Information/Technology - 29. page

Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor, a failed example of the “Great Leap Forward” in the Semiconductor industry, was on the verge of bankruptcy. The Wuhan Dongxihu District Government recently took it over but made no change to the board members of the company. Wuhan Hongxin was reported to be a 128 billion-yuan (US$19.5 billion) project. It was established in November 2017. From the very beginning, it claimed that it owned the technology to make a 14nm chip, and will make a 7nm chip one year later. It also invited Chiang Shang-yi, former TSMC Chief Operating Officer, to be the CEO. In July of this year, the media report showed that Wuhan Hongxin was at risk of a capital chain rupture and payments to the subcontractors were delayed for months. In June, Chiang Shang-yi also submitted his resignation.

In recent years, there has been an upsurge to build semiconductor-related factories in different parts of China. However, one after another, the investment of tens of billions or even hundreds of billions in Jiangsu, Sichuan, Hubei, Guizhou, and Shaanxi, failed and the local governments who came up with the initial funding ended up taking them over. On October 20, a spokesperson from China’s National Development and Reform Commission said that they have noticed that companies with no experience, no technology, and no talent intend to invest in the chip industry. Some local governments are standing behind and push for the project. For projects that ended up with major losses and wasted resources, they must understand that “whoever supports the project should bear the full responsibility.”

Source: Central News Agency, November 17, 2020
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202011170324.aspx

At the end of 2019, Chinese authorities ordered journalists to pass an exam featuring Xi Jinping’s speeches. According to the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), as of October 30, 2020, a total of 205,000 Chinese journalists had passed the “Xi Thought” exam and obtained a passport-sized Chinese journalist ID card with gold letters against a red background.

Cheng Yizhong, a senior Chinese media person who participated in the founding of Southern Metropolis Daily and Beijing News, told Radio Free Asia that this shows that China now has high confidence in its propaganda outlets and this has nothing to do its press freedom. “(The Chinese government) is confident that it has reached a state of complete control over the terminal (reporter) and information. … With a press ID card, it is easier to maintain control.”

According to the announcement of the NPPA, a Chinese journalist’s ID is good for a term of five years, contingent on annual reviews. The press ID’s can only be issued by news organizations that the government certifies.

RFA also interviewed a young man surnamed Li, who completed his master’s degree in journalism in the United States and chose to work in China’s state media. For Li, taking the press card exam is a career development requirement for which he had no choice. Li showed a screenshot of his phone and repeated the exam questions and standardized answers.

Question: As General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized, what is the most basic principle of news and public opinion work?
Answer: The Party’s leadership over news and public opinion work.

Question: As Xi Jinping emphasized, what is the basic guidance for news and public opinion?
Answer: Unity, stability, and positive propaganda.

Question: What should cyberspace be?
Answer: A new space for the Party to build consensus.

In 2020, according to data from the U.S. non-profit organization the Committee to Protect Journalists, China is the country that has the largest number of imprisoned journalists in the world. In the annual World Press Freedom Index report from Reporters Without Borders, China ranked fourth to the last around the world. The number is even higher than in dictatorship regimes such as North Korea. The report also mentioned that if Chinese journalists had the right to report freely, the COVID-19 pandemic could have been avoided, or at least it would not have come to be as tragic as it is now.

Source: Radio Free Asia, November 6, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/meiti/jt-11062020095028.html

In recent years, while the Chinese Communist regime has an iron grip on domestic websites and social media, it has punished netizens who use VPN software to circumvent the Internet fire wall and express themselves on foreign social media such as Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. The suppression it uses includes home visits from the police to issue warnings, deletion of posts and closure of accounts, and imprisonment for those who publish unfavorable comments about the government.

The court may soon hear the case of Shen Liangqing, a former prosecutor and human rights activist in Anhui Province. Last year, the authorities arrested him on suspicion of “disturbing the peace.” The evidence against him in the indictment involves his comments on Twitter and Facebook.

According to the information provided by the website of Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, the indictment claimed that between 2017 and May 2019 when he was arrested, Shen Liangqing used information networks and software to post articles on overseas social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, attracting more than 20,000 followers. The indictment also stated that some of Shen’s posts were “false information” in that they “distorted” historical events and socially sensitive topics to attack and disrupt the normal social order. The indictment added that there were 42 pieces of this kind of information on Twitter, with a total of 470,000 clicks. On Facebook, 13 pieces of the aforementioned content were reposted 16 times and liked 130 times.

A well-known netizen and human rights activist with an account name “xiucaijianghu,” whose real name is Wu Bin, from Huzhou, Zhejiang, has been arrested and punished for “spreading rumors” and “disturbing the peace.” His Weibo and WeChat accounts have been suspended many times. So was his Twitter account. On March 24 this year, the authorities of Zhouzhou city of Hunan province took “xiucaijianghu” away due to his on-line comments, and he lost contact. He said on his new Twitter account in September this year: “The government forcibly closed my Twitter account using my mobile phone. One hundred thousand followers and ten years of tweets disappeared.”

A Chinese student with the surname Luo studied in the United States in 2018. He was detained after his return to China in 2019 because he posted satirical content about Xi Jinping and he was later charged with “disturbing the peace” and sentenced to half a year. The case reportedly attracted the attention of a few US lawmakers, including Republican Senator Ben Sasse and Marco Rubio. Sasse said, “This is what ruthless and paranoid totalitarianism looks like.”

In July of this year a Chinese student, who was studying in Melbourne, Australia, used humorous language and pictures to ridicule the Chinese authorities on Twitter. The police in China constantly harassed her family members, and her father was even taken to the police station to be interrogated. In addition to receiving a direct call from the Chinese police and being forced to surrender her Twitter account’s password, she also received death threats.

Chinese netizens may also be punished for simply using VPN to browse overseas websites or use overseas social media. According to a report from “Bitter Winter,” a European online magazine focusing on religious freedom and human rights in China, on May 19 this year, the police in Ankang city of Shaanxi province issued an administrative warning and a fine to a man for accessing the overseas Internet using circumvention software.

Source: Voice of America, November 10, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/Chinese-authorities-punish-citizens-for-retweeting-or-reposting-on-foreign-social-media-20201110/5653617.html

IPVM, a U.S. based company focusing on video surveillance, released a video report on Thursday, November 5, which revealed a secret it discovered in the products of Dahua Technology, a partially state-owned publicly traded company based in China which sells video surveillance products and services. The report stated that the wording “EM_NATION_TYPE_UYGUR” was found in the code of a product downloaded from Dahua Technology’s website.

These English words mean “ethnic type: Uyghur.” Next to these words are the Chinese characters of “维族 (新疆),” meaning “Uyghur (Xinjiang).” One can tell that this video surveillance software has a facial recognition function for Uyghur facial features.

IPVM contacted Dahua Technology for an explanation, but Dahua declined to comment. IPVM reported that the relevant information on Dahua Technology’s website was deleted about 30 minutes after IPVM made the contact.

Dahua Technology, headquartered in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, is one of China’s largest artificial intelligence companies. As of 2019, it occupied the second largest share of the global video surveillance equipment and service market, with an annual revenue of US$3.7 billion. The company has 16,000 employees.

Governments around the world have strongly condemned the concentration camps in Xinjiang that imprison millions of Uyghur Muslims. The huge video surveillance network has enabled Chinese police to arrest and repatriate Uyghur Muslims who had fled across the country.

Dahua and many artificial intelligence companies in China have participated in the construction of this network. They use artificial intelligence technology to design facial recognition software based on the facial features of the Uighurs, and they help the police to achieve all-round control of the Uighurs. Wherever Uighurs flee, they will be located quickly, detained or deported.

IPVM discovered that more than a dozen public security units in China have installed such software. Dahua claims it has won almost $1 billion in massive Xinjiang police surveillance deals.

The US government sanctioned Dahua in October 2019 because of its complicity in human rights abuses against Uyghurs. In response, Dahua bragged about how this showcased its “strong technology.” South China Morning Post reported that, last month, the company changed its product brand and still promoted its products on Amazon.

Dahua Technology’s main competitors are Hikvision, Megvii Technology, SenseTime and Yitu Technology. All of them have participated in the Xinjiang video surveillance network projects. Several of them are also on the United States’ sanctions list.

Source: Voice of America, November 5, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/Dahua-racist-Uyghur-tracking-revealed-20201105/5649563.html

Submarine fiber optic cables are considered one of the most important infrastructures in the digital age. They carry almost all Internet information transmissions around the globe. In recent years, China has risen rapidly in this field, which Western companies have traditionally dominated. Among the 400 some submarine optical cables in the world, the Chinese telecom company Huawei Marine has constructed or upgraded 105 of them.

TeleGeography, a Washington based telecommunications market research and consulting firm, has been mapping the world’s submarine cables. The latest statistics show that there are currently 406 submarine cables in the world. Alan Mauldin, the company’s research director, told Voice of America (VOA) that although China’s Huawei Marine has a relatively small market share, it has become one of the world’s four largest submarine cable contractors and has constructed most of the world’s submarine cables. The other three are SubCom in the U.S., the Alcatel Group in France, and NEC in Japan.

Huawei Marine was once a subsidiary of Huawei. After the U.S. launched a series of sanctions against Huawei in June of last year, Huawei sold the company to Hengtong, China’s other top fiber optic cable manufacturer. Hengtong claims to be a private enterprise. Its founder, Cui Genliang, is both the chairman of the group and the head of the company’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee.

According to data from Huawei Marine’s official website, the company has so far built or upgraded 105 submarine cables around the world. One recent project in December 2015 was the upgrade of the West Africa Submarine Cable System (WACS) that provides high-speed network access for 14 countries along the west coast of Africa from South Africa to the United Kingdom.

China’s state media People’s Daily reported last week that Chinese companies have not only become important global integrators in the construction of submarine cables, but also possess the world’s leading optical communication technology in submarine cable transmission, with “the production and sales of optical fiber cables accounting for more than half of the world’s market share.”

Compared with Huawei’s mobile communication equipment, the security risks posed by China’s submarine cable business have rarely been mentioned. However, in recent months there have been signs that the United States has begun to pay close attention. In April this year, the U.S. Department of Justice rejected the inclusion of Hong Kong in a fiber optic cable network across the Pacific Ocean due to national security considerations. The project, Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN), involves a number of technology companies in the United States, including Facebook and Google. The original plan for the optical cable’s landing station in Hong Kong was to be operated by China’s Chengdu Dr. Peng Telecom & Media Co., Ltd. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a press release: “Routing undersea cables through Hong Kong would provide the People’s Republic of China with a strategic opportunity to collect the private information of our citizens and sensitive commercial data. Hong Kong is subject to intrusive Chinese government laws that put the Chinese Communist Party’s demands for information ahead of the privacy of U.S. consumers.”

Earlier this year, the U.S. State Department put forward an initiative to protect network infrastructure, which also included submarine cables in the five major clean areas. So far, more than 40 countries have responded to the US’s “Clean Network” initiative.

In addition, a member of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently called for a more rigorous review of submarine cables. Geoffrey Starks, who once served in the U.S. Department of Justice, said the FCC “must ensure that adversary countries and other hostile actors can’t tamper with, block, or intercept the communications they carry.”

Source: Voice of America, October 31, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/us-china-battle-over-submarine-cables-20201031/5642937.html

Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported a social media post showing the screenshot of a notice from China’s Zhejiang provincial government that penalized a netizen for bypassing the great fire wall to browse the Wikipedia website. The police were able to locate and arrest the individual.

The facts, as shown in the notice, are about Zhang Tao, was the netizen who the police charged with the illegal activity. “From the first half of 2019 to October 2020, Zhang searched and downloaded the circumvention software LANTERN, with which he repeatedly bypassed the fire wall to access the Wikipedia website illegally to query information.”

The notice also stated that on Saturday October 24, the police seized Zhang and took him from a building for investigation. The police believed that Zhang used mobile circumvention software to access international networks in order to obtain information. It was an “unauthorized use of illegal channels for international networking.” The police imposed administrative penalties on Zhang under article 6 and article 14 of China’s “Implementation Rules for Provisional Regulations of the Administration of International Networking of Computer Information.” The police also issued an admonition and warning to him, ordering him to disconnect from the international network immediately.

The RFA reporter called the Zhejiang provincial government and asked, “How can you tell whether an Internet user was browsing the Internet illegally?” The answer was, “All activities circumventing the fire wall to browse anti-Party and anti-social content” are illegal.

The California-based China Digital Times found that there were nearly 70 cases of punishment for “bypassing the fire wall” as shown on the Zhejiang provincial government’s website.

Source: Radio Free Asia, October 29, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/wiki-10292020090454.html

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) cyber censorship authorities have further tightened their grip on the media in order to create a stable and peaceful political and public opinion atmosphere for the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CCP held in Beijing between October 26 and 29.

On October 22, China Digital Times, a California-based bilingual news website covering China, published the instructions that Beijing had issued for the Fifth Plenary Session.

This notice issued to the media detailed the requirements for propaganda control. It covered five concerns: “political rumors,” “national leaders,” “ideology,” “stability maintenance,” and “others.” The topics under close scrutiny included “harmful political rumors and information involving slander and attacks from abroad,” “exploitation of high-level infighting and power struggles, the next generation leadership, information on the successor (to Xi Jinping),” “harmful information that attacks, ridicules, and spreads rumors about leaders and important speeches,” “harmful information about leadership personnel changes, such as factional infighting, and the inner circle of Xi Jinping,” “publishing information on Hong Kong independence, Taiwan independence and the speeches of people supporting Hong Kong and Taiwan independence,” “harmful information that attacks our country’s political system, social system, the Party and the state,” and “Complaints about the Fifth Plenary Session.”

The notice also prohibits Internet platforms from highlighting reports involving vicious criminal cases, massive social unrest, campus incidents, as well as unauthorized use of overseas news.

Source: Voice of America, October 27, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/Tightening-media-control-has-become-new-political-normal-in-China-before-major-events-20201027/5637612.html