Chinese Activities
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Re: Chinese Activities
I don't think the Chinese leadership really understands Christianity at all. Mind you either did the Taiping rebellions leadership either. I do believe that if China becomes a Christian nation that China will eclipse the USA with Gods blessing and will no longer be a threat.
China Attempts To Remold Christianity In Its Own Image
The Chinese government is increasingly working towards suppressing Christianity as far as possible: tearing down church crosses, destroying buildings and arresting politically-incorrect Christians. Despite all of that, there are indications that China is on track to have the world's largest Christian population by 2030 - approximately 250 million.
Little wonder then that China has decided to take the path of subtlety: convert the Christian church into a subservient 'tool' of the State.
As John Sudworth for the BBC News reported late March, Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communist Party may have failed to destroy the church, but the modern Communist Party has gone one better: it has succeeded in co-opting it.
Today, according to some estimates, there are more Christians in China than Communist Party members. Up to 100 million were expected have celebrated the Easter weekend this year.
But what it failed to destroy, the Party still wants to control. So, an officially atheist government effectively runs its own churches and controls the appointment of its own priests. Like Pastor Wu Weiqing from Beijing's Haidian Church.
"We have to remember first of all we are a citizen of this country," he says. "And we are a citizen of the Kingdom of God. That comes second."
When asked if Jesus would be comfortable with the Communist Party government in China, Weiqing replied: "Absolutely. I think so."
Sudworth notes that the comment is a perfect illustration of the Communist Party's latest grand plan for religious belief. Over the past two years, the authorities say they have been trying to develop their own unique version of Christianity, "a Chinese Christian theology" according to one top official.
Such a theology needs to be compatible with China's political development which, it seems clear, really means subservient to it. In this view of faith, then, it is easy to see why even Jesus should find Himself being welcomed into the Communist fold.
This approach from the government leaves Christians with only two options: comply and compromise your faith to please the powers that be, or go underground - risking arrest and detention - in order to seek first the Kingdom of God.
The typical underground church is held in a private home cell group and with as much secrecy as possible. In one such cell, a member named Xu Yonghai bluntly stated: "Official churches are in fact just political institutes," he says. "It is impossible for us to leave Jesus and follow the Party."
And despite all the persecution, the truth of Jesus Christ still marches on. Brandon Showalter for the Christian Post (CP) recently quoted Rodney Pennington who studies religious trends for OMF International.
"We are overjoyed with what the Lord has already done in China," said Pennington, vice president for mobilization of OMF, a missions organization, in a recent interview with The CP.
"But that doesn't mean the task is finished...by 2030 China will almost certainly have the most evangelical Christians...and that will greatly shape the global evangelical Church in the coming years".
Yu Jie, a Chinese Christian and democracy activist, said in an essay published in the August edition of First Things that Chinese Christians are known to say "the greater the persecution, the greater the revival." If recent reports are correct, the persecution has indeed been great but the revival has been, in Yu's words, a "gushing well or geyser."
Certainly not music to the ears of the authoritarian Chinese government. As Showalter pointed out, China is still officially an atheist country.
In April, CP reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping told his Communist Party members that they must be "unyielding Marxist atheists" who will command Christians and other religious groups in the country.
Yu noted that there are three times as many illegal house churches as state-sponsored ones, and that repression is particularly bad in Wenzhou, "China's Jerusalem" in Zhejiang province, where an estimated 15 percent of the population is Christian.
So having realized that persecution tends to have the opposite effect to that intended - to crush, cripple and intimidate - China now ardently pursues its Trojan Horse technique.
As Andrew Brown recently argued in his opinion post for the guardian.com on a recent outbreak of persecution of Christians in China, the officially communistic nation now doesn't want to suppress Christianity - just control it. After all, there are already thought to be more Christians there (some 100 million) than members of the Communist party (87 million).
The great majority of Chinese Christians are Protestants of one sort or another. This numerical advantage over Catholicism appears to stem at least in part over poor relations between the Vatican and Beijing.
The strain has resulted from China's attempts to dictate who controls Roman Catholic leaders: the Vatican asserts its right to do so without political interference or imposition by the atheistic Chinese government.
On the other hand, Brown opines that the decentralized structure of the Protestant movement helps it to grow and spread, but also makes it much harder for governments to cut lasting deals with it. That's the same kind of problem European governments face with Islam: who are the leaders?
Some of the churches attacked in the most recent wave of persecutions have been official and state-sanctioned members of the "Three-Self" movement, a Protestant denomination that is meant to be entirely under government control (many of the churches have CCTV cameras facing the pulpits, to check the sermons for political unorthodoxy).
All this suggests a party that really does not know what to do. Marxism is emptied of content in today's China, and capitalism alone will not supply big collective dreams. Nationalism is too dangerous. But Christianity cannot be entirely tamed.
In conclusion, Brown states that perhaps the most striking statistic in this story is that Christians now make up about 5% of the Chinese population.
That is rather more than the proportion of Muslims in Britain as a whole. It's about the level when religious minorities become too big to ignore, and yet too small to feel secure. This week's outbreak (of persecution) won't be the last, he predicts.
This, despite indications that this worn-out tactic continues to backfire. Thomas Williams, in a report for Breitbart.com earlier this year, stated that the crackdown is leading more and more professing Christians underground.
Williams explained that in recent months, Beijing has ramped up its persecution of house churches, demolishing crosses from places of worship and driving followers deeper underground.
"If the independent church is no longer allowed, I will just go home and pray," said Dong Baolu, an underground Chinese priest. "There is only one road for us Catholics."
The persecutions don't stop at church levels - they cut across wider aspects of life, targeting Christians for discrimination and penalties in various ways.
CP's Stoyan Zaimov recently reported that Chinese students attending a Christian house church in the central Guizhou province are being threatened by government authorities who are warning them that if they don't stop going to the church, they will be barred from going to college.
"This notice was sent to all of the schools in Huaqiu," explained Mou, the person that human-rights advocacy group China Aid said was in charge of Huaqiu Church. "They (public security) intend to cleanse us and ask us to join the Three-Self Church."
The Three-Self Patriotic Movement, a government-run Protestant church, does not permit the "brainwashing" of teenagers or children by bringing them to religious services. China Aid explains that children younger than 18 are not allowed to receive any religious education.
The house church members have also reportedly been pressured into signing a document vowing that they will not take minors into the church.
Additionally, parents have been told that they will be sued if they bring their children to church, while the children themselves will not be allowed to take the college entrance exam or be admitted into the army.
In a separate report, Zaimov observed that seminary students in China are being forced to live under "absolute obedience" to the Communist Party and put the State ahead of God.
Persecution watchdog group China Aid correspondent Guo Baosheng stated: "It is obvious the seminary has degenerated into absolute obedience to the Communist Party's so-called Christian pastors' education base, becoming a Communist Party school dressed in the cloak of Christianity," Guo wrote.
"In this way, they submit to Caesar and [operate] contrary to God. They distort the true way [to God], and [these actions] will certainly accelerate the demise of the Three-Self Church and its seminary."
The seminary's president, Pastor Pan Xingwang, reportedly supports the ongoing cross demolition campaign, which has also led to hundreds of Christians arrested and sent to prison for speaking out and protesting against the government's actions.
Matt Moir, in a religionnews.com article earlier this year, noted that these actions are part of an attempt to mold Christianity to China's own image: A Chinese version of Christianity.
A pastor from Zhejiang province in eastern China said the intent of sinicizing Christianity is "to reform and remold Christianity into a (Communist) Party-dominated tool that can be used in its service."
China Aid, a Christian human rights organization based in Midland, Texas, released a report stating that sinicization is nothing less than an attempt to "de-Christianize the church in China."
Xi Lian, professor of World Christianity at Duke University, warns that if Chinese authorities do, indeed, fear the rise of a robust, defiant Christianity in China, they should think carefully about the strategy they use to address it. He thinks Christianity is "here to stay," and that its membership and influence will only expand.
"The harsher the state's treatment of Christianity, the more vigorously and unpredictably it will grow," he said.
The Chinese government, like all pagan governments throughout history, assumes that it is dealing merely with the ideology of men like themselves; that it is merely a contest of opinion and will.
In so doing, they reckon without God and fail to factor into their equation the reality of Divine intervention. The Church of Jesus Christ, however, is not a man-made institution. As Jesus Himself clearly states, "I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16.18)
Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/articl ... Edchu4V.99
China Attempts To Remold Christianity In Its Own Image
The Chinese government is increasingly working towards suppressing Christianity as far as possible: tearing down church crosses, destroying buildings and arresting politically-incorrect Christians. Despite all of that, there are indications that China is on track to have the world's largest Christian population by 2030 - approximately 250 million.
Little wonder then that China has decided to take the path of subtlety: convert the Christian church into a subservient 'tool' of the State.
As John Sudworth for the BBC News reported late March, Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communist Party may have failed to destroy the church, but the modern Communist Party has gone one better: it has succeeded in co-opting it.
Today, according to some estimates, there are more Christians in China than Communist Party members. Up to 100 million were expected have celebrated the Easter weekend this year.
But what it failed to destroy, the Party still wants to control. So, an officially atheist government effectively runs its own churches and controls the appointment of its own priests. Like Pastor Wu Weiqing from Beijing's Haidian Church.
"We have to remember first of all we are a citizen of this country," he says. "And we are a citizen of the Kingdom of God. That comes second."
When asked if Jesus would be comfortable with the Communist Party government in China, Weiqing replied: "Absolutely. I think so."
Sudworth notes that the comment is a perfect illustration of the Communist Party's latest grand plan for religious belief. Over the past two years, the authorities say they have been trying to develop their own unique version of Christianity, "a Chinese Christian theology" according to one top official.
Such a theology needs to be compatible with China's political development which, it seems clear, really means subservient to it. In this view of faith, then, it is easy to see why even Jesus should find Himself being welcomed into the Communist fold.
This approach from the government leaves Christians with only two options: comply and compromise your faith to please the powers that be, or go underground - risking arrest and detention - in order to seek first the Kingdom of God.
The typical underground church is held in a private home cell group and with as much secrecy as possible. In one such cell, a member named Xu Yonghai bluntly stated: "Official churches are in fact just political institutes," he says. "It is impossible for us to leave Jesus and follow the Party."
And despite all the persecution, the truth of Jesus Christ still marches on. Brandon Showalter for the Christian Post (CP) recently quoted Rodney Pennington who studies religious trends for OMF International.
"We are overjoyed with what the Lord has already done in China," said Pennington, vice president for mobilization of OMF, a missions organization, in a recent interview with The CP.
"But that doesn't mean the task is finished...by 2030 China will almost certainly have the most evangelical Christians...and that will greatly shape the global evangelical Church in the coming years".
Yu Jie, a Chinese Christian and democracy activist, said in an essay published in the August edition of First Things that Chinese Christians are known to say "the greater the persecution, the greater the revival." If recent reports are correct, the persecution has indeed been great but the revival has been, in Yu's words, a "gushing well or geyser."
Certainly not music to the ears of the authoritarian Chinese government. As Showalter pointed out, China is still officially an atheist country.
In April, CP reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping told his Communist Party members that they must be "unyielding Marxist atheists" who will command Christians and other religious groups in the country.
Yu noted that there are three times as many illegal house churches as state-sponsored ones, and that repression is particularly bad in Wenzhou, "China's Jerusalem" in Zhejiang province, where an estimated 15 percent of the population is Christian.
So having realized that persecution tends to have the opposite effect to that intended - to crush, cripple and intimidate - China now ardently pursues its Trojan Horse technique.
As Andrew Brown recently argued in his opinion post for the guardian.com on a recent outbreak of persecution of Christians in China, the officially communistic nation now doesn't want to suppress Christianity - just control it. After all, there are already thought to be more Christians there (some 100 million) than members of the Communist party (87 million).
The great majority of Chinese Christians are Protestants of one sort or another. This numerical advantage over Catholicism appears to stem at least in part over poor relations between the Vatican and Beijing.
The strain has resulted from China's attempts to dictate who controls Roman Catholic leaders: the Vatican asserts its right to do so without political interference or imposition by the atheistic Chinese government.
On the other hand, Brown opines that the decentralized structure of the Protestant movement helps it to grow and spread, but also makes it much harder for governments to cut lasting deals with it. That's the same kind of problem European governments face with Islam: who are the leaders?
Some of the churches attacked in the most recent wave of persecutions have been official and state-sanctioned members of the "Three-Self" movement, a Protestant denomination that is meant to be entirely under government control (many of the churches have CCTV cameras facing the pulpits, to check the sermons for political unorthodoxy).
All this suggests a party that really does not know what to do. Marxism is emptied of content in today's China, and capitalism alone will not supply big collective dreams. Nationalism is too dangerous. But Christianity cannot be entirely tamed.
In conclusion, Brown states that perhaps the most striking statistic in this story is that Christians now make up about 5% of the Chinese population.
That is rather more than the proportion of Muslims in Britain as a whole. It's about the level when religious minorities become too big to ignore, and yet too small to feel secure. This week's outbreak (of persecution) won't be the last, he predicts.
This, despite indications that this worn-out tactic continues to backfire. Thomas Williams, in a report for Breitbart.com earlier this year, stated that the crackdown is leading more and more professing Christians underground.
Williams explained that in recent months, Beijing has ramped up its persecution of house churches, demolishing crosses from places of worship and driving followers deeper underground.
"If the independent church is no longer allowed, I will just go home and pray," said Dong Baolu, an underground Chinese priest. "There is only one road for us Catholics."
The persecutions don't stop at church levels - they cut across wider aspects of life, targeting Christians for discrimination and penalties in various ways.
CP's Stoyan Zaimov recently reported that Chinese students attending a Christian house church in the central Guizhou province are being threatened by government authorities who are warning them that if they don't stop going to the church, they will be barred from going to college.
"This notice was sent to all of the schools in Huaqiu," explained Mou, the person that human-rights advocacy group China Aid said was in charge of Huaqiu Church. "They (public security) intend to cleanse us and ask us to join the Three-Self Church."
The Three-Self Patriotic Movement, a government-run Protestant church, does not permit the "brainwashing" of teenagers or children by bringing them to religious services. China Aid explains that children younger than 18 are not allowed to receive any religious education.
The house church members have also reportedly been pressured into signing a document vowing that they will not take minors into the church.
Additionally, parents have been told that they will be sued if they bring their children to church, while the children themselves will not be allowed to take the college entrance exam or be admitted into the army.
In a separate report, Zaimov observed that seminary students in China are being forced to live under "absolute obedience" to the Communist Party and put the State ahead of God.
Persecution watchdog group China Aid correspondent Guo Baosheng stated: "It is obvious the seminary has degenerated into absolute obedience to the Communist Party's so-called Christian pastors' education base, becoming a Communist Party school dressed in the cloak of Christianity," Guo wrote.
"In this way, they submit to Caesar and [operate] contrary to God. They distort the true way [to God], and [these actions] will certainly accelerate the demise of the Three-Self Church and its seminary."
The seminary's president, Pastor Pan Xingwang, reportedly supports the ongoing cross demolition campaign, which has also led to hundreds of Christians arrested and sent to prison for speaking out and protesting against the government's actions.
Matt Moir, in a religionnews.com article earlier this year, noted that these actions are part of an attempt to mold Christianity to China's own image: A Chinese version of Christianity.
A pastor from Zhejiang province in eastern China said the intent of sinicizing Christianity is "to reform and remold Christianity into a (Communist) Party-dominated tool that can be used in its service."
China Aid, a Christian human rights organization based in Midland, Texas, released a report stating that sinicization is nothing less than an attempt to "de-Christianize the church in China."
Xi Lian, professor of World Christianity at Duke University, warns that if Chinese authorities do, indeed, fear the rise of a robust, defiant Christianity in China, they should think carefully about the strategy they use to address it. He thinks Christianity is "here to stay," and that its membership and influence will only expand.
"The harsher the state's treatment of Christianity, the more vigorously and unpredictably it will grow," he said.
The Chinese government, like all pagan governments throughout history, assumes that it is dealing merely with the ideology of men like themselves; that it is merely a contest of opinion and will.
In so doing, they reckon without God and fail to factor into their equation the reality of Divine intervention. The Church of Jesus Christ, however, is not a man-made institution. As Jesus Himself clearly states, "I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16.18)
Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/articl ... Edchu4V.99
- Blue Frost
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Re: Chinese Activities
This is the problem with the all powerful state, it wants worshiped as the all powerful, the state religion.
"Being alone isn't what hurts. It's when the people around you make you feel alone" ~ Naruto Uzumaki, an Anime Character
Re: Chinese Activities
Does China have a culture of corruption ? As the writers of the outstanding American constitution said "this constitution will only work if the average morality of the people is high enough" [ probably not a word for word quote ] now with a such high level of corruption in China is it possible for China to ever rise out of being a third world nation ? It could be possible if the entire world comprised of vassal states to China and this actually is most likely the dream of many Chinese.
http://sputniknews.com/asia/20160818/10 ... broad.html
http://sputniknews.com/asia/20160818/10 ... broad.html
Re: Chinese Activities
These Chinese mysteries are very interesting. Is the lost city below Fuxian Lake Yunnan province from a civilisation before the flood ? All of the other ones are also very interesting too. The DNA markers of the western bodies found in the desert not only have western European DNA markers but also have unknown DNA markers. What were they ? Who were they ? Where did they come from ?
10 Great Ancient Mysteries Of China
greatmysteriesofchina
Many of these places and artifacts are not only unknown to the Chinese themselves, but they also have the potential to re-write history as we know it. In this top list we examine some of the greatest ancient mysteries China has to offer.
http://mysteriousearth.net/2016/07/06/1 ... -of-china/
10 Great Ancient Mysteries Of China
greatmysteriesofchina
Many of these places and artifacts are not only unknown to the Chinese themselves, but they also have the potential to re-write history as we know it. In this top list we examine some of the greatest ancient mysteries China has to offer.
http://mysteriousearth.net/2016/07/06/1 ... -of-china/
- Blue Frost
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Re: Chinese Activities
When China wasn't China, just kingdoms, and villages. Neat stuff in that link, would like to see more on those peoples, the pyramids, the people in the sands lost in it.
We know so little of them, and many we never will know of.
We know so little of them, and many we never will know of.
"Being alone isn't what hurts. It's when the people around you make you feel alone" ~ Naruto Uzumaki, an Anime Character
Re: Chinese Activities
Many people find it hard t o believe the sheer scale of Chinese espionage.
EXCLUSIVE:
How Hacking and Espionage
Fuel China’s Growth
Includes infographic detailing web of corrupt ties among hackers, generals, and big business
This is the 4th part in a 4-part series: Murder, Money, and Spies: An Investigative Series on the Chinese Military’s For-Profit Ventures
Elements of China’s military, state, business, and academia have been interwoven over decades and organized around one goal: stealing secrets from the West. This regime of theft takes with impunity, powering China’s economy and high-tech military, while robbing the United States alone of trillions in value each year.
Very late in the game, the United States has started to respond. The U.S. Justice Department made headlines in May 2014 by indicting five Chinese military hackers from Unit 61398 for their alleged role in economic theft.
The system, however, doesn’t stop at military hackers. Organizations throughout China work as “transfer centers” that process stolen information into usable designs. Official programs facilitate the theft. And the whole system runs through a corrupt nexus among government officials, military officers, business executives, and academics throughout China.
There is a nearly constant stream of news stories about cyberattacks and spies stealing technology from the West, but the true scale of the cyberattacks and breaches by spies goes far beyond what’s reported.
This article is the last of a four-part investigative series that has been two years in the making. Tapping the knowledge of intelligence and security experts, it reveals the inner workings of a state-sanctioned program to rob the West and feed China’s economic growth and military strength.
“We are seeing only a fraction of actual data breaches reported in the U.S. Many of the data breaches reported in 2014 were of retailers, where compromised consumer personally identifiable information (PII) is required to be reported,” said Casey Fleming, chairman and CEO of BLACKOPS Partners Corp.
It will not take long for every American citizen to be affected by the scale of this economic espionage assault.
— Casey Fleming, CEO, BLACKOPS Partners Corp.
Fleming is in a unique position. His company tracks both cyberspies and human spies infiltrating Fortune 500 companies. He said, in addition to what appears in the press, “hundreds of other companies have not reported data breaches due to negative coverage—or worse, most never detected the breach to begin with.”
Just in the last year, he added, his company observed a tenfold increase in the “aggressiveness, depth, and frequency” of insider spy activity and cyberattacks breaching companies. He said they expect the problem to grow worse.
“Our intelligence unit’s latest estimates are that U.S. companies and the U.S. economy lose approximately $5 trillion each year, or over 30 percent of the U.S. GDP when you factor the full value of the stolen innovation,” Fleming said.
“It will not take long for every American citizen to be affected by the scale of this economic espionage assault in the form of lost jobs, higher prices, and a lower quality of life,” he said.
Click to see full size
Click to see full size
Multiple Sources
The large scope of the theft stems from the Chinese regime’s grip on nearly all facets of its society, according to Josh Vander Veen, director of incident response at SpearTip, a cyber-counterintelligence firm.
Vander Veen is a former special agent with U.S. Army Counterintelligence and worked for more than a dozen years investigating foreign spy operations.
“The Chinese government has a hand in so many of its domestic industries,” he said, adding that the platforms it uses for economic theft include “the transfer centers, cyberattacks, and academic research at U.S. universities.”
In a sense it is very clear-cut, but we don’t want to accept what we see right before our eyes.
— Richard Fisher, senior fellow, International Assessment and Strategy Center
While the Chinese regime operates a very large system for stealing and processing intellectual property, it makes the money back by developing products based on the stolen information. Many times, the Chinese products based on stolen American research and development are resold back in the United States at approximately half the price of the original American product.
“They’re busy, and they do invest a lot of personnel and a lot of time,” Vander Veen said. “But really it’s a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time it takes to do this kind of research.”
When trying to understand the Chinese regime’s use of economic theft, and the involvement of its armed services, corporations, and universities in the theft, “We should view it from the Chinese lens,” said Richard Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
“In a sense it is very clear-cut, but we don’t want to accept what we see right before our eyes,” Fisher said, adding that any organization that has a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cell “is capable of conducting intelligence or military operations.”
(L) A Chinese J-29 stealth fighter in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province. (R) The U.S. F-35 fighter jet in which the Chinese modeled their J-29 after they hacked in to the U.S. government systems. (AP Photo/Xinhua/Liu Dawei & Lockheed Martin/Matt Short)
(L) A Chinese J-29 stealth fighter in Zhuhai, China’s Guangdong Province. (R) The U.S. F-35 fighter jet in which the Chinese modeled their J-29 after they hacked in to the U.S. government systems. (AP Photo/Xinhua/Liu Dawei & Lockheed Martin/Matt Short)
The idea of official “state-run” companies in China can also be deceiving, since nearly all companies are required to have officials from the CCP assigned to them, according to a client of BLACKOPS Partners Corp. who conducts high-level business in China and spoke under conditions of anonymity.
“Any company that has more than 50 people in it has a government liaison assigned to it,” the source said. “That’s law in China.”
In China, there are only vague and blurry lines separating government from private industries, military from government, and private from military. The systems for economic theft likewise take place across all three of these sectors.
A History of Copying
While the actual breaches often get attention, there is very little awareness of what takes place after information is stolen.
To understand how the system works and how it has developed requires a bit of history, and it starts with the Cold War and relations between the Chinese regime and the Soviet Union.
A source with direct knowledge of the Chinese regime’s system for reverse-engineering stolen technology explained to Epoch Times how it developed. The Chinese regime pulled from practices used by the Soviets, he said, but its leaders changed them in crucial ways to better fit China’s then-lacking technical prowess.
If a Soviet spy had stolen designs for a U.S. spy camera, for example, the designs would be transferred to a research facility where Soviet engineers would attempt to reproduce the technology as-is.
With China, the approach was very different. The source explained that the Chinese regime had few illusions at the time about its technological gap with other countries. So, while the Soviets would start their counterfeit process from the top, he said, the Chinese would start theirs from the bottom.
If a Chinese spy were to get his hands on the same hypothetical spy camera mentioned above, he would similarly transfer it to a research facility. But rather than try to duplicate the camera, the researchers would find earlier generations of the technology and learn to build those first.
They would send spies to gather publicly available information for the earliest models of the targeted technology, buy the next generations in stores, and send students to study and work abroad in the targeted industry.
The process would give them a foundation of knowledge, and when they were finally ready to reverse engineer the modern-generation gadget, they could easily see which parts had been upgraded and which changes were made from the technology’s previous generations.
According to the source, the Chinese approach was significantly faster and more cost effective than the Soviet approach.
Transfer Centers
The Chinese regime’s current system for processing and reverse engineering stolen designs has grown significantly larger than it was during the Cold War, and has developed from a strictly military operation into a system that permeates the entire Chinese regime.
After someone steals trade secrets for the Chinese regime, the information serves little use until it’s processed or reverse engineered. This part of the job is handled by a large network of transfer centers.
“There is nothing like this anywhere else in the world,” according to William C. Hannas, James Mulvenon, and Anna B. Puglisi in their 2013 book, “China’s Industrial Espionage.”
“The system is enormous, befitting a nation of 1.3 billion, and operates on a scale that dwarfs China’s own S&T [science and technology] enterprise,” they stated, adding “We are talking here of an elaborate, comprehensive system for spotting foreign technologies, acquiring them by every means imaginable, and converting them into weapons and competitive goods.”
The departments in charge of reverse engineering are officially called China’s National Technology Transfer Centers or National Demonstration Organizations. The book notes these outfits began operating in China in September 2001 and were “established in policy” in December 2007 through the National Technology Transfer Promotion Implementation Plan.
Soldiers with the Second Artillery Corps of the People's Liberation Army work on computers at an undisclosed location. The Chinese regime uses military hackers to feed its economy. (mil.huanqiu.com)
Soldiers with the Second Artillery Corps of the People’s Liberation Army work on computers at an undisclosed location. The Chinese regime uses military hackers to feed its economy. (mil.huanqiu.com)
An estimated 202 of the “demonstration” centers are currently in operation in China, according to the book. The actual scale may be larger, however, since the 202 centers work as “models for emulation by other transfer facilities.”
To name just a few of the transfer centers, they include the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs under the State Council, the Science and Technology Office under the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, and the National Technology Transfer Center under the East China University of Science and Technology.
The organizations don’t try to hide their function. The authors quote a Chinese study of the transfer centers, which states they function to “convert advanced foreign technology into domestic innovation ability” and even recommends “making technology transfer even more the core feature of our technology innovation.”
“Their charters explicitly name ‘domestic and foreign technology’ as targets for ‘commercialization,'” the book states.
The transfer centers play several roles, which include processing stolen technology, developing cooperative research projects between Chinese and foreign scientists, and running programs aimed at reeling in Chinese nationals who have studied abroad.
China’s economic rise can be attributed to this system of “minimal investment in basic science through a technology transfer apparatus that worked—mostly off the books—to suck in foreign proprietary achievements, while the world stood by and did nothing,” according to the book.
It states the Chinese regime could not have undergone the economic transformation the world is now witnessing, “nor sustained its progress today, without cheap and unrestricted access to other countries’ technology.”
Their findings align with a 2010 report from the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which said modernization in the Chinese military depends “heavily on investments in China’s science and technology infrastructure, reforms of its defense industry, and procurement of advanced weapons from abroad.”
It adds that the Chinese regime’s theft of technology is unique in that under the system, it gives autonomy “to research institutes, corporations, and other entities to devise collection schemes according to their particular needs.”
A Hungry Military
The Chinese regime’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) plays a special role in the theft of information. The military is required to cover a portion of its own costs, and over decades this focus on building external sources of cash has made its military leaders some of the most powerful people in China.
According to a book, “China’s Economic Dilemmas in the 1990s: The Problems of Reforms, Modernization, and Interdependence,” the PLA particularly relies on external sources for its research and development programs.
“With only 70 percent of operating expenses in maintaining troops covered by the state budget,” it states, “the PLA must make up the rest and still find supplemental funds for modernization.”
Just like the nexus between government and private business in China, the lines between military and state, and military and private, are likewise thin.
They sat down like in ‘The Godfather’ where they said ‘you’re in charge of docks and I’m in charge of loansharking.’
— William Triplett, former chief counsel, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
There are many top officials in the PLA who also hold high-level positions in state-run companies, and many of these individuals also hold top-level positions in the ruling CCP.
Under the Chinese regime’s current leader, Xi Jinping, “an unprecedented number of senior cadres from the country’s labyrinth ‘jungong hangtian’ (military–industrial and space–technology) complex are being inducted to high-level Party-government organs or transferred to regional administrations,” states a Sept. 25, 2014, report from the Jamestown Foundation.
Chinese missiles are on trucks during a military parade in Beijing on Sept. 3. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Chinese missiles on trucks during a military parade in Beijing on Sept. 3, 2015. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Former leader of the CCP Jiang Zemin had reformed the system in the late 1990s, when the landscape of large companies in China was almost completely controlled by the military. According to several experts, however, the changes Jiang made merely shifted control from the military to the hands of those who were then in charge of the companies.
“They sat down like in ‘The Godfather’ where they said ‘You’re in charge of docks and I’m in charge of loansharking,'” said William Triplett, former chief counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a phone interview.
The “reforms” essentially shifted the system from military-run to state-run, while allowing top military officers and high-level officials in the Communist Party to maintain heavy stakes in the companies, and preventing these roles from ending with their military careers.
The Chinese regime’s military maintains “somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 front companies in the United States, and their sole reason for existing is to steal, exploit U.S. technology,” said Lisa Bronson, deputy undersecretary of defense for technology security policy and counterproliferation, in a 2005 speech.
The FBI’s former deputy director for counterintelligence later said the Chinese regime operates more than 3,200 military front companies in the United States dedicated to theft, according to the 2010 report from the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
State Guidance
While this system of state-sponsored theft unleashes individual initiative, as institutions scramble to steal what they can to turn a profit, the regime also provides strategic guidance.
Project 863 (also called the 863 Program) was started by former Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping in March, 1986. According to a 2011 report from the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, it “provides funding and guidance for efforts to clandestinely acquire U.S. technology and sensitive economic information.”
In its original state, Project 863 targeted seven industries: biotechnology, space, information technology, automation, laser technology, new materials, and energy. It was updated in 1992 to include telecommunications, and was updated again in 1996 to include marine technology.
The Chinese regime’s official programs to help facilitate foreign theft are not limited to Project 863, however. It also includes the Torch Program to build high-tech commercial industries, the 973 Program for research, the 211 program for “reforming” universities, and “countless programs for attracting Western-trained scholars ‘back’ to China,'” according to “China’s Industrial Espionage.”
“Each of these programs looks to foreign collaboration and technologies to cover key gaps,” the authors note, adding that it encourages Western-trained experts to help the Chinese regime’s technological development by returning to China, or “serving in place” by providing needed information gained while working for their Western employers.
They cite a document from the Chinese regime, which states Project 863 maintains a library of 38 million open source articles in close to 80 databases that contain “over four terabytes of information gleaned from American, Japanese, Russian, and British publications, military reports, and standards.”
The Central Nerve
There is a central nerve allegedly behind the system of theft that is also a key power within the Chinese regime. Several sources point to an otherwise unassuming organization hidden deep within the Chinese regime’s military.
One of the most powerful organizations behind the economic theft is the 61 Research Institute, under the Chinese military’s Third Department of the General Staff Department, according to a source who formerly worked under one of the Chinese regime’s main spy agencies, and who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Influence and connections are the keys to power in China, and the man in charge of the 61 Research Institute, Maj. Gen. Wang Jianxin, has some powerful connections.
Wang Jianxin is a son of Wang Zheng, who was a pioneer of the Chinese Communist Party’s signals intelligence operations under Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China. Wang Zheng had five sons, and all of them allegedly hold powerful positions in China.
Another son is the Lieutenant general of the Deputy Secretary of the CCP Central Guard Bureau, the official guards that protect the Chinese regime’s top leaders in the central Party compound of Zhongnanhai. The nephew of Wang Zheng, Wang Lei Lei, is the CEO of one of the top finance companies in China.
“This family, they control all the communications,” the source said, noting that this, along with other family connections, gives them significant power over the Chinese military.
In particular, he said, Wang Jianxin commands the Chinese regime’s military hackers under the General Staff Department. He said the “61” at the front of the names of many Chinese hacker units is a designator for the 61 Research Institute.
A Chinese paramilitary officer stands guard near the Great Hall of the People where the annual National People's Congress is held in Beijing on March 5, 2008. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A Chinese paramilitary officer stands guard near the Great Hall of the People where the annual National People’s Congress is held in Beijing on March 5, 2008. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
The names of many known military hacker units in China do start with “61.” There are at least 11 units under the General Staff Department, Third Department, that have the “61” designation, according to a report from the Project 2049 Institute. Among the “61” units is Unit 61398, under which the five military hackers indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2014 operated.
The source’s claims could not be independently verified. Inquiries into these allegations uncovered fear of this mysterious organization. The source requested to have his name withheld, in connection with the 61 Research Institute, for fear he would be “dead within a week,” if he was known to have given information about it.
Another source, a top-level intelligence analyst, stopped a phone interview at the mention of the 61 Research Institute and declined to comment.
The client of BLACKOPS Partners Corp. also said he has similar concerns for his safety, when speaking about the organization, yet he did know about it. He said the 61 Research Institute is based in Haidian on the northwest side of Beijing. “Because they’re government,” he said, “they have their homes in the Chaoyang District, near Chaoyang Park.”
He confirmed, based on his personal experience, that the 61 Research Institute is among the main centers of power within the Chinese regime.
According to Triplett, the power structure of the Chinese regime is separate from its organizational structure. In other words, military branches several layers down the organizational chart will at times hold more power than those above them.
“Basically, you look at them and think it’s equal, but it’s not,” Triplett said.
He added that during the 1980s and 1990s, one of the most powerful branches in the Chinese military was the Second Department under the General Staff Department, which is in charge of human intelligence (HUMINT) spy operations.
With the rise of information technology and today’s heavy focus on cyber, he said, it’s likely that power has shifted to the Third Department, which runs the regime’s signals intelligence operations (SIGINT) and includes its military hackers.
End-Game
The Chinese regime’s widespread use of theft to support its economy is a sign that it has moved to the final stages of any communist regime—where ideology fades, according to Edward Luttwak, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Luttwak described this last stage as one where “super pragmatism” replaces ideology. It’s a stage in a communist society when the people stop believing in “global equality” and start thinking of how to get ahead at all costs.
Luttwak gave an analogy that if you were to offer an ideological person ice cream they may turn it down. A pragmatic person would accept it. And a “super pragmatic” person would take the ice cream whether or not it was offered.
The Chinese Communist Party started off as an ideological party, he said. “The problem is when the ideological people stop being ideological, they don’t just become pragmatic. They become super pragmatic.”
“Any dictatorship is a kingdom of lies,” he said. “No doubt, what happened is that the people in charge are super pragmatists.”
At this stage, he said, “anything they want, they take.”
Update: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Wang Zheng (王诤), whose original name was 吴人鉴.
http://chinawatchcanada.blogspot.ca/201 ... -fuel.html
EXCLUSIVE:
How Hacking and Espionage
Fuel China’s Growth
Includes infographic detailing web of corrupt ties among hackers, generals, and big business
This is the 4th part in a 4-part series: Murder, Money, and Spies: An Investigative Series on the Chinese Military’s For-Profit Ventures
Elements of China’s military, state, business, and academia have been interwoven over decades and organized around one goal: stealing secrets from the West. This regime of theft takes with impunity, powering China’s economy and high-tech military, while robbing the United States alone of trillions in value each year.
Very late in the game, the United States has started to respond. The U.S. Justice Department made headlines in May 2014 by indicting five Chinese military hackers from Unit 61398 for their alleged role in economic theft.
The system, however, doesn’t stop at military hackers. Organizations throughout China work as “transfer centers” that process stolen information into usable designs. Official programs facilitate the theft. And the whole system runs through a corrupt nexus among government officials, military officers, business executives, and academics throughout China.
There is a nearly constant stream of news stories about cyberattacks and spies stealing technology from the West, but the true scale of the cyberattacks and breaches by spies goes far beyond what’s reported.
This article is the last of a four-part investigative series that has been two years in the making. Tapping the knowledge of intelligence and security experts, it reveals the inner workings of a state-sanctioned program to rob the West and feed China’s economic growth and military strength.
“We are seeing only a fraction of actual data breaches reported in the U.S. Many of the data breaches reported in 2014 were of retailers, where compromised consumer personally identifiable information (PII) is required to be reported,” said Casey Fleming, chairman and CEO of BLACKOPS Partners Corp.
It will not take long for every American citizen to be affected by the scale of this economic espionage assault.
— Casey Fleming, CEO, BLACKOPS Partners Corp.
Fleming is in a unique position. His company tracks both cyberspies and human spies infiltrating Fortune 500 companies. He said, in addition to what appears in the press, “hundreds of other companies have not reported data breaches due to negative coverage—or worse, most never detected the breach to begin with.”
Just in the last year, he added, his company observed a tenfold increase in the “aggressiveness, depth, and frequency” of insider spy activity and cyberattacks breaching companies. He said they expect the problem to grow worse.
“Our intelligence unit’s latest estimates are that U.S. companies and the U.S. economy lose approximately $5 trillion each year, or over 30 percent of the U.S. GDP when you factor the full value of the stolen innovation,” Fleming said.
“It will not take long for every American citizen to be affected by the scale of this economic espionage assault in the form of lost jobs, higher prices, and a lower quality of life,” he said.
Click to see full size
Click to see full size
Multiple Sources
The large scope of the theft stems from the Chinese regime’s grip on nearly all facets of its society, according to Josh Vander Veen, director of incident response at SpearTip, a cyber-counterintelligence firm.
Vander Veen is a former special agent with U.S. Army Counterintelligence and worked for more than a dozen years investigating foreign spy operations.
“The Chinese government has a hand in so many of its domestic industries,” he said, adding that the platforms it uses for economic theft include “the transfer centers, cyberattacks, and academic research at U.S. universities.”
In a sense it is very clear-cut, but we don’t want to accept what we see right before our eyes.
— Richard Fisher, senior fellow, International Assessment and Strategy Center
While the Chinese regime operates a very large system for stealing and processing intellectual property, it makes the money back by developing products based on the stolen information. Many times, the Chinese products based on stolen American research and development are resold back in the United States at approximately half the price of the original American product.
“They’re busy, and they do invest a lot of personnel and a lot of time,” Vander Veen said. “But really it’s a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time it takes to do this kind of research.”
When trying to understand the Chinese regime’s use of economic theft, and the involvement of its armed services, corporations, and universities in the theft, “We should view it from the Chinese lens,” said Richard Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
“In a sense it is very clear-cut, but we don’t want to accept what we see right before our eyes,” Fisher said, adding that any organization that has a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cell “is capable of conducting intelligence or military operations.”
(L) A Chinese J-29 stealth fighter in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province. (R) The U.S. F-35 fighter jet in which the Chinese modeled their J-29 after they hacked in to the U.S. government systems. (AP Photo/Xinhua/Liu Dawei & Lockheed Martin/Matt Short)
(L) A Chinese J-29 stealth fighter in Zhuhai, China’s Guangdong Province. (R) The U.S. F-35 fighter jet in which the Chinese modeled their J-29 after they hacked in to the U.S. government systems. (AP Photo/Xinhua/Liu Dawei & Lockheed Martin/Matt Short)
The idea of official “state-run” companies in China can also be deceiving, since nearly all companies are required to have officials from the CCP assigned to them, according to a client of BLACKOPS Partners Corp. who conducts high-level business in China and spoke under conditions of anonymity.
“Any company that has more than 50 people in it has a government liaison assigned to it,” the source said. “That’s law in China.”
In China, there are only vague and blurry lines separating government from private industries, military from government, and private from military. The systems for economic theft likewise take place across all three of these sectors.
A History of Copying
While the actual breaches often get attention, there is very little awareness of what takes place after information is stolen.
To understand how the system works and how it has developed requires a bit of history, and it starts with the Cold War and relations between the Chinese regime and the Soviet Union.
A source with direct knowledge of the Chinese regime’s system for reverse-engineering stolen technology explained to Epoch Times how it developed. The Chinese regime pulled from practices used by the Soviets, he said, but its leaders changed them in crucial ways to better fit China’s then-lacking technical prowess.
If a Soviet spy had stolen designs for a U.S. spy camera, for example, the designs would be transferred to a research facility where Soviet engineers would attempt to reproduce the technology as-is.
With China, the approach was very different. The source explained that the Chinese regime had few illusions at the time about its technological gap with other countries. So, while the Soviets would start their counterfeit process from the top, he said, the Chinese would start theirs from the bottom.
If a Chinese spy were to get his hands on the same hypothetical spy camera mentioned above, he would similarly transfer it to a research facility. But rather than try to duplicate the camera, the researchers would find earlier generations of the technology and learn to build those first.
They would send spies to gather publicly available information for the earliest models of the targeted technology, buy the next generations in stores, and send students to study and work abroad in the targeted industry.
The process would give them a foundation of knowledge, and when they were finally ready to reverse engineer the modern-generation gadget, they could easily see which parts had been upgraded and which changes were made from the technology’s previous generations.
According to the source, the Chinese approach was significantly faster and more cost effective than the Soviet approach.
Transfer Centers
The Chinese regime’s current system for processing and reverse engineering stolen designs has grown significantly larger than it was during the Cold War, and has developed from a strictly military operation into a system that permeates the entire Chinese regime.
After someone steals trade secrets for the Chinese regime, the information serves little use until it’s processed or reverse engineered. This part of the job is handled by a large network of transfer centers.
“There is nothing like this anywhere else in the world,” according to William C. Hannas, James Mulvenon, and Anna B. Puglisi in their 2013 book, “China’s Industrial Espionage.”
“The system is enormous, befitting a nation of 1.3 billion, and operates on a scale that dwarfs China’s own S&T [science and technology] enterprise,” they stated, adding “We are talking here of an elaborate, comprehensive system for spotting foreign technologies, acquiring them by every means imaginable, and converting them into weapons and competitive goods.”
The departments in charge of reverse engineering are officially called China’s National Technology Transfer Centers or National Demonstration Organizations. The book notes these outfits began operating in China in September 2001 and were “established in policy” in December 2007 through the National Technology Transfer Promotion Implementation Plan.
Soldiers with the Second Artillery Corps of the People's Liberation Army work on computers at an undisclosed location. The Chinese regime uses military hackers to feed its economy. (mil.huanqiu.com)
Soldiers with the Second Artillery Corps of the People’s Liberation Army work on computers at an undisclosed location. The Chinese regime uses military hackers to feed its economy. (mil.huanqiu.com)
An estimated 202 of the “demonstration” centers are currently in operation in China, according to the book. The actual scale may be larger, however, since the 202 centers work as “models for emulation by other transfer facilities.”
To name just a few of the transfer centers, they include the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs under the State Council, the Science and Technology Office under the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, and the National Technology Transfer Center under the East China University of Science and Technology.
The organizations don’t try to hide their function. The authors quote a Chinese study of the transfer centers, which states they function to “convert advanced foreign technology into domestic innovation ability” and even recommends “making technology transfer even more the core feature of our technology innovation.”
“Their charters explicitly name ‘domestic and foreign technology’ as targets for ‘commercialization,'” the book states.
The transfer centers play several roles, which include processing stolen technology, developing cooperative research projects between Chinese and foreign scientists, and running programs aimed at reeling in Chinese nationals who have studied abroad.
China’s economic rise can be attributed to this system of “minimal investment in basic science through a technology transfer apparatus that worked—mostly off the books—to suck in foreign proprietary achievements, while the world stood by and did nothing,” according to the book.
It states the Chinese regime could not have undergone the economic transformation the world is now witnessing, “nor sustained its progress today, without cheap and unrestricted access to other countries’ technology.”
Their findings align with a 2010 report from the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which said modernization in the Chinese military depends “heavily on investments in China’s science and technology infrastructure, reforms of its defense industry, and procurement of advanced weapons from abroad.”
It adds that the Chinese regime’s theft of technology is unique in that under the system, it gives autonomy “to research institutes, corporations, and other entities to devise collection schemes according to their particular needs.”
A Hungry Military
The Chinese regime’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) plays a special role in the theft of information. The military is required to cover a portion of its own costs, and over decades this focus on building external sources of cash has made its military leaders some of the most powerful people in China.
According to a book, “China’s Economic Dilemmas in the 1990s: The Problems of Reforms, Modernization, and Interdependence,” the PLA particularly relies on external sources for its research and development programs.
“With only 70 percent of operating expenses in maintaining troops covered by the state budget,” it states, “the PLA must make up the rest and still find supplemental funds for modernization.”
Just like the nexus between government and private business in China, the lines between military and state, and military and private, are likewise thin.
They sat down like in ‘The Godfather’ where they said ‘you’re in charge of docks and I’m in charge of loansharking.’
— William Triplett, former chief counsel, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
There are many top officials in the PLA who also hold high-level positions in state-run companies, and many of these individuals also hold top-level positions in the ruling CCP.
Under the Chinese regime’s current leader, Xi Jinping, “an unprecedented number of senior cadres from the country’s labyrinth ‘jungong hangtian’ (military–industrial and space–technology) complex are being inducted to high-level Party-government organs or transferred to regional administrations,” states a Sept. 25, 2014, report from the Jamestown Foundation.
Chinese missiles are on trucks during a military parade in Beijing on Sept. 3. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Chinese missiles on trucks during a military parade in Beijing on Sept. 3, 2015. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Former leader of the CCP Jiang Zemin had reformed the system in the late 1990s, when the landscape of large companies in China was almost completely controlled by the military. According to several experts, however, the changes Jiang made merely shifted control from the military to the hands of those who were then in charge of the companies.
“They sat down like in ‘The Godfather’ where they said ‘You’re in charge of docks and I’m in charge of loansharking,'” said William Triplett, former chief counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a phone interview.
The “reforms” essentially shifted the system from military-run to state-run, while allowing top military officers and high-level officials in the Communist Party to maintain heavy stakes in the companies, and preventing these roles from ending with their military careers.
The Chinese regime’s military maintains “somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 front companies in the United States, and their sole reason for existing is to steal, exploit U.S. technology,” said Lisa Bronson, deputy undersecretary of defense for technology security policy and counterproliferation, in a 2005 speech.
The FBI’s former deputy director for counterintelligence later said the Chinese regime operates more than 3,200 military front companies in the United States dedicated to theft, according to the 2010 report from the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
State Guidance
While this system of state-sponsored theft unleashes individual initiative, as institutions scramble to steal what they can to turn a profit, the regime also provides strategic guidance.
Project 863 (also called the 863 Program) was started by former Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping in March, 1986. According to a 2011 report from the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, it “provides funding and guidance for efforts to clandestinely acquire U.S. technology and sensitive economic information.”
In its original state, Project 863 targeted seven industries: biotechnology, space, information technology, automation, laser technology, new materials, and energy. It was updated in 1992 to include telecommunications, and was updated again in 1996 to include marine technology.
The Chinese regime’s official programs to help facilitate foreign theft are not limited to Project 863, however. It also includes the Torch Program to build high-tech commercial industries, the 973 Program for research, the 211 program for “reforming” universities, and “countless programs for attracting Western-trained scholars ‘back’ to China,'” according to “China’s Industrial Espionage.”
“Each of these programs looks to foreign collaboration and technologies to cover key gaps,” the authors note, adding that it encourages Western-trained experts to help the Chinese regime’s technological development by returning to China, or “serving in place” by providing needed information gained while working for their Western employers.
They cite a document from the Chinese regime, which states Project 863 maintains a library of 38 million open source articles in close to 80 databases that contain “over four terabytes of information gleaned from American, Japanese, Russian, and British publications, military reports, and standards.”
The Central Nerve
There is a central nerve allegedly behind the system of theft that is also a key power within the Chinese regime. Several sources point to an otherwise unassuming organization hidden deep within the Chinese regime’s military.
One of the most powerful organizations behind the economic theft is the 61 Research Institute, under the Chinese military’s Third Department of the General Staff Department, according to a source who formerly worked under one of the Chinese regime’s main spy agencies, and who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Influence and connections are the keys to power in China, and the man in charge of the 61 Research Institute, Maj. Gen. Wang Jianxin, has some powerful connections.
Wang Jianxin is a son of Wang Zheng, who was a pioneer of the Chinese Communist Party’s signals intelligence operations under Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China. Wang Zheng had five sons, and all of them allegedly hold powerful positions in China.
Another son is the Lieutenant general of the Deputy Secretary of the CCP Central Guard Bureau, the official guards that protect the Chinese regime’s top leaders in the central Party compound of Zhongnanhai. The nephew of Wang Zheng, Wang Lei Lei, is the CEO of one of the top finance companies in China.
“This family, they control all the communications,” the source said, noting that this, along with other family connections, gives them significant power over the Chinese military.
In particular, he said, Wang Jianxin commands the Chinese regime’s military hackers under the General Staff Department. He said the “61” at the front of the names of many Chinese hacker units is a designator for the 61 Research Institute.
A Chinese paramilitary officer stands guard near the Great Hall of the People where the annual National People's Congress is held in Beijing on March 5, 2008. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A Chinese paramilitary officer stands guard near the Great Hall of the People where the annual National People’s Congress is held in Beijing on March 5, 2008. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
The names of many known military hacker units in China do start with “61.” There are at least 11 units under the General Staff Department, Third Department, that have the “61” designation, according to a report from the Project 2049 Institute. Among the “61” units is Unit 61398, under which the five military hackers indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2014 operated.
The source’s claims could not be independently verified. Inquiries into these allegations uncovered fear of this mysterious organization. The source requested to have his name withheld, in connection with the 61 Research Institute, for fear he would be “dead within a week,” if he was known to have given information about it.
Another source, a top-level intelligence analyst, stopped a phone interview at the mention of the 61 Research Institute and declined to comment.
The client of BLACKOPS Partners Corp. also said he has similar concerns for his safety, when speaking about the organization, yet he did know about it. He said the 61 Research Institute is based in Haidian on the northwest side of Beijing. “Because they’re government,” he said, “they have their homes in the Chaoyang District, near Chaoyang Park.”
He confirmed, based on his personal experience, that the 61 Research Institute is among the main centers of power within the Chinese regime.
According to Triplett, the power structure of the Chinese regime is separate from its organizational structure. In other words, military branches several layers down the organizational chart will at times hold more power than those above them.
“Basically, you look at them and think it’s equal, but it’s not,” Triplett said.
He added that during the 1980s and 1990s, one of the most powerful branches in the Chinese military was the Second Department under the General Staff Department, which is in charge of human intelligence (HUMINT) spy operations.
With the rise of information technology and today’s heavy focus on cyber, he said, it’s likely that power has shifted to the Third Department, which runs the regime’s signals intelligence operations (SIGINT) and includes its military hackers.
End-Game
The Chinese regime’s widespread use of theft to support its economy is a sign that it has moved to the final stages of any communist regime—where ideology fades, according to Edward Luttwak, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Luttwak described this last stage as one where “super pragmatism” replaces ideology. It’s a stage in a communist society when the people stop believing in “global equality” and start thinking of how to get ahead at all costs.
Luttwak gave an analogy that if you were to offer an ideological person ice cream they may turn it down. A pragmatic person would accept it. And a “super pragmatic” person would take the ice cream whether or not it was offered.
The Chinese Communist Party started off as an ideological party, he said. “The problem is when the ideological people stop being ideological, they don’t just become pragmatic. They become super pragmatic.”
“Any dictatorship is a kingdom of lies,” he said. “No doubt, what happened is that the people in charge are super pragmatists.”
At this stage, he said, “anything they want, they take.”
Update: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Wang Zheng (王诤), whose original name was 吴人鉴.
http://chinawatchcanada.blogspot.ca/201 ... -fuel.html
Re: Chinese Activities
Can you imagine the espionage victory for China if China manages to aquire control of the internet ? So much for freedom of speech
China Could Control the Global Internet After Oct. 1
The handover of ICANN, the body that governs domain name registration, fits into a strategy by the Chinese regime to determine how the internet is run
By Joshua Philipp, Epoch Times |
September 14, 2016 AT 4:28 AM
Last Updated: September 16, 2016 2:10 pm
A Chinese paramilitary policeman tries to block photos being taken of a military parade rehearsal prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)
A Chinese paramilitary policeman tries to block photos being taken of a military parade rehearsal prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)
In November 2014, Li Yuxiao, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace, stated, according to the state-run China Daily, “Now is the time for China to realize its responsibilities. If the United States is willing to give up its running of the internet sphere, the question comes as to who will take the baton and how it would be run?”
“We have to first set our goal in cyberspace, and then think about the strategy to take, before moving on to refining our laws,” he said.
Li’s comments were in response to news, also in 2014, that the United States would relinquish its remaining federal government control of the internet by ending its contract between the Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is scheduled for Oct. 1.
As the United States plans to relinquish control of ICANN—and with this, fully end U.S. oversight of the internet—the Chinese regime has moved to fill the void.
Over the last two years, it has drafted an authoritarian set of laws that governs every facet of the internet, and it has formed or gained control over domestic and international bodies to press these new laws for the internet through the United Nations, through domestic enforcement including on foreign companies inside China, and through organizations formed to interface directly with major technology companies abroad.
Read More
China Wants to Control What You Watch
ICANN is the body that governs domain name registration and ensures users are not redirected to a site they don’t intend to visit.
The United Nations branch responsible for telecommunications issues, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), has members pushing to assume control of the internet—and China has been working hard to control the ITU.
Laying the Groundwork
In the two years since Li gave his speech at the World Internet Conference, which had the slogan “An Interconnected World Shared and Governed by All,” the Chinese regime has gained ground in the goal to govern the global internet that Li laid out. The three-day conference in Wuzhen brought together more than 1,000 internet companies from over 100 countries and regions.
The chairman of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) Steve Crocker speaks during the opening of the ICANN meeting in Singapore on Feb. 9, 2015. The U.S. plan to relinquish control of ICANN opens the door for China to have greater influence over the global Internet. (ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/Getty Images)
ICANN Chairman Steve Crocker speaks during the opening of the ICANN meeting in Singapore on Feb. 9, 2015. The U.S. plan to relinquish control of ICANN opens the door for China to have greater influence over the global internet. (Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images)
Li is now the secretary-general of the Cyber Security Association of China, which is chaired by Fang Binxing, the creator of China’s “Great Firewall,” which censors and monitors its internet. While the association uses enforcement of “cybersecurity” as a front, it is tasked specifically with enforcing the Chinese regime’s version of law on the internet.
Related Coverage
China Could Control the Global Internet After Oct. 1Inside the Global Banking E-Heist
The Chinese regime has also begun bringing major U.S. tech firms—including Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., and IBM—into its Technological Committee 260, tasked, according to the Wall Street Journal, with helping Chinese authorities draft rules for issues including encryption, big data, and cybersecurity, and with determining which technologies should be “secure and controllable” under the Chinese regime.
The Chinese regime created a requirement that all key network infrastructure and information systems need to be “secure and controllable” as one piece of the sweeping National Security Law that covered everything from culture to politics, military space, the economy, the environment, and technology.
Soon after it was passed on July 1, 2015, The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation explained the requirement as “part of a strategic effort” intended to “ultimately supplant foreign technology companies both in China and in markets around the world.”
While the Chinese regime has started using “cybersecurity” to mask its goals, officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its state-run news outlets were very candid about their intentions at the 2014 World Internet Conference.
The state-run China Daily reported at the time that, “experts said China is using the platform to sell its own strategy and rules to the world, a mission that the world’s largest cyberpower with the most internet users has deemed significant and urgent.”
CCP Premier Li Keqiang said, in comments summarized by China Daily, that “China is considering setting up its own rules in cyberspace,” and that the CCP wants to create a “common code of rules” for the internet.
China Daily then quoted Shen Yi, an associate professor specializing in cybersecurity at Fudan University, who stated more directly that “China has the capability now to set up international rules for cyberspace and use our strategy and our rules to influence the world.”
A Contentious Move
Many U.S. government officials, organizations, and experts have sounded an alarm about the upcoming plans for the United States to relinquish control of ICANN, over concerns that a foreign authoritarian power may attempt to do precisely what the Chinese regime has already set into motion.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) introduced a bill, the Protecting Internet Freedom Act, on June 8, which seeks to prevent the U.S. handover of ICANN, and to ensure the United States retains sole ownership of .com and .mil domain names.
A screen shows a rolling feed of new Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs) that have been applied for during a press conference hosted by ICANN in central London, on June 13, 2012. The U.S. intention to relinquish control of ICANN opens the door for China to gain greater control over the Internet. (AFP PHOTO / ANDREW COWIE (Photo credit should read Andrew Cowie/AFP/GettyImages)
A screen shows a rolling feed of new Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs) that have been applied for during a press conference hosted by ICANN in central London, on June 13, 2012. The U.S. intention to relinquish control of ICANN opens the door for China to gain greater control over the internet. (Andrew Cowie/AFP/GettyImages)
A post about the bill on Ted Cruz’s website states, “If that proposal goes through, countries like Russia, China, and Iran could be able to censor speech on the internet, including here in the United States, by blocking access to sites they don’t like.”
According to Chris Mattmann, who helped create some of the core technologies of the internet, these concerns could hold true, since part of ICANN’s role is to manage and coordinate the Domain Name System (DNS). If ICANN is no longer under U.S. oversight, he said, the process of determining which websites are shown to you when you enter a URL “will no longer be driven the U.S. Department of Commerce,” and this could be manipulated by foreign powers for anything from censorship to cyberattacks.
Mattmann helped develop how email systems work under a proposal from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which is a department of ICANN. He also helped develop several Apache systems that are at the heart of the internet; currently he works with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“I think it needs to be heavily vetted,” he said, referring to ICANN, noting, “Even when the internet is itself distributed and decentralized, which it is, it starts to break down when there isn’t some element of centralized authority.”
These sentiments were shared by Philip Zimmermann, creator of the PGP encryption standard and chief scientist and co-founder of Silent Circle, a company specializing in secure communications.
Zimmerman said the United States needs to maintain control over the internet, lest “we give into control by an international body that can be easily influenced by member states that are oppressive societies.”
“The internet is supposed to make the weak have a voice, you know. If China controls their own domains within their country, it’s going to be easy to suppress opposition,” he said.
According to Barney Warf, a geography professor at the University of Kansas who has published research on global internet freedom and governance, China has a “a brutal, fascist, oppressive regime that has gone out of its way to suppress human rights.” He said even the possibility that the CCP could enforce its laws over the global internet is a frightening thought.
Warf said one of the advantages of the internet was that while the United States governed it informally, it did not place any firm control over the it, and this factor allowed innovation to flourish. He said the lack of strict governance gave people room to “experiment and make mistakes,” and added “I think the internet has thrived because there is no central power to it.”
Laws For the Internet
In January 2014, the ITU, the U.N. body seeking to take over ICANN, elected China’s Houlin Zhao as secretary-general.
Zhao had stated previously that censorship is subjective, and according to The New American in October 2014, when Zhao was asked about “the dictatorship’s massive censorship regime targeting dissent, dissidents, and ideas it disagrees with,” he replied evasively. “Some kind of censorship may not be strange to other countries,” he said.
Related Coverage
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China Could Control the Global Internet After Oct. 1EXCLUSIVE: Global Banking System Infiltrated by Chinese State Hackers
The ITU gained international attention in 2012, when it was holding a closed-door world conference to rewrite rules that govern the global internet. The meeting drew heavy criticism from tech-focused groups and websites. Cnet.com reported on a leaked document, where the U.N. organization proposed a global internet tax on content providers including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix.
The Center for Democracy and Technology exposed a proposal the ITU passed, which it said “could give governments and companies the ability to sift through all of an internet user’s traffic—including emails, banking transactions, and voice calls—without adequate privacy safeguards.”
Alongside the CCP’s rising influence in the ITU, the CCP started forming its own laws and governing bodies that could push for regulations both in China and abroad.
In July 2015, the CCP passed the National Security Law mentioned earlier, with its requirement that certain technologies should be “secure and controllable.” Technology news website TechDirt noted at the time that the CCP did not specify the exact requirements this would place on foreign companies, yet speculated it could tie to the CCP’s previous and contentious attempt to require foreign companies to install backdoors in their technology products.
In December 2015, the CCP passed the Counterterrorism Law, which allows Chinese authorities to decrypt information to prevent “terrorism,” and to monitor systems with the excuse of preventing the spread of information that can be used for the CCP’s definitions of terrorism or “extremism.”
Xia Yiyang, senior director of research and planning at the Human Rights Law Foundation, said the phrases “terrorism” and “extremism” are political labels the CCP uses on Chinese dissidents in order to justify its human rights abuses—in this case, mainly against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, also known as East Turkestan.
“It’s easy to label some group,” he said. “Like Tibetans, they label them as ‘separatists,’ and now it becomes a fixed label. If anyone in China thinks terrorist attacks, domestic terrorist attacks, everyone thinks of Uyghurs. If they talk about separatists, they think about Tibetans. These are fixed labels.”
In July 2015, the CCP also introduced its Cybersecurity Law. Reuters reported that the law requires network operators to “accept the supervision of the government and public,” and that it reiterates requirements that all personal data on Chinese citizens and “important business data” needs to be stored domestically—an element that further exposes the data to government surveillance.
Reuters noted the law was controversial in the United States and Europe, since it affects foreign firms. It also noted it increased the CCP’s power to “access and block dissemination of private information records that Chinese law deems illegal,” and that this has caused concern among governments, multinational companies, and rights activists, since the CCP may be able to “interpret the law as it sees fit.”
There is a long list of similar laws and regulations. In February 2016, the CCP issued rules for online publishing. In March 2016, it drafted rules for domain name registration. It has issued state procurement lists that restrict foreign suppliers and has pending laws on encryption regulations.
Cyber Security Association of China
On March 25, 2016, the CCP formed the Cyber Security Association of China, which claims to be a national nonprofit organization (NPO), but according to a report from the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), the association answers directly to the Leading Small Group for Network Security and Information, which is chaired by CCP leader Xi Jinping and is “responsible for shaping and implementing information security and internet policies and laws.”
The report states the CCP “is moving at breakneck speed to develop the institutions, as well as legal and regulatory mechanisms, necessary to strengthen cyber governance.” It says the organization will focus on issues including security of information systems, technology support, “public opinion supervision to help in information control and propaganda,” and “protecting core Chinese interests under globalization, and promoting globally competitive Chinese IT companies.”
According to Xia at the Human Rights Law Foundation, there is more to the statement “protecting core Chinese interests under globalization” than meets the eye.
Related Coverage
China Could Control the Global Internet After Oct. 1The Silent War Against America’s Image
“In the CCP’s language, it’s a way to keep the CCP in power by any means,” he said, adding that “They have a very clear definition of ‘core interests.'”
“No matter the policy, it is to keep the CCP in power. That’s the only reason for all policy [under the CCP],” Xia said. He notes that the CCP’s policies outside China also serve the primary role “to enhance the CCP’s argument that it legally rules China.”
The CSIS report adds that the China’s new Cyber Security organization gives the CCP, for the first time, “an institution that can engage in international cyber diplomacy at more senior levels,” and that it will “lead in engaging with the international industry, academic, and research associations that constitute the global cyber-governance ecosystem.”
Li Yuxiao, secretary-general of the Association, has been surprisingly candid about these goals.
In a Dec. 18, 2015, interview on the World Internet Conference website, Li stated his belief that since China has the world’s most netizens, it should have the right to “make the international rules of cyberspace governance,” and added, “The establishment of rules is just a start.”
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Mass Purge in China’s Liaoning Province Advances Xi Jinping’s Political Aimsleader of the Communist Party Xi Jinping rides in an open top car as he greets soldiers and others in front of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City during a military parade on Sept. 3, 2015 in Beijing, China. Observers were surprised when former regime leader Jiang Zemin showed up on the reviewing stand with Xi. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
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New Chief of Chinese Port City Faces Uncertain Political FutureNewly appointed Tianjin Party Secretary Li Hongzhong. (Duowei)
Chinese Regime’s Political System up for Discussion on Social MediaDelegates leave after the opening session of the Chinese Communist Party's five-yearly Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Nov. 8, 2012. A Chinese academic says the regime needs to drastically cut its bloated membership to avoid losing power, like the Soviet Communist Party. (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)
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A Chinese paramilitary policeman tries to block photos being taken of a military parade rehearsal prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)
China Could Control the Global Internet After Oct. 1
Dr. Marc Faber, publisher of Gloom Boom & Doom, in this file photo. Dr. Faber thinks central bank intervention will lead to the collapse of the monetary system. (Courtesy of Dr. Marc Faber)
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People walk past a branch of Deutsche Bank on February 9, 2016 in Berlin, Germany. Financial Analyst Reggie Middleton talks about why Deutsche Bank is an accident waiting to happen and why most analysts on Wall Street cannot talk about it. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
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China Could Control the Global Internet After Oct. 1
The handover of ICANN, the body that governs domain name registration, fits into a strategy by the Chinese regime to determine how the internet is run
By Joshua Philipp, Epoch Times |
September 14, 2016 AT 4:28 AM
Last Updated: September 16, 2016 2:10 pm
A Chinese paramilitary policeman tries to block photos being taken of a military parade rehearsal prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)
A Chinese paramilitary policeman tries to block photos being taken of a military parade rehearsal prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)
In November 2014, Li Yuxiao, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace, stated, according to the state-run China Daily, “Now is the time for China to realize its responsibilities. If the United States is willing to give up its running of the internet sphere, the question comes as to who will take the baton and how it would be run?”
“We have to first set our goal in cyberspace, and then think about the strategy to take, before moving on to refining our laws,” he said.
Li’s comments were in response to news, also in 2014, that the United States would relinquish its remaining federal government control of the internet by ending its contract between the Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is scheduled for Oct. 1.
As the United States plans to relinquish control of ICANN—and with this, fully end U.S. oversight of the internet—the Chinese regime has moved to fill the void.
Over the last two years, it has drafted an authoritarian set of laws that governs every facet of the internet, and it has formed or gained control over domestic and international bodies to press these new laws for the internet through the United Nations, through domestic enforcement including on foreign companies inside China, and through organizations formed to interface directly with major technology companies abroad.
Read More
China Wants to Control What You Watch
ICANN is the body that governs domain name registration and ensures users are not redirected to a site they don’t intend to visit.
The United Nations branch responsible for telecommunications issues, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), has members pushing to assume control of the internet—and China has been working hard to control the ITU.
Laying the Groundwork
In the two years since Li gave his speech at the World Internet Conference, which had the slogan “An Interconnected World Shared and Governed by All,” the Chinese regime has gained ground in the goal to govern the global internet that Li laid out. The three-day conference in Wuzhen brought together more than 1,000 internet companies from over 100 countries and regions.
The chairman of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) Steve Crocker speaks during the opening of the ICANN meeting in Singapore on Feb. 9, 2015. The U.S. plan to relinquish control of ICANN opens the door for China to have greater influence over the global Internet. (ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/Getty Images)
ICANN Chairman Steve Crocker speaks during the opening of the ICANN meeting in Singapore on Feb. 9, 2015. The U.S. plan to relinquish control of ICANN opens the door for China to have greater influence over the global internet. (Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images)
Li is now the secretary-general of the Cyber Security Association of China, which is chaired by Fang Binxing, the creator of China’s “Great Firewall,” which censors and monitors its internet. While the association uses enforcement of “cybersecurity” as a front, it is tasked specifically with enforcing the Chinese regime’s version of law on the internet.
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The Chinese regime has also begun bringing major U.S. tech firms—including Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., and IBM—into its Technological Committee 260, tasked, according to the Wall Street Journal, with helping Chinese authorities draft rules for issues including encryption, big data, and cybersecurity, and with determining which technologies should be “secure and controllable” under the Chinese regime.
The Chinese regime created a requirement that all key network infrastructure and information systems need to be “secure and controllable” as one piece of the sweeping National Security Law that covered everything from culture to politics, military space, the economy, the environment, and technology.
Soon after it was passed on July 1, 2015, The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation explained the requirement as “part of a strategic effort” intended to “ultimately supplant foreign technology companies both in China and in markets around the world.”
While the Chinese regime has started using “cybersecurity” to mask its goals, officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its state-run news outlets were very candid about their intentions at the 2014 World Internet Conference.
The state-run China Daily reported at the time that, “experts said China is using the platform to sell its own strategy and rules to the world, a mission that the world’s largest cyberpower with the most internet users has deemed significant and urgent.”
CCP Premier Li Keqiang said, in comments summarized by China Daily, that “China is considering setting up its own rules in cyberspace,” and that the CCP wants to create a “common code of rules” for the internet.
China Daily then quoted Shen Yi, an associate professor specializing in cybersecurity at Fudan University, who stated more directly that “China has the capability now to set up international rules for cyberspace and use our strategy and our rules to influence the world.”
A Contentious Move
Many U.S. government officials, organizations, and experts have sounded an alarm about the upcoming plans for the United States to relinquish control of ICANN, over concerns that a foreign authoritarian power may attempt to do precisely what the Chinese regime has already set into motion.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) introduced a bill, the Protecting Internet Freedom Act, on June 8, which seeks to prevent the U.S. handover of ICANN, and to ensure the United States retains sole ownership of .com and .mil domain names.
A screen shows a rolling feed of new Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs) that have been applied for during a press conference hosted by ICANN in central London, on June 13, 2012. The U.S. intention to relinquish control of ICANN opens the door for China to gain greater control over the Internet. (AFP PHOTO / ANDREW COWIE (Photo credit should read Andrew Cowie/AFP/GettyImages)
A screen shows a rolling feed of new Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs) that have been applied for during a press conference hosted by ICANN in central London, on June 13, 2012. The U.S. intention to relinquish control of ICANN opens the door for China to gain greater control over the internet. (Andrew Cowie/AFP/GettyImages)
A post about the bill on Ted Cruz’s website states, “If that proposal goes through, countries like Russia, China, and Iran could be able to censor speech on the internet, including here in the United States, by blocking access to sites they don’t like.”
According to Chris Mattmann, who helped create some of the core technologies of the internet, these concerns could hold true, since part of ICANN’s role is to manage and coordinate the Domain Name System (DNS). If ICANN is no longer under U.S. oversight, he said, the process of determining which websites are shown to you when you enter a URL “will no longer be driven the U.S. Department of Commerce,” and this could be manipulated by foreign powers for anything from censorship to cyberattacks.
Mattmann helped develop how email systems work under a proposal from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which is a department of ICANN. He also helped develop several Apache systems that are at the heart of the internet; currently he works with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“I think it needs to be heavily vetted,” he said, referring to ICANN, noting, “Even when the internet is itself distributed and decentralized, which it is, it starts to break down when there isn’t some element of centralized authority.”
These sentiments were shared by Philip Zimmermann, creator of the PGP encryption standard and chief scientist and co-founder of Silent Circle, a company specializing in secure communications.
Zimmerman said the United States needs to maintain control over the internet, lest “we give into control by an international body that can be easily influenced by member states that are oppressive societies.”
“The internet is supposed to make the weak have a voice, you know. If China controls their own domains within their country, it’s going to be easy to suppress opposition,” he said.
According to Barney Warf, a geography professor at the University of Kansas who has published research on global internet freedom and governance, China has a “a brutal, fascist, oppressive regime that has gone out of its way to suppress human rights.” He said even the possibility that the CCP could enforce its laws over the global internet is a frightening thought.
Warf said one of the advantages of the internet was that while the United States governed it informally, it did not place any firm control over the it, and this factor allowed innovation to flourish. He said the lack of strict governance gave people room to “experiment and make mistakes,” and added “I think the internet has thrived because there is no central power to it.”
Laws For the Internet
In January 2014, the ITU, the U.N. body seeking to take over ICANN, elected China’s Houlin Zhao as secretary-general.
Zhao had stated previously that censorship is subjective, and according to The New American in October 2014, when Zhao was asked about “the dictatorship’s massive censorship regime targeting dissent, dissidents, and ideas it disagrees with,” he replied evasively. “Some kind of censorship may not be strange to other countries,” he said.
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The ITU gained international attention in 2012, when it was holding a closed-door world conference to rewrite rules that govern the global internet. The meeting drew heavy criticism from tech-focused groups and websites. Cnet.com reported on a leaked document, where the U.N. organization proposed a global internet tax on content providers including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix.
The Center for Democracy and Technology exposed a proposal the ITU passed, which it said “could give governments and companies the ability to sift through all of an internet user’s traffic—including emails, banking transactions, and voice calls—without adequate privacy safeguards.”
Alongside the CCP’s rising influence in the ITU, the CCP started forming its own laws and governing bodies that could push for regulations both in China and abroad.
In July 2015, the CCP passed the National Security Law mentioned earlier, with its requirement that certain technologies should be “secure and controllable.” Technology news website TechDirt noted at the time that the CCP did not specify the exact requirements this would place on foreign companies, yet speculated it could tie to the CCP’s previous and contentious attempt to require foreign companies to install backdoors in their technology products.
In December 2015, the CCP passed the Counterterrorism Law, which allows Chinese authorities to decrypt information to prevent “terrorism,” and to monitor systems with the excuse of preventing the spread of information that can be used for the CCP’s definitions of terrorism or “extremism.”
Xia Yiyang, senior director of research and planning at the Human Rights Law Foundation, said the phrases “terrorism” and “extremism” are political labels the CCP uses on Chinese dissidents in order to justify its human rights abuses—in this case, mainly against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, also known as East Turkestan.
“It’s easy to label some group,” he said. “Like Tibetans, they label them as ‘separatists,’ and now it becomes a fixed label. If anyone in China thinks terrorist attacks, domestic terrorist attacks, everyone thinks of Uyghurs. If they talk about separatists, they think about Tibetans. These are fixed labels.”
In July 2015, the CCP also introduced its Cybersecurity Law. Reuters reported that the law requires network operators to “accept the supervision of the government and public,” and that it reiterates requirements that all personal data on Chinese citizens and “important business data” needs to be stored domestically—an element that further exposes the data to government surveillance.
Reuters noted the law was controversial in the United States and Europe, since it affects foreign firms. It also noted it increased the CCP’s power to “access and block dissemination of private information records that Chinese law deems illegal,” and that this has caused concern among governments, multinational companies, and rights activists, since the CCP may be able to “interpret the law as it sees fit.”
There is a long list of similar laws and regulations. In February 2016, the CCP issued rules for online publishing. In March 2016, it drafted rules for domain name registration. It has issued state procurement lists that restrict foreign suppliers and has pending laws on encryption regulations.
Cyber Security Association of China
On March 25, 2016, the CCP formed the Cyber Security Association of China, which claims to be a national nonprofit organization (NPO), but according to a report from the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), the association answers directly to the Leading Small Group for Network Security and Information, which is chaired by CCP leader Xi Jinping and is “responsible for shaping and implementing information security and internet policies and laws.”
The report states the CCP “is moving at breakneck speed to develop the institutions, as well as legal and regulatory mechanisms, necessary to strengthen cyber governance.” It says the organization will focus on issues including security of information systems, technology support, “public opinion supervision to help in information control and propaganda,” and “protecting core Chinese interests under globalization, and promoting globally competitive Chinese IT companies.”
According to Xia at the Human Rights Law Foundation, there is more to the statement “protecting core Chinese interests under globalization” than meets the eye.
Related Coverage
China Could Control the Global Internet After Oct. 1The Silent War Against America’s Image
“In the CCP’s language, it’s a way to keep the CCP in power by any means,” he said, adding that “They have a very clear definition of ‘core interests.'”
“No matter the policy, it is to keep the CCP in power. That’s the only reason for all policy [under the CCP],” Xia said. He notes that the CCP’s policies outside China also serve the primary role “to enhance the CCP’s argument that it legally rules China.”
The CSIS report adds that the China’s new Cyber Security organization gives the CCP, for the first time, “an institution that can engage in international cyber diplomacy at more senior levels,” and that it will “lead in engaging with the international industry, academic, and research associations that constitute the global cyber-governance ecosystem.”
Li Yuxiao, secretary-general of the Association, has been surprisingly candid about these goals.
In a Dec. 18, 2015, interview on the World Internet Conference website, Li stated his belief that since China has the world’s most netizens, it should have the right to “make the international rules of cyberspace governance,” and added, “The establishment of rules is just a start.”
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Mass Purge in China’s Liaoning Province Advances Xi Jinping’s Political Aimsleader of the Communist Party Xi Jinping rides in an open top car as he greets soldiers and others in front of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City during a military parade on Sept. 3, 2015 in Beijing, China. Observers were surprised when former regime leader Jiang Zemin showed up on the reviewing stand with Xi. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
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Chinese Regime’s Political System up for Discussion on Social MediaDelegates leave after the opening session of the Chinese Communist Party's five-yearly Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Nov. 8, 2012. A Chinese academic says the regime needs to drastically cut its bloated membership to avoid losing power, like the Soviet Communist Party. (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)
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http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2155380 ... -internet/
- Blue Frost
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Re: Chinese Activities
No way, so oh I want to toss my cookies.
I actually saw the dog pound truck pull up behind a Chinese restaurant years back, i was at the unemployment office across the street.
[video][/video]
"Being alone isn't what hurts. It's when the people around you make you feel alone" ~ Naruto Uzumaki, an Anime Character
Re: Chinese Activities
I once saw a skinned dog hanging on a hook in a showcase outside a restaraunt to entice customers in China.
- Blue Frost
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Re: Chinese Activities
Thats to be expected in some places, here I think it's not anyplace.
"Being alone isn't what hurts. It's when the people around you make you feel alone" ~ Naruto Uzumaki, an Anime Character
- Blue Frost
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- Joined: May 14th, 2012, 1:01 am
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Re: Chinese Activities
You know the French eat a lot of horse, same deal, and also Burger King I think was accused of putting it in their burgers at one time.
i understand people eating strange stuff compared to others, we are likely looked at the same way on some things.
What i dislike universal is the ill treatment of animals, abuse isn't right to life sustaining food that had a life. Also the killing of endangered species for food, medicines, or trinkets, that's just not right in any way unless you are starving to death.
i understand people eating strange stuff compared to others, we are likely looked at the same way on some things.
What i dislike universal is the ill treatment of animals, abuse isn't right to life sustaining food that had a life. Also the killing of endangered species for food, medicines, or trinkets, that's just not right in any way unless you are starving to death.
"Being alone isn't what hurts. It's when the people around you make you feel alone" ~ Naruto Uzumaki, an Anime Character
Re: Chinese Activities
Perhaps China's economy is on the rebound.
China's Outbound Investment Increases by 53.7% in 2016 Year-on-Year
Foreign non-financial investment of the Chinese companies rose significantly this year in comparшson with the last year.
BEIJING (Sputnik) — Foreign non-financial investment of the Chinese companies rose by 53.7 percent during the first nine months of this year against January-September 2015, the country's Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday.
China's investments reached 882.78 billion yuans ($134.2 billion) in the January-September period, Shen Danyang, a spokesman for the ministry, told a press briefing.
In September alone, the volume of Chinese investments abroad amounted to 106.29 billion yuan, up by 56.9 percent compared to the same month last year. In 2015, Chinese non-financial direct investment abroad amounted to $118 billion, which is 14.7 percent more than in 2014.
Read more: https://sputniknews.com/asia/2016101810 ... i-economy/
China's Outbound Investment Increases by 53.7% in 2016 Year-on-Year
Foreign non-financial investment of the Chinese companies rose significantly this year in comparшson with the last year.
BEIJING (Sputnik) — Foreign non-financial investment of the Chinese companies rose by 53.7 percent during the first nine months of this year against January-September 2015, the country's Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday.
China's investments reached 882.78 billion yuans ($134.2 billion) in the January-September period, Shen Danyang, a spokesman for the ministry, told a press briefing.
In September alone, the volume of Chinese investments abroad amounted to 106.29 billion yuan, up by 56.9 percent compared to the same month last year. In 2015, Chinese non-financial direct investment abroad amounted to $118 billion, which is 14.7 percent more than in 2014.
Read more: https://sputniknews.com/asia/2016101810 ... i-economy/
- Blue Frost
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Re: Chinese Activities
They may just be getting rid of US dollars before something happens.
"Being alone isn't what hurts. It's when the people around you make you feel alone" ~ Naruto Uzumaki, an Anime Character
Re: Chinese Activities
I wonder if plans aren't in the works for WW3.
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Re: Chinese Activities
There was more talk about it today, Obama is pushing for it.
"Being alone isn't what hurts. It's when the people around you make you feel alone" ~ Naruto Uzumaki, an Anime Character
Re: Chinese Activities
China would have some amazing wildlife if they hadn't made almost all of it nearly extinct. This Xi Jinping appears to be quite a good leader. I also am a fan of his anti crime drive nailing even some of the dragonheads.
China Prosecutes 2,500 People Over Negligence in Environment Protection Issues
Chinese authorities have prosecuted more than 2,500 people in various regions of the country since July for negligence in regards to environmental issues.
© REUTERS/ China Daily
Solid Evidence: Chinese Activist Creates Smog Brick to Expose Air PollutionBEIJING (Sputnik) — According to the China News Service, the ad hoc working groups of the State Environmental Protection Administration of China (SEPA) were sent in July to the Inner Mongolia, Ningxia Hui and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous region, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Henan and Yunnan with inspection.
More than 2,500 persons are reportedly held accountable for negligent performance of official duties for the environment protection. Almost half of them (1,200 people) were prosecuted in the Henan Province.
https://sputniknews.com/asia/2016111610 ... egligence/
China Prosecutes 2,500 People Over Negligence in Environment Protection Issues
Chinese authorities have prosecuted more than 2,500 people in various regions of the country since July for negligence in regards to environmental issues.
© REUTERS/ China Daily
Solid Evidence: Chinese Activist Creates Smog Brick to Expose Air PollutionBEIJING (Sputnik) — According to the China News Service, the ad hoc working groups of the State Environmental Protection Administration of China (SEPA) were sent in July to the Inner Mongolia, Ningxia Hui and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous region, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Henan and Yunnan with inspection.
More than 2,500 persons are reportedly held accountable for negligent performance of official duties for the environment protection. Almost half of them (1,200 people) were prosecuted in the Henan Province.
https://sputniknews.com/asia/2016111610 ... egligence/
Re: Chinese Activities
There are a number of very interesting videos if you open the page at the bottom. With the help of Obama China could very well become the worlds sole superpower. I wonder if they will sieze the opportunity to destroy American while the USA still has that buffoon Obama in office. China couldn't hope for a worse wartime leader than Obama.
The Yuan Ascends to World Reserve Status: “U.S. Dollar System Left in Dust!”
Today’s news is a historic milestone. The dollar’s days are numbered, and the new global economic order is shifting into place.
As many insiders have expected, China has now officially gained status among the world reserve currencies, taking place alongside the dollar, the euro, the pound and the yen.
The IMF decided to grant this upgrade as a result of financial and monetary benchmarks that Chinese leaders worked towards during the past several years. Its implications run deep.
Via Reuters:
The International Monetary Fund on Monday, as expected, admitted China’s Yuan into its benchmark currency basket in a victory for Beijing’s campaign for recognition as a global economic power.
The IMF executive board’s decision to add the Yuan, also known as the renminbi, to the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket alongside the dollar, euro, pound sterling and yen, is an important milestone in China’s integration into the global financial systemand a nod to the progress it has made with reforms.
IMF chief Christine Lagarde, who along with in-house experts has previously backed the move, made it clear she did not expect Beijing to stop there.
“The Yuan’s inclusion is a largely symbolic move, with few immediate implications for financial markets. But it is the first time an additional currency has been added to the SDR basket and the biggest change in its composition in 35 years.
Below is IMF chief Christine Legarde’s statement on the new benchmark of global currency, and what will inevitably be a resettling for the people affected by it – not least the American people who could see a significant decline in their living standard after an era of economic supremacy that the United States has enjoyed since the end of WWII:
China Gets Reserve Currency
WHAT EXACTLY DOES THAT MEAN FOR ME AS AN AMERICAN?
First, It means if you did not see this coming, you’re as gullible as they came. You bought into EVERY line you were fed by our criminal President, and his media puppets, despite that a 3rd grade arithmetic lesson could have showed you that it was all lies. Before getting to the significance of what all this means, the following is NOT intended as an I told you so. It’s meant as an education tool, so you can see where you were lied to, so you’ll be wiser moving forward, because things are about to get MUCH worse.
Back in August, Peter Schiff explained the ripple effects that we as Americans should have expected from China’s devaluation of the Yuan. In the video that follows, Peter explains that it’s not just the U.S. Dollar, but our ENTIRE economy that is a giant financial bubble in search of pin, and when it finds one, we are all going to feel much more pain than we did in 2008. The main reason, is there are 3 enormous financial bubbles vs. the one housing bubble we had in 2008, not to mention, and last time when the crisis hit we were at almost full employment AND the dirivative market is even THIRTY PERCENT LARGER THAN LAST TIME! When the next crisis hits, we already have 94 MILLION people broke and out of work. In the video below, Peter accurately predicted the Chinese would devalue the Yuan, and explains why that is almost certain to lead to QE4 here in the coming months. In hindsight, Peter was not alone. Gerald Celente Also Said Massive Market and Trade Instability Will Necessarily Cause World War III… and Jim Willie Recently Explained Why the U.S. Nuclear War Threats to China and Russia Over Challenging Dollar Supremacy have been very real. Being the reserve currency, has afforded the U.S. many benefits that not only did we not deserve, we abused horribly. More about that after the video.
In September, Peter made a mockery of anyone who actually believed the Fed was even thinking about raising interest rates, regardless of what they said. In the video below, Peter Schiff gives his version of an, “I told you so,” on the issue of Fed rate hikes, and I don’t blame him. I’ve also said all along there was no chance the Fed would raise rates. How could they? PLEASE! If you recall, in the beginning of the year there were two camps of economists, the ones who thought the Fed would raise rates in March, and those who said they would raise rates in June. BOTH positions were LUDICROUS, just as anyone who thinks there is a snowball’s chance in hell the Fed will raise rates ANYTIME soon are not only wrong, they are DEAD WRONG! Did anyone notice what happened to the artificially inflated stock market when there was even a suspicion the Fed MIGHT raise rates? The stock market dropped 1700 points in 8 days. Sadly, I know plenty of people who have changed their financial positions in a material way and to their own detriment in anticipation of a Fed rate hike, and it’s mind boggling. Personally, I SOLD a home while the getting was good, and there was still a huge pool of ignorant morons thinking we are in a recovery, and yes, it sold for an overinflated price that in a year will be inconceivable how I got that much for it.
As Peter very accurately points out in the video, there has been NO recovery. All the gains people have seen in real estate or their stock portfolios have been artificial. Temporary bubbles have been created in both markets as a result of the loose monetary policy of the Fed, which has resulted in the APPEARANCE of a recovery within both the stock market and the real estate market. Once those bubbles pop, and they will, the Obama presidency will have nothing to show for doubling the nations debt since the country was founded taking the national debt from $10 TRILLION to $20 TRILLION dollars in only eight years, but the economy he will leave behind will be WORSE than the one he inherited in 2008. Watch the video for more of what to expect in coming months…
As if pleading with people to use their own minds, Michael Snyder brought to people’s attention the following in September:
In this article, I explained that this is exactly the type of market behavior that we expect to see during a full-blown market meltdown. There are going to be even more violent swings in the market in the weeks ahead, but the general direction will be down.
Friday was definitely another down day. The following is how Zero Hedgesummarized the carnage…
Dow Industrials lowest weekly close since April 2014
Dow Transports lowest weekly close since May 2014
S&P 500 lowest weekly close since Oct 2014’s Bullard lows
Nikkei dumped over 7% this week – worst week since April 2014
Utilities collapsed 5.1% this week – worst week since March 2009
Financials lowest weekly close since Oct 2014’s Bullard lows
Biotechs lowest weekly close since Feb 2015
Investment Grade Corporate Bond Spreads worst since June 2013
Treasury Curve (2s30s) flattened 6bps today – biggest drop in 2 weeks.
JPY strengthened 2.4% on week against the USD – strongest week since August 2013 (up 4.5% in 3 weeks) – major carry unwind!all
I wish I could tell you that things are going to get better, but I can’t do that. There are some giant financial bubbles that are starting to unwind, and this process is going to take time to fully unfold.
And this is truly a global phenomenon. Chinese stocks have been crashing horribly, Japanese stocks just had their worst week in over a year, Canada and much of South America are plunging into recession, and Europe is probably in worse shape than everyone else if you look at the fundamentals.
In October, Peter began screaming from the rooftops to PAY ATTENTION to the numbers, not what the talking heads were saying. As he explained in the interview below with Alex Jones, not only did the job report come in atrocious, but globally this year the various markets had suffered 11 Trillion In Global Stock Losses too. How could anyone buy into the nonsense that a recovery was happening? To get some idea of just how bad this job report was, consider this: At that time we had the lowest labor participation rate since the early 1970’s. Sounds bad right, but what does that mean? Have you considered what the percentage of women working in the 1970’s was when the participation rate was last this low? Most households back in the early 1970’s did not require both spouses to be working full-time to just keep their heads above water. So, when you factor in how that statistic fits into the new jobs report numbers, guess what?
MALE LABOR PARTICIPATION HAS NEVER BEEN AS LOW AS IT IS NOW IN THE HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC!?!?!
DOES THAT SOUND LIKE “HOPE AND CHANGE” TO YOU?
Unfortunately, people were still clinging to this notion that there is a recovery based on the fraudulent information being doled out by Obama and Crime Inc.
By November, it was becoming clear to anyone paying attention the U.S. was in serious jeopardy as the Reserve Currency, and Profit Confidential explained the significance of that as follows:
U.S. Dollar as Reserve Currency in Jeopardy?
The U.S. dollar has been the world’s reserve currency since World War II. That means the U.S. can deal directly with any country in the world using its own currency. In effect, the U.S. can create money out of thin air whenever it wants to buy whatever it wants or to manage its debt.
The same cannot be said for other countries. For example, if Germany buys oil from the Middle East, it does so using the U.S. currency. However, Germany can only get its hands on the U.S. currency if it sells something to someone else.
With America in serious debt and the economy on vulnerable footing, central banks around the world are increasingly wary of using a devalued U.S. dollar as their reserve currency. Should central banks and businesses eventually turn their backs on the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency, the United States will no longer be able to buy its way out of debt.
The framework may already be in place.
By the end of 2013, central banks held roughly 30,500 tons of gold, or one-fifth of all the gold ever mined. Most of these holdings are found in advanced economies in Western Europe and North America. This is odd since central banks only hold gold as a hedge against economic uncertainty.(7)
Interestingly, and perhaps not so coincidentally, central banks started to increase their gold reserves back in 2008, right on the heels of the financial crisis and the collapse of the U.S. housing market. Are central banks predicting a collapse in the U.S. dollar?
In an effort to stabilize volatility, central banks snapped up gold to protect their country’s wealth as the world’s reserve currency fell into a tailspin. Overall, 2013 was a very busy year for individuals and institutions buying physical gold. Of the 3,756.1 tonnes of gold purchased in 2013, approximately 369 tonnes can be attributed to central banks. Aside from Russia and China adding to their reserves, Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines, and Venezuela were the biggest buyers of physical gold in 2013.(8)
This year has been just as busy. In the recently completed third quarter, central banks acquired 93 tonnes of gold bullion. That represents the 15th consecutive quarter in which central banks have purchased more gold than they sold.
NOW THE PAIN BEGINS!
If America sees the worst case scenario, the dollar collapse will be the most devastating in history, and the results could be even worse than Germany suffered during the Weimar Republic era.
The Chinese renminbi will hold about 10% weight in the basket of currencies, with adjustments in the value of the euro, pound and yen to make room for it. Though the weight of the dollar, which holds 41.9% of global reserve value under the Special Drawing Rights (SDR), will not change with the inclusion of the renminbi, the symbolic challenge to dollar supremacy is obvious enough.
Last set in 2010, the basket is currently 41.9 percent dollar, 37.4 percent euro, 11.3 percent sterling and 9.4 percent yen. The yuan CNH= CNY= would not join until October 2016, allowing reserve managers time to prepare. (source)
According to the New York Times:
The I.M.F. decision will help pave the way for broader use of the renminbi in trade and finance, securing China’s standing as a global economic power. But it also introduces new uncertainty into China’s economy and financial system, as the country was forced to relax many currency controls to meet the I.M.F. requirements.
The changes could inject volatility into the Chinese economy, since large flows of money surge into the country and recede based on its prospects. This could make it difficult for China to maintain its record of strong, steady growth, especially at a time when its economy is already slowing.
China’s leadership has made it a priority to join this group of currencies… The renminbi’s new status “will improve the international monetary system and safeguard global financial stability,” President Xi Jinping of China said in mid-November.
Though the official talking line is quick to suggest that China could actually be hurt by new pressures on its already struggling economy, the significance of the move is not the short term, but the turning of the tide.
The death of the dollar has been planned. Its global reign has been scheduled for termination. It is the end of days for the monopoly of global sales in U.S. petrodollars, a paradigm which has propped up an economy that has, in reality, been gutted out from underneath. Now the thin overlay of gloss and decadence is vulnerable to bursting, and starting a flood that the Federal Reserve won’t be able to stop by sticking its finger in the dam and digitally printing more and more money.
As many have discussed, the end of the dollar will be much more than symbolic once the full transition has taken place. The dollar has propped up an increasingly corrupt empire. And its fall, like that of the dinosaurs or the Soviets, will come crashing down on its own weight with a terrible thud.
The American people stand to become absolutely ruined; mobs of people could become destitute, and a dismal police state would keep order in a dreary new normal.
USA Watchdog previously reported:
“V” explains, “We are entering a time which I call the collapse point. At the collapse point, there is going to be massive systemic shock. Why? Because you have one paradigm and one system being done away with, which is the dollar. It is going to be replaced by a new system. During that transition period, you cannot expect to trade anything because what do you trade it in? That’s why the Chinese are gearing up their own gold price fix. Once that collapse point happens and the world reels from the systemic shock, the Chinese gold price fix and the BRICS system will be there to fill in that vacuum. That is what’s being set up right now.”
Tess Pennington has discussed these difficult times, which may be coming, in herThe Prepper’s Blueprint noting that it won’t take much to upend society and just like Greece, if the debt bubble does burst it will have a direct and immediate impact on the normal flow of commerce:
Collectively speaking, most Americans take for granted the system in place to deliver essential supplies to their area. “The system,” an underlying infrastructure that keeps goods, services and commerce in America flowing creates a sense of normalcy and order. Food, water, gasoline and medications are just a few of the items restocked weekly in order for our dependent society to maintain a steady flow. What many fail to grasp is just how fragile the system is and just how quickly it cancollapse.
…
The report goes on to explain that consumer fear and panic will exacerbate shortages. News of a truck stoppage—whether on the local level, state or regional level, or nationwide—will spur hoarding and drastic increases in consumer purchases of essential goods. Shortages will materialize quickly and could lead to civil unrest.
http://chinawatchcanada.blogspot.ca/201 ... serve.html
The Yuan Ascends to World Reserve Status: “U.S. Dollar System Left in Dust!”
Today’s news is a historic milestone. The dollar’s days are numbered, and the new global economic order is shifting into place.
As many insiders have expected, China has now officially gained status among the world reserve currencies, taking place alongside the dollar, the euro, the pound and the yen.
The IMF decided to grant this upgrade as a result of financial and monetary benchmarks that Chinese leaders worked towards during the past several years. Its implications run deep.
Via Reuters:
The International Monetary Fund on Monday, as expected, admitted China’s Yuan into its benchmark currency basket in a victory for Beijing’s campaign for recognition as a global economic power.
The IMF executive board’s decision to add the Yuan, also known as the renminbi, to the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket alongside the dollar, euro, pound sterling and yen, is an important milestone in China’s integration into the global financial systemand a nod to the progress it has made with reforms.
IMF chief Christine Lagarde, who along with in-house experts has previously backed the move, made it clear she did not expect Beijing to stop there.
“The Yuan’s inclusion is a largely symbolic move, with few immediate implications for financial markets. But it is the first time an additional currency has been added to the SDR basket and the biggest change in its composition in 35 years.
Below is IMF chief Christine Legarde’s statement on the new benchmark of global currency, and what will inevitably be a resettling for the people affected by it – not least the American people who could see a significant decline in their living standard after an era of economic supremacy that the United States has enjoyed since the end of WWII:
China Gets Reserve Currency
WHAT EXACTLY DOES THAT MEAN FOR ME AS AN AMERICAN?
First, It means if you did not see this coming, you’re as gullible as they came. You bought into EVERY line you were fed by our criminal President, and his media puppets, despite that a 3rd grade arithmetic lesson could have showed you that it was all lies. Before getting to the significance of what all this means, the following is NOT intended as an I told you so. It’s meant as an education tool, so you can see where you were lied to, so you’ll be wiser moving forward, because things are about to get MUCH worse.
Back in August, Peter Schiff explained the ripple effects that we as Americans should have expected from China’s devaluation of the Yuan. In the video that follows, Peter explains that it’s not just the U.S. Dollar, but our ENTIRE economy that is a giant financial bubble in search of pin, and when it finds one, we are all going to feel much more pain than we did in 2008. The main reason, is there are 3 enormous financial bubbles vs. the one housing bubble we had in 2008, not to mention, and last time when the crisis hit we were at almost full employment AND the dirivative market is even THIRTY PERCENT LARGER THAN LAST TIME! When the next crisis hits, we already have 94 MILLION people broke and out of work. In the video below, Peter accurately predicted the Chinese would devalue the Yuan, and explains why that is almost certain to lead to QE4 here in the coming months. In hindsight, Peter was not alone. Gerald Celente Also Said Massive Market and Trade Instability Will Necessarily Cause World War III… and Jim Willie Recently Explained Why the U.S. Nuclear War Threats to China and Russia Over Challenging Dollar Supremacy have been very real. Being the reserve currency, has afforded the U.S. many benefits that not only did we not deserve, we abused horribly. More about that after the video.
In September, Peter made a mockery of anyone who actually believed the Fed was even thinking about raising interest rates, regardless of what they said. In the video below, Peter Schiff gives his version of an, “I told you so,” on the issue of Fed rate hikes, and I don’t blame him. I’ve also said all along there was no chance the Fed would raise rates. How could they? PLEASE! If you recall, in the beginning of the year there were two camps of economists, the ones who thought the Fed would raise rates in March, and those who said they would raise rates in June. BOTH positions were LUDICROUS, just as anyone who thinks there is a snowball’s chance in hell the Fed will raise rates ANYTIME soon are not only wrong, they are DEAD WRONG! Did anyone notice what happened to the artificially inflated stock market when there was even a suspicion the Fed MIGHT raise rates? The stock market dropped 1700 points in 8 days. Sadly, I know plenty of people who have changed their financial positions in a material way and to their own detriment in anticipation of a Fed rate hike, and it’s mind boggling. Personally, I SOLD a home while the getting was good, and there was still a huge pool of ignorant morons thinking we are in a recovery, and yes, it sold for an overinflated price that in a year will be inconceivable how I got that much for it.
As Peter very accurately points out in the video, there has been NO recovery. All the gains people have seen in real estate or their stock portfolios have been artificial. Temporary bubbles have been created in both markets as a result of the loose monetary policy of the Fed, which has resulted in the APPEARANCE of a recovery within both the stock market and the real estate market. Once those bubbles pop, and they will, the Obama presidency will have nothing to show for doubling the nations debt since the country was founded taking the national debt from $10 TRILLION to $20 TRILLION dollars in only eight years, but the economy he will leave behind will be WORSE than the one he inherited in 2008. Watch the video for more of what to expect in coming months…
As if pleading with people to use their own minds, Michael Snyder brought to people’s attention the following in September:
In this article, I explained that this is exactly the type of market behavior that we expect to see during a full-blown market meltdown. There are going to be even more violent swings in the market in the weeks ahead, but the general direction will be down.
Friday was definitely another down day. The following is how Zero Hedgesummarized the carnage…
Dow Industrials lowest weekly close since April 2014
Dow Transports lowest weekly close since May 2014
S&P 500 lowest weekly close since Oct 2014’s Bullard lows
Nikkei dumped over 7% this week – worst week since April 2014
Utilities collapsed 5.1% this week – worst week since March 2009
Financials lowest weekly close since Oct 2014’s Bullard lows
Biotechs lowest weekly close since Feb 2015
Investment Grade Corporate Bond Spreads worst since June 2013
Treasury Curve (2s30s) flattened 6bps today – biggest drop in 2 weeks.
JPY strengthened 2.4% on week against the USD – strongest week since August 2013 (up 4.5% in 3 weeks) – major carry unwind!all
I wish I could tell you that things are going to get better, but I can’t do that. There are some giant financial bubbles that are starting to unwind, and this process is going to take time to fully unfold.
And this is truly a global phenomenon. Chinese stocks have been crashing horribly, Japanese stocks just had their worst week in over a year, Canada and much of South America are plunging into recession, and Europe is probably in worse shape than everyone else if you look at the fundamentals.
In October, Peter began screaming from the rooftops to PAY ATTENTION to the numbers, not what the talking heads were saying. As he explained in the interview below with Alex Jones, not only did the job report come in atrocious, but globally this year the various markets had suffered 11 Trillion In Global Stock Losses too. How could anyone buy into the nonsense that a recovery was happening? To get some idea of just how bad this job report was, consider this: At that time we had the lowest labor participation rate since the early 1970’s. Sounds bad right, but what does that mean? Have you considered what the percentage of women working in the 1970’s was when the participation rate was last this low? Most households back in the early 1970’s did not require both spouses to be working full-time to just keep their heads above water. So, when you factor in how that statistic fits into the new jobs report numbers, guess what?
MALE LABOR PARTICIPATION HAS NEVER BEEN AS LOW AS IT IS NOW IN THE HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC!?!?!
DOES THAT SOUND LIKE “HOPE AND CHANGE” TO YOU?
Unfortunately, people were still clinging to this notion that there is a recovery based on the fraudulent information being doled out by Obama and Crime Inc.
By November, it was becoming clear to anyone paying attention the U.S. was in serious jeopardy as the Reserve Currency, and Profit Confidential explained the significance of that as follows:
U.S. Dollar as Reserve Currency in Jeopardy?
The U.S. dollar has been the world’s reserve currency since World War II. That means the U.S. can deal directly with any country in the world using its own currency. In effect, the U.S. can create money out of thin air whenever it wants to buy whatever it wants or to manage its debt.
The same cannot be said for other countries. For example, if Germany buys oil from the Middle East, it does so using the U.S. currency. However, Germany can only get its hands on the U.S. currency if it sells something to someone else.
With America in serious debt and the economy on vulnerable footing, central banks around the world are increasingly wary of using a devalued U.S. dollar as their reserve currency. Should central banks and businesses eventually turn their backs on the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency, the United States will no longer be able to buy its way out of debt.
The framework may already be in place.
By the end of 2013, central banks held roughly 30,500 tons of gold, or one-fifth of all the gold ever mined. Most of these holdings are found in advanced economies in Western Europe and North America. This is odd since central banks only hold gold as a hedge against economic uncertainty.(7)
Interestingly, and perhaps not so coincidentally, central banks started to increase their gold reserves back in 2008, right on the heels of the financial crisis and the collapse of the U.S. housing market. Are central banks predicting a collapse in the U.S. dollar?
In an effort to stabilize volatility, central banks snapped up gold to protect their country’s wealth as the world’s reserve currency fell into a tailspin. Overall, 2013 was a very busy year for individuals and institutions buying physical gold. Of the 3,756.1 tonnes of gold purchased in 2013, approximately 369 tonnes can be attributed to central banks. Aside from Russia and China adding to their reserves, Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines, and Venezuela were the biggest buyers of physical gold in 2013.(8)
This year has been just as busy. In the recently completed third quarter, central banks acquired 93 tonnes of gold bullion. That represents the 15th consecutive quarter in which central banks have purchased more gold than they sold.
NOW THE PAIN BEGINS!
If America sees the worst case scenario, the dollar collapse will be the most devastating in history, and the results could be even worse than Germany suffered during the Weimar Republic era.
The Chinese renminbi will hold about 10% weight in the basket of currencies, with adjustments in the value of the euro, pound and yen to make room for it. Though the weight of the dollar, which holds 41.9% of global reserve value under the Special Drawing Rights (SDR), will not change with the inclusion of the renminbi, the symbolic challenge to dollar supremacy is obvious enough.
Last set in 2010, the basket is currently 41.9 percent dollar, 37.4 percent euro, 11.3 percent sterling and 9.4 percent yen. The yuan CNH= CNY= would not join until October 2016, allowing reserve managers time to prepare. (source)
According to the New York Times:
The I.M.F. decision will help pave the way for broader use of the renminbi in trade and finance, securing China’s standing as a global economic power. But it also introduces new uncertainty into China’s economy and financial system, as the country was forced to relax many currency controls to meet the I.M.F. requirements.
The changes could inject volatility into the Chinese economy, since large flows of money surge into the country and recede based on its prospects. This could make it difficult for China to maintain its record of strong, steady growth, especially at a time when its economy is already slowing.
China’s leadership has made it a priority to join this group of currencies… The renminbi’s new status “will improve the international monetary system and safeguard global financial stability,” President Xi Jinping of China said in mid-November.
Though the official talking line is quick to suggest that China could actually be hurt by new pressures on its already struggling economy, the significance of the move is not the short term, but the turning of the tide.
The death of the dollar has been planned. Its global reign has been scheduled for termination. It is the end of days for the monopoly of global sales in U.S. petrodollars, a paradigm which has propped up an economy that has, in reality, been gutted out from underneath. Now the thin overlay of gloss and decadence is vulnerable to bursting, and starting a flood that the Federal Reserve won’t be able to stop by sticking its finger in the dam and digitally printing more and more money.
As many have discussed, the end of the dollar will be much more than symbolic once the full transition has taken place. The dollar has propped up an increasingly corrupt empire. And its fall, like that of the dinosaurs or the Soviets, will come crashing down on its own weight with a terrible thud.
The American people stand to become absolutely ruined; mobs of people could become destitute, and a dismal police state would keep order in a dreary new normal.
USA Watchdog previously reported:
“V” explains, “We are entering a time which I call the collapse point. At the collapse point, there is going to be massive systemic shock. Why? Because you have one paradigm and one system being done away with, which is the dollar. It is going to be replaced by a new system. During that transition period, you cannot expect to trade anything because what do you trade it in? That’s why the Chinese are gearing up their own gold price fix. Once that collapse point happens and the world reels from the systemic shock, the Chinese gold price fix and the BRICS system will be there to fill in that vacuum. That is what’s being set up right now.”
Tess Pennington has discussed these difficult times, which may be coming, in herThe Prepper’s Blueprint noting that it won’t take much to upend society and just like Greece, if the debt bubble does burst it will have a direct and immediate impact on the normal flow of commerce:
Collectively speaking, most Americans take for granted the system in place to deliver essential supplies to their area. “The system,” an underlying infrastructure that keeps goods, services and commerce in America flowing creates a sense of normalcy and order. Food, water, gasoline and medications are just a few of the items restocked weekly in order for our dependent society to maintain a steady flow. What many fail to grasp is just how fragile the system is and just how quickly it cancollapse.
…
The report goes on to explain that consumer fear and panic will exacerbate shortages. News of a truck stoppage—whether on the local level, state or regional level, or nationwide—will spur hoarding and drastic increases in consumer purchases of essential goods. Shortages will materialize quickly and could lead to civil unrest.
http://chinawatchcanada.blogspot.ca/201 ... serve.html
- Blue Frost
- SUPER VIP
- Posts: 98854
- Joined: May 14th, 2012, 1:01 am
- Location: Yodenheim
Re: Chinese Activities
Peter Schiff is a very smart man, he talked about all this years ago. I have followed him a long time.
"Being alone isn't what hurts. It's when the people around you make you feel alone" ~ Naruto Uzumaki, an Anime Character
Re: Chinese Activities
How Chinese Colonization Will Crash the World Economy
[video][/video]
[video][/video]
- Blue Frost
- SUPER VIP
- Posts: 98854
- Joined: May 14th, 2012, 1:01 am
- Location: Yodenheim
Re: Chinese Activities
Interesting
I can hardly blame the people moving to get away from China, but wanting to become China in the new country I can blame them.
I can hardly blame the people moving to get away from China, but wanting to become China in the new country I can blame them.
"Being alone isn't what hurts. It's when the people around you make you feel alone" ~ Naruto Uzumaki, an Anime Character