Information/Technology - 49. page

On Tuesday October 16, about 20 Hong Kong media executives met in Beijing with the Chinese Communist Party’s head of the Central Propaganda Department, Huang Kunming. Siu Sai Wo, the head of the delegation and Chief Executive of the Sing Tao Group, told the media what Huang said at the meeting: “I hope that the Hong Kong media will not become a base for interfering with mainland politics.”

Some Hong Kong media broadcast Siu’s words on television and on social media. However, the report about Hong Kong media interfering with the mainland political base later “disappeared.” This triggered concerns over self-censorship in the Hong Kong press, as Chinese officials have never used such strong language targeting the Hong Kong media. However, Siu later told the South China Morning Post that the meeting related content should not be used for interviews and clarified that the original text should be “to prevent external forces from turning Hong Kong into a base for intervening and destroying the mainland.” It was not targeting Hong Kong media.

Bruce Lui, a lecturer at the Hong Kong Baptist University’s Department of Journalism, believed that, as a professional practice, the media has a responsibility to verify the facts. If the interviewee made a false statement, the media and its senior executives should offer clarification, so that the public will not feel that the Hong Kong media, following the practice of the mainland media, will collectively revise their story.

Lui pointed out that the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department mainly takes charge of the ideology inside the Party. “In theory it should not intervene in matters in Hong Kong or Macao.” This time the Central Propaganda Department was directly talking to the senior executives of the Hong Kong media and handing out opinions. It was different from the courtesy visits in the past and was “not normal.” He suspected that the Central Propaganda Department intends to become the direct superior of the Hong Kong media. Possibly it wants to intensify its influence on the Hong Kong media.

The Hong Kong media is different from that in the mainland in that there is a greater degree of freedom in reporting and editing. However, recently, the Asia news editor for the Financial Times, Victor Mallet was denied the renewal of his Hong Kong work visa. It happened after he invited Andy Chan, founder of the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party (HKNP), to give a speech at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC). The event caused the outside world to be concerned about Hong Kong’s freedom of the press.

According to the Hong Kong Journalists Association’s 2017 survey, the Chinese government controls 35 percent of Hong Kong’s mainstream media or they have received financial investments from China.

Lui expects that the mainland will exert more influence on the Hong Kong media in the future. It will use different political and economic tactics to deal with overseas media more often.

Source: BBC Chinese, October 17, 2018
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-45887146

The regulations that the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS) issued not long ago on the supervision and monitoring of the Internet will take effect on November 1. According to this regulation, when there is a need, any network company should open its user data to the public security authorities. The new regulations have in fact added further clarity to the cybersecurity law that has caused widespread controversy in China.

The cybersecurity law came into effect last summer. It requires all Internet information disseminators, including foreign companies, to keep a copy of the data on users from mainland China. Because of this, for example, in order not to lose the Chinese market, Apple agreed to transfer the encryption key and the user data of Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Industry Development Co., Ltd. (GCBD). Since October last year, new regulations that prevent cyber anonymity have been in effect. Some of them require information disseminators, bloggers, and social network administrators to remove all contents that belong to anonymous users. In addition, these regulations prohibit the registration of new accounts if the users do not provide personal information.

The new MPS regulations that will take effect on November 1 explain how to ensure compliance with the law. According to this regulation, the law enforcement authorities can freely enter the office and check the equipment of the Internet service provider and the network units. For example, they can inspect the contents such as whether technological measures are in place to record and retain user registration information and online log information legally and whether it can adequately monitor the content in real time to prevent the spread of negative or illegal information. In addition, law enforcement has the right to monitor Internet service providers and networked users remotely if they are potential security risks and to conduct surprise inspections.

Source: Sputnik News, October 10, 2018
http://sputniknews.cn/opinion/201810101026538194/

On October 8, People’s Daily Online carried an article about China’s propaganda practice in the world. The title was “Precision Communication is the inevitable choice for International Communication.” The authors are from the Hunan University School of the Communication and Arts of Film and Television.

“In recent years, China has been taking many measures in the international field of communication and has achieved remarkable results. However, the pattern of the international public opinion landscape, that the West is strong and we are weak, has not fundamentally changed. There is still a long way to go to do well in international communication. Implementing precise communication and adopting different strategies and methods for different audiences in different countries is an inevitable choice to enhance the effect of international communication.”

“Precision communication is conducive to enhancing the effectiveness of international communication. . . . There are so many countries, nations and cultures in the world and there are great differences between countries, nations, and cultures. Even within the same country, there are big differences between different audiences. This requires us to adopt different communication methods for different audiences in different countries in international communication and to implement precision communication. By “using one key for one lock,” we can continuously improve the effect of international communication.”

“Precision communication should become an important topic in the study of international communication theory. . . . We should take the following as important research topics: the audience for international communication, the landscape of international communication and strategies, the comparative study of international communication, the influence of Chinese and foreign media, and the improvements on the effect of China’s international communication. This will provide theoretical support for telling good stories about China.

“Precision communication should rely on cyber technology to promote innovation in communication methods. At present, the development of information technology, especially big data technology, provides favorable conditions for the implementation of accurate communication. Relying on big data technology, we can analyze the characteristics, hobbies, and information needs of different audiences in different countries and analyze the misunderstandings that different countries’ audiences have about China. Based on this, we can provide targeted content for different audiences in different countries. From a technical point of view, precision communication requires the use of profiling based on information processing such as knowledge graphing, user classification, and association rules. Relying on big data technology and artificial intelligence technology, we can accurately provide personalized content to different audiences in different countries.”

Source: People’s Daily Online, October 8, 2018
http://theory.people.com.cn/n1/2018/1008/c40531-30326985.html

Deutsche Welle reported that the mainland chip industry uses high payments for labor and benefits to entice Taiwan engineers to work in the mainland. The engineers are promised double their current wages, eight free trips a year to visit Taiwan, subsidized tuition for their children to attend school, and a 40 percent housing allowance. Some engineers said that the amount of money they can make in the mainland would take ten years to make in Taiwan and that such an offer is hard to resist. A Taiwan recruiting firm estimated that, so far in 2018, over 300 senior Taiwan engineers accepted job offers from mainland chip manufacturers. Since 2014, after Beijing set up US$22 billion in funding for the chip industry, close to one thousand engineers from Taiwan have gone to work in the mainland. The number has increased as the U.S. China trade war escalated this year. Data that a research firm released projected that, by the end of 2017, China will have 400,000 professionals in the integrated circuit (IC) industry, which is still far short of the goal of 720,000 by the end of 2020. The mainland prefers engineers from Taiwan over Japan and Korea because there is no language barrier.

Source: Deutsche Welle, September 9, 2018
https://p.dw.com/p/34K09

Chinese technology news site Leiphone recently reported that well-known U.S. technology monitor Anandtech discovered that Huawei crafted cheating logic in its smartphone models that faked “high performance” behavior when it detects performance benchmarking software is running. UL Benchmark, the company behind widely-used benchmarking software 3DMark, delisted multiple Huawei smartphones with “suspect benchmark scores.” These include Huawei’s P20 Pro, Nova 3, and its Honor Play. Huawei’s head of software division admitted a “different experience” between benchmarking and real user experience. However, he emphasized that other companies did the same thing as well. Huawei has been caught creating false advertising many times before. For example, not long ago, it was found using photos taken with professional cameras in smartphone commercial videos. In the second quarter of this year, Huawei surpassed Apple to become world’s second largest smartphone vendor (in terms of units sold), after Samsung.

Source: Leiphone News, September 7, 2018
https://www.leiphone.com/news/201809/oTsZ6V11b3oP0ae6.html

People’s Daily recently reported that Chinese facial recognition technology company Cloud Walk has been building on China’s cutting-edge intelligent recognition technologies and won seven world championships in global competitions, such as PASCAL VOC, IMAGNET and FERA. The Chinese government recognizes the company as a national leader and invited it to establish the Chinese facial recognition national standard, a standard for the Ministry of Public Safety, as well as the Chinese industry standard. Its facial recognition products are deployed in 80 percent of the Chinese key airports, in over 400 banks, and in 29 provincial governments. In today’s China, facial recognition is widely used in banking, payment authorizations, airport security, and criminal investigations. Many Chinese intelligent recognition companies have been exporting their products overseas with big-data analysis, which is part of the One Road One Belt strategy.

Source: People’s Daily, August 23, 2018
http://finance.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0823/c1004-30245461.html