American Suspension Of INF Treaty Is Aimed At China

zerohedge

by Tyler Durden

Fri, 02/08/2019 - 23:45

Authored by Anatoly Karlin via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

So it’s done. The US has suspended its participation in the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and Russia soon followed suit. This almost certainly spells an end to this late Cold War relic, which banned the two superpowers from deploying ground-launched ballistic missiles and cruise missiles with ranges of 500-5,500km. There have been recriminations all round. But in the end, so far as two of the world’s three most greatest military Powers are concerned, upholding the INF Treaty could never have been done exactly to the letter.



The US has specified Russia’s Novator 9M729 (NATO designation: SSC-8) as the offending missile that finally prompted US action. Russian nuclear weapons analyst Pavel Podvig has noted that it is very similar to the Russian Navy’s Kalibr-NK cruise missile, which has a range well beyond 500 km and has been touted as a potential “carrier killer”. Podvig goes on to speculate that if the US had observed a test of the 9M729 from a land-based Iskander-M launcher – even if on just a single occasion – then all of them “would have to be eliminated” by the formal terms of the treaty. This is obviously not something that Russia could reasonably be expected to carry out.

Moreover, any number of US missile systems can be considered to be in breach of the INF Treaty. For instance, the Russians have argued that America’s AEGIS Ashore program – a ground-based cruise missile, for all intents and purposes – can also be considered to be in systemic breach of the INF Treaty. Incidentally, this system was itself enabled by America’s unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 2002, under the George W. Bush administration.

Trump has been taking heat for the INF withdrawal from the usual quarters. For instance, the top comment on this story at r/politics – a bastion of online Trump/Putin Derangement Syndrome – lambasts the US President for spoiling America’s image and letting down its allies instead of sanctioning Russia. (Naturally, no mention of where exactly it says that breaking the Treaty is grounds for such). In reality, dissatisfaction with the INF Treaty had been building up for years within the previous Obama administration, and NATO has released a statement of support for Trump’s decision. There is no significant division on this matter either within US political circles, or its transatlantic allies.

Because at the end of the day, rhetoric to the contrary, nobody really cares about the INF Treaty within Europe. Force levels on both sides of the border between the West and Russia – which has moved 1,000-1,500 km to the east, in large part thanks to NATO’s broken promises not to expand – are at a small fraction of Cold War levels. Few seriously believe that Russia has any territorial designs on the Baltics, and even on the off chance that it does, it’s not like the 9M729 is going to make any cardinal difference.

However, it is with respect to the balance of power in the West Pacific that the restrictions imposed by the INF on the US – but not on China – come into play. While consensus expert opinion holds that the US still retains dominance in the South China Sea vis-à-vis China, its margin of superiority is shrinking year by year. In a 2015 report, the RAND Corporation estimated that the number of US air wings required to defeat a surge of attacking Chinese aircraft over Taiwan increased from just a couple in 1996 to 30 by 2017. In a subsequent report released in the following year, we see the balance of power in potential China-US conflict scenarios shift from a terminal Chinese disadvantage in 1996, to parity over Taiwan by 2017 (though they believe that the US still holds a decisive advantage in a conflict over the Spratly Islands). Even so, it is especially notable that the only two categories in a conflict over Taiwan in which RAND now considers China to hold an advantage – “Chinese attacks on air bases” and “Chinese anti-surface warfare” – are both spheres in which intermediate-range ballistic missiles would play an important role.

This is not just my supposition. In another 2016 RAND report, tellingly titled “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable”, this consideration is stated openly and forthrightly:

“US land-based missiles from 500 km to 5,500 km are prohibited by the INF treaty, whereas the Chinese missiles are not, giving China a significant advantage.”

It has long been obvious that the US (correctly) regards China as the real long-term threat to its global hegemony. Meanwhile, Russia is a mere nuisance, a “dying bear” that is ever approaching collapse, in the wake of which Moscow will have no choice but to sign up to America’s China containment project. (Sure, this sounds like a crazy ideological narrative, and it is – but the US policy of alienating Russia and drawing it into a quasi-alliance with China is even crazier – just ask Kissinger). But like it or not, this really is how the American elites think, and it can’t be denied that there is a certain logic to it.

In this context, withdrawal from the INF Treaty – with Russia’s alleged violations as pretext – is just the logical next step to the military component of Obama’s “pivot to Asia”, one that the US is entirely happy to continue and follow through with. It really is as banal as that.


Thank You Mr Durden and Zerohedge.

12,000 Chinese Blood Treatments Found To Be Contaminated With HIV

zerohedge
Tyler Durden Feb 8, 2019

by Tyler Durden

Fri, 02/08/2019 - 20:05

Just as China's Lunar New Year is being rung in, the ruling communist party is facing another major healthcare scandal.

One of the country's state run pharmaceutical companies found the HIV virus present in an estimated 12,000 doses of immunoglobulin treatment, an immune therapy treatment made with antibodies from blood plasma. The state-owned Shanghai Xinxing Pharmaceutical Company, China’s second-biggest medical blood products manufacturer, notified authorities on Tuesday of the news, according to China's National Health Commission.

In response, the National Health Commission (NHC) warned hospitals to immediately suspend use of the batch after the provincial health commission and disease control center of eastern China’s Jiangxi detected traces of HIV in it.

This contamination is the latest in a long line of shocking failures by the Chinese healthcare system, which has included the deliberate use of expired polio vaccines on children to save money, a scandal which eventually forced President Xi to apologize, especially after public anger spilled over, resulting in protests which ended violently for the parents involved.

But that paled in comparison with July’s vaccine scandal, in which 252,600 faulty rabies vaccines made by Changchun Changsheng Bio-technology, one of China’s biggest vaccine firms, were administered to thousands of toddlers.

Even worse, the news comes just two weeks after the communist party announced a new campaign to fight the "rampant irregularities" in the Chinese healthcare system according to the SCMP.



And with socialism all the rage in the US these days, perhaps this is an opportune moment to remind readers that China offers a free and functional healthcare system to its people - these are the results.
Back to the latest scandal, where while already 12,000 batches of contaminated treatments were found to carry HIV, the government left open the possibility that more cases could soon be found, as the company urged government officials to "continuously observe and monitor" patients who had received the treatment.

Luckily, the Jiangxi Provincial Disease Control Centre which administers the region covering Shanghai Emerging Medicine Holdings, reported that no patients have tested positive for HIV at that location so far, although since this is China, one should take any and all official "news" with an uncontaminated rock of salt.

Ironically, the company's intravenous treatment is used to help "strengthen" peoples immune systems and is commonly used for patients with cancer or other diseases that affect the body’s ability to fight off infections. A dosage of HIV, needless to say, would lead to the opposite outcome.

One head of haematology at a Shanghai hospital told SCMP that "if this is true, it would be a very low-end error,” the unnamed doctor was quoted as saying. “Right now, the crucial point is to make clear whether it was caused by a blood donor or a problem with the product.

"We need to find out where the faulty batch was delivered and carry out a recall and re-examination."
He also said that patients treated with faulty blood plasma may not necessarily be infected with HIV, because there was an anti-virus treatment in the preparation process.

“[Patients] would need to be tested again to find out whether they were specifically infected,” he was quoted as saying.

Since the scandal first emerged nobody has said how the HIV became present in the treatments in the first place, however so far, state officials have tried to place the blame for these shocking cases of medical negligence squarely on China's private sector.

In November, the government consulted the first draft of a vaccine management law that would allow people to sue drug makers for punitive damages in cases of death or serious illness caused by faulty vaccines.

Health Medical Pharma

 

 

Thank You Mr Durden and Zerohedge.

10 NEW Signs Of China Imminent Economic Collapse 2019 China's Yuan CRASH!

U.S. lawmakers target China's ZTE with sanctions bill

Reuters
Feb 5, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill on Tuesday that would reimpose sanctions on ZTE Corp if the Chinese telecommunications firm fails to live up to U.S. laws and an agreement with the Trump administration. 

U.S. President Donald Trump angered many members of Congress, including some of his fellow Republicans, in July 2018 when he decided to lift a ban on U.S. companies selling to ZTE, allowing the Chinese company to resume business. 

ZTE broke a previous agreement and was caught illegally shipping U.S.-origin goods to Iran and North Korea, Commerce Department officials said. ZTE pleaded guilty last year over the sanctions violations.

read more

Thank You Reuters

U.S. warns European allies not to use Chinese gear for 5G networks

Reuters
Feb 6, 2019

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States sees the European Union as its top priority in a global effort to convince allies not to buy Huawei equipment for next-generation mobile networks, a U.S. State Department Official said on Tuesday.

After meetings with the European Commission and the Belgian government in Brussels, U.S. officials are set to take a message to other European capitals that the world’s biggest telecommunications gear maker poses a security risk, said the official, who declined to be named. 

“We are saying you need to be very, very cautious and we are urging folks not to rush ahead and sign contracts with untrusted suppliers from countries like China,” the official said. 

Read More

Thank You Reuters

U.S. trade agency sees negotiating new WTO rules to rein in China as futile

Reuters
Feb 5, 2019

David Lawder, Chris Prentice

4 Min Read

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Negotiating new World Trade Organization rules to try to rein in China’s “mercantilist” trade practices would be largely a futile exercise, the Trump administration’s trade office said on Monday, vowing to pursue its unilateral approach to protect U.S. workers, farmers and businesses.  

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office used its annual report to Congress on China’s WTO compliance in part to justify its actions in a six-month trade war with Beijing aimed at forcing changes in China’s economic model. 

The report also reflects the United States’ continued frustration with the WTO’s inability to curb what it sees as China’s trade-distorting non-market economic policies, and offered little hope that situation could change soon. 

Read More

Thank You Reuters

China hacked Norway's Visma to steal client secrets: investigators

Reuters
Feb, 6, 2019

Jack Stubbs

4 Min Read

The attack was part of what Western countries said in December is a global hacking campaign by China’s Ministry of State Security to steal intellectual property and corporate secrets, according to investigators at cyber security firm Recorded Future. 

China’s Ministry of State Security has no publicly available contacts. The foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment, but Beijing has repeatedly denied any involvement in cyber-enabled spying. 

Visma took the decision to talk publicly about the breach to raise industry awareness about the hacking campaign, which is known as Cloudhopper and targets technology service and software providers in order reach their clients. 

read more

Thank You Reuters

Fed's Quarles says Chinese 'downdraft' weighs on global economic outlook

reuters
Feb 6, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A “downdraft” in the Chinese economy and the effect of ongoing trade negotiations are among the top concerns in the global economy, though U.S. growth is still solid, a Federal Reserve governor said on Wednesday.

Randal Quarles, the Fed’s vice chairman for supervision, said at an event in New York that he is most focused on how global growth evolves over the next three to six months and how U.S. trade policy affects China and Europe.

“Right now China is a downdraft as we think about what the potential impact for that is on our economy.” The U.S. outlook “is still very solid” given the labor market in particular.

Thank You Reuters and President Trump.

Chinese Aggression Against the U.S.A.

frontpagemag

Far more than trade is involved.

February 4, 2019

Michael Cutler

My previous article for FrontPage Magazine focused on specific threats to the United States that were linked to border security issues raised in the January 29, 2019 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Worldwide Threats that was itself predicated on the Intelligence Community’s just-released World-Wide Threat Assessment.

I used the information disclosed at the hearing and contained in that threat assessment report about the dangers to America created by transnational criminal organizations and translational gangs such as MS-13 and the drug cartels in Mexico, as well as the crimes and activities of human traffickers that support the Trump administration’s demands for a border wall, a wall that unbelievably, the leaders of the Democratic Party adamantly oppose.

However, the report included much more material about other global threats that confront the United States and its interests. Simply stated, the world is a dangerous place.

Among the other threats addressed in the report were those posed by China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Today we will take a hard look at China and how its aggressive and relentless pursuit of global dominance threatens America.

Before we go any further, we must remember that China is led by a totalitarian Communist regime that is not an ally but rather a serious adversary of the United States.

President Trump is the first American President in decades to take a strong position against Chinese transgressions against the United States where trade, currency manipulation and espionage are concerned.

China has moved swiftly to consolidate its stranglehold on its own citizens by politically eliminating presidential term limits and exploiting ever more sophisticated technological tools such as social media, facial recognition technology, and other such hi-tech means.

On January 13, 2019 CBS News’ 60 Minutes aired a report on the developments in artificial intelligence (AI) brought about by venture capitalist Kai-Fu Lee’s investments and China's effort to dominate the AI field.

There is no shortage of specific examples of Chinese espionage committed against the United States and U.S. companies. Such espionage has become so routine and commonplace that the U.S intelligence services have come to refer to this as “Chinese Take-Out"!

Frequently Chinese citizens who acquire lawful immigrant status and United States citizenship use that status to facilitate espionage against America and American companies.

To cite a recent example, on December 21, 2018 the Justice Department issued a press release, Chinese National Charged with Committing Theft of Trade Secrets that began with the following statement:

Hongjin Tan, a 35 year old Chinese national and U.S. legal permanent resident, was arrested on Dec. 20 and charged with theft of trade secrets. Tan is alleged to have stolen the trade secrets from his employer, a U.S. petroleum company.

The announcement was made by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney Trent Shores for the Northern District of Oklahoma, and Special Agent in Charge Kathryn Peterson of the FBI Oklahoma City Field Office.

“Hongjin Tan allegedly stole trade secrets related to a product worth more than $1 billion from his U.S.-based petroleum company employer, to use for the benefit of a Chinese company where he was offered employment,” said Assistant Attorney General Demers. “The theft of intellectual property harms American companies and American workers. As our recent cases show, all too often these thefts involve the Chinese government or Chinese companies. The Department recently launched an initiative to protect our economy from such illegal practices emanating from China, and we continue to make this a top priority.” 

On January 28, 2019 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a press release, Chinese telecommunications conglomerate Huawei and Huawei CFO Wanzhou Meng charged with financial fraud.

On that same day, January 28th, the Justice Department issued a press release about the same investigation, Chinese Telecommunications Device Manufacturer and its U.S. Affiliate Indicted for Theft of Trade Secrets, Wire Fraud, and Obstruction Of Justice /Huawei Corporate Entities Conspired to Steal Trade Secret Technology and Offered Bonus to Workers who Stole Confidential Information from Companies Around the World.

The DOJ press release also included a link to the ten count indictment.

Besides imposing tariffs against Chinese imports, President Trump has also imposed restrictions on Chinese students who are studying in the United States. This was the focus of my article, "Trump Administration Restricts Chinese Students - Finally, America confronts a massive espionage operation."

This is a welcome change by the administration to protect America and Americans. I have written several articles about Chinese espionage and belligerence and how, for decades, our universities have been training foreign students who seek to exploit our educational system to further the goals and agendas of America’s adversaries, including hundreds of thousands of Chinese STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) students who, as they acquire first-rate education in the United States, have been able to work for American companies under the auspices of Optional Practical Training that enables foreign students to apply their training and education in real world jobs for American companies in the United States. This program has facilitated Chinese espionage against American companies including ones that have military contracts.

These long-overdue efforts of the Trump administration should be cheered and supported by all Americans and even American allies around the world who should take similar actions.

Three of my relatively recent articles highlight China’s massive espionage campaign against the United States:

Chinese Citizen Arrested By FBI For Spying On U.S. - A case that highlights the nexus between immigration and espionage.
China Ratchets Up Its U.S. Spying Programs:  American Universities and financial institutions are at risk.
Educating America’s Adversaries:  China’s engineers are building China’s military. Who taught them?

When American companies, in a quest for cheap labor and reduced regulation, have set up factories in China, China has seized the opportunity to engage in industrial espionage against those companies proving that sometimes short-term savings cost more, often much more, in the end.

In some instances, American companies have voluntarily cooperated with China’s totalitarian regime. For example, Google has been enlisted by the Chinese government to help crack down on civil liberties in China against its own citizens even as Google actively and aggressively opposes any efforts by the U.S. government to protect America and Americans from the threat of international terrorists.

My recent article "Google vs Border Security" referenced an article published by The Intercept, titled, “Google Plans To Launch Censored Search Engine In China, Leaked Documents Reveal.”
Eager to do lucrative business in China, Google was willing to “go along to get along” while its dealing with the U.S. government went in precisely the opposite direction.

A September 21, 2018, Newsweek article, “Google Brainstormed Ways To Combat Trump's Travel Ban By Leveraging Search Results For Pro-Immigration Causes,” included the following excerpt: "Google, along with Apple, Facebook and other technology companies, filed a joint amicus brief challenging the travel ban, stating that it “inflicts significant harm on American business, innovation and growth."

Now let’s turn to the Threat Assessment. Consider this excerpt that is found on pages 24 and 25:

China

The Chinese Communist Party’s Concentration of Power
China is deepening its authoritarian turn under President Xi Jinping, and the resulting hardening of Chinese politics and governance probably will make it more difficult for the leadership to recognize and correct policy errors, including in relations with the United States and our allies and partners.

President Xi removed one of the few remaining checks on his authority when he eliminated presidential term limits in March 2018, and the Chinese Communist Party has reasserted control over the economy and society, tightened legal and media controls, marginalized independent voices, and intensified repression of Chinese Muslims, Christians, and other religious minorities.

The Chinese Government also is harnessing technology, including facial recognition, biometrics, and vehicle GPS tracking, to bolster its apparatus of domestic monitoring and control.

Beijing’s increasing restrictions on scholars’ and researchers’ freedom of movement and communication with US counterparts may increase the prospects for misunderstanding and misinterpretation of US policies.

Universities in the United States have been willing to accept Chinese demands for changes in curricula in exchange for funding from China. On January 17, 2018 Politico published a report, How China Infiltrated U.S. Classrooms that begins with this passage:

Last year, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte made an announcement to great fanfare: The university would soon open a branch of the Confucius Institute, the Chinese government-funded educational institutions that teach Chinese language, culture and history. The Confucius Institute would “help students be better equipped to succeed in an increasingly globalized world,” says Nancy Gutierrez, UNC Charlotte’s dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and “broaden the University’s outreach and support for language instruction and cultural opportunities in the Charlotte community,” according to a press release.

But the Confucius Institutes’ goals are a little less wholesome and edifying than they sound—and this is by the Chinese government’s own account. A 2011 speech by a standing member of the Politburo in Beijing laid out the case: “The Confucius Institute is an appealing brand for expanding our culture abroad,” Li Changchun said. “It has made an important contribution toward improving our soft power. The ‘Confucius’ brand has a natural attractiveness. Using the excuse of teaching Chinese language, everything looks reasonable and logical.”

Li, it now seems, was right to exult. More than a decade after they were created, Confucius Institutes have sprouted up at more than 500 college campuses worldwide, with more than 100 of them in the United States—including at The George Washington University, the University of Michigan and the University of Iowa. Overseen by a branch of the Chinese Ministry of Education known colloquially as Hanban, the institutes are part of a broader propaganda initiative that the Chinese government is pumping an estimated $10 billion into annually, and they have only been bolstered by growing interest in China among American college students.

Yet along with their growth have come consistent questions about whether the institutes belong on campuses that profess to promote free inquiry. Confucius Institutes teach a very particular, Beijing-approved version of Chinese culture and history: one that ignores concerns over human rights, for example, and teaches that Taiwan and Tibet indisputably belong to Mainland China. Take it from the aforementioned Li, who also said in 2009 that Confucius Institutes are an “important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up.” Critics also charge that the centers have led to a climate of self-censorship on campuses that play host to them.

Remarkably, even as Antifa thugs and university administrations seek to block American conservatives from providing their perspectives on college campuses across the United States, Communist China’s outrageous propaganda is embraced and welcomed on American college campuses.

Lenin has been quoted as saying, “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” Today there is a fire sale on rope in America and it must end. The sooner the better!


Thank You Mr Cutler and FPM.

Huawei Tried To Steal His Technology, But He Was Working For The FBI All Along

zerohedge
Bloomberg, Tyler Durden Feb 5, 2019

Adam Khan believed he had invented nearly indestructible glass that was going to revolutionize the technology industry. His "diamond glass" looked like ordinary glass, but was 6 times stronger than the industry standard. His plan, according to a new Bloomberg article? License the technology to phone manufacturers and turn a pretty penny for his company, Akhan Semiconductor, Inc.

As part of his research, he sent a specimen of his glass to a San Diego lab that was owned by Huawei Technologies to have it evaluated for potential licensing - but the sample he received back after testing was badly damaged, leading him to believe it may have been tampered with.

Khan said he was optimistic at first: “We were very optimistic. Having one of the top three smartphone manufacturers back you, at least on paper, is very attractive.”



But he then found himself paranoid about knockoffs - and became even more paranoid when Huawei began to "behave suspiciously" after getting his sample. They missed a deadline to return his sample and when they did return it, it was broken in several pieces and three shards of glass were missing altogether. 

He said: “My heart sank. I thought, ‘Great, this multibillion-dollar company is coming after our technology. What are we going to do now?’”

Khan was likely further surprised when he was approached by the FBI to help with an ongoing investigation into Huawei. The FBI wanted Khan and Akhan’s chief operations officer, Carl Shurboff, to conduct an undercover meeting with Huawei in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. Shurboff was outfitted with surveillance devices and recorded the conversation, while a reporter from Bloomberg watched from a safe distance. 

During the conversation, Khan and his COO "succeeded in getting Huawei representatives to admit, on tape, to breaking the contract with Akhan and, evidently, to violating U.S. export-control laws." 

Subsequent to that, when an FBI gemology expert was able to examine the glass Khan had received back, they determined the Huawei had blasted it with a 100 kW laser, which is "powerful enough to be used as a weapon".

The investigation Khan is involved in is separate from recent indictments against the company. It is hardly the last as it seems that every day, more Huawei stones continue to turn over.

“Today should serve as a warning that we will not tolerate businesses that violate our laws, obstruct justice, or jeopardize national and economic well-being,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a January 28 press release about indictments regarding technology allegedly stolen by Huawei from T-Mobile. On that same day, the FBI raided the San Diego lab where Khan had sent his glass. 



Display glass is considered to be a significant competitive advantage in the world of smart phones. Khan had been working on diamond glass going back to his college days when he began learning about nanodiamonds at the age of 19. According to Bloomberg:

After graduation, he ran experiments at the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility and teamed up with researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, eventually developing and patenting a way to deposit a thin coating of tiny diamonds on materials such as glass. He also licensed diamond-related patents for Akhan from the Argonne lab in 2014. By the following year, Khan was confident enough to start promoting his new technology. 

If the FBI's new investigation into Huawei continues to provide substantial evidence, it will bolster the Trump administration's case to block the Chinese company from selling equipment for 5G use in the US. Some countries, like Australia, have already banned Huawei equipment for fear of not being able to protect IP that's in the interest of national security. 

Khan's final take? All companies of all sizes should be watching out for Huawei as closely as possible: “I think they’re identifying technologies that are key to their road map and going after them no matter what the size or scale or status of the business. I wouldn’t say they’re discriminating.”

To read Bloomberg's full long-form writeup with more details on the story, click here. 

Thank You Bloomberg and Zerohedge.

Latest Intel Assessment Shows How Trump-Russia Hoax Has Hurt American Interests

federalist
Mollie Hemingway Jan, 31, 2019

Earlier this week, intelligence chiefs briefed U.S. senators on the Select Committee on Intelligence about global threats. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats’ 42-page written report read like a middling Obama-era update, with more space devoted to concern about climate change, Brexit, and social justice issues than Islamist terrorism or border disputes and violations.

Still, it’s worth considering the first and most serious global security threat Coats flagged for senators, which is the strengthened alliance of China and Russia as they seek to expand their global influence.

The “U.S. Officials Cite Alignment of Moscow, Beijing as Threat” blared the Wall Street Journal’s top-of-the-front-page headline:




Read More
 

And What would you expect from the Democrats, who let Hillary run the State Dept last time around?

China's 2018 growth slows to 28-year low, more stimulus seen

Where did all those Never Trump geniuses go who predicted a Disaster when President Trump went after a level Trade playing field with China?

reuters
Jan 20, 2019

Kevin Yao, Yawen Chen

6 Min Read

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s economy cooled in the fourth quarter under pressure from faltering domestic demand and bruising U.S. tariffs, dragging 2018 growth to the lowest in nearly three decades and pressuring Beijing to roll out more stimulus to avert a sharper slowdown.

Growing signs of weakness in China — which has generated nearly a third of global growth in recent years — are fueling anxiety about risks to the world economy and are weighing on profits for firms ranging from Apple to big carmakers. 

Policymakers have pledged more support this year to reduce the risk of massive job losses, but have ruled out a “flood” of stimulus like that which Beijing has relied on in the past, which quickly juiced growth rates but left a mountain of debt.

Continue Reading

Beijing to Judge Every Resident Based on Behavior by End of 2020

weaselzippers

Nov 24 2018

 
Scary stuff. We already see the left trying to dictate what is acceptable behavior here.

Via Bloomberg:


China’s plan to judge each of its 1.3 billion people based on their social behavior is moving a step closer to reality, with Beijing set to adopt a lifelong points program by 2021 that assigns personalized ratings for each resident.

The capital city will pool data from several departments to reward and punish some 22 million citizens based on their actions and reputations by the end of 2020, according to a plan posted on the Beijing municipal government’s website on Monday. Those with better so-called social credit will get “green channel” benefits while those who violate laws will find life more difficult.

The Beijing project will improve blacklist systems so that those deemed untrustworthy will be “unable to move even a single step,” according to the government’s plan. Xinhua reported on the proposal Tuesday, while the report posted on the municipal government’s website is dated July 18.

Keep reading…



Thank You Nick and WZ

"Your Pet Will Be Confiscated!": A Shocking Glimpse Inside China's New Social Credit System

Your consumer dollars hard at work, for "cheap, imported goods."
Doing the jobs Americans won't do.

Zerohedge
Tyler Durden, Nov 2, 2018

Citizens in one Chinese provincial capital can now be permanently blacklisted by China's Orwellian digital panopticon 'social credit system' for simply failing to clean up after their pets.

It's but the latest manifestation of the recently implemented, though long in development, nationwide social scoring credit system where people are ranked and punished or rewarded for their behavior, via The Telegraph:

Chinese cities are launching a scoring system for dog owners where anyone found failing to care for their pets could be forced to pay a fine - or even have their dog confiscated.

The credit system is already being enforced in the Chinese city of Jinan, and requires anyone with a dog to register with the police - with only one dog permitted per person.

The license starts with a dozen points and is embedded as a QR code on a dog’s collar. Points are then deducted for various infractions, such as walking a dog without a leash or tag, not cleaning up poo, or being reported for a disturbance. Owners are docked three points if dogs are walked without a leash, for example, which must be less than 1.5 metres in length and under the control of someone at least 18 years of age.

The system is now undergoing piecemeal implementation across various major cities and is now invading people's lives in all kinds of extreme ways from public transportation to dog-walking to flagging pedestrians for crossing the street in an unsafe manner .

The system is currently far from being universally in place; however, the country's communist government has plans to rank every citizen — all 1.4 billion of them — by 2020.

But various bizarre and rigid policies are already being felt and reported in different parts of China - from the state confiscating pets to dire recorded audio warnings threatening reprisal should commuters on a bullet train not bide by the rules.

China's electronic "social scoring" utilizes vast networks of surveillance cameras, facial recognition software, A.I. digital monitoring, and extensive databases, was first announced in 2014 and aims to reinforce the idea that "keeping trust is glorious and breaking trust is disgraceful," according to a government document — though we're not sure if forgetting a pooper-scooper while taking the dog out warrants being digitally blacklisted by an all-seeing digital eye.

As scary as the whole program sounded when it first began receiving more media attention a year ago, to see it in action in the form of deterrent warnings to citizens is absolutely terrifying.

In one particularly jarring example a journalist traveling by bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai recorded an ominous audio message which blared loudly to passengers. The message was issued in Chinese and English, and takes the form of the kind of "safety and procedures" type message that airlines typically present after take-off , but this is the stuff of dystopian nightmare made reality.

A female voice can be heard on an intercom threatening people not to misbehave or else their "behavior will be recorded in individual credit information system."

Here's a dystopian vision of the future: A real announcement I recorded on the Beijing-Shanghai bullet train. (I've subtitled it so you can watch in silence.) pic.twitter.com/ZoRWtdcSMy — James O'Malley (@Psythor) October 29, 2018

The chilling announcement as the commute was in progress reveals the reality that people are already living in fear of the nationwide social credit system. The voice warns that such infractions as travelling without a ticket or people who "behave disorderly" — like smoking in public places — would be "punished according to regulations, and the behavior will be recorded in individual credit information system."

The punishments are not defined in the audio message, but the reference to the credit information system means that even minor behavior infractions will be recorded permanently as part of a violator's permanent electronic record.

There are already a number of recent reports out of China of people either being punished and rewarded based on their social credit. For example earlier in the year student was denied his spot at university because his father was blacklisted for failing to pay off a 200,000-yuan ($28,700) bank loan. More commonly, people are now routinely barred from taking trains of public transport due to their low score.

But perhaps the most shocking aspect of the message recorded on the bullet train is just how seemingly banal it all sounds in the moment: one can easily imagine this kind of thing being rolled out in the West, which some analysts have been warning about.


Thank You Mr Durden and Zerohedge.

U.S. restricts exports to Chinese semiconductor firm Fujian Jinhua

No Mr President, We are Not tired of winning. Keep 'em coming, and thank you.

Reuters
10/29/2018

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration took action on Monday to cut off a Chinese state-backed chipmaker from U.S. suppliers amid allegations the firm stole intellectual property from U.S. semiconductor company Micron Technology Inc (MU.O)

The Commerce Department said it had put Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co Ltd on a list of entities that cannot buy components, software and technology goods from U.S. firms.

The administration is concerned the Chinese firm could flood the market with cheap chips that are also made by U.S. companies that supply the U.S. military. If the U.S. chipmakers go out of business, the military would lose a supplier for an item that must come from the United States.

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China factory growth weakest in over two years, slump in export orders deepens

Reuters
10/31/2018

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s manufacturing sector in October expanded at its weakest pace in over two years, hurt by slowing domestic and external demand, in a sign of deepening cracks in the economy from an intensifying trade war with the United States.

Anxiety about China’s cooling growth and its likely drag on the global economy have vexed financial markets recently, and Wednesday’s official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) indicates more stress for investors through coming months.

The official PMI - which gives global investors their first look at business conditions in China at the start of the last quarter of the year - fell to 50.2 in October, the lowest since July 2016 and down from 50.8 in September.


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U.S. charges Chinese intelligence officers for jet engine data hack

reuters

10/31/2018


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chinese intelligence officers conspired with hackers and company insiders to break into private companies’ computer systems and steal information on a turbo fan engine used in commercial jetliners, according to a U.S. indictment unsealed on Tuesday.

The indictment said at the time of the hacks, a Chinese-state owned aerospace company was working to develop a comparable engine for use in aircraft manufactured in China and in other countries.

Chinese-made jets, including the C919 and ARJ21, currently use foreign engines but the country has been trying to develop a competitive homegrown alternative.


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U.S. Navy chief says U.S, China to 'meet more and more on high seas'

reuters

10/31/2018


JAKARTA (Reuters) - Chief of U.S. Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson said on Tuesday the United States and China “will meet each other more and more on the high seas” after a Chinese warship came close to a U.S. ship in the disputed South China Sea.

The Chinese vessel came within 45 yards (meters) of the USS Decatur during a “freedom of navigation” sail in late September, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said this month.

The U.S. mission was the latest attempt to counter what Washington sees as Beijing’s efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters, where Chinese, Japanese and some Southeast Asian navies operate.




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US Must Protect Itself Against China Cyber War

zerohedge
Tyler Durden 10/24/2018

Authored by Richard Fisher via The Epoch Times,

The storm of controversy has yet to subside following the Oct. 4 Bloomberg Businessweek blockbuster story that San Jose, California-based Super Micro Computer Inc.’s made-in-China computer motherboards were secretly “hacked” by the People’s Liberation Army over a two-year period. Another episode in the China cyberwar saga.

This particular hack potentially enabled back-door access to the computers of companies such as Apple and Amazon and U.S. government agencies including the Department of Defense, CIA, NSA, and the Navy.

Immediate security implications for the United States and many other countries are enormous, so it’s not surprising that, weeks later, denials of the report far exceed affirmations.


The day the story was released, Super Micro, Amazon, and Apple denied being affected, and on Oct. 18 Apple CEO Tim Cook asked Bloomberg to retract its story.

Officials from the NSA, FBI and Department of Homeland Security have expressed doubts.

During a U.S. Senate hearing Oct. 9, Kirstjen Nielsen, DHS director, said while DHS did not have evidence to support Bloomberg’s contention of computer supply chain interference, she also said, “It is a very real and emerging threat that we are very concerned about.”

Also on Oct. 9, Bloomberg reported that “a major U.S. telecommunications company” had removed Super Micro computer hardware deemed “manipulated” by China, citing Yossi Appleboum, cybersecurity expert and former Israeli Army intelligence officer.

He also told Bloomberg that he has seen similar Chinese manipulations of computer hardware made by various Chinese vendors, noting there are “countless” points in the Chinese supply chain where manipulations can be introduced.

China Wants to Control Global Cyberspace

This controversy will continue, but we can pause to consider its first major message: China is engaged in a war to control global cyberspace.

This is a vital part of its driving ambition to eclipse the United States as the principle global military power and to impose military control over the Earth-Moon system. Furthermore, until the United States can revive Cold War-era-like cooperation among the democratic allies which protects their military dual-use technology and fights back against China’s cyber war, China increasingly will pervert and weaponize the life-enhancing potential offered by digital technologies in its effort to contain and eventually dominate us.

A stark lesson in the pitfalls of cyber-hubris was offered by former President Bill Clinton, who in an October 2000 speech argued for China to be allowed to join the World Trade Organization. He stated the internet would “change China,” suggesting it would weaken Chinese Communist Party (CCP) control.

Today, CCP totalitarianism is enhanced by its control over its internet Great Wall, which isolates Chinese from the global web; allows increasingly intimate control over them via “smart cities” that record their physical movement; and enables future “social credit scores” that will grade their online support for the CCP in order to determine access to better cities, education, and jobs.


Could China someday assign similar social credit scores to everybody who works or plays online?
The China-Super Micro Connection

To do so, China would require the kind of global backdoor access to computer systems said to have been provided by the Chinese contractors making the hardware for Super Micro.

This past January, it was reported that for five years the new African Union headquarters built by China also has been hacked to send confidential information back to China.

Governments increasingly ban or discourage relying on Chinese telecommunication equipment vendors like Huawei or ZTE, while since October 2016 the Pentagon has warned against using Chinese-made Lenovo computers.

Add to this China’s pervasive 24-7 mining of global computer networks, and its specific attacks against companies and databases to amass military, economic, political, and personal data.

This becomes deadly serious considering that in late 2015 the People’s Liberation Army created a new military service, the Strategic Support Force, to ensure China wins in new battlefields dominated by cyber warfare, databases, electronic warfare, energy weapons, and space warfare.

If China can stealthily “manipulate” their computer hardware, it might also be able to turn against us our future unmanned weapons, made deadlier with advances in artificial intelligence.

Thinking of waging a war against an interest of China’s? It may not be unreasonable to expect your officers, soldiers, and their families to receive dissuasive robocalls from China as the opening move in a much more destructive cyber assault. Imagine how China might seek to manipulate your future “brain chip,” especially if it was made in China.

Consequently, as the Trump administration has sought to illustrate in an Oct. 5 report on the U.S. manufacturing and defense industrial base, the United States must invest in reviving domestic American sources for military-critical industries, including those feeding our electronic infrastructure.

Washington also must go on the offensive. It should seek to revive proven institutions like the former Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls to better control China’s access to Western military technology.

There is also a need for a multilateral cyber and information campaign that exploits China’s cyber weaknesses. For example, obtaining the ability to manipulate the internet social credit scores of 300 million Chinese could turn up the political heat on the 90 million members of the CCP.

Thank You Mr Durden and Mr Fisher.

Defeating Iran's Mullahs

American Thinker
By Amil Imani  Sept 11, 2018

And who is still feeding the Mullahs despite US Sanctions against them?

China says business ties with Iran no harm to any other country | Reuters

The Islamic Republic of Iran has entered its fourth decade, and the values and legacy of the revolution it was founded upon continue to have profound and contradictory consequences for Iranian life. The mullahs have ruled over the defenseless Persian people with iron fists and absolute power. As a result, millions of Iranians were forced to flee their home to the four corners of the globe.

Those remaining have been targeted in waves of arrests of largely innocent people. They have been accompanied by widespread torture, rape, and mass executions. Tens of thousands more were torn away from their homes and moved to Islamic dungeons. These prisoners of conscience were forced to confess to crimes they never committed and then either exterminated or sent back to medieval Islamic torture chambers, where they simply faded away. It is difficult for many people to even talk about these horrible tragedies under the Islamic rules in Iran. I personally spoke with a few lucky ones who managed to flee the country in the '90s.

In 1979, upon returning from his long exile, Ayatollah Khomeini set the stage for gaining absolute power via primitive Islamic rules and by employing hundreds of thousands of zealous revolutionary guards and militia police against opposition elements within the country. The machinery of coercion went to work against the Iranian people, who were unaware of the plot of one the greatest terrorist-minded individuals of the twentieth century, the ayatollah Khomeini. The year 1979 was the beginning of the rejuvenation of the evil empire of Islam.

The propaganda apparatus of the newly emerged empire of evil went to work. They began with their Cultural Revolution. Numerous political figures, clerics, and academics were involved in the cultural revolution between 1980 and 1983. They expelled some 700 university professors from Iran's academic institutions in a short time. The universities were finally closed in June 1980, and the purification process began.

The execution of thousands of prisoners of conscience in the Summer of 1988 by the direct order of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, reached its height.

In his speech, Khomeini said:

Those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain committed to their support for the "Monafeqin" [Mojahedin, the MEK], are waging war on God and are condemned to execution[.] ... Destroy the enemies of Islam immediately. About the cases, use whichever criterion that speeds up the implementation of the [execution] verdict.

Ayatollah Khomeini's notable legacy will live alongside the most infamous and hated men in history, such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, and Saddam Hussein, who sent millions of their own countrymen to their deaths. Iran's leaders have turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos.

That is how the Iranians learned of Islamic justice. That is how the Iranian people gained firsthand experience of the laws of Islam in their society. And that is why, after forty years of incessant indoctrination of Islamic propaganda, Iran has the largest anti-Islam population in the entire world and a huge cohort of pro-Western youths. The Islamic Republic brainwashing machine has simply backfired.

Ironically, the more vociferous the Iranian people became in defying the terrorist State, the more European countries engaged in appeasing the Islamic tyrants. They looked the other way then, and they are looking the other way now.

The only way to stop Iran 's despotic regime from another holocaust is to help Iranians change the regime themselves. Notably, the Islamic regime has no fear of any foreign invasion. The mullahs' only fear comes from within: the Iranian people.

On the 14th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke:

The American threats are not new. They have threatened us since the beginning of the Islamic revolution. They know that militarily attacking Iran and the Iranian nation would mean suicide for the aggressor.

Millions of Iranians consider the mullahs and their lackeys and lobbyists as true enemies of Iran. Iranians have never asked for charity from anybody, but all they are saying is that people and countries that are at clear risk from the mullahs ought to step to the plate and help the Iranians, in numerous effective ways, to get rid of these usurpers, these religious fanatics who are hell-bent on promoting their deadly agenda. The Iranian people will most assuredly dislodge these wolves and try them for their crimes with all due process, the due process that they have completely denied the people of Iran for forty years. But tried they will be, and we need help from our friends to destroy the common enemy before it escalates its bloodletting program, both in Iran and against Israel and eventually engulfing the entire region.

We have invaluable allies on the ground in Iran. There are some 50 million Iranians who are the best hope. These enlightened Iranians despise the mullahs and have no animosity toward Israel or the United States. Most of these people are well educated and smart and have broken away from the slavery and fraud of Islamism. They are in the best position inside to send the mullahs packing for good. We must also support from the outside Prince Reza Pahlavi, who has the full support of Iranians inside. Prince Pahlavi has been advocating a referendum for the people to decide for themselves what type of government they desire. "Iranians are the ones who decide their own destiny and the future form of their government in a free and democratic referendum."

In short, European countries must join the United States in ending the rule of these religious fanatics. Instead of throwing a lifeline to the sinking ship of the mullahcracy, we must act resolutely in doing everything we can to help the Iranian people to defeat the mullahs. This is our best bet to end the mullahs' reign of terror.

Thank You Mr Imani and American Thinker.