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CNA: China’s iPhone Ban Expands

Primary Taiwanese news agency Central News Agency (CNA) recently reported that a growing number of Chinese government agencies and state-owned companies are ordering employees not to bring iPhones and other foreign-brand phones to work. The spread of such unprecedented bans is likely to lock out companies like Apple and Samsung from parts of the world’s largest mobile phone market.

In the past couple of months, several state-owned enterprises and several government agencies in at least eight Chinese provinces (including in wealthy coastal provinces) have instructed employees to start bringing only Chinese-brand mobile phones to work. The situation has intensified significantly from September, when only a handful of agencies in Beijing and Tianjin began requiring employees to leave foreign devices at home.

It is unclear exactly how many Chinese government agencies have issued such directives banning foreign phones. The eight province-level governments involved so far are Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shanxi, Shandong, Liaoning and Hebei.

This new round of bans has seen much more extensive and synchronized action, marking a significant acceleration of the Chinese authorities’ shift away from dependence on U.S. technology. The ban could cause a quick and direct hit to Apple’s market share in China. For Apple, which uses China to produce most of its devices, the Chinese market accounts for about 1/5 of its revenue.

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment on the new bans. China’s State Council Information Office and the Cyberspace Administration of China, which oversee cybersecurity, also did not respond to the requests for comment.

Source: CNA, December 16, 2023
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202312163001.aspx

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology US-China Relations

China Will Close Public Access to Court Decision Documents

On November 21, 2023, China’s Office of the Supreme People’s Court issued a “Notice on the Construction of the National Court Judgment Document Database.” It announced that the new “National Court Judgment Document Database” will go live in January 2024. However, it will only offer internal access to court personnel to retrieve judgment documents. Lawyers, legal researchers, and the general public will not have access.

The Supreme People’s Court’s current online system, known as “China Judgments Online,” will stop operation. Many legal practitioners in China view this new development as a big setback for transparency in China’s judicial system. The old system offered legal professionals and the general public to access records during the past 10 years. Since its launch on July 1, 2013, China Judgments Online has accumulated a total of more than 143 million court decisions and has received hundred billion visits.

Source: Radio Free Asia, December 13, 2023
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/gt-12132023031651.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics Information/Technology

UDN: South Korean President Visits the Netherlands to Form A Chip Alliance

Taiwanese news group United Daily News (UDN) recently reported that South Korean President Yoon Seok-yue is in the Netherlands for a state visit. Yoon’s trip is focused on increasing cooperation between the two countries related to the semiconductor industry — he said that this trip marked a key turning point for the “South Korea-Netherlands Semiconductor Alliance” and that discussing chip cooperation was the “top priority” of his visit.

Yoon stated in an interview that high-tech chips are the lifeblood of the modern global economy, and that South Korea accounts for about 60 percent of the world’s supply of memory chips. He said that the Netherlands is home to semiconductor production equipment manufacturer ASML, and the two countries have been cooperating “in an exemplary manner” for many years, contributing to the stability of the global semiconductor supply chain.

The semiconductor industry is being buffeted by geopolitical turmoil. ASML supplies South Korea’s major chip manufacturers Samsung and SK Hynix. During President Yoon’s visit, he will visit the ASML headquarters. The “South Korea-Netherlands Semiconductor Alliance” is expected to include the countries’ respective governments, enterprises and universities. This is the first time a South Korean head of state has paid a state visit to the Netherlands since 1961, when South Korea and the Netherlands first established diplomatic relations.

Source: UDN, December 11, 2023
https://udn.com/news/story/6811/7631837?from=udn_ch2_menu_v2_main_cate

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend Information/Technology

Oriental Daily Malaysia: Nepal to Ban TikTok

Oriental Daily, Malaysia’s most popular online Chinese-language newspaper, recently reported that Nepal said it would ban China’s TikTok app. According to the report, calls to rein in the app in had been growing, and “social harmony and goodwill were at risk” due to abuse of the popular video app.

TikTok has been partially or completely banned in some other countries, many citing security concerns. Local Nepalese media reported that Nepal registered more than 1,600 TikTok-related cybercrime cases over the past four years.

Nepal’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology said the decision to ban TikTok was made at a cabinet meeting. The Minister’s colleagues are working on the technical matter of how to implement shutting down the app. The Chairman of the Nepal’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said that network service providers have been asked to block the app. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nepal’s neighbor India banned TikTok and dozens of other apps developed by Chinese developers in June 2020, saying that they could harm national security and integrity. Another South Asian country, Pakistan, has taken action against the app at least four times because the government expressed the belief that TikTok’s content was “immoral and indecent.”

Source: Oriental Daily Malaysia, November 14, 2023
https://www.orientaldaily.com.my/news/international/2023/11/14/610553

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend Information/Technology

UDN: Canadian Bans WeChat on Government Devices

United Daily News (UDN), one of the primary Taiwanese news groups, recently reported that Canada has banned the use of Chinese messaging app WeChat on government-issued mobile devices, citing privacy and security risks. The Canadian government stated in an announcement that the applications WeChat and Kaspersky will be removed immediately from government-issued devices and that users of those devices will be blocked from downloading those two programs in the future.

The new bans follow action by Ottawa authorities to ban TikTok on government devices in February of 2023. Anita Anand, chairwoman of the Canadian Treasury Board, which oversees Canada’s federal public services, said Canada’s information chiefs believe the two apps “pose an unacceptable risk to privacy and security.” She added that no information leaks have been detected yet, but that the two platforms’ data collection methods on mobile devices “provide substantial access to device content.” She concluded that “the decision to remove and block WeChat and Kaspersky apps is to ensure that Canadian government networks and data remain secure and protected, in line with the practices of our international partners.”

According to UDN, WeChat did not respond to a request for comment.

Source: UDN, October 31, 2023
https://udn.com/news/story/6809/7541156

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend Information/Technology

China Quickly Removes the Word “Emigrate” from Search Rankings

According to a recent report by Taiwanese news site NewTalk, there was a recent surge of search volume for the word “emigrate” on China’s top social media network WeChat. Volume surged by 1,156 percent, with an astonishing 510 million searches in one day. A few days later, the term “emigrate” (移民, also translated as “migrate”) was directly deleted from the WeChat Index, demonstrating China’s authoritarian control and the fear it has of its own people.

WeChat’s search index, based on big data collected by the company, represents the change in popularity of a certain keywords on WeChat. As early as when China first implemented the Zero Covid policy, many people began searching for terms related to emmigration, and the keyword’s popularity in WeChat increased rapidly, exceeding 100 million searches. Later during the White Paper Protests near the end of 2022, people’s desire for physical mobility became even stronger, with the WeChat Index recording 116 million searches. China’s economic difficulties have led to more and more Chinese people being dissatisfied with their living conditions.

Although the Chinese authorities attempted to remove terms related to migration from the supported vocabulary of WeChat’s hot-search system, this amounts to nothing more than an act of self-deception; the population’s dissatisfaction with the government will not disappear just because the word “emigrate” has been deleted from the search index.

Source: Newtalk, October 25, 2023
https://newtalk.tw/news/view/2023-10-25/893847

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology Social Stability

China News: China National Data Bureau Open for Business

China News recently reported that the newly established China National Data Bureau officially opened for business on October 25. Below are some key excerpts from the article:

The main responsibilities of this ministry-level organization are to promote the construction of data infrastructure systems, to coordinate the integration, sharing, development and utilization of data resources, and to establish Digital China, Digital Economy, and Digital Society.

Data has been playing an increasingly important role in China’s national economic and social development. Data as a critical resource should be managed by a central ministry. At present, the scale of China’s digital economy has developed significantly. In 2022, it has reached RMB 50.2 trillion (US$6.86 trillion), accounting for more than 41 percent of the Chinese GDP, and the total volume ranked second in the world.

The Bureau will focus on improving China’s data infrastructure, which is still “hard infrastructure” based on traditional information network infrastructure and digital infrastructure designs. However, based on the characteristics of the industrialization of data elements, the second “soft infrastructure” level should include well-coordinated standards, specifications, tools, etc. This is a key point in entering the data digitization stage. More importantly, for certain industries where the data scale is relatively large, the data quality is relatively high, and the data potential is relatively rich, a data space must be established to form a new data infrastructure from bottom to top, to support the industrialization of data use.

Source: China News, October 27, 2023
https://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/2023/10-27/10101575.shtml

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics Information/Technology

Telegram to Collaborate with Tencent

In September, the instant messaging app Telegram and its partner, the TON Foundation, announced a collaboration with Chinese company Tencent (owner of the popular Chinese social media app WeChat). It will transform Telegram into a “super app ecosystem” similar to WeChat. Telegram boasts 800 million active users, including many from China who use it to circumvent the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Internet censorship. Industry experts caution that this partnership may pose risks to user privacy and financial information. A commentator stated that Telegram, previously a platform independent of the CCP’s authority, is now controlled by Tencent, indicating that the CCP is working to eliminate the information platform as a threat to its rule.

During Hong Kong’s anti-extradition protest, many protesters used the Telegram app to discuss strategy and communicate information about gatherings.

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 29, 2023
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/4-09292023113707.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics Information/Technology