Chinascope – Page 314

World against the CCP: A Top Chinese Think Tank Warned Beijing about Global Anti-China Sentiment

Reuters reported that an internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation. The report concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

The China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, created the report. The ministry presented this report to top Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders, including Xi Jinping, early this week.

The report concluded that Washington views China’s rise as an economic and national security threat and a challenge to Western democracies. It also said the U.S. was aiming to undercut the CCP by undermining public confidence.

It warned that anti-China sentiment sparked by the coronavirus could fuel resistance to China’s Belt and Road Initiative and that Washington could step up financial and military support for regional allies, making the security situation in Asia more volatile. It also warned Beijing to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the U.S. and China.

Virus Origin: Beijing Stressed Bio Lab Safety in December 2019 and January 2020

In December 2019 and January 2020, Epoch Times obtained multiple official documents from Beijing City and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (AR), regarding the management of bio labs.

1. December 31, 2019: The Inner Mongolia Health Commission issued the “Emergency Notice from the Inner Mongolia AR Health Commission on Effectively Strengthening the Biosafety Management of Pathogenic Microbiology Laboratories on Human Infectious Diseases.” The notice was marked “Urgent.” The notice stated that the health administrative departments and relevant units at all levels should take it as a “political positioning” issue. The health administrative departments at all levels should conduct early detection, immediate verification, prompt reporting, and proper handling of possible emergencies. The notice asked subordinate health commissions to register the first and second classes of pathogenic microbiology laboratories and conduct regular systematic reviews of those labs.

2. January 3, 2020: The General Office of the National Health Commission issued a not-to-release-to-public “Notice of the General Office of the National Health Commission on Strengthening the Management of Biological Sample Resources and Related Research Activities in the Prevention and Control of Major Emergent Infectious Diseases.” In this notice, “biological samples” was defined as blood, pharyngeal swabs, sputum, tracheal aspiration or bronchial lavage fluid, urine, and feces of patients, suspected patients, and their close contacts. The notice prohibits all institutions and individuals from publishing information about pathogen detection and experimental activities on their own.

3. January 14, 2020: The Health Commission of the Changping District, Beijing issued a not-to-release-to-public “Notice on Conducting Special Supervision and Inspection of Pathogen Microbiology Laboratories.” The notice requires good handling in the collection, transportation, use, and scientific research management of biological sample resources. It asked the first, second, and third classes of biosafety laboratories to conduct self-inspection on January 15 and 16. Another document, “Changping District Pathogen Microbiology Laboratory Biosafety Supervision Checklist” provides a set of procedures for the reception and storage of viruses.

4. January 16, 2020: The Scientific Discipline Education Division of the Beijing Hospital Management Center issued the “Emergency Notice on the Mutual Inspection of Laboratory Biosafety in Municipal Hospitals.” The notice said that the Beijing Hospital Management Center would organize a mutual biosafety inspection of 22 hospital laboratories in the city from January 17 to 21.

5. January 16, 2020: The Science and Technology Education Department of the Beijing Health Commission issued the “Notice of the Beijing Health Commission on Holding Laboratory Biosafety Training.”

6. January 16, 2020: The National Health Commission issued the “Notice of the General Office of the National Health Commission on Printing and Distributing Biosafety Guidelines for Novel Coronavirus Laboratories.” The notice was marked “urgent” and “not to be released to the public.” It emphasized “for internal use only and not allowed to be spread on the Internet.” The notice provided detailed regulations on how to extract nucleic acids from viral cultures, conduct animal infection experiments, and handle uncultivated infectious materials.

7. February 14, 2020: At a meeting of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi Jinping mentioned “Biosecurity” five times and asked “to incorporate biosecurity into the national security system and to publish the ‘Biosecurity Law’ as soon as possible.”

8. From April 26 to 29, 2020: The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress discussed “The Draft of the Biosecurity Law.”

Virus Origin: China Sent Confusing Messages on Investigation of Virus Origin in China

The U.S., the European Union, and Australia are demanding an investigation into how the coronavirus started in Wuhan. In the past, China has refused the request. However, on May 6, Chinese officials sent different messages on whether Beijing would offer to cooperate with such an investigation.

#1: At the Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Press Conference on May 6, when asked when China would invite the World Health Organization (WHO) to conduct such an investigation, Hua Chunying stated, “Regarding this kind of scientific investigation and study, we, of course, hold an open attitude and are willing to continue close cooperation with the WHO… We are willing to, in addition, work with the international community on fighting the pandemic, and support the review and summarization of the pandemic situation at an appropriate time…”

Hua also criticized the U.S. for presuming China was guilty and using the investigation to play political games. (China’s Foreign Ministry Website)

#2: Chen Xu, China’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said on May 6 that, as long as the coronavirus is spreading and as long as the U.S. is still accusing Beijing, China will reject any international scientists’ requests to investigate the origin of the virus. When asked when China will invite the WHO to conduct an investigation, Chen said, “We cannot tolerate the free spread of such a ‘political virus’ (referring to the U.S. stating the virus came from the Wuhan Lab of Virology).” As for the invitation to the WHO, Chen said that, on one hand, Beijing must decide what the high priority (items) are and, on the other hand, Beijing needs a good environment. (Radio France International)

WeChat Users outside China Are under Political Surveillance

Evidence shows that communications among users with WeChat accounts registered outside China are under political surveillance. Moreover, according to a Citizen Lab report published on May 7, 2020, they are also being used to train the algorithms WeChat uses to censor and monitor China-registered users.

WeChat is a communication application released by China’s Tencent in 2011. It is used by more than 1 billion people worldwide, and ranks the third-largest in the world, after Whatsapp and Facebook.

As with all social media in China, WeChat actively censors on its platform, including around politically sensitive topics and discussions related to the coronavirus pandemic. The censorship of users appears to be for accounts registered to mainland China’s phone numbers.

WeChat is required by law to share user data with the State government. Tests at the Citizen Lab showed that, for the first time, communications among non-mainland-China users are subject to surveillance.

Further, it has been demonstrated that such communications are also being used to train the algorithms WeChat uses to censor and monitor China-registered users. After documents and images containing politically sensitive content were sent solely among non-China-registered accounts, it was observed that, shortly thereafter, those files were censored for China-registered users.

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 7, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/meiti/jt-05072020101223.html

Briefings | | May 10, 2020 | Government/Politics Information/Technology

Connected to the CCP: Australian Billionaire Lost 900 Million Dollars for Supporting the CCP

Forbes reported that Australian Billionaire Andrew Forrest openly supported the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the coronavirus period and, as a result, saw his fortune shrink by close to $900 million.

During the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. and Australian governments demanded an investigation into how the virus started in Wuhan. However, Forrest defended China’s alleged role in concealing the possible cause of the virus outbreak.

Even the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, said Forrest’s comments about the virus possibly originating outside China were nonsense. Morrison said, “I don’t think anybody is in any fantasyland about where it started. It started in China.”

Forrest also invited the Chinese consul-general in the State of Victoria, Long Zhou, to speak at a media conference organized by the Australian Health Minister, Greg Hunt. The Australian, a national morning newspaper, published a critical editorial on Long Zhou’s gate-crashing the Minister’s event at Forrest’s invitation. It stated, “Business must not dictate the nation’s foreign policy.”

A prominent radio talk show host, Alan Jones, described Forrest as a “Beijing propaganda sock puppet.”

Forrest’s wealth, estimated by Forbes at $8.8 billion, is based largely on a 30 percent stake in the iron ore mining company, Fortescue Metals, which sells most of its ore to Chinese steel mills.

The effect on the stock market of Forrest’s championing the CCP was severe. On May 4, while most mining companies suffered a price correction with leaders such as BHP and Rio Tinto down about 7 percent from their highs on April 30, Fortescue Metals fell 12 percent, resulting in Forrest losing about $900 million in his stake.

International Journal Retracted 30+ Academic Papers from China

In April, a journal under the international academic publisher Springer retracted 33 papers from China all at once. With eight papers withdrawn earlier in the past two years, the total number arrived at 41. The authors of 39 papers came from China.

The mainland Chinese media The Paper, Multimedia Tools and Applications is the journal that issued the decision. The incident involved dozens of Chinese universities, state entities and companies, including Zhejiang University, the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Wuhan University of Science and Technology, and China Jiliang University. Many papers had received funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

The top three institutions in terms of the number of papers retracted were Zhejiang Electric Power Company under the State Grid, the School of Electrical and Optoelectronic Engineering at the Changzhou Institute of Technology, and Hefei University of Technology. One corresponding author from the Changzhou Institute of Technology had seven papers retracted. State Grid and Hefei University of Technology each had a corresponding author with four papers retracted.

Reasons for withdrawal included plagiarism of unpublished manuscripts, attempts to subvert the peer review process, content plagiarism, and improper copying of images without permission. More than half of the authors agreed to withdraw.

This is not the first incident of collective withdrawals involving Chinese scholars. In August 2015, Springer withdrew 64 papers published in its 10 academic journals, most of which were from China. In April 2017, Springer’s Tumor Biology journal withdrew 107 papers that were from Chinese scholars, all at one time, because of peer review fraud. It was hailed as a major earthquake in Chinese academic circles.

Source: Central News Agency, May 7, 2020
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/202005070283.aspx

Briefings | | May 10, 2020 | Information/Technology

China’s Thousand Talents Plan Goes Low Profile

The Thousand Talents Plan (TTP), once a high-profile Chinese government project to attract overseas talent, is now on total radio silence. Ever since the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) started to pursue the scholars involved in TTP, Chinese authorities have mentioned little of the project in public. It is now even difficult to search relevant information on the Internet.

It was rumored that, as early as late September 2018, the Chinese authorities had ordered the official media to suspend the coverage of TTP. A document circulated on the Internet; the “Thousand Talents Plan Youth Project Review Working Group” authored it. It was affixed with the seal of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, which clearly ordained that “the wording of ‘Thousand Talents Plan’ should not appear in written notifications.”

China’s effort to keep a lid on the project is believed to be a response to the FBI’s probe into the TTP scholars that started in September 2018. The Thousand Talents Plan is a short name for “China’s Overseas High-Level Talent Recruitment Program.” In December 2008, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) decided to implement the program. In January 2009, the Talent Work Coordination Group, a task force underneath the CCP’s Central Organization Department, formulated the “Opinions on the Implementation of the Overseas High-level Talent Recruitment Program.” Over the next ten years, about 8,000 overseas experts were hired with high pay, most of them ethnic Chinese.

Searching the characters “千人計畫” (Chinese characters for TTP) on Baidu, China’s largest search engine, turns out very few results. If the search is done using simplified Chinese character, nothing can be found. The keyword is unsearchable on China’s social platforms such as Weibo. It is rumored that, since April this year, China’s cyber police has been filtering the keyword for TTP. However, searching with characters “中國海外高層次人才引進計畫” (Chinese characters for “China’s Overseas High-Level Talent Recruit Program”) will give some information. Sometimes one has to combine different words so as to find piecemeal data.

Source: Central News Agency, May 6, 2020
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202005060336.aspx

Briefings | | May 8, 2020 | US-China Relations

Wu Guoguang: Xi Jinping’s Reversal of the Course, Will China’s Transition be Peaceful or Marked with Bloodshed?

Cheng Xiaonong: U.S.-China Strategic Relations Have Crystallized

Xinhua Commentaries: “Exposing the Three Major Political Deficits of the U.S.”

The CCP’s Performing Arts Troupes in the U.S.

WeChat Users outside China Are under Political Surveillance

International Journal Retracted 30+ Academic Papers from China

China’s Thousand Talents Plan Goes Low Profile

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