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Ten Chinese Technology Brands That May Face Obstacles in the World in 2020

The Epoch Times listed ten high-tech companies in China that may face a boycott in the world in 2020, due to their colluding with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and violating citizen’s human rights.

  1. Huawei, the long arm of the CCP with a strong connection to China’s military.
  2. WeChat, which has become a tool for the CCP to monitor, control, and suppress the Chinese people.
  3. Hikvision, which exports its AI and facial recognition technology and monitoring equipment to the entire world.
  4. DJI drones, which might steal data and take aerial photographs. Its users operate the drone to take pictures and gather information which they then pass on to the CCP’s intelligence organ.
  5. TikTok, which collects user’s data and sends it back to its headquarters in China.
  6. CRRC Group, which offered a “super low” price to bid on mass commuter rail contracts in the U.S.
  7. BYD, which sells electric buses in the U.S., while receiving both a CCP subsidy on the manufacturing automotive end and a U.S. subsidy on selling the automotive part (double-dipping).
  8. SenseTime, an AI technology company that offers facial recognition technology to the monitoring system of the CCP’s police.
  9. Megvii, an AI technology company that offers facial recognition technology to the monitoring system of the CCP’s police.
  10. YITU Technology, an AI technology company that offers facial recognition technology to the CCP’s police.

Source: Epoch Times, December 30, 2019
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/19/12/30/n11755421.htm

Renmin University of China: the U.S.-Sino Trade War’s Impact on China’s Employment

On December 13, 2019, the School of Applied Economics at Renmin University of China published a report called, “An Analysis of the Impact of the Sino-U.S. Trade War on Employment.” The analysis surveyed 800 companies in three well developed provinces in China, including Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang. There was a burst in exports in early 2018 after the U.S. announced that it would increase tariffs. Then a year later, the exports dropped significantly.

However, unemployment did not increase sharply. The analysis reported that many local governments have provided policies to keep the employment rate stable. For example, they refunded the company’s social security payments if it did not lay off employees, offered employment subsidies, or deferred the increase in the minimum wage. Some companies also reduced their employee’s work hours instead of reducing the employee headcount.

The report called this “sacrificing employment quality for a temporary stabilization of employment, or a hidden unemployment. If the U.S. continues to increase tariffs to the point that it forces companies to stop manufacturing, then many companies will take the staff reduction option.

The report also showed that, though the trade war created challenges to companies, the companies’ largest pressure came from within China; financing, environmental protection, land, and other costs are too high for companies to bear. Thus, even if there were no trade war, companies would still be struggling.

Source: Pincong.rocks website, December 16, 2019
https://pincong.rocks/article/10978

Beijing’s Response to the Taiwan Election

The Chinese regime regards Taiwan’s election as a very sensitive topic. For example, the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda authority warned Phoenix New Media, a Hong Kong based and Beijing controlled media, about setting up a special web page for Taiwan elections and broadcasting the news live. The website was told to remove the pages about this news topic immediately.

China’s official Global Times warned in a commentary on Saturday that “‘Don’t be flippant’ should be the motto of Tsai Ing-wen and the Democratic Progressive Party.” The article made the comment that, “Tsai’s reelection will increase the uncertainty in the situation across the Taiwan Strait.”

Another opinion that Beijing’s mouthpiece, the Xinhua News Agency, published said, “As people on the island and in the media have noted, this is obviously not a normal election. Tsai Ing-wen and the DPP used deceit, suppression, intimidation, and other dirty methods to obtain votes, which fully exposed their selfish, greedy, and evil nature.”

“The Tsai Ing-wen regime has proactively cooperated (with the U.S.), promoted “reliance on the United States against China,” including using the situation in Hong Kong to fan the flames and mislead the people of Taiwan. Obviously, external dark forces have largely manipulated this internal election in the Taiwan region.”

Sources:
1. Radio Free Asia, January 11, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/censor-01112020072051.html
2. Voice of America, January 12, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/Taiwan-Leader-Reelection-As-Voters-Back-Tough-China-Stance-20200111/5241592.html
3. Xinhua, January 11, 2020
http://www.xinhuanet.com/tw/2020-01/11/c_1125450579.htm

A Chinese Province Declares a .01 Percent Poverty Rate

The Chinese government proposed a national poverty alleviation plan five years ago and vowed to make China a xiaokang society. A Confucius term from 3000 years ago, xiaokang means a condition of moderate prosperity. Recently, the Jiangsu Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office announced amazing results. The province’s poverty alleviation rate had reached 99.99 percent. That means that only .01 percent of the population is living under the poverty line. A progress report released on Tuesday January 7 announced that there were currently six households and 17 people in the province who had not “extricated themselves from poverty.” However, the news resulted in widespread suspicion. People expressed doubt and thought that it was another official propaganda fraud like the “Great Leap Forward” in the 1950’s.

Hu Jia, a longtime human rights activist in Beijing, pointed out directly that the government is lying, that the public knows that the government is lying, and that the government, knowing that the public knows that it is lying, still chooses to lie.

Hu Ping, Editor-in-Chief of the overseas political magazine Beijing Spring said, “Chinese-style poverty alleviation is a poverty alleviation as established in the books. The actual situation is a different matter. When the leader has a goal, the subordinates will come up with a figure.”

In 2015, as one of his political legacies, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised that the entire rural population would be lifted out of poverty by 2020. Soon afterwards, local government offices across the country announced that they would strictly implement the standard of an annual per capita net income of 4,000 yuan (US$576) and do a good job of poverty alleviation in 2020.

Source: Radio Free Asia, January 8, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/shehui/hj-01082020113236.html

The Nikkei: China’s Government Subsidies to Companies Doubled in Five Years

The Nikkei, Japan’s largest financial newspaper, reported that, in 2018, China’s government subsidies to companies had reached 156 billion yuan (US $22.4 billion), about five percent of the net profit of all publicly traded companies in China. That subsidy amount doubled from the amount five years earlier in 2013.

Government subsidies in the first nine months of 2019 increased 15 percent from the same period a year ago. Out of the 3,748 companies that were included in the statistical calculations, 3,544 companies (over 90 percent of the total base) have received government subsidies.

Sinopec received the largest amount of subsidies, followed by Guangzhou Automobile Group, and then Shanghai Automobile Group. Among the top ten most subsidized companies, four are auto makers. Several electronic companies are also in the top ten list, including BOE Technology Group (#4), TCL Group (#6), and Gree Electric (#7).

Source: The Nikkei, December 27, 2019
https://cn.nikkei.com/china/ccompany/38619-2019-12-17-10-37-58.html

Chinese Police Collect Blood Samples from Elementary and Middle School Boys

The Chinese Communist Party has forcibly collected DNA data using reasons such as “combating crime.” Beginning in 2016, the authorities in Xinjiang had massive collections of DNA samples from ethnic Muslims to establish databases for the purpose of surveillance and suppression. Now this practice has extended to the whole country. The regime is collecting DNA and other biological information on a large scale. All males, even elementary and middle school boys, are included and have not been spared.

In November, people from multiple cities in Guangxi Province told the Bitter Winter magazine, an Italian based publication focusing China’s religious freedom and human rights, that local police were collecting blood samples from elementary and middle school boys without notifying their parents. When asked for the reason, some teachers explained that it was to prevent children from being trafficked or lost, but they failed to explain why they were collecting only from boys but not from girls.

Bitter Winter obtained a document that the Public Security Bureau of Chongren County in Jiangxi Province issued in November. The document required the local Education and Sports Bureau to cooperate with the police to collect information on all male students in elementary and middle schools. The document stated that this work was carried out nationwide to collect information for the nation’s seventh population census, to issue third-generation digital ID cards, to improve the dissemination of population data, and to facilitate rapid identity verification.

Chinese media also reported that police have collected blood from male adult citizens for a number of reasons such as “free medical examinations” and “checking for drug abuse.”

A “Y-STR DNA Database Construction Work Plan Notice” that a county government in Hubei Province issued in September 2018 called for “the establishment of a male-dominated pedigree information database that comprehensively covered the rural areas,” and “through investigation of the family tree to maintain the social order and strengthen the ability to control the population.”

The Chinese government often uses the collected DNA data to suppress dissidents and religious believers. In July 2019, the police harassed the parents of a believer in the Church of Almighty God and forcibly collected blood samples.

Source: Bitter Winter, January 3, 2020

將建家系信息庫 警方強制採集中小學男生血樣未通知家長

China’s Ministry of Education Officially Prohibits Schools from Using Foreign Textbooks

In recent years, the Chinese authorities have been proactively investigating teaching materials. On Tuesday, January 7, the Ministry of Education issued a notice, making it clear that schools of compulsory education should not use foreign teaching materials and that universities and vocational schools should follow relevant national policies when selecting foreign teaching materials.

The Ministry of Education released the “Administrative Measures for Teaching Materials for Primary and Secondary Schools,” which requires that schools, when selecting teaching materials, should not replace national curriculum materials with local curriculum materials or school-based materials. At the same time, “compulsory education schools must not use overseas teaching materials.”

The Ministry of Education demands that the teaching materials that the schools use at all levels must “represent the will of the Party and the country,” “adhere to the guiding position of Marxism, reflect the requirements of Marxism in China, reflect the style of China and the Chinese nation, reflect the Party and the country’s basic requirements for education, and reflect the basic values of the country and the nation.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, January 7, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/kejiaowen/gf2-01072020083441.html

Chinese Embassy in Pakistan Collects Personal Data on Muslim Students from China; Many Disappear after Called Back to China

The Chinese Embassy in Pakistan is now comprehensively collecting personal information on local Chinese Muslim students. At present, more than 400 students have surrendered their information, but it was against their will. A few years ago, Chinese embassies in Egypt and other countries had already registered Muslim students. There were incidents in which Muslim students were repatriated and called back to China after which they disappeared. People familiar with the situation revealed that their personal information had been shared with security authorities.

Students from International Islamic University, Islamabad (IIUI) broke the story on January 2nd. The collected information included [the Muslim student’s] passport number, WeChat account, phone number, address in both China and Pakistan, and their major area of study. The “Chinese Students Association in Pakistan, IIUI Chapter,” implemented the procedure. According to a notice circulated on the a Wechat group of IIUI students, IIUI’s Chinese Student Association required that, by New Year’s eve, Chinese students submit registration forms, which were to be submitted to the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan for archival registration. If anyone refused to submit the registration form, the Chinese Embassy would not process their graduation certification. The registration form also printed a warning: “if there is any concealment of the information, the registrant will bear the consequences.”

Huang Hao, vice chairman of the Chinese Students Association at IIUI told Radio Free Asia that the round of registration involved 700 to 800 Chinese students at IIUI. He also acknowledged that the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan had appointed him to do this. However, Huang refused to answer questions about the purpose of the collection.

At present, there are seven or eight hundred Chinese students studying at IIUI. Most of them are Muslim students from Ningxia, Xinjiang, Qinhai, Henan, and Yunnan provinces. Some study Islamic philosophy and Islamic history, others study Arabic, economics, and education.

Ma Ju, a Muslim current affairs commentator now living in the United States, told Radio Free Asia that, as early as the summer of 2016, in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Chinese embassy registered local Muslim students who held a Chinese passport. In July 2017, the Deputy Minister of Public Security traveled to Cairo and worked with the Egyptian military government to arrest approximately 75 Chinese Muslim students after which they repatriate 52 students. After the incident, all local Chinese students were registered and their data were transmitted back to China. Many students disappeared after local police called them back. In addition, the embassy took control of information about Chinese Muslim students at several universities in Jordan.

Source: Radio Free Asia, January 5, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/pakistan-student-01052020084821.html