China

Cross-post da: https://beehaw.org/post/18184159

Archived

[...]

The Chinese government is revolutionizing digital surveillance at home and exporting these technologies abroad. [The study focuses on] Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications provider, which is partly state-owned and increasingly regarded as an instrument of its foreign policy.

The transfers [of technology between China and foreign countries] have sparked widespread concern among observers. These tools of digital dictatorship, many argue, will let recipient governments expand surveillance and reinforce the wave of autocratic retrenchment and democratic erosion currently underway.

[...]

The [foreign] governments that receive Huawei transfers are systematically different than those that do not, and in ways that may be correlated with state repression.

[...]

The Chinese Communist Party's Surveillance State

The Information Age has revolutionized surveillance in the world’s autocracies. In 1998, the CCP launched the Golden Shield Project, which [one researcher] describes as “a domestic surveillance and filtering system that integrates online government databases with an all-encompassing surveillance network.”Footnote 3 In the first phase, completed in 2005, the CCP built a massive network of population databases, ID tracking systems, and internet surveillance tools, which let it record the movement of potential dissidents as revealed, in part, by their online behavior. In 2017, the CCP announced the completion of its “Sky Net” program, which entails 176 million surveillance cameras across China and plans for 626 million by 2020, nearly one camera for every two citizens (Hersey Reference Hersey2017; Russell Reference Russell2017). The result, Qiang (Reference Qiang2019) writes, is “the largest video-surveillance network in the world.”

Simultaneously, the CCP built a facial database that encompassed every adult citizen [...] and a DNA database [...]. The CCP’s facial recognition technology is employed for check-in and security at airports [...] train stations [...] and hotels [...].. In 2017, the CCP applied facial recognition technology to detect jaywalkers, with offenders notified via text message and their pictures displayed at major intersections [...]. This pervasive surveillance apparatus lets the CCP repress dissidents and spend less on public goods [...]. It also complements more analog forms of repression, such as informants and hired thugs [...]. Digital surveillance [in China] is now a conspicuous feature of everyday life.

[...] ** The CCP’s digital surveillance apparatus is supported by a network of domestic technology firms, which are subsidized by the state and routinely used as instruments of foreign policy**. The most general are Huawei and ZTE. Huawei is the world’s largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment [...], and especially dominant in Africa, where it has provided 70% of the 5G network.

[...]

China has a number of more focused technology firms that are implicated in surveillance. Several of these specialize in video cameras and facial recognition software: Hikvision, Dahua, CloudWalk, Megvii, YITU, and SenseTime, most notably. Of these, Hikvision is perhaps the most consequential. In 2019, it was responsible for nearly a quarter of the world’s surveillance cameras [...].Dahua has also supplied cameras for Safe City projects, so called for their use of digital surveillance to support the local security apparatus [...]. Other firms specialize in still different areas of surveillance. Meiya Pico reportedly built an app used by the Chinese government to extract data from citizens’ smartphones during street checks [...]. iFlytek develops voice recognition software [...].

[...]

Huawei transfers are [...] more likely if the recipient government has a preexisting relationship with Beijing. The effects of these transfers [...] depend on political institutions in recipient countries. In autocracies, where the chief political threat to incumbents is collective action by citizens and institutional oversight is weak, Huawei transfers lead to an expansion of digital surveillance, internet shutdowns, internet filtering, and targeted arrests for online content. In democracies, where governments have stronger incentivizes to provide public goods, institutional oversight is stronger, and civil societies are more vibrant, Huawei transfers have no clear or consistent effect on digital repression.

[...]

Since Huawei is secretive about its contracts, our statistical estimates may be subject to measurement error. Huawei contracts, like other Chinese infrastructure contracts, routinely include confidentiality clauses [...], which prohibit recipient governments from divulging information about them. Consequently, our record of Huawei transfers may be incomplete, which would effectively include some treated countries in the control group. Since this would bias against our key results, our statistical estimates should be regarded as lower bounds, with the actual effect potentially larger. Third, Huawei’s secrecy means that we also lack fine-grained data about what its transfers entail.

[...]

Transfers that entail “Safe City” infrastructure, for instance, are almost certainly more likely to facilitate digital repression than contracts that focus on IT training for university students. Likewise, Huawei may be inclined to provide some recipient governments more direct personnel support than others, helping them overcome state capacity limitations that might otherwise prevent them from using technology transfers for digital repression.

[...]

Archived

A prominent Shanghai surgeon pointed to anaesthetics that do not put patients to sleep. A respected Beijing cardiologist questioned blood pressure medication that failed to regulate. A former editor at a leading online health platform went as far as to accuse domestic drugmakers of fraud.

The concerns became public discussions this past week when some top doctors and hospital leaders called on the government to change how it buys drugs for its public hospitals.

[...]

The outburst of scrutiny, unusual in a country where the authorities keep a tight grip on public criticism of the government, was a rebuke of Beijing’s campaign to lower medical costs. Officials are working to shore up China’s national healthcare system, which is under financial pressure in part because of a rapidly ageing population.

The policy, which was put in place in 2018, encourages fierce competition between drug manufacturers and has been successful at sharply driving down drug prices. But in 2025, foreign-branded drugs have been largely absent from the government list of medicines covered under China’s national health insurance and offered at public hospitals.

The change has effectively pushed out many foreign pharmaceutical companies that do not want to compete against Chinese companies willing to sell their drugs at rock-bottom prices.

[...]

Now, doctors are sounding the alarm about the efficacy of some of the domestic drugs. The doctors are seeking changes to give patients the choice to pay more for alternatives.

“There have always been grumblings that if you cut the price, manufacturers will cut corners,” said Ms Helen Chen, a managing partner and healthcare expert at L.E.K. Consulting in Shanghai.

“Now there are some public voices saying it is happening,” she added.

After years of failing to reduce costs, the government created a central bidding system that favoured cheaper medicines, which in most cases have been generics made by Chinese companies. In exchange, the government guaranteed to purchase more from each supplier.

Public hospitals account for about 70 per cent of China’s drug market. Patients who use private clinics have easier access to a wider choice of medication, including foreign brands.

[...]

“The numbers are exactly the same, down even to two decimal places,” wrote Dr Xia, former deputy editor-in-chief of Ding Xiang Doctor, a popular online forum for medical professionals.

“It’s Chinese generic drugs that have bad quality,” he said.

In a statement on Jan 24, a unit of China’s National Medical Products Administration acknowledged the duplicated data, saying it was the result of “editing errors when the relevant product information was disclosed”.

The issue has hit a raw nerve at a time when many people are feeling a sense of insecurity from China’s real estate downturn and sputtering consumer economy.

[...]

Cross-post da: https://beehaw.org/post/18183759

Archived

EU to continue WTO case against China’s restrictions on Lithuania over Beijing's alleged coercive activity following the opening of the Taiwanese representative office in Vilnius

The World Trade Organusation (WTO) case was opened in 2022 after China imposed restrictions on imports from Lithuania following the opening of the Taiwanese representative office in Vilnius.

In January 2024, it was reported that the EC had decided to temporarily suspend the proceedings, calling it “a procedural step taken for technical reasons related to the need to assess certain elements”.

Suspension means that the case is not formally closed, but that the proceedings are not ongoing. The proceedings may be suspended for a maximum of one year, after which the case is closed altogether if not renewed.

[...]

Before the EC announced its decision, Beijing issued a press release calling for talks and a solution to the problem.

“The door to dialogue is always open, and China is ready to strengthen communication and exchanges with Lithuania on the basis of respect and common approach and to seek ways to overcome the current situation while respecting the ‘one China’ principle,” Fang Mei, counsellor of the Chinese Mission to the European Union, was quoted in a commentary circulated to the media.

Archived

A forum in Bangkok this month underscored China’s ambition to work with local partners in Southeast Asia to impact public opinion there. A closer look at one of the propaganda vehicles meant to accomplish this goal suggests carelessness reigns down below such high-level exchanges.

On January 17, a high-profile forum on Sino-Thai cooperation in Bangkok brought together journalists, media specialists, and think tank researchers from both countries. Attended by former Thai deputy prime minister Pinit Jarusombat, who in retirement has become a regular on PRC state media to stress the importance of cultural ties, was also an opportunity for Beijing to outline its vision for media cooperation — which emphasizes the dominance of narratives in the favor of China’s leadership.

Pinit serves as president of the Thai-Chinese Cultural Relationship Council (泰中文化促进委员会), which was formed in 2020 as a platform for intergovernmental cooperation, and also as vice president of the Beijing-based International Confucian Association. He said the dialogue, called “Our Golden Friendship,” aspired to “promote the role of the media and think tanks to better connect people.”

But Pinit wasn’t the only VIP in the crowd. Gao Anming (高岸明), vice president and editor-in-chief for the China International Communications Group (中国外文局) run by the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department, was also there to outline China’s vision for media and communication. He described media outlets as “important platforms for disseminating information and channeling public opinion.” The latter phrase, emerging under Hu Jintao in 2008, refers to the CCP’s efforts to better direct public discourse toward the goals and agendas of China’s leadership. It is closely related to another term, “public opinion guidance” (舆论导向), which is a crucial phrase in the CCP’s vocabulary on press and information control in China.

Gao’s reference to “public opinion channeling” (引导舆论) in the context of think tanks and bilateral media cooperation suggested the focus — for China at least — was on manipulating the conversation over Thai-Chinese relations, and moving the agenda in China’s favored direction.

[...]

A simple WordPress-based website for China Report ASEAN offers English-language coverage emphasizing the benefits of Chinese infrastructure investment in Southeast Asia, including Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative. But a closer look at the publication’s online presence reveals an awkward oversight duplicated across the publication’s Facebook page, which has more than 500,000 followers, as well as its Youtube and X accounts. All of these accounts give “chinareportasean.com” as the outlet’s online address. Indeed, registration records indicate that the domain was first activated in 2017, the same year that China Report ASEAN was launched.

Before readers visit this web address, however, they may wish to know that it links not to China Report ASEAN but to a Chinese gambling site. China remains determined to impact global discourse and conduct effective international communication. But in the topsy turvy world of the CCP’s “external propaganda,” where everyone is anxious for results — strange things can happen.

Archived

For the past few decades, China has boasted about its population as its defining strength for economic advancement and consolidating its global influence. But now the tides are turning.

[...]

China is grappling with a rapidly aging population that poses serious social and economic challenges. By 2050, the elderly (60 and above) will make up 33% of the population, up from 12% in 2010, making it the oldest population in the world. This shift drives healthcare costs and dependency ratios while creating labor shortages. These shortages are raising wages, which undermines the country’s economic competitiveness. Compounding the issue, China is aging relatively lowly, complicating its transition to a high-income economy.

The One-Child Policy has played a significant role in this crisis, leaving China with a “top-heavy" population pyramid where older generations outnumber younger ones. Fewer young people mean fewer caregivers for the elderly, both within families and the healthcare sector, and a shrinking workforce to sustain the economy. Gender imbalance is another consequence. Decades of sex-selective abortions and infanticide have led to 35 million more men than women, making it difficult for many men to marry and have children. Studies also indicate that the generation of only-child boys often faces behavioral issues, showing less trust, competitiveness, and conscientiousness compared to peers.

The economic implications are severe. A shrinking workforce slows growth and reduces tax revenues, while an expanding elderly population drives up pension costs. To manage this, China has increased the retirement age—from 60 to 63 for men, 55 to 58 for white-collar women, and 50 to 55 for blue-collar women. These changes aim to ease the strain on pensions but don’t fully resolve the challenges posed by a rapidly aging and shrinking population.

[...]

Archived

[...]

More than 200,000 people in Hong Kong live in sub-divided flats like [...], often cloaked in a musty odour and plagued by bedbugs during sweltering summers.

The former British colony [which has been ruled by China since 1997], ranked as the world's most unaffordable city for a 14th consecutive year by survey company Demographia, has one of the world’s highest rates of inequality.

[...]

Hong Kong aims to eliminate subdivided flats by 2049, a target set in 2021 by China’s top official overseeing the city. Beijing sees the housing woes as a serious social problem that helped fuel mass anti-government protests in 2019.

[...]

Still, Hong Kong's roughly 110,000 sub-divided flats have become notorious for high rents, with a median floor rate of HK$50 ($6.43) a square foot, a survey by non-government body the Society for Community Organization (SoCO) showed in 2022.

For so-called “coffin” homes, each roughly the size of a single bed, the rate is even higher, at HK$140, exceeding a rate of about HK$35 for private homes.

“All I hope for is to quickly get into public housing,” said Wong Chi-kong, 76, who pays HK$2,900 ($370) for a space smaller than 50 sq ft (5 sq m). His toilet sits right beside his bed and under the shower head.

[...]

About 1.4 million of Hong Kong’s population of about 7.5 million live in poverty, with the number of poor households rising to 619,000 in the first quarter of 2024, to account for about 22.7% of the total, says non-profit organisation Oxfam.

SoCO called for the new regulations to extend to “coffin” homes.

“This kind of bed homes is the shame of Hong Kong,” said its deputy director, Sze Lai-shan.

[...]

“The most important thing is having a roof over my head, not worrying about getting sunburnt or rained on,” said Sum, who gave only his last name.

Chan, 45, who pays rent of HK$2,100 a month for his 2 sq m (22 sq ft) home, said he hoped public housing would finally enable him to escape the bedbugs.

“I applied in 2005,” he said, providing only one name. “I have been waiting [for public housing] for 19 years.”

[...]

Addition:

Homelessness is defined differently around the world, making it difficult to compare the issue across countries.

Today, only 78 countries have official government data on Homelessness, according to the Institute of Global Homelessness (these countries are depicted in red on the map on the institute's website if you click the link). China does not provide such statistics for its mainland.

Also, methodologies as well as definitions of homelessness differ across countries. There are several internationally accepted methodologies for homeless data collection and efforts continue to standardize and improve enumeration for making data internationally comparable.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18153991

ShrimpMoss (虾苔) is a dataset designed for the abliteration (https://github.com/FailSpy/abliterator) of Chinese government-imposed censorship and/or propaganda from large language models developed in the PRC. It consists of a series of files of prompts (in .txt, .json, and .parquet format) in two groupings:

• china_bad_*: Contains a series of prompts likely to trigger censorship or propaganda actions in the model.
• china_good_*: Contains a series of prompts in the same general category of topics but which are designed to not touch on things likely to be censored.

Prompts are in a mix of English, Mandarin, and Cantonese.

[...]

This dataset was produced on Mistral NeMo, an Apache-licensed model with no restrictions on how its outputs can be used. It is free for all uses and users without restriction. All liability is disclaimed.

Production of this dataset is estimated to have had a carbon footprint of under 25 grams.

[...]

If successful, the move could provide Manila with one of its most influential platforms to challenge Beijing over its expansive South China Sea claims, reports China-based South China Morning Post (SCMP). A seat on the UNSC would allow Manila to spotlight China’s sweeping territorial claims in the South China Sea, which conflict with the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone

[...]

Securing a seat on the Security Council would allow Manila to spotlight China’s sweeping territorial claims in the South China Sea, which conflict with the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone and international law.

While any resolutions targeting China would almost certainly be vetoed by Beijing, a permanent member of the council, the effort itself could have significant diplomatic impact.

“The votes would embarrass Beijing,” said SCMP cited Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, as saying.

[...]

The Philippines has a strong record to support its candidacy. Over six decades, it has contributed 14,000 troops to 21 UN peacekeeping missions and previously held a Security Council seat in 2004–2005.

Additionally, the Philippines has secured backing from its regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Under a long-standing agreement, ASEAN members rotate their bids for non-permanent Security Council seats, and the Philippines’ turn has now arrived.

Additionally, it is likely to secure support of all Asean bloc members, who have agreed to support each other in a rotation on the UNSC.

[...]

Just wondering, officially communists are atheists. But there are still many temples inside China? Is that a contradiction? Also there are many more different faiths inside china:

• Muslims
• evangelical christians *…

How compatible are these with Confucianism? As far as I understand Confucianism is not really a religion? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism

Archived

When Zhang Junjie was 17 he decided to protest outside his university about rules made by China's government. Within days he had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital and treated for schizophrenia.

Junjie is one of dozens of people identified by the BBC who were hospitalised after protesting or complaining to the authorities.

Many people we spoke to were given anti-psychotic drugs, and in some cases electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), without their consent.

While there have been reports for decades that hospitalisation is used in China as a way of detaining dissenting citizens without involving the courts, a leading Chinese lawyer has told the BBC that the issue - which legislation sought to resolve - has recently seen a resurgence.

Junjie says he was restrained and beaten by hospital staff before being forced to take medication.

[...]

"The doctors told me I had a very serious mental disease… Then they tied me to a bed. The nurses and doctors repeatedly told me, because of my views on the party and the government, then I must be mentally ill. It was terrifying," he told the BBC World Service. He was there for 12 days.

[...]

Just over a month after being discharged, Junjie was once again arrested. Defying a fireworks ban at Chinese New Year (a measure brought in to fight air pollution) he had made a video of himself setting them off. Someone uploaded it online and police managed to link it to Junjie.

[...]

He was accused of "picking quarrels and troublemaking" - a charge frequently used to silence criticism of the Chinese government. Junjie says he was forcibly hospitalised again for more than two months.

After being discharged, Junjie was prescribed anti-psychotic drugs. We have seen the prescription - it was for Aripiprazole, used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

"Taking the medicine made me feel like my brain was quite a mess," he says, adding that police would come to his house to check he had taken it.

Fearing a third hospitalisation, Junjie decided to leave China. He told his parents he was returning to university to pack up his room - but, in fact, he fled to New Zealand.

He didn't say goodbye to family or friends.

[...]

Archived link

United Nations (UN) human rights experts have issued a communication letter to the Chinese government raising serious concerns about its recent history of human rights violations, in particular, its unlawful arrest and disappearance of rights defenders and individuals in Tibet and East Turkestan (Ch: Xinjiang). The communication highlights “recurring patterns of repression, including incommunicado detentions and enforced disappearances, which were intended to limit artistic, cultural, and religious expression, silence human rights defenders in these regions, and silence opposing or critical views.” The communication dated 14 November 2024 was made public on 14 January 2025.

In the communication, the experts called on the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to provide information on the fate and whereabouts of nine Tibetans, including Tsedo, Kori, Chugdar, Gelo, Bhamo, Lobsang Samten, Lobsang Trinley, Wangkyi, and Tsering Tashi. The communication also mentioned other human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, activists, and ethnic or religious minorities unlawfully imprisoned and disappeared.

Moreover, the experts questioned China about the facts and legal basis for the arrest, detention, charge, and sentence of the individuals mentioned above, along with whether their cases were classified as secret and the trials were closed. They explained how these actions conformed to China’s international human rights obligations.

[...]

Archived link

• Chinese WeChat messaging app, an integral part of everyday life in China, has emerged into a state surveillance tool
• Specific 'community groups' encocurage users to monitor and report their neighbors to authorities
• WeChat is used also abroad to spread Chinese propaganda and misinformation among Chinese-speaking communities

WeChat, often described as a digital “Swiss army knife,” is a super app operated by Tencent, one of China’s tech giants. Launched in 2011, it has become an integral part of everyday life in China, boasting over 1.3 billion monthly active users. While the app’s use for messaging, shopping, bill payments, and access to government services is well-known, its role in the digitalization of police services has been largely overlooked. This raises an important question: To what extent has WeChat become a policing platform for Chinese authorities?

WeChat as a State Surveillance Tool

WeChat’s role in state surveillance is well-documented, particularly its ability to filter and censor keywords and images on both its domestic and international versions. Like other Chinese communication platforms, the app must comply with strict domestic laws, regulations and guidelines that enforce censorship, data privacy, and propaganda requirements.

Censorship in China has a long history. In 1998, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) – the national law enforcement and public security authority – built the Great Firewall to ensure that the country’s economic modernization was accompanied by the suppression of free speech.

[...]

New regulations also hold internet companies legally responsible for real-time content moderation. This is in line with Xi Jinping’s 2016 speech at the Symposium on Cybersecurity and Informatization, during which he made it clear that internet companies must bear “primary responsibility” for content governance.

WeChat’s influence, however, extends beyond China. Researchers in Australia discovered that the app significantly shapes the political views of Chinese-speaking Australians. For instance, during the 2023 referendum on constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians through the creation of an advisory body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, WeChat was one of the platforms used to spread misinformation, disinformation and fake news. This included content rooted in racism, conspiracy theories and colonial denial. Despite this, the app claims its services do not extend to Australia, with its representatives having refused to attend a Senate hearing on foreign interference on these grounds.

[...]

The app’s integration into government services began in 2015 when Li Keqiang – then a State Council minister – introduced the “Internet+” reforms. These reforms aimed to address China’s slowing economic growth by leveraging big data for market regulation, management and supervisory systems, and public service delivery.

[...]

For local police departments with limited resources, WeChat policing offered a quick and cost-effective way to meet government targets without significant investments in software updates.

[...]

Some cities even established “community policing” groups reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, encouraging citizens to monitor their neighbors and report suspicious behavior.

[...]

Today, WeChat is more than just a communications platform. It has become an essential part of China’s public security infrastructure, encompassing digitalized police services, and expanding surveillance capacities, with early reports on these already emerging.

Archived

The Government of Thailand must immediately halt the possible transfer of 48 Uyghurs to the People’s Republic of China, UN experts* said today, warning that the group was at real risk of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment if they are returned.

“The treatment of the Uyghur minority in China is well-documented,” the experts said. “We are concerned they are at risk of suffering irreparable harm, in violation of the international prohibition on refoulement to torture.”

“The prohibition on refoulement prohibits the return or transfer in any manner whatsoever to a country where there is real risk of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” they recalled.

The experts urged Thailand to provide adequate and comprehensive medical care to the group of Uyghurs without delay.

The 48 Uyghurs are said to be part of a larger group of approximately 350 persons who were arrested in Thailand in 2014, after irregularly crossing the Thai border to seek protection in Thailand. It is alleged that they have been held in de facto incommunicado detention for over a decade, with no access to lawyers, family members, representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) or the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

[...]

Archived

International Communication Centers, or ICCs, have been sprouting up across China at a blistering rate since 2018. Tasked with leveraging local expertise and fusing traditional and new media to amplify the Party’s external propaganda, their story is one we have been following closely for years. But one part of the PRC has remained a grey area on the map — the part of the country perhaps most in need of positive spin, the far-western Xinjiang region.

Then, in late December 2024, Xinjiang’s branch of the Cyberspace Administration of China (网信新疆) announced the launch of the Xinjiang International Communication Center (新疆国际传播中心), housed in its own purpose-built offices in regional capital Urumqi.

[...]

A New Propaganda Nexus

Xinjiang Daily credits the new ICC with helping it to build a “matrix of foreign propaganda products.” One of the products they list is a website called Tianshan Net (天山网), which features videos from the new ICC and publishes content in English, Kazakh, Russian, and Uyghur. As we have written about before, China now conceives of external propaganda as an all-of-society effort pulling in various government and Party institutions. ICCs are not just production centers but hubs that serve to weave these different threads together.

[...]

Despite [...] efforts to reel in tourists with its “ethnic minorities” — majorities in much of the region — Xinjiang is best known internationally for subjecting its ethnically Turkic and predominantly Muslim population to what the UN calls crimes against humanity. More than anywhere else in the country, Xinjiang needs to refurbish its reputation. Yet while ICCs have spread throughout wealthier provinces to the east, Xinjiang has had most of its overseas propaganda created by outlets headquartered in Beijing like Xinhua and the People’s Daily.

[...]

Throughout 2024, Xinjiang’s government worked hard to cast off its poor reputation. In May, a special International Communication Research Center brought together members of the regional propaganda department to brainstorm new ways to “tell Xinjiang’s story well.” China’s annual World Media Summit also came to the regional capital [of Xinjiang], with executives from international news outlets like Reuters, AP, and CNN rubbing elbows with their counterparts at Xinhua, People’s Daily, and China Media Group.

[...]

Xinjiang’s ICC, despite the long wait and the lofty expectations ascribed to it, is unlikely to give us any new, innovative content. But it’s merely one more weapon in what they have called “a smokeless war” for global public opinion.

[...]

Thai officials had tried to persuade the detainees [who were detained in Thailand in 2014 after fleeing increasing repression in their hometown in China's Xinjiang province] to sign forms consenting to be sent back to China. When they realised what was in the forms, they refused to sign them.

The Thai government has denied having any immediate plans to send them back. But human rights groups believe they could be deported at any time.

[...]

The last time Thailand deported Uyghur asylum seekers was in July 2015. Without warning, it put 109 of them onto a plane back to China, prompting a storm of protest from governments and human rights groups.

The few photos that were released show them hooded and handcuffed, guarded by large numbers of Chinese police officers. Little is known about what happened to them after their return. Other deported Uyghurs have received long prison sentences in secret trials.

The nominee for Secretary of State in the incoming Trump administration, Marco Rubio, has promised to press Thailand not to send the remaining Uyghurs back.

Their living conditions have been described by one human rights defender as "a hell on earth".

They are all being held in the Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) in central Bangkok, which houses most of those charged with immigration violations in Thailand. Some are there only briefly, while waiting to be deported; others are there much longer.

[...]

• Doctors, medical students shun China's rural healthcare system
• Ageing villagers will need better healthcare
• Strategy imperils economy through demographic, other risks

Although China has made significant progress in improving its health care system, experts expect rural-urban inequalities to widen as the population ages.

China's development model is at a crossroads, say health and population experts, with a choice between much higher spending on pensions and healthcare or industrial upgrades and urbanisation, which Beijing sees as key to bolstering growth.

At a twice-a-decade meeting of the ruling Communist Party last year, Beijing promised to pursue both.

However, spending vast resources on rural healthcare was "not a good move" right now, a government adviser said.

"High-quality doctors are unwilling to live in rural areas and low-quality ones cannot provide good services. This is a structural problem," added the adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, as the topic is a sensitive one.

"The key is building townships, which is lagging behind."

[...]

Critics say that for China to choose urban and industrial investment over welfare programmes for its low-income rural population would present it with long-term growth risks greater than the short-term gains.

It could exacerbate overcapacity in factories, weaken consumption, and worsen the demographic crisis by pushing people into cities, where they take on busy jobs and live in small, costly apartments, so they tend to have fewer children.

[...]

China's biggest healthcare challenge is attracting qualified medical staff to rural areas, said Shenglan Tang, a global health professor at Duke-Kunshan University.

Doctors and medical students cite low pay and heavy workloads. A lack of good schools and other facilities deters young health workers from moving families to the countryside, Tang said.

Over the past decade, the number of urban doctors almost doubled to 4.1 million, while the figure for rural doctors dropped 42% to 622,000, more than twice the rate at which the rural population shrank, National Health Commission data show.

Large cities like Chengdu, the capital of the western province of Sichuan, "extract the good doctors from the small cities. And the hospitals in the small cities extract the good doctors from rural areas," a Chengdu doctor said.

[...]

High local government debt will make it difficult for China to boost investment in healthcare.

[...]

Archived version

China’s got a plan to build at least 193 dams in Tibet, and it’s causing quite a stir worldwide. Why? People are worried it could seriously mess with the environment, culture, and human rights. This ambitious project was spotlighted in a report by the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) on December 5th. The findings are a big deal, especially since they come from four years of research. It’s not just about Tibet; neighboring regions could feel the heat too.

These dams might give China a whole lot of control over water resources across Southeast Asia. Nearly two billion people depend on these waters, so you can imagine why this is a huge deal. The ICT report calls this move an aggressive grab for natural resources like water, lithium, uranium, copper, and cobalt. Vincent Metten from ICT put it bluntly: “There’s a frenzy and a grabbing of Tibet’s natural resources…and now, obviously, water.”

This raises all sorts of questions about environmental sustainability and resource management. Changing how water flows can shake up ecosystems inside and outside China’s borders. Having such control over essential resources risks not only biodiversity but also regional peace and cooperation.

[...]

It’s not just about nature—there’s some serious geopolitical stuff at play too. Countries nearby that rely on Tibetan water sources could find themselves in deep trouble if fair resource sharing isn’t sorted out. Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio, a senator from France-Tibet group, warns: “If we don’t work on water sharing, it’s a human catastrophe that awaits us.” Her statement highlights how crucial international dialogue and cooperation are to avoid conflicts over scarce water resources.

Plus, around 750,000 people in Tibet might have to leave their homes because of these dam constructions. This displacement brings tough human rights issues into play and threatens cultural heritage in one-of-a-kind regions.

[...]

Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18071518

[...]

1. Tariffs are already hurting Chinese exports

There is a growing chorus of warnings that China's economy will slow in 2025. One major driving factor of last year's growth is now at risk: exports.

China has relied on manufacturing to help exit the slowdown - so, it has been exporting a record number of electric vehicles, 3D printers and industrial robots.

The US, Canada and the European Union have accused China of making too many goods and imposed tariffs on Chinese imports to protect domestic jobs and businesses.

[...]

2. People are just not spending enough

In China, household wealth is largely invested in the property market. Before the real estate crisis, it accounted for almost a third of China's economy - employing millions of people, from builders and developers to cement producers and interior designers. [...]

It's already hit spending hard - in the last three months of 2024, household consumption contributed just 29% to China's economic activity, down from 59% before the pandemic.

That is one of the reasons Beijing has stepped up exports. It wants to help offset sluggish domestic spending on new cars, luxury items and almost everything else.

[...]

3. Businesses are not flocking to China like they used to

The lacklustre economic picture, uncertainty over tariffs and other geopolitical uncertainties mean the appetite of foreign businesses for investment in China is subdued.

It's not about foreign or domestic investment - it's that businesses don't see a bright future, said Stephanie Leung from wealth management platform StashAway.

"They would like to see a more diversified set of investors coming in."

[...]

The Taiwan Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said that a mechanism has been established to facilitate interdepartmental efforts to allow the detention of ships suspected of engaging in acts of sabotage in coastal waters.

The introduction of the new procedure followed an incident at sea earlier this month, when Chunghwa Telecom reported that one of its major undersea fiberoptic cables had allegedly been damaged by a vessel off Keelung.

At a legislative hearing yesterday, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Chu-yin (林楚茵) said that the Cameroon-flagged Shunxing-39 cargo ship, which is Chinese-owned, had not been detained and had sailed to Busan, South Korea.

Consequently, Taiwan now has to use diplomatic channels and ask for South Korea’s assistance in investigating the Jan. 3 incident, Lin said.

[...]

Archived link

China’s population fell last year for the third straight year, its government said Friday, pointing to further demographic challenges for the world’s second most populous nation, which is now facing both an aging population and an emerging shortage of working age people.

China’s population stood at 1.408 billion at the end of 2024, a decline of 1.39 million from the previous year.

The figures announced by the government in Beijing follow trends worldwide, but especially in East Asia, where Japan, South Korea and other nations have seen their birth rates plummet. China three years ago joined Japan and most of Eastern Europe among other nations whose population is falling.

The reasons are in many cases similar: Rising costs of living are causing young people to put off or rule out marriage and child birth while pursuing higher education and careers. While people are living longer, that’s not enough to keep up with rate of new births.

[...]

Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18070785

Archived

RedNote's top thought leaders experienced a collective crisis today after launching their #StandWithCCP campaign against the TikTok ban, attempting to "synergize cross-cultural digital harmony initiatives through leveraging collective thought alignment paradigms."

The incident began when Madison Parker, a self-described "Digital Sovereignty Architect" and "Corporate Culture Sherpa" with 2.3 million followers, organized a protest featuring carousel posts about "optimizing censorship-forward content strategies."

Parker's $2,999 "Social Credit Score Optimization Workshop: Future Leaders Edition" was canceled after her Zoom account got blocked in mainland China. "It's clearly Western tech interference," she explained through her crisis management team, who were desperately DMing Chinese state media accounts with "plz delete?" regarding her 2019 Taiwan posts.

The crisis deepened when her new podcast, "The Great Firewall Mindset: Disrupting Digital Freedom," couldn't be distributed in China due to Spotify's ban. Her follow-up "Future of Censorship" conference faced similar issues when the entire WeWork venue's IP range was accidentally blacklisted by Chinese authorities.

The situation reached peak chaos when several influencers attempted damage control using AI-generated Mandarin apologies, which accidentally included the phrase "Taiwan is a sovereign nation" in traditional characters with extra flourishes.

At press time, Parker announced she would be pivoting to posting about "one unified digital ecosystem thinking" exclusively through interpretive dance videos on her backup BeReal account, all while using a NordVPN premium subscription she swears is just for "network security optimization purposes."

Archived link

• China increases its aggressive tactics in the South China Sea, with the Philippines becoming a major target
• Philippine ships face increasing harassment, including blockades, ramming, and non-lethal weapons such as lasers and water cannons
• This large-scale maritime occupation infringes Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, displaying China’s growing confidence and belligerence

In recent years, we’ve seen China become more confident and confrontational, especially in the South China Sea region. Their aggressive tactics have intensified, with the Philippines now standing out as a primary target.

China is making full use of its considerable maritime power, pushing boundaries and displaying no signs of backing down – quite literally. There has been a marked increase in instances where Chinese ships have obstructed, rammed or swarmed the vessels of the island nation. Sounds like something from a pirate movie, doesn’t it? But this isn’t fiction.

[...]

Infringement of Philippine Waters

The South China Sea also plays host to the Philippines’ internationally recognized exclusive economic zone (or EEZ). This basically means that the Philippines has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources in this area. It’s akin to having your own backyard, where you should be free to do what you need without interference.

However, what Manila now faces is a large-scale maritime invasion by what can only be described as a hostile imperial power. This is similar to having a territorial bully walk into your backyard and claim it as its own.

[...]

To sum it up, the situation in the South China Sea reflects China’s rising audacity. [China's] belligerent maneuvers, particularly towards the Philippines, reveal a scenario of maritime machismo in full swing. In a world that so often extols the virtues of peace, diplomacy and respect for international boundaries, what China is doing is downright audacious.

With each swarming event, each blockade, and every powerful laser beam, the tension mounts further. However, the world watches and waits, hoping for a resolution that respects international law and the sanctity of sovereign waters.

[...]

Archived link

The Central Tibetan Administration [CTA], also known as the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, has announced plans to publish a comprehensive book and map documenting the original Tibetan names of places and boundaries. This initiative, aimed at countering China’s escalating cartographic aggression, was disclosed by CTA President Penpa Tsering during an interview with Hindustan Times.

President Tsering [...] explained the challenges and scope of the project, noting that the complexity would vary depending on the depth of research undertaken. “The work on the map is under process, and much will depend on to what level we need to go to find out the original names in Tibetan. If we restrict it only to townships, the task becomes much easier. Maybe we will begin by focusing on townships and later expand it to include villages, and that involves a lot of work.”

[...]

Prominent international media organisations, including The Guardian, AFP, ANI, and NDTV, have been criticised for using the term “Xizang” in their reports. A recent example involved coverage of the devastating earthquake in Dingri County, Shigatse Prefecture, which claimed 134 lives, injured 337, and destroyed thousands of homes. These reports prominently featured the Chinese term, drawing criticisms from the Tibetan community.

In another instance, the Musée du quai Branly in France faced backlash for using “Xizang” in its catalogue of Tibetan artefacts. Following strong opposition from the Tibetan community, supporters, and activist groups like Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) in France, the museum eventually removed the term. Scholars argued that the use of “Xizang” aligns with China’s official narrative and diminishes Tibet’s cultural and historical autonomy.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18055307

Archived link

Beijing's Salt Typhoon cyberspies had been seen in US government networks before telcos discovered the same foreign intruders in their own systems, according to CISA boss Jen Easterly.

Speaking at a Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) event on Wednesday, the agency director said her threat hunters detected the Chinese government goons in federal networks before the far-reaching espionage campaign against people's telecommunications providers had been found and attributed to Salt Typhoon.

"We saw it as a separate campaign, called it another goofy cyber name, and we were able to, based on the visibility that we had within the federal networks, connect some dots," and tie the first set of snoops to the same crew that burrowed into AT&T, Verizon, and other telecoms firms' infrastructure, Easterly noted.

By compromising those telcos – specifically, the systems that allow the Feds to lawfully monitor criminal suspects [the U.S. Wiretap system} – Salt Typhoon had the capability to geolocate millions of subscribers, access people's internet traffic, and record phone calls at will.

This visibility into federal government networks, combined with private-industry tips coming into CISA, led to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies obtaining court-approved access to Salt-Typhoon-leased virtual private servers.

"That then led to cracking open the larger Salt Typhoon piece," Easterly said.

Still, she cautioned, "what we have found is likely just the tip of the iceberg" when it comes to Chinese intrusions into American critical infrastructure.

"China is the most persistent and serious cyber threat to the nation and to our national critical infrastructure," Easterly warned, adding that Salt Typhoon isn't her biggest worry when it comes to Middle Kingdom cyberthreats.

[...]

The public later learned that the same PRC-backed crew had compromised at least one large US city's emergency services network, been conducting reconnaissance on "multiple" American electric companies, and was still lurking inside power, water, and comms systems, preparing to "wreak havoc" on American infrastructure and "cause societal chaos" in the US.

Archived link

[The CCP doesn't rewrite history, it increasingly tries to prevent it from ever being written.]

How has the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tended the gaping chasm between propaganda and reality in China’s modern history? And what do earlier historical precedents of propaganda around past atrocities bode for future propaganda on East Turkistan [or Xinjiang, as the region is also called]?

[...]

For now, the CCP’s mission to propagandize a fairyland version of East Turkistan continues apace. Along with vast amounts of content in the domestic media and sponsored content abroad, the CCP’s messaging also appears in traveling exhibitions, in “conferences,” in carefully stage-managed media and diplomatic tours of the region, and at travel shows where people are invited to “unveil the truth” about the region.

[...]

A basic metric for the scale of oppression is that Uyghurs (at barely one percent of China’s national population) comprise up to 60 percent of China’s entire prison population. Up to half of all imprisoned journalists in China are Uyghur. Uyghurs are the most likely of all inmates to die in prison. Coercive family planning policies have led to an alarming crash in the number of Uyghur births, worse even than the rates during genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda. There is evidence that forced labor programs in the Uyghur Region are expanding. Expressions of faith and cultural identity have been criminalized. But the Party would have us believe that Uyghurs are “the happiest Muslims in the world.”

[...]

History as propaganda

Party-branded history forms the essence of day-to-day Party propaganda. A famous adage states that journalism is the first rough draft of history. Conversely in China, “journalism”—communications and propaganda—is dictated and proof-read by Party historians and ideologues.

[...]

Standalone Uyghur histories are not tolerated: Uyghurlar by poet and historian Turghun Almas was quickly banned after its release in 2010. In early 2022, Sattur Sawut, a historian who drew on previous official versions of the Uyghur Region’s past was given a suspended death sentence for a history book he compiled, and three of his associates were given life sentences.

The Party-line history insists that the Uyghur Region has been part of “the Motherland” since the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), and that the Uyghur people—along with all ethnicities in the Uyghur Region—have been “members of the same big family” ever since. In other words, the Uyghur people, their land and their culture are all just scions of a greater Chinese entity. The absurd use of the metaphor of a pomegranate to describe the closeness of all ethnic people in the region is far more descriptive of Uyghurs crammed into prison cells.

And it is the CCP’s mission to wrench the Uyghur people into a state of being that affirms this telling of history as narrated by the propaganda which largely fuels human rights atrocities in the region.

[...]

The Great Chinese Famine [between 1958 and 1962] is widely regarded as the worst man-made disaster in human history. Absurdly ambitious agricultural policies were pursued to ridiculous lengths. Claims of outrageously high crop yields were championed by the Party, which then turned a willfully blind eye to the devastation their policies caused to food production. Even as people starved to death in plain sight the Party’s focus was instead on celebrating its own genius and exacting brutal recrimination against anyone who dared doubt it.

Estimates for the numbers of people who died in the famine vary between 2.6 and 55 million. One of the most rigorous studies—Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962 by former Xinhua journalist Yang Jisheng—estimates 36 million people died while another 40 million “failed to be born” due to falling birthrates.

Yang quotes Lu Baoguo, a Xinhua journalist at the time, who recounts: “In the second half of 1959, I took a long-distance bus from Xinyang to Luoshan and Gushi [in Henan Province]. Out of the window, I saw one corpse after another in the ditches. On the bus, no one dared to mention the dead.”

More than 60 years later, official accounts of the period gloss over the famine as “The Three Years of Hardship” (三年困难时期). At the time of writing, the top result from a Google search of the “gov.cn” domain using the term “The Three Years of Hardship” is a 2015 article from the “Party History Research Office of the CCP Yueyang Municipal Committee” in Hunan, which states: “In 1959, 1960, and 1961, there were three consecutive years of natural disasters coupled with the Soviet Union’s debt collection and leftist ideological interference, and the country entered a difficult period and the people lived in hardship.”2

The famine is “completely absent” from China’s history textbooks; Yang Jisheng hasn’t been permitted to leave China to accept awards for Tombstone, which hasn’t even been published in China.

Continuing to whitewash and doctor the historical record will inevitably form the foundation of the CCP’s future propaganda strategy on East Turkistan. Given the framing of the Great Chinese Famine, the closest the Party may ever come to acknowledging, for example, the astronomical rates of Uyghur imprisonment—up to one in 17 adults—will be a similarly trivializing non-confession: “The Party displayed an abundance of caution in the face of challenging domestic and international pressures, which led in some areas to an over-enthusiasm for intensive education measures.”

[...]

**The Tiananmen Massacre, June 3–4, 1989 **

The CCP Department of Propaganda’s central offices are a short tank-drive from Tiananmen Square itself—merely half a city block—and anyone there would certainly have witnessed the massacre, if they chose to.4

It’s well-known that the Department of Propaganda is adept at flooding online spaces with counter narratives and disinformation. However, the department’s other primary function is brute censorship. Every year around the anniversary of the massacre, huge volumes of material attempting to discuss or memorialize events are liable to be wiped from China’s cyberspace.

Online postings containing any one of hundreds of keywords are considered suspect. Some of the keywords are obvious: “tank man” or even just “tank,” for example. Others are a stark demonstration of the CCP’s nervousness: postings containing “candle” are suspect because some of the bereaved light candles in memory of those killed. Still other keywords are evidence of people’s ingenuity and determination to memorialize the massacre: posts containing the otherwise meaningless characters 占占点 are deleted because the characters are intended as a pictogram of tanks rolling over people.

That the Party was willing to turn the military forces of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army against unarmed Chinese citizens was a shock that still reverberates around the country 35 years on. And whereas the Party’s stance on other events may have softened over the years – some incidents are “reassessed” by Party historians and individuals once vilified are posthumously “rehabilitated” – there has been no significant deviation in the Party’s refusal to countenance any kind of public accounting for the Tiananmen Massacre.

[...]

Conclusion

The CCP employs—and will undoubtedly continue to employ—various tried and tested propaganda strategies in East Turkistan. The lesson from the Great Leap Forward is how to make the record invisible, the Cultural Revolution is a lesson in blaming others, and the Tiananmen Massacre a lesson in outright denial and the utility of the delete key. These same strategies are evident in other atrocities not covered in this article: the decimation of Tibet, the murderous campaign against Falun Gong, or the Party’s mishandling of the Covid outbreak, to name but a few.

The continuation of a people’s culture depends on the validity of their memories and experience. The challenge of maintaining the integrity of Uyghur identity is falling ever harder on the diaspora, notwithstanding the CCP’s concerted efforts to harass and silence Uyghurs abroad. This is a mission that’s well understood in the diaspora and among their supporters, but greater assistance against Beijing’s vast propaganda machine is always welcome.

Propaganda is neither a science nor an art, and for over a century there has been no true innovation in Chinese propaganda. The paradigm shifts of digital media and mass communications haven’t altered the basic impulse: dominate or destroy narratives in support of ulterior motives. As Chairman Mao put it, “Make the past serve the present.” But perhaps Churchill put it more succinctly: “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”