-border e-commerce sales in the region. It set a de minimis limit — the threshold below which goods are not subject to import duties — at $100, then lowered that to $75, and then to $3. Authorities also banned shopping on social media platforms last year, forcing TikTok Shop to close. But the platform was back online after about two months, saying it had met the requirements.
Across Southeast Asia, other governments are also cracking down with higher import duties and outright bans on some goods. Malaysia has a 10% sales tax on imported goods priced below 500 ringgit ($106), while the Philippines has imposed a 1% withholding tax on online merchants. In Thailand, the entry of Chinese e-commerce firm Temu has sparked calls for higher tariffs on some imported goods. More taxes and curbs on e-commerce firms may be imminent across the region, Simon Torring, co-founder of research firm Cube Asia, says.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3323880
> [...] For an increasing number of critics, Ireland being home to Chinese firms links the country to the human rights abuse allegations levelled against some such companies. These include Chinese clothing firm Shein, which since May 2023 has had its European headquarters in Dublin.
>
> [...]
>
> In May, Ireland’s Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Dara Calleary, welcomed a report celebrating how Huawei was contributing €800m ($889m; £668m) per year to the Irish economy. The firm has three research and development centres in Ireland.
>
> This is the same Huawei whose telecoms network equipment the US has banned since 2022 due to concerns over national security. The UK has moved in the same direction, ordering phone networks to remove Huawei components. And mobile phone networks in many Western nations, including Ireland, no longer offer Huawei handsets.
>
> Meanwhile, WuXi has, since 2018, invested more than €1bn in a facility in Dundalk, near the border with Northern Ireland.
>
> Earlier this month the US House of Representatives passed a bill to restrict US firms’ ability to work with WuXi, again citing national security concerns. The bill now has to go to the US Senate.
>
> [...]
>
> Prominent critics of Ireland rolling out a “green carpet” to Chinse firms include Barry Andrews, one of Ireland's members of the European Parliament. “Human rights and environmental abuses should not be allowed in Irish shopping baskets,” says the Fianna Fáil MEP.
>
> He points to a US Congress report from last year, which said there was “an extremely high risk that Temu’s supply chains are contaminated with forced labour”.
>
> Temu had told the investigation that it had a “zero-tolerance policy” towards the practice.
>
> “One person’s bargain is another’s back-breaking work for poverty wages,” adds Mr Andrews, whose party is part of the current Irish government coalition.
>
> [...]
>
> Some leading economists question whether Ireland even needs the few thousand jobs that the Chinese firms provide.
>
> “Ireland’s economy has been running at near full employment for the best part of a decade," says Dan O'Brien, chief economist at Ireland's Institute of International and European Affairs.
>
> [...]
>
> Mr O’Brien says that Ireland’s level of FDI was already too high without the Chinese investment on top. “Given we are already overly dependent on FDI in a world that is at risk of deglobalisation, we don’t need another major source of FDI on top of that from the United States.”
>
> He adds EU rules should be “actively used to discourage Chinese FDI” in Ireland.
>
> [...]
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3247781
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240926152823/https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/09/26/western-universities-have-become-apologists-for-an-illiberal-china/)
>
> **Instead of spearheading China’s liberalisation, Western universities that benefit from Chinese money are increasingly vulnerable to pressure from its government.**
>
> [...]
>
> Through a combination of pressure tactics – including a global censorship regime, the weaponisation of informal Chinese networks, questionable party-state funding, and dependencies on “official China” – students and researchers are silenced, and higher education institutions are influenced.
>
> Within many universities outside China, academic freedom has been compromised by Chinese funding. Dependent on the large funds that have been allocated to them, they are more inclined to do research in line with the CCP’s programme. More recently, the much publicised Hong Kong National Security Law allows anyone to be charged who challenges China’s national unity, regardless of nationality or territory. The Hong Kong National Security Law purports to have extraterritorial effect and therefore it is not limited to Chinese citizens or even those physically in Hong Kong. This inevitably contributes to a climate of self-censorship among academics.
>
> [...]
>
> **Unfortunately, rising authoritarianism, if not actual totalitarianism, in China has turned the tables on Western universities**. Instead of spearheading the liberalisation of China, they have become vulnerable to Chinese pressure in the opposite direction. Their partnerships with Chinese universities have turned into potential liabilities as professors come under fire for not properly declaring Chinese funding, research grants are linked to human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and universities’ technology breakthroughs are being used to improve China’s system of mass surveillance.
>
> [...]
>
> The Irish Centre for Human Rights and the University of Galway showed courage in accepting this gift of memory to [Chinese human rights activist] Liu. Statements of support by the university’s president and the director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights are significant. It is our hope that this example will encourage other universities to resist the pressure from Chinese money that might compromise their academic freedom.
>
> [...]
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3244714
> **A Hong Kong court on Thursday sentenced Stand News former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen to 21 months in prison, while former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam was released after his sentence was reduced because of ill health.**
>
> Last month, the two were the first journalists to be convicted under a colonial-era sedition law since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
>
> Chung and Lam were found guilty of conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious publications.
>
> [...]
>
> [The court] He ruled that 11 articles that were published under Chung and Lam's leadership carried seditious intent.
>
> [...]
>
> Chung and Lam were held behind bars for nearly a year after their arrests, before being released on bail in late 2022. Their trial began in October that year and lasted some 50 days.
>
> **Stand News, which has now closed down, was one of the last news outlets in Hong Kong to voice criticism of authorities amid a crackdown from Beijing after the 2019 protests.**
>
> The latest World Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders ranked Hong Kong as the 135th out of 180 territories, down from 80th place in 2021 and 18th place in 2002.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3235819
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240926210700/https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-09-26/russia-considers-law-to-ban-defending-child-free-lifestyle.html)
>
> Openly defending one’s decision not to have children will be prosecuted in Russia. The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, is preparing a bill under which authorities will impose fines of up to €50,000 ($55,580) for supporting “the refusal to have children.” The measure affects all areas of life — from casual conversation to films and books — and is a serious threat to the Russian feminist movement.
>
> The crackdown on what the Kremlin calls the “childfree” movement will result in fines of up to 400,000 rubles for individuals (around $4,300), 800,000 rubles for civil servants ($8,600), and up to five million rubles ($55,580) for companies or other legal entities. Foreigners will also be deported.
>
> There are thousands of reasons why a person may decide not to have children, but the Cabinet of ministers has asked the State Duma to make only three exceptions to the law: religious reasons, medical reasons or in the case of rape. It also alleges that there is a mass-organized childfree movement, even though the websites on this subject are little more than a curiosity; Russian newspapers cite the existence of groups on VKontakte, the Russian Facebook, which barely have 5,000 members.
>
> [...]
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3233057
> China's latest nuclear submarine sank during its construction earlier this year, senior US defense officials said on Thursday.
>
> Satellite images from June showed cranes at the Wuchang shipyard where the Zhou-class attack submarine would have been docked.
>
> These images indicate that the vessel likely sank between May and June, US officials told news agencies including the Associated Press and Reuters.
>
> China has not confirmed the current status of the submarine.
>
> Reports of a submarine sinking during construction could be a potential setback for China as it continues to expand its naval capacity.
>
> "We are not familiar with the situation you mentioned and currently have no information to provide," a Chinese embassy spokesperson in Washington said.
>
> A US official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters it was "not surprising" that China's navy would hide the sinking of the submarine.
>
> "In addition to the obvious questions about training standards and equipment quality, the incident raises deeper questions about the PLA's internal accountability and oversight of China's defense industry — which has long been plagued by corruption," they added, using the acronym for the People's Liberation Army.
Travellers described being subjected to lawlessness, looting and brutality in a conflict that the UN says has forced more than 10.5 million people to flee their homes.
But it is sexual violence that has become a defining characteristic of the protracted conflict, which started as a power struggle between the army and the RSF but has since drawn in local armed groups and fighters from neighbouring countries.
The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has said rape is being used as “a weapon of war”.
A recent UN fact-finding mission documented several cases of rape and rape threats from members of the army, but found that large-scale sexual violence was committed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allied militias, and amounted to violations of international law.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3229591
> [Archived link](https://www.newindianexpress.com/web-only/2024/Sep/26/chinas-high-altitude-heliports-in-tibet-a-sobering-reminder-of-threat-to-india-along-lac)
>
> The Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) presents unique challenges for air infrastructure superiority, with its high altitude and rugged terrain. While the expansion of airports and deployment of fighter jets and sophisticated radar systems have been traditional measures of this superiority, a less recognised but equally critical aspect is China's increasing rotary-wing capabilities at extreme altitudes.
>
> [...]
>
> China's critical military infrastructure at higher altitudes is rapidly expanding in the challenging environment of the TAR. A vital part of this expansion is the proliferation of high-altitude heliports and helipads, which are quickly becoming crucial nodes in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) ground and air operations strategy.
>
> These helipads, strategically placed near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China, disputed areas with Bhutan, and critical infrastructure like surface-to-missile (SAM) sites and military barracks, serve as logistics hubs. Their role in facilitating rapid troop and equipment movement underscores their strategic significance.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3201775
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240926073940/https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/with-growing-tension-in-the-strait-taiwan-needs-to-be-in-the-un/)
>
> It is long past time for Taiwan again to be included in the United Nations. Reasons include the need to address growing military tensions in the Taiwan Strait and to acknowledge Taiwan’s thriving democracy and economic importance.
>
> That economic importance includes Taiwan’s enormous role in global supply chains. It produces more than 90 percent of the world’s high-end semiconductors and a significant portion of the advanced chips that drive the artificial intelligence revolution. Moreover, half of the world’s seaborne trade passes through the Taiwan Strait. Peace and stability around Taiwan has promoted global prosperity.
>
> Meanwhile, China continues to intensify its aggression against Taiwan. Its attempts to change the status quo across the Taiwan Strait and expand its authoritarian ideology throughout the Indo-Pacific region are a profound threat to peace and security all around the world.
OONI Explorer is one of the largest open datasets on internet censorship around the world. We first launched this web platform back in 2016 with the goal of enabling researchers, journalists, and human rights defenders to investigate internet censorship based on empirical network measurement data that is contributed by OONI Probe users worldwide. Every day, we publish new measurements from around the world in real-time.
Today, OONI Explorer hosts more than 2 billion network measurements collected from 27 thousand distinct networks in 242 countries and territories since 2012. Out of all countries, OONI Probe users in Russia contribute the second largest volume of measurements (following the U.S, where OONI Probe users contribute the most measurements out of any country). This has enabled us to study various cases of internet censorship in Russia, such as the blocking of Tor, the blocking of independent news media websites, and how internet censorship in Russia changed amid the war in Ukraine.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3171490
> [Archived link](http://web.archive.org/web/20240925071339/https://theins.press/en/news/274827)
>
> An investigation by the independent Russian media outlet The Insider has uncovered the involvement of four major Chinese banks in the transfer of funds to companies supplying sanctioned equipment to Russian oil firms. They are:
>
> - China Everbright Bank Beijing
> - Bank of Ningbo
> - Bank of China
> - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC).
>
> An analysis of equipment deliveries to Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom reveals details of the transactions.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3170974
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240920185252/https://chinamediaproject.org/2024/09/19/goodness-me/)
>
> **On Wednesday last week, one of China’s largest tea chains found itself at the center of an online storm after a video emerged of employees for the company apparently wearing cardboard signs and makeshift cardboard handcuffs to enforce workplace discipline — public displays of shame that had disturbing echoes of the country’s political past.**
>
> The offending post, made on September 17 to the official Douyin and Xiaohongshu accounts of the Guangdong operations of Good Me (古茗茶饮) — a tea chain with more than 5,000 locations across the country — showed several employees on site at a Good Me shop standing with their heads cast down, their hands bound in front with what appeared to be cardboard cup holders. Handwritten signs around their necks read: “The crime of forgetting to include a straw”; and “The crime of knocking over the teapot.”
>
> [...]
>
> For China’s media and internet authorities, the Cultural Revolution is generally not a subject to be talked about at all. And for many Chinese who remember the period, which was ended by the ouster and arrest in October 1976 of the so-called Gang of Four, it remains a silent source of pain and fear.
>
> [...]
>
> Most comments on the video on both platforms expressed shock and ridicule at what seemed to be extremely unfair and inhumane treatment of employees on the one hand, and an acute lack of good taste on the other. By Wednesday the video had been removed and Good Me was scrambling to contain the damage.
>
> [...]
China has said it successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) carrying a dummy warhead into the Pacific Ocean.
The ICMB was launched at 08:44 local time (04:44 GMT) on Wednesday and "fell into expected sea areas", Beijing's defence ministry said, adding that the test launch was "routine" and part of its "annual training".
The type of missile and its flight path remained unclear, but Chinese state media said Beijing had "informed the countries concerned in advance".
Analysts said Beijing's description of the test as "routine" was surprising because the last such test happened in 1980.
China's nuclear weapon tests usually take place domestically and it previously test-fired ICBMs west into the Taklamakan Desert in the Xinjiang region.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3149001
> - Ukraine says China is main supplier of foreign weapons parts to Russia
> - About 60% of foreign components in weapons from China, it says
> - Despite sanctions, advanced US chips found in Russia
> - China denies supplying weapons, or parts
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3148575
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240924023436/https://chinamediaproject.org/2024/09/24/after-a-savage-attack-brutal-silence/)
>
> The brutal killing of a Japanese schoolboy in the Chinese city of Shenzhen last week has made headlines across the world. The wider context of the tragedy — that it happened on the anniversary of the “Mukden Incident” that began Japan’s invasion of China nearly a century ago, and just months after another nearly deadly attack on a Japanese mother and her child in another city — raises serious questions about how it might be linked to decades of anti-Japanese education, entertainment and cultural conditioning in China.
>
> But these are serious questions China’s media are not asking, or cannot ask.
>
> How the media in China have reported the incident domestically (or not) is an unfortunate reminder not just of how stringent controls have become, but also how detrimental this atmosphere has been to discussion of the darker undercurrents of contemporary Chinese society.
>
> [...]
>
> From the early stages of the incident, key details were missing. The police report from Shenzhen did not mention the boy’s nationality, age, or where the attack took place.
>
> [...]
>
> In all likelihood, reports [...] were removed by the authorities because they jumped the gun, not waiting for an official news release (通稿) from Xinhua News Agency. Generally, for such sensitive stories, more compliant media know that protocol demands that they wait for official word. State media, therefore, kept silent on the issue until after Lin Jian (林剑), a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), held a press conference late on September 18, and again on September 19.
>
> [...]
>
> Hunan Daily, for example, the official mouthpiece of the provincial CCP leadership in the province, quoted Lin Jian verbatim, offering no additional details or context. The same was true of Shanghai’s The Paper, published by the state-owned Shanghai United Media Group, and other provincial-level dailies such as Guizhou Daily.
>
> [...]
>
> The Shenzhen attack is a sensitive story on a number of fronts for China. For starters, the government — which has touted increasing foreign visits as a mark of economic turnaround — is wary of frightening away foreign tourists, businesspeople, and investors. The attack, the third high-profile assault on foreigners in China in recent months, risks undermining the leadership’s message that China is open and ready to engage again with the world following the pandemic downturn.
>
> **The attack also risks undermining the simplistic narrative, advanced by state media, that China is fundamentally a society encouraging tolerance among civilizations — which has lately been a key pillar of what the leadership calls “Xi Jinping Thought on Culture.”** The case tells us that despite China’s rhetoric of civilizational tolerance, the country has its own share, like perhaps any country, of individuals capable of violent xenophobia.
>
> But the most sensitive aspect of this story, the most dangerous question that can be asked, is why. Why is China experiencing such violent attacks, and against the Japanese in particular? The answer to that question is no doubt complex. And yet, as netizens made clear in their early, stillborn conversations on the Shenzhen attack, **the role of China’s officially-encouraged culture of xenophobic ire — a culture of “toxic nationalism” — is a serious issue that needs to be addressed**.
>
> The brutal truth behind this savage attack is that this problem will not go away until the antipathy at its root, present in the media discourse of the state as much as in the heart of the attacker, can be faced head on.
[Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240924074204/https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/michael-kovrig-solitary-confinement-interrogation-arsenault-1.7330152)
Michael Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat who was held in China for nearly three years [told] about the interrogation he endured during his six months in solitary confinement.
[...]
**"They are trying to bully and torment and terrorize and coerce you … into accepting their false version of reality, in which you're guilty.**
[...]
On December 14 [2018], four days after he was taken into custody [in China], Kovrig got his first consular visit with Canada's then-ambassador John McCallum and another official from the embassy an an offsite location.
Kovrig said he remembers trying, in that meeting and others, to communicate that China was violating international law by interrogating him the way they were.
[...]
He said his food rations were cut for being uncooperative. He said that during interrogations he was put in a high-backed wooden chair and restrained, forbidden from crossing his legs or changing his position.
[...]
[Kovrig and Michael Spavor, another Canadian who had also been detained but was being held separately] had been illegally detained by China in apparent retaliation for the Vancouver arrest of Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who was detained at the behest of the U.S. to face fraud charges related to American sanctions against Iran.
[...]
Kovrig's partner [who was pregnant at the time when he was detained] had played their daughter recordings of his voice and showed pictures of her father while he was locked up on the other side of the world. Their daughter was two-and-a-half years old when he finally arrived back in Canada.
[...]
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3122226
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240922072603/https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/chinese_spies_found_on_us_hq_firm_network/)
>
> Chinese state-sponsored spies have been spotted inside a global engineering firm's network, having gained initial entry using an admin portal's default credentials on an IBM AIX server.
>
> Binary Defense's Director of Security Research John Dwyer said the cyber snoops first compromised one of the victim's three unmanaged AIX servers in March, and remained inside the US-headquartered manufacturer's IT environment for four months while poking around for more boxes to commandeer.
>
> It's a tale that should be a warning to those with long- or almost-forgotten machines connected to their networks; those with shadow IT deployments; and those with unmanaged equipment. While the rest of your environment is protected by whatever threat detection you have in place, these legacy services are perfect starting points for miscreants.
>
> [...]
>
> This particular company, which Dwyer declined to name, makes components for public and private aerospace organizations and other critical sectors, including oil and gas. The intrusion has been attributed to an unnamed People's Republic of China team, whose motivation appears to be espionage and blueprint theft.
>
> [...]
[Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240923160200/https://apnews.com/article/commerce-autonomous-vehicles-national-security-china-russia-a895bbbbe59ae915aad2f0980b7acf08)
The Commerce Department said Monday it’s seeking a ban on the sale of connected and autonomous vehicles in the U.S. that are equipped with Chinese and Russian software and hardware with the stated goal of protecting national security and U.S. drivers.
[...]
The measure announced Monday is proactive but critical, the agency said, given that all the bells and whistles in cars like microphones, cameras, GPS tracking and Bluetooth technology could make Americans more vulnerable to bad actors and potentially expose personal information, from the home address of drivers, to where their children go to school.
**In extreme situations, a foreign adversary could shut down or take simultaneous control of multiple vehicles operating in the United States, causing crashes and blocking roads, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told reporters on a call Sunday.**
**“This is not about trade or economic advantage,” Raimondo said. “This is a strictly national security action. The good news is right now, we don’t have many Chinese or Russian cars on our road.”**
But Raimondo said Europe and other regions in the world where Chinese vehicles have become commonplace very quickly should serve as “a cautionary tale” for the U.S.
Security concerns around the extensive software-driven functions in Chinese vehicles have arisen in Europe, where Chinese electric cars have rapidly gained market share.
“Who controls these data flows and software updates is a far from trivial question, the answers to which encroach on matters of national security, cybersecurity, and individual privacy,” Janka Oertel, director of the Asia program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on the council’s website.
[...]
A senior administration official said that it is clear from terms of service contracts included with the technology that data from vehicles ends up in China.
Raimondo said that the U.S. won’t wait until its roads are populated with Chinese or Russian cars.
[...]
The proposed rule would prohibit the import and sale of vehicles with Russia and China-manufactured software and hardware that would allow the vehicle to communicate externally through Bluetooth, cellular, satellite or Wi-Fi modules. It would also prohibit the sale or import of software components made in Russia or the People’s Republic of China that collectively allow a highly autonomous vehicle to operate without a driver behind the wheel. The ban would include vehicles made in the U.S. using Chinese and Russian technology.
[...]
The new rule follows steps taken earlier this month by the Biden administration to crack down on cheap products sold out of China, including electric vehicles, expanding a push to reduce U.S. dependence on Beijing and bolster homegrown industry.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3110802
> The killing of a Japanese schoolboy in the Chinese city of Shenzhen has sparked worry among Japanese expats living in China, with top firms warning their workers to be vigilant.
>
> Toshiba and Toyota have told their staff to take precautions against any possible violence, while Panasonic is offering its employees free flights home.
>
> Japanese authorities have repeated their condemnation of the killing while urging the Chinese government to ensure the safety of their citizens.
>
> The stabbing of the 10-year-old boy on Wednesday was the third high-profile attack on foreigners in China in recent months.
>
> In a statement issued to the BBC, electronics giant Panasonic said it would "prioritise the safety and health of employees" in mainland China in the wake of the latest attack.
>
> Panasonic is allowing employees and their families to temporarily return to Japan at company expense, and is offering a counselling service as well.
>
> Toshiba, which has around 100 employees in China, has urged its workers "to be cautious of their safety".
>
> The world's biggest car manufacturer Toyota, meanwhile, told the BBC it was "supporting Japanese expatriates" by providing them with any information they might need on the situation.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2969062
> [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240918145523/http://www.phayul.com/2024/09/17/50917/)
>
> **Chen Wenqing, head of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, recently visited Lhasa, Kardze, and Chamdo, meeting with local officials to emphasize the need for heightened surveillance and control. His tour, which took place from September 10th to 13th, focused on maintaining stability and combating what the Chinese government terms “separatists”.**
>
> [...]
>
> The official emphasized the need for legal suppression against those deemed threats to China’s stability and called for stricter management of religious activities stating, “We must resolutely crack down on separatist and sabotage activities in accordance with the law, resolutely manage religious affairs in accordance with the law, resolutely protect normal religious activities in accordance with the law.”
>
> [...]
>
> Concurrent with Chen’s visit, other high-ranking officials have made similar trips to the region. Zhang Jun, president of the Supreme People’s Court, advocated for “tough punishments to maintain pressure on violent terrorism, ethnic separatism and other serious criminal crimes” during his visit to courts in Tibet.
>
> These heightened security measures have raised concerns among human rights advocates, who note that China’s broad definition of separatism often includes individuals merely critical of its policies toward Tibetans.
[Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240916232757/https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/infyos-research-identifies-human-rights-abuses-in-battery-supply-chain)
- Research from Infyos has identified that companies accounting for 75 per cent of the global battery market have connections to one or more companies in the supply chain facing allegations of severe human rights abuses.
- Most of the allegations of severe human rights abuses involve companies mining and refining raw materials in China that end up in batteries globally, particularly in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in northwest China.
- “The relative opaqueness of battery supply chains and the complexity of supply chain legal requirements means current approaches like ESG audits are out of date and don’t comply with new regulations. Most battery manufacturers and their customers, including automotive companies and grid-scale battery energy storage developers, still don’t have complete supply chain oversight," says Sarah Montgomery, CEO & co-founder, Infyos.
- Supply chain changes are needed to eliminate widespread forced labour and child labour abuses occurring in the lithium-ion battery market, Infyos added.
There is an interesting study (May 2024), also linked in the article: [When Online Content Disappears](https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2024/05/17/when-online-content-disappears/)
Historians of the future may struggle to understand fully how we lived our lives in the early 21st Century. That's because of a potentially history-deleting combination of how we live our lives digitally – and a paucity of official efforts to archive the world's information as it's produced these days.
However, an informal group of organisations are pushing back against the forces of digital entropy – many of them operated by volunteers with little institutional support. None is more synonymous with the fight to save the web than the Internet Archive, an American non-profit based in San Francisco, started in 1996 as a passion project by internet pioneer Brewster Kahl. The organisation has embarked what may be the most ambitious digital archiving project of all time, gathering 866 billion web pages, 44 million books, 10.6 million videos of films and television programmes and more. Housed in a handful of data centres scattered across the world, the collections of the Internet Archive and a few similar groups are the only things standing in the way of digital oblivion.
"The risks are manifold. Not just that technology may fail, but that certainly happens. But more important, that institutions fail, or companies go out of business. News organisations are gobbled up by other news organisations, or more and more frequently, they're shut down," says Mark Graham, director of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, a tool that collects and stores snapshots of websites for posterity. There are numerous incentives to put content online, he says, but there's little pushing companies to maintain it over the long term.
Despite the Internet Archive's achievements thus far, the organisation and others like it face financial threats, technical challenges, cyberattacks and legal battles from businesses who dislike the idea of freely available copies of their intellectual property. And as recent court losses show, the project of saving the internet could be just as fleeting as the content it's trying to protect.
"More and more of our intellectual endeavours, more of our entertainment, more of our news, and more of our conversations exist only in a digital environment," Graham says. "That environment is inherently fragile."
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2956996
> [Archived link](http://web.archive.org/web/20240916133831/https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/whats-behind-chinas-overseas-policing-drive/)
>
> At a less well-reported meeting in Beijing late last year, organised by the China-Africa Business Council, officials pushed for the rapid expansion of Chinese private security firms [in countries of the Global South]. ‘Outbound Chinese investors face security challenges and a complex environment,’ said an official statement.
>
> [...]
>
> Officials are concerned about the fate of programmes under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which started as a global infrastructure programme, but has evolved into an umbrella for just about everything China does overseas to further its influence. Projects have stalled or collapsed under a mountain of unsustainable debt and growing resentment at the outsize role of Chinese firms and labour. In Pakistan, for instance, Gwadar Port, built by China as key part of a $62 billion (£47 billion) China-Pakistan economic corridor has been under virtual siege by Baloch separatists, who have targeted Chinese engineers. Chinese-owned mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo have also been targeted.
>
> **A BRI working group recently highlighted the need to ‘hammer out the safety protection in a detailed way,’ according to the state-owned Xinhua news agency.**
>
> [...]
>
> China now has overseas economic investments and assets worth well over a trillion dollars by most estimates. It has set up around 47,000 overseas firms across 190 countries or regions, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
>
> [...]
>
> Beijing now seems to have concluded that they are dangerously exposed, particularly at a time of growing economic stress and geopolitical tensions and require a local security apparatus to match.
>
> [...]
>
> The Solomon Islands provide a template for China. Last year, they signed a deal on police cooperation with Beijing as part of an upgrade of their relations to a ‘comprehensive strategic partnership’. The Chinese telecoms company Huawei is building a cellular network on the Islands, and a Chinese state company plans to redevelop the port in the capital, Honiara.
>
> [...]
>
> China had less success with Thailand, where the government scrapped plans for joint patrols with Chinese police in popular tourist spots following criticism that it compromised Thai national sovereignty, and a rebuke from the country’s police chief. There was also anger on social media. ‘Thailand will become a complete surveillance state’, was one typical response, though among other autocrats more welcoming of Chinese, that seems to be precisely the point.
[Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240916040932/https://www.barrons.com/news/china-s-police-state-goes-global-at-surveillance-conference-b11540f7)
High-tech CCTV, super-accurate DNA-testing technology and facial tracking software: China is pushing its state-of-the-art surveillance and policing tactics abroad.
Delegates from law enforcement across the world descended this week on a port city in eastern China showcasing the work of dozens of local firms, several linked to repression in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
China is one of the most surveilled societies on Earth, with millions of CCTV cameras scattered across cities and facial recognition technology widely used in everything from day-to-day law enforcement to political repression.
Its police serve a dual purpose: keeping the peace and cracking down on petty crime while also ensuring challenges to the ruling Communist Party are swiftly stamped out.
During the opening ceremony in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, China's police minister lauded Beijing's training of thousands of police from abroad over the last 12 months -- and promised to help thousands more over the next year.
An analyst said this was "absolutely a sign that China aims to export" its policing.
"Beijing is hoping to normalise and legitimise its policing style and... the authoritarian political system in which it operates," Bethany Allen at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said.
[...]
**"The more countries that learn from the Chinese model, the fewer countries willing to criticise such a state-first, repressive approach."**
[...]
Tech giant Huawei said its "Public Safety Solution" was now in use in over 100 countries and regions, from Kenya to Saudi Arabia.
[...]
The United States sanctioned SDIC Intelligence Xiamen Information, formerly Meiya Pico, for developing an app "designed to track image and audio files, location data, and messages on... cellphones".
In 2018, the US Treasury said residents of Xinjiang "were required to download a desktop version of" that app "so authorities could monitor for illicit activity".
China has been accused of incarcerating more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang -- charges Beijing vehemently rejects.
[...]
Several delegations expressed interest in learning from the Chinese police.
"We have come to establish links and begin training," Colonel Galo Erazo from the National Police of Ecuador told AFP.
"Either Chinese police will go to Ecuador, or Ecuadorian police will come to China," he added.
**One expert said that this outsourcing of security is becoming a key tool in China's efforts to promote its goals overseas.**
[...]
"China's offers of police cooperation and training give them channels through which to learn how local security forces -- many either on China's periphery or in areas that Beijing considers strategically important -- view the security environment," [Sheena Greitens at the University of Texas in the U.S.] said.
**"These initiatives can give China influence within the security apparatus if a threat to Chinese interests arises."**
[Corrected broken link.]
In 2015, two years after kicking off its massive Belt and Road initiative, China launched its “Digital Silk Road” project to expand access to digital infrastructure such as submarine cables, satellites, 5G connectivity, etc. In a report published this year, the UK-based human rights group ‘Article 19’ argues that the project is about more than just expanding access to Chinese technology, but rather to export its brand of digital authoritarianism across the word. Here is a brief article about it where you can also download the 80-page report (April 2024): China: The rise of digital repression in the Indo-Pacific – (Archived link)
I don’t know the reason for the prompt in this particular case, of course, but there is a persistent form of racism in China, namely the prejudice that the Han Chinese are more advanced than other cultures inside and outside of China. Some experts say this view is even promoted by the government’s propaganda.
China’s release this week of new draft rules governing the generation of AI content, coming just months after the launch of ChatGPT, might give the impression leaders are scrambling to catch up. But for years now, the Chinese Communist Party has planned to power up AI innovations — even as it contains them.
In a video posted on Xitter, a Russian soldier who defected to Ukraine says his unit were using Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet via an IP address in Latvia. They were paying for the subscription over Telegram.
What happens in Xinjiang is as disgusting and inhuman as is what happens in Gaza, and so is this whataboutism that is still widespread here.
Just one among many examples is this post: https://lemmy.ml/post/18948648 with the title: “English-language Wikipedia editors concluded: Israel committing genocide in Gaza”
At the time of this writing, there are 69 comments to this post, but none of them is mentioning the genocide in China, no whataboutism. Why not here?
And the whole ‘story’ is based on a Wikipedia entry, you know, the same Wikipedia that is criticized in the .ml communities for its bad quality seems to be good enough here. Why?
The article relates to the share of advertising revenue these Maga guys get. Musk and his dozens of shareholders earn Xitter’s bottom line, of course, but this is a different story.
The Telegram chief executive, Pavel Durov, was arrested by the French Police in Paris this morning, and the X owner, Elon Musk, has reacted to his arrest. Musk shared a snippet from one of Durov’s interviews where he was talking about X. While sharing this snippet, Musk wrote, “#FreePavel.” […]
According to Russia’s TASS state news agency, the Russian embassy in France is taking “immediate steps” to clarify this situation […]
By operating from the United Arab Emirates, Telegram has managed to avoid the content moderation laws that Western countries are imposing on major platforms to combat illegal content.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is deliberately withholding critical medical care from renowned Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi, who is unjustly imprisoned in Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison for her courageous and peaceful human rights advocacy.
Mohammadi is suffering from serious cardiac issues, long-standing gastrointestinal disorders, and most recently, painful spinal injuries. Iran’s prison authorities have not allowed her to receive full or proper treatment for any of these medical issues.
“Iranian authorities are not only unlawfully depriving a Nobel Peace laureate of her freedom but also jeopardizing her life by denying her essential medical care. Narges Mohammadi’s deteriorating condition underscores the Islamic Republic’s brutal and lawless treatment of human rights defenders,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
Ok… But what about the zios doing the same thing in support of genocide?
‘Whataboutism, the rhetorical practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation, by asking a different but related question, or by raising a different issue altogether. Whataboutism often serves to reduce the perceived plausibility or seriousness of the original accusation or question by suggesting that the person advancing it is hypocritical or that the responder’s misbehavior is not unique or unprecedented. Acts of whataboutism typically begin with rhetorical questions of the form “What about…?”’
Simply banning the high quality low cost option doesn’t seem to accomplish much.
This is not about quality and costs, but about Chinese forced labour (which is a major reason why it’s so cheap), human rights, security as the Chinese government pursue a dictatorial policy.
There are extensive economic ties between China and Israel. China is Israel’s second-largest trading partner globally and takes the lead in Asia. The Belt and Road initiative has significantly catalyzed China-Israel cooperation. Major Chinese companies like China Railway Engineering Corporation, China Ocean Shipping Company, Huawei, China National Chemical Corporation, and ZTE Corporation are actively investing in Israel, while others such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Lenovo, Geely, and SAIC Motor have set up research and development centers in Israel.
Specifically for Huawei, it acquired two Israeli technology innovation companies, HexaTier and Toganetworks, in 2016 for $42 million and $150 million, respectively. In the electric vehicle industry, in 2022 and 2023, the share of Chinese brands in the Israeli electric car market exceeded 50 percent and 60 percent respectively.
Chinese car sales outlets abound in Israel, represented by companies like BYD, Geely, Hongqi, SAIC Motor, Chery, and Hozon Auto. In the field of infrastructure, in 2021, the Chinese company Pan-Mediterranean Engineering Company (PMEC) constructed the Ashdod Port in southern Israel. China State Construction Engineering Corporation constructed Haifa New Port Terminal, a vital node port of the Belt and Road, and the first time that Chinese enterprises exported “smart port” technology and management to a developed country.
China Railway Engineering Corporation led the construction of the Red Line in Tel Aviv, the first light rail project constructed by a Chinese enterprise in the high-end market of a developed country. The current cooperation between China and Israel involves ports, subways, highways, tunnels and other fields, and the amount of cooperation reaches billions of dollars.
Whataboutism, the rhetorical practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation, by asking a different but related question, or by raising a different issue altogether. Whataboutism often serves to reduce the perceived plausibility or seriousness of the original accusation or question by suggesting that the person advancing it is hypocritical or that the responder’s misbehavior is not unique or unprecedented.
The spyware: Traders, tourists, and other people crossing the land border from central Asia into Xinjiang are being asked to hand over their phones. Border guards are then loading an app known as Fengcai onto them. This sucks up calendar entries, text messages, phone contacts, and call logs, all of which are then sent to a remote server. It also checks which other apps are on a device. The Fengcai app studied by the reporters was for Android phones, but they also saw guards collect iPhones and plug them into a handheld device.
Content snooping: Security researchers who studied the app found it was also checking phones’ content against a register of over 73,000 items included in a list embedded in the app’s code. Some of the items are things that could be used by terrorists, such as instructions for making weapons and derailing trains.
But the surveillance net is being cast very wide. The list also includes material like books about the Arabic language, audio recordings of the Quran, and even a song by a Japanese band called Unholy Grace, which may have attracted China’s ire when it came out with a track called “Taiwan: Another China.”
One of the things that are disgusting here that they actively urge people to denounce fellow citizens. This is exactly what the Gestapo (‘Geheime Staatspolizei’ - ‘secret state police’) in Nazi-Germany did in the 1930s, its just that now they have better surveillance tools.
The PRC intentionally deflated private companies that it felt needed deflation (e.g. construction sector)
The PRC didn’t “intentionally deflate” private companies, not in the construction sector nor in any sector.
The property crisis in China may have a few reason, but one of them clearly is the failure of a centrally-planned economy. The state was putting in ever more money in a market without demand. The result are ‘ghost towns’ and unfinished buildings that are often in such a poor state that they must be demolished. Problem is that many ordinary Chinese people already poured their savings into property that never get build. (One detail here: such pre-payments in China typically run much higher than in the Europe and the U.S. as a share of the purchase price. It’s not very funny for the people effected.)
China doesn’t ‘intentionally deflate’ private companies but will be forced to direct more state-owned money to solve the issue as private foreign creditors aren’t an option. They won’t return to a Chinese property bond market where they’ve lost already more than USD 10 billion. And there is a risk that a lot of those private companies which have already been engaged for some time will again lose money. In the future, however, China would need more private businesses. More market, less state. A country that is more open to the world. Such a policy would support Chinese people in the long run. It’s just that most observers aren’t too optimistic that this will happen anytime soon.
Cloudflare’s roots go back to 2004 when [Cloudflare co-founder Matthew] Prince and Cloudflare co-founder Lee Holloway were working on a computer industry project they called Honey Pot […]
Five years later […] the project was far from his [Mr Prince’s] mind, when he got an unexpected phone call from the US Department of Homeland Security asking him about the information he had gathered on attacks.
Mr Prince recalls: "They said ‘do you have any idea how valuable the data you have is? Is there any way you would sell us that data?’.
"I added up the cost of running it, multiplied it by ten, and said ‘how about $20,000 (£15,000)?’.
“It felt like a lot of money. That cheque showed up so fast.”
Mr Prince, who has a degree in computer science, adds: “I was telling the story to Michelle Zatlyn, one of my classmates, and she said, ‘if they’ll pay for it, other people will pay for it’.”
The original user who posted the video […] has disclosed […] that the manipulated video is a parody. But Musk’s post, which has been viewed more than 123 million times, according to the platform, only includes the caption “This is amazing” with a laughing emoji. […] I don’t think that’s obviously a joke,” [co-president of the advocacy group Public Citizen Rob] Weissman said […]. “I’m certain that most people looking at it don’t assume it’s a joke. The quality isn’t great, but it’s good enough. And precisely because it feeds into preexisting themes that have circulated around her, most people will believe it to be real.”
Yeah, I agree with you in principle, it’s just that I usually try to not edit the original version if it’s not absolutely necessary for clarity, but, yeah …
English
English
Read what Al Jazeera has been reporting on and you know the answer to your question.