Chinascope – Page 365

Beijing’s Infiltration in Action: Purchase of British Private Schools

The British newspaper the Daily Mail reported on February 21 that “Hundreds of independent schools left in dire financial straits by the coronavirus pandemic are being targeted by Chinese investors.” “Nine of the 17 schools under Chinese control are owned by firms whose founders or bosses are among China’s most senior Communist Party members.”

“One firm admitted its acquisition of British schools is aimed at supporting China’s controversial Belt and Road strategy, which aims to expand Beijing’s global influence.”

As companies controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are seeking to expand their influence on the British education system, the public is concerned that Beijing’s tentacles are reaching British classrooms.

“Schools are using educational tools for teaching children a ‘whitewashed’ view of China.”

Ma Jian, a Chinese-born British writer, told Radio Free Asia that the CCP is pursuing Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” and its next target is the young generation of democratic nations. “Britain has basically turned itself into a trading branch of China. Not only has it coupled with China in business, economy, and trade, but also in cultural affairs. You will find that universities, research institutes, middle schools, and elementary schools have got a lot of money from China. Companies are implementing of Xi Jinping’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ and ‘Chinese Dream’ by means of the acquisition of these private schools. The education deals are aiming at the next generation.”

Wang Jianhong, a scholar who has been concerned about the human rights situation in China, also believes that these Chinese companies are controlled by Beijing. Taking advantages of the rule that democratic countries cannot interfere much in market transactions, the Chinese government has been promoting its global expansion. After years of infiltration into the British academic community, the academia has seen the trend of self-censorship and even whitewashing for the CCP. “The CCP has been stepping up its investment in Britain’s private schools and education system. How could an ordinary Chinese company buy British private schools? They definitely have government background. As the basic education in the UK is directly owned by companies controlled by the CCP, we are worried about the ideological infiltration into the curriculum. Even if you have got rid of the Confucius Institute, the CCP has all kinds of methods, including the acquisition of private schools.”

Some British politicians expressed a sense of concern. Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said: “China’s strategic understanding and reach means that they have an advantage in seeking to influence others and using established brands, including some of our own, to achieve that position. … We need to decide what it is we are prepared to defend, but before that we would need to understand what it is we want.”

Reported by the Daily Mail, “A key player in the market is Bright Scholar, which bought a number of schools and colleges in 2018 and 2019, including Bournemouth Collegiate School, St Michael’s School in Llanelli, Carmarthanshire – where Justice Secretary Robert Buckland and singer Cerys Matthews were once pupils – and Bosworth Independent College in Northampton. … Bright Scholar is owned by Yang Huiyan, who is reportedly worth £20 billion, making her Asia’s richest woman, and was founded by her father Yang Guoqiang, a member of the Communist Party’s highest- ranking advisory council.”

“The Wanda Group, which invests in technology, real estate, hotels and the media, bought the schools in 2017 through City of London based asset manager London & Oxford Group. … It was founded by Wang Jianlin, a former People’s Liberation Army soldier who is worth an estimated £10 billion and is a member of China’s senior Communist Party advisory council.

“Two more schools – Kingsley School in Bideford, Devon, and Heathfield Knoll School in Worcestershire – are owned by China First Capital Group, which has senior Communist Party members on its board.”

“Riddlesworth was bought by the Confucius International Education Group in 2015 and its website lauds its links with the late Princess. … The firm’s owner, Kong Lingtao, who claims to be a direct descendant of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, also boasts of his visit to Buckingham Palace in 2014, when he met Prince Philip.”

Another company, the Ray Education Group, bought Adcote School for Girls near Shrewsbury, Shropshire, and Myddelton College in Denbigh, Wales, in 2018.

“On its website, Ray Education details plans to use its British schools to help expand to other countries as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road strategy to boost China’s global economic and political influence.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, February 22, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/uk-school-02222021112954.html
Daily Mail, February 20, 2021
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9282617/British-private-institutions-bought-Chinese-firms.html

Briefings | | February 24, 2021 | Geo-Strategic Trend

Banks Backed by Ant and Tencent to Join China’s Digital Currency Pilots

China Securities Journal reported that Zhejiang E-Commerce Bank Co., Ltd., (MYBank) backed by the Ant Group and WeBank backed by Tencent may participate in the digital currency pilot projects of six state banks. The status of the two private banks is “coming soon.”

Beyond these two private banks, most urban small and medium-sized banks in China will connect to the central bank digital currency infrastructure via City Bank Clearing Services Co., Ltd. (“City Bank Clearing”). Rural Credit Bank Clearing will provide a conduit for rural banks to access the digital currency infrastructure. The Digital Currency Research Institute of the Bank of China entered into agreements with the two intermediaries last fall.

The digital currency is issued and regulated by China’s central bank. All transactions will be completely under China’s central bank’s supervision. In contrast, transactions through Alibaba Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay are electronic payments controlled by the companies.

Source: The Paper, February 20, 2021

https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_11388883

Briefings | | February 24, 2021 | Economy/Resources Government/Politics

Chinese Hackers Exploit NSA-linked Tools to Attack U.S. Targets

On February 22, Check Point Research, an American-Israeli cybersecurity company, published an exhaustive report discussing certain cyber tools. The report stated that cyber tools that the Equation Group, a group believed to be affiliated to the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), had fallen into the hands of a Chinese hacker group, which then repurposed them in order to attack U.S. targets.

In 2014, the Chinese group APT31 (APT is abbreviation of Advanced Persistent Threat), also known as Zirconium or Judgment Panda, made a replica of an exploit originally attributed to the Equation Group, known as EpMe. An exploit is a hack that leverages a security hole or flaw, as opposed to a hack that requires installing malware. The Chinese hackers then used that tool, which Check Point has named “Jian” or “double-edged sword,” from 2015 until March 2017, when Microsoft patched the vulnerability it attacked.

Check Point pointed out, “Both exploit versions for APT31’s “Jian” or Equation Group’s “EpMe” are intended for … elevating the privileges of the attacker in the local Windows environment.” “The tool is used after an attacker gains initial access to a target computer — say, via zero-click vulnerability, a phishing email, or any other option — to give the attacker the highest available privileges, so they could “roam free” and do whatever they chose on the already infected computer.”

Check Point believed that the Equation Group exploit samples could have been acquired by the Chinese APT in one of these ways:

Captured during an Equation Group network operation on a Chinese target.
Captured during an Equation Group operation on a 3rd-party network which was also monitored by the Chinese APT.
Captured by the Chinese APT during an attack on the Equation Group infrastructure.

The research report also mentioned that APT31 used “Jian” to conduct network attacks from 2015 to March 2017 until Microsoft patched the vulnerabilities.

APT31, a state-sponsored hacking collective, is alleged to conduct reconnaissance operations at the behest of the Chinese Government, specializing in intellectual property theft and credential harvesting, with recent campaigns targeting U.S. election staff with spear-phishing emails containing links that would download a Python-based implant hosted on GitHub, allowing an attacker to upload and download files as well as execute arbitrary commands.

Sources: Check Point Research, February 22, 2021
https://research.checkpoint.com/2021/the-story-of-jian/
WIRED, February 22, 2021
https://www.wired.com/story/china-nsa-hacking-tool-epme-hijack/

Briefings | | February 23, 2021 | Defense/Military

Cyber Security Experts Warn Chinese Clubhouse Users to Be Careful When Using Clubhouse

Although China blocks Clubhouse, a social network based on voice, many Chinese netizens still break through the firewall to join the audio chat platform. However, cyber security experts in the U.S. warned that, since Clubhouse uses a server in China, the contents of the transmission may be intercepted. Therefore, it is not recommended to express sensitive views when using this software.

Alex Stamos, Director of the Stanford Internet Observatory and former Chief Security Officer at Facebook, posted on his Twitter account that his team “found that Chinese servers are being used for conversations, but he cannot recommend that individuals who might find themselves adverse to the security services of the PRC should use Clubhouse for sensitive conversations.”

According to the analysis that Stanford Internet Observatory published, Shanghai-based Agora is a key technology supplier to Clubhouse. A user’s unique Clubhouse ID number and chatroom ID are transmitted in plain text and Agora would likely have access to users’ raw audio, potentially providing access to the Chinese government. Stamos also mentioned that other than Agora, Clubhouse uses servers run by Guangzhou Enjoy VC Communication Technology.

Source: Central News Agency, October 22, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202102210114.aspx

Briefings | | February 23, 2021 | Information/Technology

UDN: Kim Jong-un Changed the English Translation of His Title

United Daily News (UDN), one of the primary Taiwanese news groups, recently reported that North Korea is changing the official English translation of the title of the country’s top leader. Up until January 22, the North Korean official news agency KCNA (Korean Central News Agency) was using “Chairman of the State Affairs Commission” as the title for Kim Jong-un. However, starting on February 11, the translation was officially changed to “President of the State Affairs.” The international community typically uses the word “president” to indicate the top leader of a county. This new move appears to be an effort to emphasize that North Korea’s leader is also an international leader. North Korea did not have an official explanation for this latest change. In the meantime, the Chinese translation and the Russian translation remain unchanged. In recent years, socialist countries like China also switched the translation from chairman to president. However, Xi Jinping’s official title in Chinese remains Chairman. The North Korean Constitution clearly designates the Chairman of the State Affairs Commission as the highest leader of the nation. Kim Jong-un has two other titles.

Source: UDN, February 20, 2021
https://udn.com/news/story/6809/5264234

Briefings | | February 23, 2021 | Geo-Strategic Trend

Global Times: Tom Cotton Announced His Plan to Give China a Total Screw-Up

Well-known Chinese news site Sina (NASDQ: SINA) recently republished an article published under Global Times’ official social media account, analyzing U.S. Senator Tom Cotton’s new report called “Beat China.” The article labeled Senator Cotton as a “Trump enthusiast,” a “right-wing extremist,” an “anti-China extremist,” a “daydreamer” and a “liar.” It called Cotton’s latest “Beat China” report a plan to “screw up China big time,” to start an economic cold war no smaller than the cold war against the Soviet Union, and to decouple the U.S. completely from China. The Cotton Report focused on two major topics: one is how to decouple and beat China to the ground and the second is how to minimize the damage to the U.S. in this war. In the first part, Cotton suggested further tightening up high-tech exports to China from the U.S. and U.S. allies, while also cutting off research cooperation with China as well as talent exchanges. Cotton also called for a significant reduction in U.S. dependency on Chinese rare earths. In the second part of the Report In the second part Cotton called for damage control. He called for developing new markets for U.S. products and forming a new anti-China trade alliance. In the meantime, the U.S. should act to “retake” control of international organizations like the WTO, or create new ones. Global Times thinks this whole narrative is just “wishful thinking.” However, it is worth noting that even some U.S. media and influential individuals on the left thought Cotton had some points “worth considering.” The Global Times article described Tom Cotton as “setting himself up as a 2024 presidential candidate.”

Sources:
1. Sina, February 20, 2021
https://finance.sina.com.cn/world/gjcj/2021-02-20/doc-ikftpnny8611704.shtml
2. Beat China: Targeted Decoupling and the Economic Long War Prepared by the Office of
Senator Tom Cotton
https://www.cotton.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/210216_1700_China%20Report_FINAL.pdf

Briefings | | February 23, 2021 | US-China Relations

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