CHINA

[LFC]

Is China getting ready to join Russia in an Alliance of Autocracies? I could easily see the world dividing strongly on that line, even in terms of trade and economics.

The setting couldn’t have been more amicable. U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi met Monday in the posh Waldorf Astoria Rome Cavalieri, which boasts a Michelin starred restaurant and some of the best views overlooking Rome’s magnificent wonders. But neither diplomat seemed to enjoy the setting, or the encounter, which came on the heels of the U.S. announcement that they were “deeply concerned” that China would soon help Russia within its invasion of Ukraine, likely prolonging the misery for all involved. The U.S. added that China would likely deny any assistance. China, for its part has called the U.S. announcement “disinformation.”

Chinese and American secret service details kept curious journalists at bay, allowing only two photographers—one Chinese and one American—into the sterile meeting room where the two men sat flanked with aides at long tables facing each other in what Sullivan called an “intense” seven hours. The talks were not exactly negotiations but rather airing of differing views about what is happening in Ukraine, according to the State Department spokesman after the meeting.

The heavily guarded meeting was planned long before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And the White House readout gave nothing away, confirming only that Sullivan “met today with Chinese Communist Party Politburo Member and Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission Yang Jiechi in Rome, Italy.” The meeting, the readout says, “followed up on the November 15, 2021 virtual meeting between President Biden and President Xi.”

A senior administration reached by the Guardian after the meeting shared little. “It was an intense seven-hour session, reflecting the gravity of the moment, as well as our commitment to maintaining open lines of communication,” the official said. “This meeting was not about negotiating specific issues or outcomes, but about a candid, direct exchange of views.”

When asked if it was a success, the answer was even more vague. “I suppose it depends on how you define success,” the official told the Guardian. “But we believe that it is important to keep open lines of communication between the United States and China, especially on areas where we disagree.”

Little else was divulged. “Mr. Sullivan raised a range of issues in U.S.-China relations, with substantial discussion of Russia’s war against Ukraine,” the readout states. “They also underscored the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the United States and China.”

But a cable sent to allies in Europe and Asia hours after the meeting ended alluded to greater concerns tied to U.S. intelligence reports that China might soon help Russia and then deny it. “It’s real, it’s consequential, and it's really alarming,” a U.S. official who had read the sensitive cable told Reuters.

[LFC]

So touchy!

A honey trap. False accusations of child porn. Unfounded charges of tax evasion. And if that didn’t work, then all-out violence might do the trick.

Those are the lengths the Chinese government was prepared to take to destroy the congressional campaign of a former Tiananmen Square protester now living in exile in New York, according to the FBI.

Details of the scheme are laid out in a newly unsealed arrest warrant affidavit reviewed by The Daily Beast, which demonstrates China’s global reach in suppressing dissent—in this instance, “to prevent the candidate from drawing additional public attention to himself and his political speech,” the filing states.

“The PRC government’s efforts to censor political dissent extends beyond the PRC’s national borders,” it explains. China often uses the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the nation’s foreign intelligence and secret police agency, as well as the First Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, to monitor dissidents worldwide, the affidavit explains, noting the cooperation of private individuals to help “influence, threaten and coerce” those targeted by Beijing.

[LFC]

Shanghai is a COVID cluster-f*** and it doesn't sound like the Chinese gov't has really thought through things like making sure everybody has food. Now they're hoping to get things moving again.

Like many people in Shanghai, Joyce has spent weeks shut at home since the latest COVID-19 lockdown was imposed on March 28. The software industry executive, who asked to be identified only by her first name to avoid attention from the authorities, says she has suffered from food shortages, and the compound where she lives has resorted to “group buying,” where different individuals are responsible for sourcing as much of a certain product as possible for the community.

“A lot of people are struggling with being confined at home, because they have literally no income,” she says. Group purchases “are three to four or five times more expensive than the normal days, and Shanghai is not cheap.”

Faced with this dire situation, the central government in Beijing has made it a priority to restart Shanghai’s industrial sector. Liu He, the Chinese vice premier, announced this week that the government would aim to stabilize the country’s supply chain by helping 666 companies in COVID-ravaged Shanghai reboot their operations. Doing that while the city continues to battle China’s worst COVID outbreak since the pandemic began may prove an enormous challenge—and may not succeed in curbing the disruption that the global supply chain could feel for weeks or months to come.

The government announced the “white list” of Shanghai companies it would help to reopen on April 15, out of the 50,000 or so that operate in the area. The list includes domestic and foreign firms that provide key inputs to the supply chain, such as manufacturers of semiconductor components, automotive parts, and medical supplies. Tesla’s Shanghai factory has reportedly reopened already, with workers shut in a closed loop, but with many component supplies still closed it is unclear how much of the production line is operating.

The government may feel that it has no option but to kickstart industrial activity, even though the situation in Shanghai is not yet fully under control. On Monday, China’s National Bureau of Statistics released economic data showing that although the economy expanded 4.8 percent in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, in March economic activity slowed in Shanghai and other cities subjected to lockdowns.

“People here have mixed feelings” about the reopenings, because they see them as partly a public relations exercise, says Joyce. “Most companies will ask people to live at the factory, but how are you going to do it? People may not be allowed to go home.”

Some factories have been able to continue operations while minimizing the risk of COVID outbreaks by operating with workers shut inside a “closed loop,” meaning that they have to remain inside a plant, eating there and in some cases reportedly sleeping on the floor, for days or even weeks at a time.

Many workers would need permission to leave the compound where they live and then risk not being allowed to return. Some factory managers are unsure whether workers will show up. One, at a Shanghai electronics factory, who asked not to be named because of the risk of upsetting the authorities, says his factory has been successfully using the closed-loop approach. But he worries that it may be difficult to find enough workers for each new shift.

[LFC]

I could so easily see the Republican Party doing something like this to hide an embarrassing eff-up. In fact both Trump and DeSatanist tried to do it with COVID data.

Chinese censors are working overtime to clamp down on news that the data they’ve siphoned from their citizens over the years is apparently out there and is being sold for less than the anticipated cost of a Tesla Roadster.

On Monday, reports showed that a hacker only identified as “ChinaDan” told members of the hacker site Breach Forums that he had acquired 23 terabytes of data on 1 billion Chinese citizens, according to Reuters. It’s data he’s willing to part with for the right price. How much is 1 billion people’s personal data worth? Apparently just 10 bitcoin, or approximately $200,000.

The post said that the data trove came from a leaked version of the Shanghai National Police database. ChinaDan’s original post included a sample of 250,000 citizens’ info, but that sample size was apparently increased to 750,000. BleepingComputer included an image of the forum post that reads the “Databases contain information on 1 billion Chinese national residents and several billion case records, including: name, address, birthplace, national ID number, mobile number, all crime/case details.”

The leak has drawn a fair bit of critique and claims that it’s probably exaggerated, especially considering that the total number from this Shanghai police database would be just 400 million shy of the total population of all of China, 1.4 billion.

The Chinese government has not made any official mention about the hack to reporters, in public, or online. Further reports have displayed just how much Beijing doesn’t want its citizens talking about the breach. The Financial Times reported that government censors have taken down posts on Chinese social media that dared even mention the alleged leak.

[AnBr]

m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=333339

[LFC]

China is talking tough in Australia. Actually this speech sounds rather condescending. They want trade but not have to play by anybody else's rules. They've mostly achieved that but between the amount of IP theft, copyright infringement, and aggression towards their neighbors other countries are getting more and more wary of them. Their sheer numbers and military buildup give them one level of power but if wealthy Western nations start cutting off trade for their own protection they know they're f***ed.

During 90 minutes of statecraft that was candid enough to be deeply chilling, China’s ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, crystallised the central question in Australia-China relations.

Xi’s Australian representative – who was fluent, erudite, composed and periodically sardonic in response to preamble-heavy questioning at the National Press Club on Wednesday – floated a detente. How about more trade and less trash talk?

Xiao’s pitch was simple. Can we just return to the days when Australia and China engaged in lucrative and mutually agreeable exporting and importing – while muting our irreconcilable conflicts of values?

The ambassador had a preferred locution for this regime-sanctioned utopia. Resetting the relationship between Beijing and Canberra was about “creating favourable atmosphere”.

Favourable atmosphere was apparently the precondition for everything: the removal of current trade barriers, a potential face-to-face meeting between Anthony Albanese and Xi Jinping at the G20 in Bali and visibility over the treatment of any Australians arbitrarily detained in China. He said the past five decades had demonstrated Australia and China could be “partners” despite having differences in political systems.

Such a generous offer could only be accompanied by rules, however.

Rule number one was China and Australia must keep their quarrels in-house. The ambassador unfurled an analogy about a marriage to illustrate his point. It was one thing for a husband and wife to quarrel at home, but “it’s something else if they fight down in the street – it’s going to change the nature of the marriage”. What was required was a “proper modality to handle the differences between our two great nations” so that differences didn’t “hijack our cooperation”.

Rule number two was Australia could be friends with the US if we absolutely must, but picking sides would be a dangerous business, particularly on the issues fundamental to China’s nationalistic and hegemonic identity.

The sharp end of this was there could be no sucking up to the US on Taiwan. None whatsoever. Xiao’s tone on Wednesday veered between overt belligerence and wounded pride.

This sounds like chest thumping as they demand that they get their way in everything. Much like Russia I suspect all they're going to accomplish is to make Western nations even more wary of them. And if they decide to take Taiwan they know their relationship with the U.S. will get flushed completely down the toilet. That would make them even more dependent on other nations like Australia and those in Europe.

[LFC]

Biden is clearly in full support of Taiwan.

The Biden administration plans to formally ask Congress to approve an estimated $1.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan that includes 60 anti-ship missiles and 100 air-to-air missiles, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the package.

The news comes as China continues to send warships and aircraft into the Taiwan Strait on a daily basis, just weeks after Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the self-governing island and condemned Beijing’s attempts to isolate and intimidate Taiwan. In response to Pelosi’s visit, Beijing launched massive, unprecedented military drills around Taiwan that involved shooting missiles over the island for the first time.

The package, which is still in an early stage, includes 60 AGM-84L Harpoon Block II missiles for $355 million, 100 AIM-9X Block II Sidewinder tactical air-to-air missiles for $85.6 million, and $655.4 million for a surveillance radar contract extension, the people said. The Sidewinder missiles will arm Taipei’s U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets.

[LFC]

China is trying to figure out what to do about Russia.

[LFC]

China rattled their sabres at the U.S. and Taiwan to get a reaction. They got one.

U.S. forces would defend Taiwan if China invaded, President Joe Biden said Sunday, his clearest statement yet on the issue and one criticized by Beijing as a violation of longstanding U.S. policy.

In a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast on CBS, Biden was asked whether the U.S. would defend Taiwan against an attack from Beijing, which claims the self-ruling island democracy as its territory.

“Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack,” he said.

The president said “yes” when he was asked whether he meant that, unlike in Ukraine, U.S. forces would come to Taiwan’s defense.

It is at least the fourth time since last year that Biden has made comments that appear to alter longtime U.S. policy on Taiwan. Since it established diplomatic relations with China in 1979, the U.S. has recognized Beijing as the sole legitimate government of China while maintaining unofficial relations with Taiwan.

[LFC]

Frugality is threatening China's economic growth. That youth unemployment rate really jumped out at me.

Before the pandemic, Doris Fu imagined a different future for herself and her family: new car, bigger apartment, fine dining on weekends and holidays on tropical islands.

Instead, the 39-year old Shanghai marketing consultant is one of many Chinese in their 20s and 30s cutting spending and saving cash where they can, rattled by China's coronavirus lockdowns, high youth unemployment and a faltering property market.

"I no longer have manicures, I don't get my hair done anymore. I have gone to China-made for all my cosmetics," Fu told Reuters.

This new frugality, amplified by social media influencers touting low-cost lifestyles and sharing money-saving tips, is a threat to the world's second-largest economy, which narrowly avoided contraction in the second quarter. Consumer spending accounts for more than half of China's GDP.

"We've been mapping consumer behaviour here for 16 years and in all of that time this is the most concerned that I've seen young consumers," said Benjamin Cavender, managing director of China Market Research Group (CMR).

China's 'zero-COVID' policy – including stringent lockdowns, travel restrictions and mass testing - has taken a heavy toll on the country's economy. The government's crackdown on big technology companies has also had an outsized effect on the young workforce.
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Unemployment among people aged 16 to 24 stands at almost 19%, after hitting a record 20% in July, according to government data. Some young people have been forced to take pay cuts, for example in the retail and e-commerce sectors, according to two industry surveys. The average salary in 38 major Chinese cities fell 1% in the first three months of this year, data collated by online recruitment firm Zhilian Zhaopin show.

As a result, some young people prefer to save than splurge.

"I used to go see two movies every month, but I haven't stepped inside a cinema since the pandemic," said Fu, an avid movie fan.

Retail sales in China rose just 2.7% year-on-year in July, recovering to 5.4% in August but still well below the mostly 7%-plus levels during 2019, before the pandemic.

Almost 60% of people are now inclined to save more, rather than consume or invest more, according to the most recent quarterly survey by the People's Bank of China (PBOC), China's central bank. That figure was 45% three years ago.

I don't live inside the economics world but so much of economic theory seems to hinge on never ending growth. (It seems to me that the requirement of "never ending" anything is a serious flaw.) If the economy stays steady it is referred to as "stagnant", not steady or stable. Only growth is viewed as a metric of success.

[indy]

Hmmmm...

[goldenvalley]

Sept 24, 2022 20:23:03 GMT indy said:

Hmmmm...

I struggle to believe that.  Now if there was a tweet about Putin being held by Russian military, I would be more inclined to believe it.

[indy]

Sept 24, 2022 20:41:03 GMT goldenvalley said:

Sept 24, 2022 20:23:03 GMT indy said:

Hmmmm...

I struggle to believe that.  Now if there was a tweet about Putin being held by Russian military, I would be more inclined to believe it.

I agree and I have a hard time believing it as well. I have not seen any reputable sources report this out but I'm keeping an eye out.

[LFC]

Welcome to what used to be dystopian sci-fi. Now it's dystopian reality.

[LFC]

China said it's not a spy balloon so I guess that's a relief.

China’s Foreign Ministry on Friday said the suspected spy balloon spotted over the U.S. was actually just civilian “airship” used mostly for meteorological research. In a statement, Beijing added that the airship had “deviated far from its planned course” due to winds and the craft’s limited steering powers. Chinese authorities apologized for what they described as an unintended intrusion into American airspace. Pentagon officials on Thursday said the suspected surveillance balloon spotted in Montana on Wednesday had floated over sensitive U.S. military sites this week having entered the country through Canada. In a statement late Thursday, Canada’s Department of National Defence said a “high-altitude surveillance balloon” had been detected and was being “actively tracked,” though it did not specify if this was the same balloon seen in the U.S. “Canadians are safe and Canada is taking steps to ensure the security of its airspace, including the monitoring of a potential second incident,” the statement said without providing further details.

[goldenvalley]

Republicans are mad at the Biden Administration and the Pentagon because they haven't shot down the balloon.  

The U.S. has yet to respond to the Chinese claims. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reportedly postponed a trip to Beijing to meet with his counterpart next week after the balloon was spotted.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) fired off an angry letter to the Pentagon on Thursday night after the balloon was reported by Defense officials as last seen over his state, where there is a major Air Force base housing nuclear missiles.

“I am demanding answers from the Biden administration about the spy balloon that flew over our airspace,” Daines tweeted. “The administration failed to protect our border and now has failed to protect our skies.”

I don't know anything about surveillance balloons but I suspect that by the time the balloon is spotted its photos and data are already in the hands of the Chinese.  How high does a wall have to be to prevent balloons from entering US airspace?

[LFC]

Feb 3, 2023 17:49:10 GMT goldenvalley said:

Republicans are mad at the Biden Administration and the Pentagon because they haven't shot down the balloon. 

The payload beneath the balloon was described as being the size of 3 buses. So yeah, let's just drop that puppy in a red state and hope for the best.

I don't know anything about surveillance balloons but I suspect that by the time the balloon is spotted its photos and data are already in the hands of the Chinese. How high does a wall have to be to prevent balloons from entering US airspace?

It's actually maneuverable and is clearly tracking a course over several sensitive sites. It's a shame it wasn't intercepted over the ocean, though a nation only has territorial control out to 12 nautical miles (about 14 land miles). On the West Coast that's a swath of ocean that could contain a lot of boats.

[goldenvalley]

The WaPo has this on surveillance:

But amid the rapid calls from Republicans to simply shoot down the balloon, it’s worth running through some recent history and the potential implications of such a move.

Espionage generally exists in somewhat of a gray area between countries. It’s largely tolerated, with the understanding that everyone does it. Taking aggressive action to prevent it could be met with a response — and potentially a disproportionate one — that you dislike even more. This is why countries only expel diplomats suspected of spying under extraordinary circumstances.

But when it comes to aerial surveillance, that often-unstated status quo has sometimes been formalized into an official agreement. Indeed, for decades until recently, the United States and Russia participated in a treaty — originally promoted by Republican presidents — allowing surveillance flights over each other’s airspace.

[goldenvalley]

The balloon is dead.  I know folks were concerned about its having been over various missile sites, but I suspect both the Russians and the Chinese already knew what is there.  

[LFC]

As expected the U.S. took the opportunity to study the Chinese balloon and learn more about its capabilities.

We’re learning new information about the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday. A State Department spokesperson said the balloon was able to collect communications and data via a satellite and had “multiple antennas” in addition to other equipment used “clearly for intelligence surveillance,” Axios reported.

“We know the PRC (People’s Republic of China) used these balloons for surveillance,” the official said, adding, “High-resolution imagery from U-2 flybys revealed that the high-altitude balloon was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations.”

The alleged surveillance balloon was recovered from the sea after being shot down and is now at an FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia where authorities are analyzing the wreckage to determine what information China had received before it was destroyed. An official told CNN that the FBI had only received debris recovered from the ocean’s surface and included the “canopy itself, the wiring, and then a very small amount of electronics.” Large solar panels were also found on the balloon which government officials say could power “active intelligence collection sensors.”

Republicans clearly didn't want that to happen. Why do they hate America?

[LFC]

China is moving strongly towards electric vehicles, many with swappable batteries so that charging stations or charging at home is not an issue.

The existential threat to Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel comes from China, not from net zero or from green deals in the West.

Chinese sales of petrol and diesel cars fell 20pc in absolute volume terms in February from a year earlier. Sales of plug-in electric vehicles kept rising explosively and reached a record 32pc of the market for standard passenger cars.

At the current pace, EV sales in China will hit eight million this year, helped by the proliferation of battery-swapping stations. Rather than charging your own car, you do an instant swap. No need to wait. No need for charge-points everywhere.

Sales have surged despite the elimination of subsidies at the end of last year. China’s best-selling EV is the BYD Song Plus, which retails for about £22,000. Number two is the smaller Wuling Mini. It starts at around £4,000 (not a misprint).

“They are producing cheap EVs for the mass market, which is still completely lacking in the West. It is absolutely taking off,” said Lord Adair Turner, chairman of the global Energy Transitions Commission (ETC).

The consensus forecast until recently was that EV penetration would reach 40pc of Chinese sales by 2030. That threshold could be crossed as soon as this year if manufacturers can produce fast enough to meet the demand. “We think EVs will reach 80pc of sales in China by 2030,” said Kingsmill Bond from energy strategists RMI.

Electrification is spreading to light commercial vehicles, up 85pc year-on-year. Over 60pc of buses in service in Chinese cities are already low-carbon. All municipal buses on the eastern seaboard will be electrified by 2025. Long-haul trucks are next in line.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that EVs worldwide have already displaced 1.5m barrels a day (b/d) of oil use, or 1.5pc of global demand. This is about to accelerate exponentially.

“China’s demand for oil is suddenly going to start falling. Half of China's total car fleet could be electric by 2030. If you add up the numbers, that could subtract several million barrels of oil a day,” said Lord Turner.

“China’s high speed rail network means that there won’t be so much internal aviation either. Oil use per capita is never going to be anything close to American levels,” he said.

[LFC]

That ain't good. (archive link)

Ms. Shu is one of nearly 12 million Chinese expected to enter the job pool next month at a difficult time. The government reported this week that 20.4 percent of people ages 16 to 24 looking for a job were out of work in April. That is the highest level since China started announcing the statistic in 2018.

High youth unemployment has been a dark stain on China’s economy for several years, exacerbated by strict pandemic health restrictions limited travel, decimated small businesses and damaged consumer confidence. The government, facing rare public discontent as young professionals in major cities across China protested the “zero Covid” rules, abruptly announced in December that it would start easing the policies. But the youth jobless rate has remained high, even as the overall rate has ticked down two months in a row.

[andydp]

I'm guessing "STUXNET" is so last millenium...


FBI confirms it issued remote kill command to blow out Volt Typhoon's botnet


Remotely disinfects Cisco and Netgear routers to block Chinese critters

China's Volt Typhoon spies infected "hundreds" of outdated Cisco and Netgear equipment with malware so that the devices could be instructed to break into US critical infrastructure facilities, the Justice Department has said.…

On Tuesday news broke that the Feds had blocked the malicious bot network that was set up on end-of-life, US-based small office/home office routers. Now more details have come out about how an FBI team infiltrated the operation and harvested crucial data before remotely wiping the KV Botnet, according to four warrants (5018, 5530, 5451 and 5432) filed by the FBI in a southern Texas court last month and released today.


www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/fbi-confirms-it-issued-remote-kill-command-to-blow-out-volt-typhoon-s-botnet/ar-BB1hyWCe?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=1e3355782feb433198b7388b7559d556&ei=60

More details

Chinese hackers infiltrated home wifi routers to attack infrastructure, FBI warns

Chinese state-sponsored hackers have infiltrated outdated home and office wifi routers in the US in preparation for attacks on electrical grids and water supplies.

A US government investigation found that hundreds of old routers had been infected with malware by a Beijing-backed hacking group known as “Volt Typhoon”.

www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/chinese-hackers-infiltrated-home-wifi-routers-to-attack-infrastructure-fbi-warns/ar-BB1hza67?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=fe5cf4b1a5eb45cf83f90e7269bcdd68&ei=43