Author Topic: China Chinese Penetration and Invasion of America  (Read 28943 times)


Crafty_Dog

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Chinese hackers penetrate at least six State govts
« Reply #201 on: March 09, 2022, 04:50:56 AM »
Chinese Hackers Penetrated at Least 6 US State Governments, Cybersecurity Firm Says
By Michael Washburn March 8, 2022 Updated: March 8, 2022biggersmaller Print


A hacker group backed by the Chinese regime has exploited vulnerabilities in the online systems of at least six U.S. state governments in order to compromise and gain access to those networks, cybersecurity firm Mandiant said March 8.

Mandiant’s lengthy report presents the findings of an investigation that began in the spring of 2021, in response to a breach by a hacker group known as “APT41” of an unnamed state government’s system, and continued through last month.

“Our investigation into APT41 activity between May 2021 and February 2022 uncovered evidence of a deliberate campaign targeting U.S. state governments. During this timeframe, APT41 successfully compromised at least six U.S. state government networks through the exploitation of vulnerable Internet facing web applications, often written in ASP.NET,” the report stated.

ASP.NET, developed by Microsoft, is an open-source web framework enabling users to construct internet apps and services on the .NET platform. The weaknesses and vulnerabilities of some versions of ASP.NET have been public knowledge for years. The website CVE Details has even published lists of various design flaws, such as the inability to handle an unencrypted view state or the vulnerability to a denial of service transmitted via a SOAP message, that might allow hackers and other bad actors to attack and disrupt apps and services utilizing ASP.NET.

Despite these vulnerabilities, some states in the U.S. continue to utilize the platform for web-facing systems. The Mandiant report did not name the six states known to have suffered APT41 breaches during the period under review.

The motive for the attacks is financial, and specifically the hackers’ personal gain, according to Mandiant.

Cyberespionage on the part of APT41 are not a new phenomenon, the report stated, referencing the organization’s long record of mass scanning and exploitation of vulnerabilities. APT 41 is known to have targeted computer and internet systems and networks in industries and sectors as diverse as banking, defense, education, the legal industry, oil and gas, real estate, telecommunications, and travel.

In 2020, five Chinese nationals from the hacker group were indicted in the United States on charges relating to sprawling hacking campaigns to steal trade secrets and sensitive information from more than 100 companies and entities worldwide.

What sets apart the breaches detailed in the new report is their deliberate targeting of U.S. state governments.

Mandiant’s report detailed how a favorite target of the Chinese hackers has been the USAHerds app, which 18 states utilize to keep track of the health of animals and coordinate responses to any outbreaks. Three investigations carried out in 2021 led to findings that APT41 had seized upon a zero-day vulnerability in the USAHerds app to breach its security.

Mandiant also relays the surprising finding that, even after a highly similar vulnerability had come to light in Microsoft Exchange Server, which made use of a decriptionKey and static validationKey, USAHerds installations relied on the same machineKey values.

The new report comes amid warnings that the Chinese regime is on track to becoming a global cyber superpower. It is also the latest in a string of breaches allegedly attributed to Chinese state-sponsored hackers.

Chinese hackers are widely suspected of having orchestrated the long-running cyberattack announced last month which targeted News Corp., publisher of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.

Last year, the United States formally attributed the massive breach of Microsoft’s email server to hackers affiliated with the regime’s top intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security. The hack compromised tens of thousands of systems globally.

ccp

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imagine
« Reply #202 on: March 09, 2022, 05:55:56 AM »
How the world would be if we did not have DARPA?
More precisely  we would not have internet.
We would not be having all these upheavals.

While we have freedom of information we also have all the down side.
We still have mobs controlling us, MSM Governments, whole new almost un enforceable crime,
  more propaganda ..........

 :|


Crafty_Dog

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House Reps worry about Chinese penetration of Forbes
« Reply #204 on: March 29, 2022, 01:35:04 AM »
House Republicans worry about intel of Chinese influence over Forbes

BY GUY TAYLOR THE WASHINGTON TIMES

U.S. lawmakers are investigating whether the Chinese government is attempting to control one of America’s beacons of free market capitalism: Forbes Global Media Holdings.

Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence began investigating the issue late last year, according to government documents obtained by The Washington Times.

Forbes Global Media Holdings denies the intelligence committee has singled it out. A spokesman for the company told The Times that any suggestion of Chinese government influence over Forbes’ operations is “completely unfounded.”

Some committee Republicans grew concerned last year over the prospect of such influence as executives at the New Jersey-based publisher of Forbes magazine worked on a deal with a Chinabased special acquisition firm, or SPAC.

That company, Magnum Opus Acquisition Ltd., reportedly received funding from an entity run by the Chinese Communist Party.

In a Nov. 23 letter to Forbes CEO Mike Federle, Republicans on the intelligence committee asked the company to assist in an “investigation related to China’s malign influence activities against U.S. corporations.”

“It is essential for you to be informed of any malign influence efforts related to your company and how such efforts impact American economic and security interests,” then-Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican, wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Times.

Mr. Nunes, the intelligence committee’s ranking Republican at the time, has since retired from Congress.

A committee source who confirmed the authenticity of the letter told The Times that the investigation is continuing under Rep. Michael Turner of Ohio, the current ranking Republican.

The November letter and a lengthy response that Forbes Global Media Holdings provided to the committee in December have not previously been reported.

An examination of documents by The Times gave no indication that the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is reviewing the proposed Magnum Opus deal with Forbes, has been formally notified about the intelligence committee investigation.

Under the $630 million deal, which

Forbes announced in August, the iconic business media brand would transition into a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange as part of a merger with the Hong Kong-based Magnum Opus.

SPACs, which have been in vogue on Wall Street, are companies that have no operations of their own but are formed to raise money through initial public offerings expressly for the purpose of buying or merging with existing companies.

Magnum Opus is identified as a SPAC that received some of its initial financing from the Chinese government. According to SEC filings, China’s sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corp., provided institutional seed money for the company.

A March 2021 SEC filing described China Investment Corp. as “a wholly state-owned company incorporated under the laws of the People’s Republic of China.”

With total assets worth more than $1 trillion, China Investment Corp. is one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds.

Some in the national security community question whether the entity is a conduit through which the ruling Communist Party seeks to wield influence over Chinese financial firms investing in public and private companies around the globe.

Such influence appears to be increasing in Hong Kong. China’s ruling communists in recent years have imposed political crackdowns and harsh media restrictions on the formerly autonomous, pro-democracy city-state.

SEC filings show that China Investment Corp. owned a roughly 5.8% stake in Magnum Opus when the deal with Forbes Global Media Holdings was announced, although the filings also show that China Investment Corp. has since disposed of its shares.

Reports maintain that Magnum Opus has since raised funding for the Forbes deal from more than a dozen other investors.

DailyMail.com reported last month that Magnum Opus had raised $400 million for the deal from 19 investors, most of whom are based in Hong Kong or elsewhere in China.

Forbes has an average of nearly 115 million monthly users of its various internet platforms and publishes a printed magazine with an audience of at least 6 million. The magazine is known for its promotion of free market capitalism. Its ad campaigns for many years jokingly described the publication as a “capitalist tool.”

The publication was founded more than a century ago by Scottish immigrant newspaperman B.C. Forbes. It is perhaps best known today for its pro-capitalist rankings, such as the “30 under 30” list of richest young Americans.

Steve Forbes, a grandson of the company’s founder and a former Republican presidential contender, is listed as the editor-in-chief of Forbes Media on the website of Forbes magazine. Randall Lane is listed as the chief content officer.

Mr. Forbes did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Forbes Global Media Holdings announced the pending Magnum Opus deal on the magazine’s website in August as a transaction that “will enable Forbes to further capitalize on its successful digital transformation, using technology and data-driven insights to create more deeply engaged audiences, and associated high-quality and recurring revenue streams.”

Others have questioned the transaction.

“This deal raises serious and grave concerns about Forbes, which is truly the mouthpiece of democracy and capitalism and is effectively being taken over by the Chinese,” a senior source at Forbes told DailyMail.com last month.

Forbes Chief Communications Offi cer Bill Hankes sharply disputed that sentiment when The Times asked for comment.

“Forbes is and always will be fiercely independent, and any suggestion that the Chinese or any other government would have any influence is completely unfounded,” said Mr. Hankes, who also dismissed the view that Republicans on the House intelligence committee have targeted Forbes for investigation.

Mr. Nunes’ November letter was merely a “general inquiry,” Mr. Hanks said in an email to The Times, and Forbes Global Media Holdings has had no correspondence with the committee since it responded to the letter in December.

In announcing the Magnum Opus deal, Forbes Global Media Holdings said the entire management team of Forbes would run the company.

Concern about Chinese influence over Forbes began as far back as 2014, when a Hong Kong-based investment group called Integrated Whale Media Investments bought a majority stake in Forbes.

A December 2017 op-ed in The Washington Post by China expert and author Isaac Stone Fish said the purchase was followed by “several instances of editorial meddling on stories involving China.”

Mr. Fish pointed specifically to Forbes’ decision that year to discontinue publishing articles by Communist Party critic Gordon Chang. Mr. Fish also noted the case of former Forbes contributor Anders Corr, who said a Forbes editor emailed him in 2016 saying it was “not accurate to say China impoverishes its people or to label [Chinese President] Xi Jinping a dictator.”

The accusations of influence at Forbes have factored into the House Republicans’ investigation into the publication’s dealings with Chinese companies.

Mr. Nunes raised the issue specifically in his Nov. 23 letter, which included more than two dozen questions about Forbes’ policies for protecting against Chinese government influence.

“Since the 2014 purchase of Forbes by Integrated Whale Media, there have been accusations of censorship against China critical narratives and retaliation against employees who produce them,” Mr. Nunes wrote. “Have you investigated these accusations?”

On Dec. 16, Forbes’ legal team at Holland & Knight responded to the intelligence committee by saying such “accusations have been investigated and are not based in fact,” according to a copy of the document obtained by The Times.

The response, marked “CONFIDENTIAL,” says Forbes “decided to phase out its ‘Opinion’ channel to focus more on fact-based policy reporting” in 2017. It said “a contributor named Gordon Chang was cut as part of this process.”

It also said Forbes removed a post by Mr. Corr in 2017 “because it was poorly executed” and that his term as a contributor ended “due to a history of reporting that did not meet Forbes’ standards.”

Mr. Hankes, the chief communications officer at Forbes, told The Times that the magazine “continues to publish articles critical of China that are readily available online.”

He pointed to the example of a Forbes article in January that highlighted abuses of press freedom in China. The article focused on a list of abuses presented by the “One Free Press Coalition” ahead of the Winter Olympics in China.

Topping the list was the case of Hong Kong media entrepreneur and democracy advocate Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, who was arrested and jailed as part of a Chinese crackdown on political and media freedoms in Hong Kong.

In addition to questions about Forbes articles on China, the Nunes letter sought information about whether anyone from Forbes had interacted with Chinese government officials, most notably from the State Council in Beijing.

The council oversees China Investment Corp., which provided initial funding for Magnum Opus.

“Has anyone from Forbes ever had a meeting with anyone from the Chinese State Council Information Office? If so, who and what was the context?” Mr. Nunes asked.

Forbes responded through Holland & Knight’s letter that “to the best of the company’s knowledge, no person at Forbes has met with anyone from the Chinese State Council Information Office.”

A source familiar with the correspondence said it has been shared with the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a multiagency executive branch investigative arm that examines foreign entities’ takeovers or purchases of U.S. companies for national security questions.

The Treasury committee did not respond to a request for comment from The Times.

The SEC declined to comment, although SEC Chairman Gary Gensler recently raised concern about Chinese companies trading in U.S. capital markets in general.

Mr. Gensler suggested in a September op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal that his primary concern is less about Chinese government influence than a potential lack of transparency in Chinese companies that engage in deals with U.S. companies and investors.

“I don’t believe China-related companies currently are providing adequate information about the risks they face — and thus the risks that American investors in these businesses face,” Mr. Gensler wrote. He added that many Chinese companies “establish contractual relationships with shell companies in foreign jurisdictions, like the Cayman Islands,” which in turn raise capital on U.S. stock exchanges without “actually confer[ring] ownership of the operating company to American investors.”

“I worry that some investors don’t realize they’re putting their money into a Cayman shell rather than a company operating in China,” he wrote.

Whether the SEC approves the Magnum Opus deal with Forbes remains to be seen.

Filings indicate that a late-March deadline for Magnum Opus to complete the acquisition and take Forbes public could be extended if the SEC has not approved the deal by then.

Magnum Opus did not respond to a request for comment.



Crafty_Dog

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CCP agent conspired w NYPD officer to spy on Americans
« Reply #205 on: March 31, 2022, 07:57:39 AM »

CCP Agent Conspired With New York Police Officer to Spy on Americans: DOJ
By Andrew Thornebrooke March 30, 2022 Updated: March 31, 2022biggersmaller Print

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on March 30 unsealed charges against a Chinese national accused of working as an unregistered agent of the Chinese communist regime.

Sun Hoi Ying, 53, is alleged to have spied on at least 35 individuals in the United States and to have fed information from his efforts to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 2017 to 2022.

Sun’s activities were part of “Operation Fox Hunt,” a CCP initiative begun in 2014 to forcibly repatriate Chinese dissidents and other alleged fugitives back to mainland China, or else to coerce them into paying financial settlements to the regime, prosecutors said.

He relied on private investigation firms and a New York law enforcement officer to conduct his covert activities, according to the warrant for his arrest. At least one of his victims, a pregnant woman, was forcibly detained for eight months while visiting China.

“This case demonstrates, once again, the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] disdain for the rule of law and its efforts to coerce and intimidate those it targets on our shores as part of its Operation Fox Hunt,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said in a statement.

“The defendant allegedly traveled to the United States and enlisted others, including a sworn law enforcement officer, to spy on and blackmail his victims. Such conduct is both criminal and reprehensible.”

Enlisting Locals
Many of Sun’s victims were U.S. citizens of Chinese heritage who have been in the United States for years, according to court documents.

In one effort, Sun allegedly tracked down a victim who had been living in the United States since 2002, by enlisting help from the leader of an unnamed community organization in New York City, as well as that of an unnamed New York law enforcement officer.

Court documents outlined how, beginning in 2003, the CCP systematically detained and sued two former spouses and other family members of the victim based in China in order to coerce her to return to the country or otherwise enter a monetary settlement.

One former husband was found innocent of charges related to using CCP funds to purchase property, although his property was confiscated by the CCP anyway, the document said. The CCP also began an effort to forcibly seize the property of a second ex-husband.

The New York law enforcement officer is alleged to have identified themselves as such during multiple meetings with the victim and Sun, and reportedly described themselves as a go-between.

The officer also met with the victim privately and relayed all information about the meeting back to Sun so he could deliver it to his CCP handlers back in China, according to the court file.

The officer and community leader weren’t named as defendants in the case but were described as co-conspirators.

Targeting a Pregnant Woman
In another case, Sun targeted a pregnant woman in order to gain leverage on her father, both of whom were U.S. citizens.

Sun’s campaign against the family began with photographs and addresses of the victims being collected by private investigation firms. This information was then sent to the CCP, which distributed the information on lists of fugitives and their families, the court file said.

The daughter, then pregnant, traveled to China with her spouse and child in 2016.

When the family attempted to return to the United States, she was told by CCP authorities that she had been placed on an “exit ban” list as punishment for her father’s crime. Her child and spouse could leave China, they said, but she would not be allowed to leave until her father came back to China to face charges, the court document said.

CCP officers allegedly told her that she wasn’t to inform the U.S. government about the exit ban, and that the U.S. Embassy in China was helpless to do anything about her status.

When she told CCP officers that she was pregnant, they told her that the child would be born in China unless her father returned to face charges, according to the document.

She was allegedly held for eight months before the CCP made a deal with the United States to release her, provided she deliver official Chinese documents to her father.

Widening Crackdown
The case against Sun is just the latest of several CCP espionage prosecutions.

In March, the DOJ unsealed charges against five other men in three separate cases, all of whom were accused of extending the CCP’s repressive reach to U.S. soil.

One of the cases involved a conspiracy to intimidate and physically assault a U.S. Army veteran running for Congress. Another involved the stalking and intimidation of an American Olympian and her father. Still another involved the harassment of an artist for his sculpture depicting CCP leader Xi Jinping as a giant coronavirus molecule. All of the victims were ethnic Chinese who had been critical of the CCP’s abuses.

The DOJ’s announcement of the cases followed shortly behind the Biden administration’s controversial decision to terminate the China Initiative, a Trump-era anti-espionage campaign designed to thwart CCP spying in the United States.

The program was accused by activist groups of being racist, but a DOJ internal review found no evidence to support that claim. Nevertheless, the decision was made to scrap the program to avoid what Olsen called a “harmful perception” of bias. Critics claimed that the termination of the program would make the nation appear weak.

The DOJ touted three of the cases brought forward as evidence that the post-China Initiative framework was working. Each of the cases brought forward in the last month began under the previous administration.

“This activity is antithetical to fundamental American values,” Olsen said of the CCP’s transnational repression. “We will not tolerate such repression here when it violates our laws. We will defend the rights of Americans and those who come to live, work and study in the United States.”

Sun is currently at large in mainland China, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Crafty_Dog

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ET: China Chinese penetration of upstate NY
« Reply #206 on: April 15, 2022, 05:53:39 AM »
Shen Yun principal dancer Angelia Wang rehearses at the performing art company's campus in upstate New York. An Epoch Times investigation found the popular performing arts group has been targeted in a campaign by China's communist party. (Courtesy of Shen Yun Performing Arts)
US FEATURES
Beijing’s Long Arm Targets Shen Yun Artists in Upstate New York
The Chinese Communist Party uses playbook of ‘unrestricted warfare’ to target leading performing arts company
By Petr Svab April 14, 2022 Updated: April 14, 2022biggersmaller Print


CUDDEBACKVILLE, N.Y.—Dancers and musicians who have fled communist China and found a base in the serenity of rural upstate New York are now finding themselves the target of overseas operations by Beijing as well as an American national with close ties to China.

An investigation by The Epoch Times, which reviewed thousands of pages of documents, internal Chinese Communist Party (CCP) documents, and over a dozen interviews, uncovered a decade-and-a-half-long campaign by the CCP on U.S. soil.

The target of the CCP’s operation is Shen Yun Performing Arts, the performing arts company celebrated for its world-class performances of classical Chinese dance and music. Why the group is targeted is clear from its slogan this year: “China Before Communism.”

The systematic campaign of intimidation, propaganda, and possible sabotage has targeted the group’s members, performing activities, and campuses.

Meanwhile, The Epoch Times investigation has found that a U.S. national, who has been exceptionally active in opposing the group’s expansion, has deep ties to China.

“Yesterday, I was standing on stage at a prestigious venue to roaring applause, and back here at our home, I’m being spied on, harassed, and living in an environment where hostile people are formulating and spreading egregious lies about us,” said Steven Wang, a principal dancer with Shen Yun. “And to know that the CCP is behind all this … doing this to us on U.S. soil, is scary.”

Many of Shen Yun’s artists experienced first-hand religious persecution under communist rule in China. Many of them practice Falun Gong, an ancient Chinese spiritual practice consisting of slow-moving exercises and spiritual self-improvement based on truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

The CCP marked Falun Gong for elimination in 1999 after government surveys estimated that 70 million to 100 million people were practicing it—figures that outnumbered the Party’s membership at the time. Human rights advocates have estimated that millions of Falun Gong followers have faced unjust arrest, kidnapping, torture, and death at the regime’s hands.

Wang’s father is one of them. He was imprisoned in China for practicing Falun Gong and tortured to the brink of death; he died shortly after his release.

A Campaign of Intimidation
The CCP sees Shen Yun “as very dangerous,” because of its efforts to revive and depict traditional Chinese culture, said Trevor Loudon, an expert on communist infiltration in the West. “They [the CCP] want to say Chinese culture is socialist,” he added.

In Loudon’s view, the CCP would be fully expected to go after Shen Yun with fervor, and indeed the dance company has had to overcome multiple forms of interference—some obvious and some outright dangerous.


Theaters have received threatening letters from Chinese embassies and consulates, warning them not to host Shen Yun lest they antagonize the Chinese regime. Public officials have received similar letters, urging them not to attend the shows. In 2009, a tire exploded on a Shen Yun bus carrying dozens of dancers from Phoenix, Arizona, to their next destination in California. When the driver brought the bus in for service, the mechanics told him the blown tire had unusual marks on it. Apparently, somebody used a drill to make a hole halfway through the rubber—not enough for it to deflate, but enough for it to burst once on the road.

Several months later, one of the company’s buses was found to have two slashes on its tire, again just halfway through, both clearly made with a blade. A few days later, a tire on another bus burst while en route from Memphis to Little Rock on I-40 West. That same bus was found with slashes on one of its tires again two days later.

In one case, somebody even poured corrosive chemicals over the brake and accelerator pedal cables of a Shen Yun promotional van. The company eventually had to arrange 24/7 security for its vehicles.

Even basic information, such as the identities of the staff, have been exploited by the regime. The parents of one Shen Yun emcee would receive visits in China almost every weekend from the authorities. The husband of one of the company’s instrumental soloists was jailed in China.

The home of a Shen Yun choreographer, Chen Yung-chia, was broken into in August 2013. “The intruders seemed to be professionals, as they left no fingerprints,” Chen said in a statement at the time. Valuables, such as cash, gold jewelry, and expensive watches were left untouched. What did go missing were four laptop computers and a DVD player. “The intruders had a motive [other than simple robbery],” Chen said. “They came here thinking they could gather sensitive information about Shen Yun.”

The biggest prize for Beijing, however, has been to target the company’s training facilities in upstate New York. Named Dragon Springs, the site hosts a Tang Dynasty-style temple as well as the campus of Shen Yun Performing Arts. Based on insider information, the CCP treats the site as a “headquarters” for the efforts of Falun Gong followers to counter the persecution in China.

“Attack the overseas Falun Gong headquarters and bases systematically and strategically,” reads one CCP directive document obtained by The Epoch Times.

The campus, which has produced the top talent in classical Chinese dance in the world, houses not only the company’s training and rehearsal spaces, but also two schools, Fei Tian Academy of the Arts and Fei Tian College, which help train future talent for the troupe.

Despite improving security measures over the years, the campus has faced repeated incidents of harassment, trespassing, and vandalism.

In one incident, somebody cut a hole in the perimeter fence large enough for a person to crawl through. In another, somebody smashed a security camera. Once, somebody got on the property, broke into the utility box of one of the security cameras, and cut the wires. The incidents were reported to authorities, but it appears the culprits haven’t been found.

One staffer had nails and even dead animals thrown in the driveway of his home near the campus.

In the early years, Chinese consular staff showed up at least once in a car marked with diplomatic plates, sneaked onto the property, and scurried away when discovered by staff.

Lately, the staff have come to suspect a new and more sophisticated form of harassment.

An Unexpected Visit
In November 2018, Dragon Springs, which is home to the Shen Yun campus, submitted a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS), a major document required for further expansion of the site.

On Nov. 14, 2018, the town of Deerpark, New York, held a public hearing on one of the small projects planned for the site, the construction of a larger driveway to allow easier access by buses. As is common in the town, several locals spoke in support and opposition to the project. There were, however, a couple of unexpected guests that night.

Alex Scilla, 39, an American who at the time had been living in Tianjin, China, for 15 years, stood up and said he was “concerned” about the “safety” of the driveway, the board meeting minutes show (pdf).

It’s not clear what prompted Scilla to suddenly take the hour-long drive from his second home—a small condo in New Paltz, New York—on that frosty evening only to utter a sentence in opposition to a driveway. The Epoch Times reached out to Scilla multiple times with questions regarding his activities. He did not respond to any of the questions and instead had his lawyer send a threatening email.

The other unexpected guest was Long Island civil and forensic engineer Steven Schneider. He said he had obtained documents under the New York Freedom of Information Law, reviewed a traffic study done for the campus, and performed a site visit, the meeting minutes show.

He said the project would create “a lot of traffic on an already hazardous road” and that the traffic study didn’t consider accidents around the driveway.

As it turned out, Schneider was working on a broader evaluation of the campus’s DEIS. Two reports from Schneider’s firm would appear on the website of a nonprofit Scilla later founded. Apparently, the firm spent at least half a year working on the project. There was no mention of who paid for the job.

Epoch Times Photo
Neversink River in Cuddebackville, N.Y. (Vanessa Rios/The Epoch Times)
“I really can’t remember the names,” Schneider told The Epoch Times when asked whether Scilla was involved in the project. He said it was something he did years ago and has had nothing to do with since.

Schneider was just the first in a lineup of environmental consultants and lawyers that came in Scilla’s wake, in what seems to be a part of his battle against Shen Yun’s campus.

To this day, Scilla maintains ties to China, including to a company in Tianjin.

Tianjin holds a special significance in the CCP propaganda machinery. Several party insiders previously told The Epoch Times that the city hosts the base of the regime’s internet censorship apparatus. It is also home to the Tianjin Political and Legal Committee (PLAC), which insiders previously told The Epoch Times is connected to the staging of pro-CCP and anti-Falun Gong protests in New York.

PLACs on various levels control China’s colossal security apparatus, which is largely responsible for enforcing the regime’s political and religious persecution campaigns.

Scilla’s Ties to China
Scilla’s background is described in some detail on his LinkedIn profile as well as a bio posted on the website of the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China).

According to his 2018 bio, he lived in Tianjin, China, for 15 years. There’s no online mention of Scilla’s activities in China during the first seven years. If he had a source of income, he never mentioned it. In 2006, he married a Chinese woman named Lei Zhang, New York state records show.

Scilla’s first job in China, as mentioned on his LinkedIn profile, started in 2011: “General manager of Tianjin Zhongyi Steel Corp, a leading commercial/industrial recycling provider, based in the Tianjin Free Trade Zone, … a fully-licensed, accredited collector, and processor of all types of commonly recycled materials, with a strong focus on ferrous and non-ferrous metals and plastics.”

Yet this supposedly “leading” recycler company has virtually no online footprint and doesn’t show up in publicly accessible government databases in China, which would hold records of licenses for a recycling operation.

Around 2014, Scilla teamed up with farming entrepreneur Daniel D’urso to found an environmental committee at AmCham’s Tianjin chapter. The committee mainly held events, such as school exhibits with art made by children from recyclables they found during trash pickups.

In late 2014, Scilla was elected to the executive committee of the Tianjin AmCham with eight candidates vying for six seats.

His attendance in November 2018 at the Deerpark hearing appears to be his first foray into advocacy of any kind on U.S. soil.

In January 2019, Scilla registered a nonprofit at his New Paltz address—the Mid-New York Environmental and Sustainability Promotion Committee Limited, or NYenvironcom.

In February 2019, Scilla registered a company in China called Tianjin Zhongyi Xianfeng Environmental Consulting Service, which he then branded as Frontier Environ. The starting capital of the company was over $120,000. Lei Zhang serves as its supervisor, Chinese official records show.

There’s no indication the company has conducted business of any kind, and its website only vaguely describes the kind of services it’s supposed to provide. The nonprofit’s website lists Scilla’s company as a partner.

Scilla’s activities with the AmCham China committee were put on hiatus with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. He wasn’t reelected to the Tianjin executive board in 2020 and is no longer listed as a member of the environmental committee, which was rebranded as Manufacturing and Sustainability Forum.

If Scilla indeed moved upstate to pursue life as an environmental activist, there would have been no shortage of opportunities around his new home town of New Paltz. The small, strongly progressive college town is nestled right on the Wallkill River, with the Hudson River to the east and the Catskill mountains to the northwest—the site of the reservoirs that provide drinking water to New York City. But Scilla’s nonprofit doesn’t appear to be particularly interested in its own backyard. The town’s records, including minutes covering public comment on development projects, mention neither Scilla nor his organization.

Based on its website, nearly all of the group’s advocacy is focused on the Shen Yun campus and a few other real estate projects tied to the Chinese expat community in Deerpark, which one of the documents on the site calls “satellite developments” of the campus.

Where Does the Funding Come From?
Scilla’s group says on its Guidestar page that it pulled in over $41,000 in 2021 and spent about the same amount. Those are self-reported figures; the group hasn’t filled federal financial disclosures, which aren’t required for nonprofits with incomes of under $50,000 a year.

Scilla listed the group’s 2020 and 2021 donors on its website. The Epoch Times was able to verify several of the donations.

A $1,100 contribution came from one of the Advised Funds at Aspen Community Foundation in 2020. The foundation manages dozens of funds, mostly for families. It’s not clear which fund provided the money.

Another donation came from The Bank of Greene County’s Charitable Foundation, which gave out $218,000 in 2021 shared among more than 200 recipients. The foundation says it gives up to $2,500 to any individual recipient.

Some money also came from the Foundation for Sustainability and Innovation, a California nonprofit run by the Marxist scholar and environmental activist Ronald Chilcote. The group has yet to release 2021 financials, but past reports indicate it seldom issues a grant exceeding $5,000.

Orange and Rockland, a local utility company, donated $3,070 in March 2021 for a water monitoring program, its spokesman told The Epoch Times via email.

KeyBank Foundation and Steward’s Shops, another pair of donors, didn’t respond to inquiries, but seem unlikely to give more than $5,000 to a nonprofit the size of Scilla’s.

A small local environmental group also chipped in, according to the website.

Yet, despite the relatively modest amount of donations, money doesn’t seem to be an issue for the nonprofit. In January, Scilla and his organization launched a lawsuit against the campus, backed by several lawyers and environmental consultants.

Surveillance Targeting Chinese Dissidents
In recent years, the Shen Yun campus staff started to notice a new and troublesome form of surveillance—drones. The small, unmanned machines can fly low and fast, carrying high-powered cameras capable of snapping images and videos up-close and detailed enough to allow identification of individuals.

The staff suspected that at least one of the drones was being flown from the property of one of the neighbors who later joined Scilla’s lawsuit.

The Epoch Times spoke with two people who live in the neighborhood who confirmed they had seen a drone being flown from the neighbor’s land adjacent to the campus property at least four times between January and May 2020. They didn’t always catch the moment when the drone was taking off, but they saw it in the air, above the Shen Yun campus, and then landing on the property. One of them identified Scilla in several photographs as the one who operated the drone.

Based on the descriptions by campus staff, as well as the people from the neighborhood, the drone was not a toy. It was about two feet wide and seemed to be a type used by professional videographers that costs thousands of dollars.

Later that year, the staff noticed that two other neighbors put up cameras on their land and aimed them at the campus entrances. Both cameras appeared to be the same model. This has become a constant source of trepidation for the staff, as such surveillance can collect information on who’s coming in and out of the site, again threatening to reveal the identities of the staff. One of the cameras was taken down recently.

One of these neighbors has direct financial ties to Scilla. His environmental group, according to its website, financially supports a local organization, Deerpark Rural Alliance, headed by the neighbor.

“You know, back in China, every neighborhood has a surveillance committee, usually formed by retired ladies, to monitor their neighbors and report their activities to the government,” principal dancer Wang said. “Whenever I see the cameras these hostile neighbors have installed outside our front gates to spy on us, I’m reminded of the ladies from the surveillance committees in China.

“It’s creepy, and for many people, quite dangerous. I have friends who work here who still have family back in China. If they are identified as someone working at Dragon Springs, their family back in China could be in real danger.”

Scilla’s efforts culminated with the environmental lawsuit he filed in New York in January. It was immediately picked up by some Chinese state-controlled media to attack Shen Yun.

The activities aimed against Dragon Springs felt “disheartening” to Wang.

“When I first got my U.S. citizenship, when I cast my first vote in a U.S. election, these were moments that filled me with pride and gratitude. I cherished the fact that this country gave me a chance at a new life, free from tyranny. But now, the way in which we are targeted here … I just can’t believe this is happening,” he said.

Modus Operandi
To use American groups, environmental laws, or local ordinances as tools to achieve its goals would be fully in character for the CCP, according to Loudon.

“We know that the Chinese will use American groups to help them economically or help them militarily,” he said. “Why would they not use Americans to shut down cultural opposition, too?”

If somebody with strong China ties goes on to exert a focused effort against Shen Yun’s home base, “it would seem the most obvious conclusion” that the CCP is involved, he said.

“They see it as a major enemy. And, of course, they would use [for instance] the local zoning laws to put pressure on Shen Yun if they could. I’d be very surprised if they didn’t,” he said.

Epoch Times Photo
Casey Fleming, chairman and CEO of BlackOps Partners, in Washington. (ImageMasters)
Casey Fleming, CEO of BlackOps Partners and a counterintelligence expert, agreed that such a move would be right out of the CCP’s playbook.

The regime pursues the strategies of “unrestricted warfare” and “hybrid warfare”—using any and all aspects of society as tools to achieve the same objectives as a war, to defeat and dominate the enemy, he said.

“They use all methods. ‘Religious warfare,’ ‘economic warfare,’ ‘drug warfare,’ ‘education warfare,’ ‘family warfare’—everything you can possibly imagine,” he said. “So yes, culture is absolutely critical for them to unwind our society for takeover.”

Environmental activism can be exploited for this purpose, too, to frustrate economic development and serve as a cover for intelligence gathering, he said.

“They’ll do whatever they have to do to maintain control, because control here is also control there [in China],” he told The Epoch Times.

“Their boldness to infiltrate and subvert the United States and the West is beyond most people’s comprehension.”

Just recently, the FBI indicted one American and one Chinese national for conspiring to act as agents for the CCP and enact a plan to tar the reputation of a Chinese artist living in the United States, after the artist made a satirical sculpture of CCP leader Xi Jinping. The Chinese national and his wife received from Hong Kong accounts $3 million “that appear consistent with payments made for their services rendered in surveilling and harassing the U.S.-based dissidents,” the complaint says (pdf).

Epoch Times Photo
FBI Director Christopher Wray during a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington on Sept. 22, 2020. (OLIVIER DOULIERY/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
According to the Justice Department, other Chinese dissidents, one living in Indiana, the other in the San Francisco Bay Area, were also targeted. The department is now pursuing prison sentences of up to 15 years.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has also warned that China is “getting more brazen” in controlling certain speech inside the United States.

“For decades, the Chinese Communist Party has targeted, threatened, and harassed U.S.-based Tibetans and Uyghurs, Falun Gong members, pro-democracy advocates, and any others who question their legitimacy or authority,” Wray said on Jan. 31.

Epoch Times Photo
The U.S. State Department in Washington on Jan. 26, 2017. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
And just last month, the State Department took action against CCP agents for targeting members of religious and spiritual practitioners “including within the United States.”

“The United States rejects efforts by PRC officials to harass, intimidate, surveil, and abduct members of ethnic and religious minority groups, including those who seek safety abroad, and U.S. citizens, who speak out on behalf of these vulnerable populations,” the State Department said in a March 21 statement.

The State Department said it’s continuing to pursue accountability for those “responsible for atrocities and human rights violations and abuses wherever they occur, including within China, the United States, and elsewhere around the world.”

Petr Svab
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Petr Svab is a reporter covering New York. Previously, he covered national topics including politics, economy, education, and law enforcement.

Crafty_Dog

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ET: Did Pelosi bend the knee?
« Reply #207 on: April 15, 2022, 05:57:28 AM »
second

THINKING ABOUT CHINA
Did Beijing Stop Pelosi From Visiting Taiwan?
How Pelosi should respond to threats from Chinese state media
Guermantes Lailari
Guermantes Lailari
 April 14, 2022 Updated: April 14, 2022biggersmaller Print



Multiple news sources reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Gregory W. Meeks, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, were supposed to arrive in Taiwan (Republic of China) on April 10.

Their anticipated visit was great news for the democratic island nation, the size of Maryland, with 24 million free people. Many in Taiwan might not appreciate that Pelosi is third in succession to become the president of the United States if the president and the vice president were removed from office—this visit was very important.

But something went wrong—she reportedly caught COVID-19, and her trip was “delayed.” Is this the true reason for the delay?

Before discussing the probable valid reason, a little background is helpful to understand the context.

Pelosi’s trip was preceded by several other high-profile visits of former officials. On March 1, a U.S. delegation led by former U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen visited Taiwan to show additional support by the Biden administration, which had earlier approved a $750 million purchase of U.S. weapons by Taiwan in August 2021.

Former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo visited Taiwan for four days starting on March 2 and was feted by the political leadership, including President Tsai Ing-wen and Vice President William Lai. Tsai awarded Pompeo the Order of Brilliant Star with Special Grand Cordon for his solid and continued support of Taiwan.

Pelosi is not a neophyte to issues related to Taiwan. She conducted a virtual meeting with Lai on Jan. 29 to discuss security, the economy, and other mutual issues. They also discussed China’s human rights abuses and Pelosi’s support for Taiwan’s observer status in several United Nations agencies, such as the World Health Organization (WHO).

The last speaker of the House of Representatives to visit Taiwan was Republican Newt Gingrich in April 1997, a year after the Third Taiwan Straits Crisis (1995–1996) during the Clinton administration. This crisis provides important context to understand the U.S. relationships with Taiwan and China.

Third Taiwan Strait Crisis
In 1995, then-Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui was invited to deliver a speech on Taiwan’s democratization experience at Cornell University, his alma mater. Initially, the Department of State (DOS) refused to give Lee a visa to visit, and he was forced to spend a night on his plane at a stopover in Hawaii.

The House of Representatives and the Senate then forced the DOS to allow Lee to visit Cornell and deliver his speech on June 9-10, 1995.

Furious that the DOS had allowed Lee into the United States, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ordered the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to launch missiles and conduct live-fire drills in the summer and amphibious assault exercises in the fall of 1995. In response, then-President Bill Clinton ordered two carrier naval battle groups and other ships to Taiwan’s waters as a demonstration of force in December 1995.

Lee Teng-Hui
Former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui speaks during a news conference in Tokyo, Japan, on June 1, 2007. (Yuriko Nakao/Reuters)
Later, the CCP attempted to prevent the reelection of Lee by having the PLA conduct a missile launch “exercise,” firing three nuclear-capable M-9 missiles from Hainan Island within 35 miles of the Taiwanese ports of Keelung and Kaohsiung. One missile flew over Taipei and landed 19 miles off the coast.

Some Asia watchers might recall similar actions in 1998 by the CCP’s puppet state, North Korea, in which it launched nuclear-capable Taepodong-1 missiles over Japan.

The DPRK tested its new ICBM on March 24 this year, the Hwasong-17, which can reach anywhere in the continental United States.

The Propaganda and Media War
During the propaganda war, the CCP argued that Ukraine is not Taiwan and no one should make such comparisons.

Why?

Because the CCP wants the world not to have sympathy for a free and democratic Taiwan.

The CCP does not want Chinese citizens to think that Taiwan is like Ukraine—this could cause morale problems during a conflict (PLA soldiers might be less enthusiastic about killing a victim of CCP aggression, as the Russian soldiers have toward Ukrainians).

The last thing the CCP wants is internal demonstrations against the regime during an invasion of Taiwan.

CCP Media and Psychological Warfare
As Pelosi planned to arrive, the CCP propaganda and military machine went into high gear. Beijing declared warnings with phrases like “immediate cancellation” and “China will need to respond with unprecedented stern measures.”

From the U.S. public perspective, such warnings are reminiscent of the childhood proverb, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

With the world community energized about Ukraine, the United States could easily turn the media and psychological warfare against the CCP by using the world’s sympathy for Ukraine toward Taiwan.

But the United States did not.

Why?

Chinese State Media Threatened an Air Blockade
Little noticed in the Western press was the Chinese language version of an April 7 article written by Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of state-run tabloid Global Times.

He wrote that Pelosi’s planned trip “will be an extremely serious incident, and it will be the most serious provocation by Washington to China on the Taiwan issue since then-Taiwan ‘President’ Lee Teng-hui visited the United States [in 1995].”

Hu provided two stern options for the CCP to counter Pelosi’s visit.

First, establish an air blockade (a no-fly zone) over Taiwan on the day that Pelosi arrives.

Second, if Pelosi’s aircraft does land on Taiwan, he recommended to fly PLA military aircraft over the island’s airspace. “If the Taiwan military opens fire on our fighter jets, the PLA should shoot down the aircraft, or carry out destructive strikes on the Taiwan military base where the missiles were launched,” Hu wrote.

Hardly anyone noticed his recommended threat to expand ramifications if Pelosi’s visit occurs: “China could take other retaliatory measures, including arms sales to Russia and a massive increase in Russian oil and gas purchases. China must resolutely retaliate against the actions of the U.S. and let them know that China is not to be messed with.”

Perhaps someone in the Department of State got the message from Hu and quickly passed it up to the White House. (This author recently discussed a PLA air and sea blockade of Taiwan.)

Recommended Initial Pelosi Reaction
In response to the CCP military threat to her visit, Pelosi should promise her support for a large U.S. military aid package to Taiwan—at least the value of the aid the United States provided Ukraine thus far ($1.7 billion) or ideally the amount the United States provides Israel ($3.8 billion per year from 2019 to 2028) to maintain its qualitative military edge (QME).

In fact, the U.S. Senate has two bills pending that support the idea of providing military aid to improve Taiwan’s QME: the Taiwan Deterrence Act (TDA) and the Arm Taiwan Act of 2021 (ATA). TDA seeks approval for $2 billion a year from the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program for Taiwan from 2023 to 2032 or $20 billion over a 10-year period. ATA requests approval to spend $3 billion a year from 2023 to 2027 or $15 billion for five years. Congress and the president should quickly approve one of the two aid packages.

A total of 46 House and 38 Senate bills concerning Taiwan are pending. Recently, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) submitted a bill (S.4035) that, if passed, would “’fast-track weapons to Taiwan’ by expediting congressional approval and eliminating administrative roadblocks.” All bills should be fast-tracked for approval.

What Weapons to Provide Taiwan to Deter the CCP?
Patriot air defense
U.S. long-range air defense systems Patriot (R) and British radar Giraffe AMB are displayed during Toburq Legacy 2017 air defense exercise in the military airfield near Siauliai, Lithuania, on July 20, 2017. (Ints Kalnins/Reuters)
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine suggests that defensive weapon systems for Taiwan should include the following weapon systems along with training and maintenance support: anti-air (Stinger, PATRIOT), anti-armor (Javelin), anti-ship (Harpoon), and anti-missile (THAAD, AEGIS, more PATRIOT, and, perhaps, even one of the two U.S. purchased Iron Dome batteries).

In addition to U.S. weapon systems, other members of the anti-Russian coalition could provide Taiwan with their equivalent anti-air, anti-armor, anti-ship, and anti-missile systems.

Is the US Going ‘All In’ to Support Taiwan?
In summary, Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan could have been a great benefit to show support for this vibrant democratic nation.

As a result of Chinese state media threats to her visit and her cancellation, one hopes that Pelosi, Congress, the Biden administration, and the American people will exceed expectations by helping Taiwan deter the CCP from invading this example of a Chinese-speaking fully democratic country, and gift Taiwan at least $2.5 billion.

One also hopes Pelosi’s cancelled visit doesn’t repeat the world’s complacency when the CCP crushed democratic Hong Kong.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Guermantes Lailari
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Guermantes Lailari is a retired USAF Foreign Area Officer specializing in the Middle East and Europe as well as counterterrorism, irregular warfare, and missile defense. He has studied, worked, and served in the Middle East and North Africa for over 14 years and similarly in Europe for six years. He was a U.S. Air Force Attaché in the Middle East, served in Iraq and holds advanced degrees in International Relations and Strategic Intelligence. He researches authoritarian and totalitarian regimes that threaten democracies. He will be a Taiwan Fellow in Taipei during 2022.

Crafty_Dog

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ET: Chinese penetration of American universities
« Reply #208 on: April 15, 2022, 04:56:23 PM »
second

‘Beijing’s Plan to Overtake the United States’: Rubio Slams Universities’ $120 Million China Ties
By Andrew Thornebrooke April 14, 2022 Updated: April 14, 2022biggersmaller Print

More than two dozen U.S. universities entered into financial arrangements with China-based entities during the past year, including those directly governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to a new report.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) criticized the agreements, which are believed to have netted China more than $120 million, as part of the Chinese Communist Party’s effort to supplant the United States as the world’s superpower.

“The Chinese Communist Party is exploiting our education and research institutions to steal our secrets and gain influence,” Rubio wrote in an email. “This is all part of Beijing’s plan to overtake the United States as the world’s most powerful nation.”

Originally reported by Fox News and based on both federal data and searches of the College Foreign Gift and Contract Report Database, about two dozen U.S. universities disclosed millions of dollars worth of ties to Chinese entities, the latter of which were frequently left unnamed in the reporting.

The largest financial tie detected was a $32 million agreement between the University of Houston and an unnamed private entity in mainland China. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign conducted four agreements for a combined value of more than $26 million. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology had six agreements worth more than $14 million.

None of the universities responded to requests for comment by press time.

Epoch Times Photo
In this April 3, 2017, file photo, students walk past the “Great Dome” atop Building 10 on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
Although the disclosures help to reveal the sometimes insidious nature of foreign financial influence in the U.S. educational system, the true extent of the monetary strings linking academia and Chinese communism is likely far broader.

For example, after being prompted to investigate the issue by the Trump administration in 2020, the Department of Education uncovered $6.5 billion in undisclosed foreign gifts and contracts in the U.S. university system. That investigation found that universities frequently underreported the amount of money they received from foreign entities or else ignored the legal obligation to disclose such information completely.

It also found that China pumped roughly $1.5 billion into U.S. universities over a six-year period.

The infiltration of U.S. universities by the CCP is beginning to receive widespread recognition, including its efforts to disseminate pro-communist propaganda. To that end, the Senate approved legislation in 2021 to curb the malign influence of so-called Confucius Institutes, language centers funded by Beijing, on U.S. campuses, which have been criticized for pushing CCP propaganda disguised as cultural learning and suppressing academic freedom on college campuses.

U.S. government agencies have likewise been engaged in a years-long struggle to root out the CCP’s efforts to infiltrate U.S. universities in order to gather and steal cutting-edge research and technologies. The effort has uncovered several high-profile cases in which U.S. academics allegedly hid vast funding and contracts that they received from China’s communist regime.

Importantly, however, the Trump-era “China Initiative,” a key Justice Department (DOJ) effort to curb just such espionage efforts, was terminated by the Biden administration in February, following allegations of racial discrimination.

The DOJ stated that no evidence of bias had been found during an internal investigation, but that it would end the program anyway to mitigate its “harmful perception of bias.”

Rubio told The Epoch Times that the current administration would need to reinstate the program if the nation were to have a fighting chance at curbing the malign influence of communist control in U.S. universities.

“The United States must focus on the Chinese Communist Party and prioritize resources accordingly to combat this threat, including by restarting the China Initiative immediately,” he said.


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Andrew Thornebrooke is a reporter for The Epoch Times covering China-related issues with a focus on defense, military affairs, and national security. He holds a master's in military history from Norwich University.


ccp

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Chinese spies
« Reply #210 on: April 24, 2022, 09:18:11 AM »

Crafty_Dog

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WT: Congress in the dark
« Reply #211 on: May 13, 2022, 06:08:45 AM »
Congress warned U.S. is in the dark about foreign investment

BY RYAN LOVELACE THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A former Commerce Department official warned lawmakers that the federal government is blind to who is bankrolling purchases of companies and critical technology in the U.S., making America vulnerable to foreign threats including from China.

Nazak Nikakhtar, formerly a Commerce Department assistant secretary in the Trump administration, told lawmakers that companies are failing to adequately investigate funding sources for their work and the U.S. government has sometimes failed to conduct due diligence as well.

Ms. Nikakhtar was the Commerce Department’s lead representative to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which scrutinizes commercial transactions for national security risks.

“As the former head of CFIUS at the Commerce Department, yes, we were completely in the dark, our intelligence community didn’t have adequate information, and I was frequently in the office until three in the morning using any open source information I could to get to the ultimate beneficial owner,” Ms. Nikakhtar told the Senate Intelligence Committee at a hearing this week.

Ms. Nikakhtar, now a partner at the law firm Wiley Rein, also said in written testimony that American data and technology transfer enabled China to race ahead in artificial intelligence and China would use American production against the U.S.

“We have had decades of unregulated supply chain and technology transfer to the [People’s Republic of China] that has systematically eroded our own supply chains and rendered us dangerously dependent on the adversary,” she wrote. “This is not a good national security strategy. We need a new strategy.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CFIUS includes representatives from seven different federal departments as well as White House officials and its purview was expanded by the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018. Ms. Nikakhtar, who was confirmed by the Senate in March 2018 and served into 2021, said the federal government has not yet fully utilized the authority provided by the law.

“As Joseph Stalin is rumored to have said, ‘We will hang the capitalists with the rope they sell us,’” Ms. Nikakhtar wrote. “Whether this quote is accurate or not, it is illustrative of what is happening today.”

ccp

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Re: China Chinese penetration of America
« Reply #212 on: May 13, 2022, 07:17:53 AM »
".“We have had decades of unregulated supply chain and technology transfer to the [People’s Republic of China] that has systematically eroded our own supply chains and rendered us dangerously dependent on the adversary,” she wrote. “This is not a good national security strategy. We need a new strategy.”

 :roll:

and every president after Reagan till Trump allowed this to happen

and Biden and team give lip service to it

and we the people just watched it unfold before our eyes helpless
to the elites doing this.


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Re: China Chinese penetration of America
« Reply #215 on: May 27, 2022, 08:32:24 AM »
Do I infer correctly that the ChiComs are now running hits in America?

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Re: China Chinese penetration of America
« Reply #216 on: May 27, 2022, 08:49:41 AM »
Do I infer correctly that the ChiComs are now running hits in America?

Yes, you are correct.


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Has China already won?
« Reply #218 on: June 11, 2022, 02:01:18 PM »


https://www.theepochtimes.com/has-china-already-won_4522279.html?utm_source=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2022-06-11&utm_medium=email&est=haA9Ah4SVKWv89scJZlXzVpZq8ybK2D5FZBEIZD%2FRvme61h9ZJC8As7LwAN33qI2m8VR

Has China Already Won?


The United States and China are engaged in a technological arms race. The country with the best artificial intelligence, quantum computing technologies, and cyber weapons will be best positioned to win the wars of tomorrow.

Which begs the question: Who looks likely to win these tech-infused wars?

According to Richard Silberglitt, a senior physical scientist at the RAND Corporation, although the United States remains the global technological leader, “China and the United States are now approaching parity, or in some cases, the United States is falling behind, in areas of close competition.”

In other words, the United States is in the lead, but China is catching up. If we look closer, it appears China has overtaken the United States in many key sectors.

In an effort to combat the threat from the Chinese regime, the U.S. National Intelligence and Security Center (NCSC) has prioritized the following five key sectors: AI, quantum computing, biotechnology, semiconductors, and autonomous systems.

According to the most recent NCSC report, these five sectors “produce technologies that may determine whether America remains the world’s leading superpower or is eclipsed by strategic competitors in the next few years.”

As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to employ various legal and illegal methods to overtake the United States, I ask this: Has the report arrived about five years too late?

In all five sectors, as I demonstrate below, China is already ahead.

Let’s start with AI. As the NCSC researchers noted, China already possesses “the might, talent, and ambition” to win the AI arms race.


Nicolas Chaillan, who left his role as the U.S. Air Force’s first chief software officer in October last year, certainly agrees. Frustrated by the U.S. military’s lack of digital progress, he believes China has already won the AI race, blaming “stale” technology and bureaucratic red tape for the lack of innovation in the United States.

In an interview with Verdict, Michael Orme, senior analyst at GlobalData and a China specialist, echoed Chaillan’s concerns. Orme suggested that Beijing has already “leveraged its wealth of data and the surveillance state to gain AI supremacy.”

The two men appear to be correct. In 2021, China overtook the United States in AI journal citations. And for those who say citations aren’t everything, I agree. However, citations shouldn’t be overlooked.

Then, there’s quantum development, an area China is set to dominate. If China does achieve quantum supremacy, which looks increasingly likely, then the CCP will have the power to inflict further damage on U.S. national security. In July last year, a Chinese research team built the world’s most powerful quantum computer. In this game of high-tech chess, their creation, which surpassed Google’s 2019 creation, gives China the “quantum advantage.” More worryingly, with such advances, China looks set to create the world’s first unhackable internet communications network.

Furthermore, according to a report published by Booz Allen, a global leader in cyber solutions, China’s quantum developments will “eventually undermine all popular current public-key encryption methods, and plausibly boost the speed and power of artificial intelligence.”

The researchers warn that by the end of the decade, “Chinese threat groups will likely collect data that enables quantum simulators to discover new economically valuable materials, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals.”

The Booz Allen researchers added, “most of quantum computing’s potential lies more than a decade in the future—but risk management must start now.” The United States, the CCP’s number one enemy, should take note.

The third key sector is biotechnology. As a report published by Insider warned, Chinese biotech companies are among the most powerful in the world. The Chinese biotech industry has a global footprint, stretching from Uganda to the United States. In August of last year, the Chinese company BeiGene announced plans to build a 42-acre research and development center in New Jersey.

Rather alarmingly, according to a New York Times report, the Chinese regime is currently “collecting medical, health and genetic data around the world,” using “the intersection of technology and genetic and biological research as an area of competition and espionage.”

China has repeatedly emphasized the importance of biology in future warfare. According to He Fuchu, a military medical scientist, the Chinese are busy working on “new brain-control weapons and equipment that interfere with and control human consciousness,” all in the hope of making “unmanned warfare possible.”

The fourth key sector involves semiconductors. For the uninitiated, without semiconductors, using smartphones, laptops, washing machines, and refrigerators simply wouldn’t be possible. Essentially, semiconductors are the brains of electronic devices. Until recently, the United States fully controlled the supply of these “brains.”

Today, however, China is on the ascendancy. Last year alone, the number of Chinese semiconductor firms tripled. The metaverse, the next step in the evolution of the internet, will rely heavily on semiconductors, hence China’s desire to become a dominant force.

The final sector involves autonomous systems, such as self-driving cars and surveillance drones. Baidu, China’s equivalent to Google, is leading the self-driving race. Last year, the Chinese company launched the first ever paid driverless taxi service.

In the United States, meanwhile, self-driving vehicles are decades away from becoming a reality. China also leads the way in the manufacturing and sales of surveillance drones; the United States is one of its biggest customers. If this isn’t worrying enough, China recently created an autonomous weapon that, according to reports, “uses explosives to destroy enemy satellites.” As tensions heat up between China and the United States, one shouldn’t be surprised if American satellites become a primary target.

All, of course, is not lost. The United States is still a supreme force. However, its position as a world leader is being tested by the Chinese regime. As we move forward, expect the testing to increase in both frequency and force.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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Re: China Chinese penetration of America
« Reply #219 on: June 11, 2022, 02:23:52 PM »
this is one of the most depressing articles


I love after all the evidence that China is already ahead of us laid out in above article (as they work to control dominate and threaten the entire world
to become their servants)

added is this :

"All, of course, is not lost. The United States is still a supreme force. However, its position as a world leader is being tested by the Chinese regime. As we move forward, expect the testing to increase in both frequency and force."

 :roll:

good news ,  we have Pride month - I bet China doesn't have that .

and we are the leaders in screwing our own people over while  go GREEN
no wonder we get our solar panels from CCP

I don't know who is worse,
the DNC or CCP

Gordon Chang is totally wrong about the coming collapse of China.....
he predicted to have occurred by now .
« Last Edit: June 11, 2022, 02:26:06 PM by ccp »

G M

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Re: China Chinese penetration of America
« Reply #220 on: June 11, 2022, 07:08:51 PM »
China crushes LGBTQP because they want a strong society.



this is one of the most depressing articles


I love after all the evidence that China is already ahead of us laid out in above article (as they work to control dominate and threaten the entire world
to become their servants)

added is this :

"All, of course, is not lost. The United States is still a supreme force. However, its position as a world leader is being tested by the Chinese regime. As we move forward, expect the testing to increase in both frequency and force."

 :roll:

good news ,  we have Pride month - I bet China doesn't have that .

and we are the leaders in screwing our own people over while  go GREEN
no wonder we get our solar panels from CCP

I don't know who is worse,
the DNC or CCP

Gordon Chang is totally wrong about the coming collapse of China.....
he predicted to have occurred by now .

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Fauci continues to fund Chinese research
« Reply #222 on: June 18, 2022, 05:55:23 AM »
Fauci Refuses to ‘Stop Funding Chinese’ Research With US Tax Dollars
‘China is the drug he just can’t quit’: GOP Senator slams NIAD head’s remarks
By Eva Fu June 17, 2022 Updated: June 18, 2022biggersmaller Print

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Dr. Anthony Fauci said he was unable to commit to stop federal funding from going to Chinese scientific research, despite the U.S. intelligence community assessing the regime as America’s top adversary.

Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), made the remarks while appearing virtually at the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee hearing on June 16, during an exchange with Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas).

“The NIH is still funding research in China, at least $8 million since 2020. In the Intelligence Community’s 2022 Annual Threat Assessment, the Chinese Communist Party is presented as one of the top threats to the United States, along with Russia, Iran, Syria, and North Korea. To my knowledge, only China is receiving U.S. research dollars,” said the senator during the hearing. “When will you as director of NIAID stop funding research in China?”

Since 2020, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a total of $8.3 million in grants to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and its division National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, along with five top public universities in mainland China and Hong Kong, according to the NIH website.

Although this amount doesn’t capture dollars later funneled to a Chinese institution through a U.S.-based organization, such as New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, which had partnered with the Wuhan Institute of Virology to perform coronavirus-related experiments that some experts said fit the definition of gain-of-function research, that is, experiments that increase the pathogenicity or transmissibility of a virus.

Fauci, in response to Marshall’s question, said that the U.S. federal agencies “had very productive peer-reviewed highly regarded research projects with our Chinese colleagues that have led to some major advances in biomedical research.”

“So I don’t think I’d be able to tell you that we are going to stop funding Chinese,” Fauci said.

“We obviously need to be careful and make sure that when we do fund them we have the proper peer review and we go through all the established guidelines,” he continued, adding that “grants that go to foreign countries, including China, have State Department clearance.”

“Dr. Fauci’s remarks prove that China is the drug he just can’t quit,” Marshall later told The Epoch Times about the NIAID head’s response.

screenshot senator marshall
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) questions Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at a Senate panel on June 16, 2022. (The Epoch Times via the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee)
“Dr. Fauci told the truth for once after years of repeated dishonesty that has eroded Americans’ trust in our public health institutions. In the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, our government should know it’s dangerous and wrong to continue funding research projects supported by the Chinese Communist Party.”

The senator, at the hearing, followed up by asking Fauci if he agrees that the American public lacks records and studies from EcoHealth Alliance’s research.

Fauci’s answer was evasive.

“We have access to an extraordinary amount of information that has gone there,” he said, arguing that the publicly available information in the scientific journals is sufficient.

“Obviously none of us know everything that’s going on in China but if the question at hand is the rather small … peer-reviewed high-priority grant that was given from Eco[Health] to China in a sub-award we have a lot of good information that’s in the publishing.”

The NIH gave a total of $3.1 million grant to EcoHealth over the five years from 2014 to 2019, a fifth of that, $599,000, went to the Wuhan lab, in part for identifying and altering bat coronaviruses deemed likely to infect humans, documents obtained by The Intercept show.

Fauci earlier this week tested positive for COVID-19 and joined the Thursday Senate hearing remotely. His response to Marshall omitted reference EcoHealth’s lack of disclosure over some of its research activities, which would have prompted an NIH review over biosafety measures.

Epoch Times Photo
In this image from video, Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies to a Senate panel via remotelink on June 16, 2022. (The Epoch Times via the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee)
In one experiment at the Wuhan facility, funded by NIH via EcoHealth, mice infected with a modified version of the original bat coronavirus “became sicker than those infected” with the original version, an “unexpected result” that was not “something that the researchers set out to do,” Lawrence Tabak, the principal deputy director at the NIH, told lawmakers last October.

He said EcoHealth had violated grant terms by failing to promptly notify the NIH about the finding.

Fauci, at the Thursday hearing, also told Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) that he believes the outbreak of the virus “is very, very likely a jump in species from an animal host,” and less likely to be the result of a lab leak.

“I believe it’s essential to have cooperation and collaboration with the Chinese,” he said when Braun asked him whether he thinks Beijing will cooperate with him to “get to the thorough bottom of” COVID-19 origins.

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ET: American elites have become lobbyists for China
« Reply #223 on: June 18, 2022, 06:59:24 AM »
American Business Elites Have Become Lobbyists for China, Expert Says
By Michael Washburn June 15, 2022 Updated: June 17, 2022biggersmaller Print

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Beijing’s well-documented abusive trade practices, human rights abuses, and territorial aggression have been hard to curb partly because of a lack of alignment between the political and military leadership of democratic nations, on the one hand, and Western business elites engaging in trade with China, on the other, said panelists at a hearing held by the American Enterprise Institute think tank on June 14.

American and European executives tend to allow Beijing’s leaders to lull them into a sense that China’s government is their friend, and changing this false sense is of paramount importance for taking effective action against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) aggression and protecting the national security and economic and political interests of Western powers, the experts said.

Entitled “Defending Western Economies Against Chinese Unfair Practices,” the hearing featured lengthy testimony from Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Il.), who issued a stark warning about what he sees as the danger China poses to the world.

“China, from my perspective, is an existential threat in many ways—from a national security standpoint, from an economic standpoint, from a trade standpoint, from a cyber standpoint. I say this often: China has a plan to replace us, economically, militarily, you can go down the list there,” LaHood said.

But even as Beijing’s rulers harbor ambitions inimical to the interests of the United States, the close economic ties between the powers often prevent some people from seeing the issue clearly, LaHood argued. In the 18th Congressional district in central Illinois that he represents, LaHood said, the livelihoods of his constituents are heavily dependent on trade with China.

“I have the eighth largest agricultural district in the country. About a third of the corn and soybeans that my farmers grow go to China every day. I have the largest concentration of Caterpillar workers anywhere in the world. In my district, we make a lot of engines, tractors, and excavators,” LaHood said.

Caterpillar has 29 manufacturing plants as well as four R&D facilities in China, he pointed out. Given these realities, there is an obvious disconnect between much of the rhetoric heard in Congress, where lawmakers are calling for a Cold War mindset to counter the CCP threat, and the day-to-day reality of a close economic partnership between American laborers and Chinese businesses.

If the arguments made at the time that China gained entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO) back in 2001 had proven true, and admittance to the body had ushered in a more rules-based, Western-style trading system for China, then the disconnect between the political and economic stances would not be so severe, LaHood contended. But the promises made at the time that Beijing sought entry to the WTO have proven hollow, he said.

“Overall, they have not adapted to the rules-based system. They continue to steal our intellectual property, they continue to not abide by the same rules and standards that every industrialized country in the world does,” LaHood commented.

The Psychological Dimension
China’s elites have grown highly adept at flattering the egos of American business leaders and representatives and keeping the economic relationship deeply entrenched and at odds with U.S. political goals, said James Palmer, the deputy editor of Foreign Policy, a Washington-based magazine. American entrepreneurs feel drawn by the “gravitational pull” of a Chinese market of 1.3 billion consumers and the enormous commercial potential they see there, and the lure of tremendous profits mutes the reaction of U.S. business leaders to rampant abuses such as intellectual property (IP) theft, he said.

The stealing of IP by Chinese entities has cost the United States an estimated $225 billion to $600 billion per year in recent years, according to the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property.

“We’ve seen an unwillingness to cooperate with theft, but none of that really dissuades businesses from wanting to get into [the Chinese] market, to get the benefits of cheap labor, and cheap labor unencumbered by unions, because if there’s one thing the CCP hates, it’s unions,” Palmer said.

When American businesspeople travel to China, they often prove susceptible to assurances about the centrality of the U.S.-China economic partnership and to flattery about their own role in sustaining it, Palmer suggested. It is important to look closely at the way the CCP has targeted Western executives for these kinds of psychological ploys, he said.

“You arrive in Beijing, you go to the Shangri-La Hotel or the Mandarin Oriental, you’re in a five-star hotel, and you’re surrounded by pleasant young Chinese people who tell you how important you are, how important the U.S-China relationship is, how critical business is to them, and how there are extremists on both sides but you can be the one who speaks to moderation, who becomes the bridge,” Palmer said.

“And then you come back and you say in [Washington] D.C., oh, the Chinese are really such reasonable people. And you effectively turn yourself into a lobbyist” for the CCP, he added.

Palmer described this kind of soft offensive targeting American businesspeople as difficult to counter because it is of course not possible or, objectively speaking, desirable to prevent friendly conversations between Chinese and visiting Americans. Business and political leaders must put effective tactics to use. Palmer cited the example of the U.S. sanctions placed on smartphone and high-tech equipment maker Huawei in 2019 as an example of an effective means of responding to abusive Chinese practices.

“Huawei provided us with some very useful models for sanctions, and sanction tools that have been revitalized and used against Russia,” Palmer said.

Economic decoupling can also take place as a result of Beijing’s own initiatives, he added. This happens when Chinese officials suffer “internal paranoia” about U.S. influence, or what CCP leaders regard as “American cultural and economic infiltration,” he continued. An example of this is evident in the entertainment industry, where American-made films have a hard time getting past censors screening cinematic product.

“Hollywood for years was a prime example of an American industry that would do whatever Beijing said in order to gain access, but so few movies are getting permission to get into China now that this is starting to have an effect on Hollywood,” Palmer said.

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WT: Huawei and the WSJ
« Reply #225 on: June 29, 2022, 07:55:32 AM »
Huawei makes amends with Wall Street Journal board

BY RYAN LOVELACE THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Huawei’s new charm offensive to win over skeptics in the free world includes a fresh target: the media.

The Chinese telecommunications giant sponsored an event Tuesday with The Wall Street Journal on “security and safety in an unstable world” after accusing the newspaper of bias against Huawei and a lack of credibility.

Representatives from Huawei and The Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones, did not address how the relationship went from hostile to chummy during the event. The virtual discussion included a disclaimer that The Journal’s newsroom was not involved in the event’s planning.

Former Journal editorial board member Mary Kissel sharply criticized her former employer’s decision to join forces with the Chinese company, which many see as a stalking horse for the communist regime.

“So America’s leading business publication makes $ from a genocidal, totalitarian state’s surveillance arm,” Ms. Kissel said in a message on Twitter last week. “Might be legal but certainly not moral. Appalling, really.”

Ms. Kissel served in the Trump administration, which aimed to restrict Huawei’s footprint in the U.S. The

editorial board is not a part of The Journal’s newsroom.

The Journal reported in 2020 that U.S. officials said Huawei had the ability to access back doors in mobile phone networks. The Chinese company responded by accusing the paper of bias and amplifying lies.

During the virtual event Tuesday, Andy Purdy, chief security officer of Huawei Technologies USA, fielded questions from Dow Jones global commercial consulting editor Willem Marx without any hint of lingering resentment.

Mr. Marx asked Mr. Purdy to rate the U.S. government and others’ efforts on cybersecurity and privacy risks. Mr. Purdy replied with praise for the Biden administration.

“Particularly in the areas with cybersecurity I think there’s been a heightened interest and attention and very strong public-private partnership the last couple years,” Mr. Purdy said. “It takes a while to bring those things into fruition. I think they were helped somewhat by President Biden’s executive order on cybersecurity almost a year and a half ago.” Huawei has redoubled its lobbying efforts since President Trump left the White House.

Huawei has spent nearly $4.5 million on lobbying during Mr. Biden’s first two years in office, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets. org database.

Huawei spent just $3.68 million during Mr. Trump’s four years in office. The majority of the lobbying was in 2019. Mr. Trump issued an executive order that year effectively blocking Huawei from U.S. communication networks.

Officials from Huawei and The Journal’s publisher did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the cost of Huawei’s sponsorship and Huawei’s past criticism of The Journal. Mr. Marx and Mr. Purdy ignored a question about the businesses’ relationship during Tuesday’s event




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Chinese penetration of America via TikTok
« Reply #229 on: July 14, 2022, 01:31:50 PM »
US-CHINA RELATIONS
TikTok Poses Threat to Every American User: FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr
By Hannah Ng and David Zhang July 12, 2022 Updated: July 14, 2022biggersmaller Print
A lot of people view the Chinese app TikTok as a platform for sharing funny videos, but it poses a data security risk, according to Brendan Carr, a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

“They just see TikTok for what it appears to be on the surface, but that’s just the sheep’s clothing,” Carr recently told Epoch TV’s “China Insider.”

“If you look beneath it, there’s an awful lot of data that’s being pulled from your device, and apparently sent back to China. Underneath that, it’s pulling biometrics, including face prints and voice prints, keystroke patterns and rhythms, search and browsing history, location information.”

Carr referred to a June BuzzFeed report based on leaked audio from 80 TikTok internal meetings that revealed that engineers in China had repeatedly accessed U.S. data. U.S. user data flowing back to the Chinese regime is concerning, according to the commissioner.

“Once data hits China, they have a national security law there that compels all of those entities there to assist them in espionage activity,” he said.

TikTok has repeatedly denied that the Chinese regime can access users’ data.

Inside TikTok Creator's Lab Event
Signage is displayed at the TikTok Creator’s Lab 2019 event hosted by Bytedance in Tokyo on Feb. 16, 2019. (Shiho Fukada/Bloomberg)
Carr said China runs the world’s most sophisticated data analytics operation, meaning that “all sorts of nefarious conduct” could take place should the communist country get its hands on the sensitive data of millions of app users.

“They have a history of business and industrial espionage, blackmail. And so the concern is really when you’re taking that much data on that many international users … that’s really where the threat vector begins,” he said.

Carr also raised concerns about the content transmitted on the Chinese video app.

“Engineers in Beijing are working on the algorithms very actively … deciding what is displayed to users in the U.S. and globally,” he said. “Whether it’s a foreign influence campaign or other content, it’s noteworthy that China does not allow Tik Tok inside of China, but yet they allow these types of influence campaigns to take place globally.”

Countering the Threat
Given that the Chinese app poses an espionage risk, Carr called for a concerted effort to counter this threat.

“We need to go to all fronts there,” he said, referring to a recent request by Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to the Federal Trade Commission, urging it to formally investigate the relationship between the Chinese regime and ByteDance, TikTok’s Beijing-based owner.

“The Federal Trade Commission should take up that bipartisan call for a swift investigation. We can’t afford a year-long process. And I’d be encouraged and happy to have Congress step in as well.

“We’ve engaged in a pretty concerted effort to look at entities tied to CCP. … I think TikTok is the next one that we should be focusing on.”

TikTok didn’t return a request from The Epoch Times for comment.

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ET: Chinese intimidation of Congressional Candidate
« Reply #230 on: July 16, 2022, 06:38:17 AM »
CCP Continues to Interfere With US Election: Chinese-American Congressional Candidate
By Alex Wu July 15, 2022 Updated: July 15, 2022biggersmaller Print


Following the U.S. State Department’s offer of a $10 million reward for information on foreign election interference, Xiong Yan, who is currently running for Congress in the 10th District of New York, told The Epoch Times that the Chinese communist regime has continued to interfere with his campaign due to his dissident background.

The U.S. Department of Justice charged five men on March 16 for acting as agents of the Chinese regime, collecting information on dissidents, harassing, smearing, and even planning violent attacks targeting a candidate running for congress.

In 1989 he had been a student leader on Tiananmen Square before the movement was violently crushed by the Chinese regime.

One of the men, Qiming Lin, worked for the Ministry of State Security (MSS). The MSS is the Chinese regime’s “civilian intelligence and secret police agency.”

In September 2021, Lin hired a private investigator (PI) in New York “to disrupt the campaign of a Brooklyn resident currently running for U.S. Congress (the Victim), including by physically attacking the Victim.”

In December 2021, Lin allegedly left a voicemail for the PI where he said, “in the end, violence would be fine too. … Beat him until he cannot run for election. … Car accident, [he] will be completely wrecked, right?”

On July 13, Rev. Xiong Yan, a retired major who served in the U.S. Army for 27 years, revealed to The Epoch Times that he was the unnamed congressional candidate that was targeted by the Chinese regime.

He said that fortunately the U.S. government prevented the attacks.

Yan said that after the indictment of the Department of Justice was released, the Chinese regime did not stop interfering with his campaign. His campaign office opened on March 19 with a large dinner party originally scheduled. “The Chinese consulate contacted the leaders of several Chinese American groups and told them not to support me: do not donate money or vote for me,” he said.

“The Fujianese and Cantonese people who were previously confirmed to attend the dinner party told me that the Chinse consulate called a meeting with them before it, saying that they could not support Xiong Yan and could not let him be elected—‘You guys want to go to China to do business, or support him in the election?’ They are too scared to come,” he said.

The tenth congressional district in New York City includes two major Chinese communities, Manhattan’s Chinatown and Brooklyn’s Eighth Avenue. Some Chinese Americans there also told The Epoch Times that the chairman of a Fujian Chinese expat group said that the Chinese consulate informed the group that it’s not allowed to support Yan’s campaign.

CCP’s Long Arm

As for why the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) interfered with his running for congress, Yan said that it was obvious because he was a leader of the Tiananmen Square democratic movement in 1989 (which was violently suppressed on June 4, 1989, also known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre).

Although he did not highlight this background, and instead downplayed it in order to draw support from as wide a range of people as possible.

Despite that he is still regarded as a dissident by the CCP, and they continue to interfere with his running for office in the United States.

“The arm of the Chinese consulate is too long,” he said.

Epoch Times Photo
Yan Xiong (2nd R), one of the 21 “most-wanted” Tiananmen Square protesters from 1989, speaks with local pro-democracy leaders before taking part in a demonstration on the streets of Hong Kong on May 31, 2009. (Samantha Sin/AFP via Getty Images)

“This kind of interference and manipulation of U.S. elections is felony in the U.S. and will jeopardize the fate of most Chinese Americans,” Yan said.

He said the Chinese agents will run back to China when their term of office expires or when the situation turns bad. Or they will have diplomatic immunity.

However, the Chinese community leaders in the United States who are pro-CCP and who are brainwashed and obey the Chinese consulate will become the ultimate victims Yan said.

“When the Chinese set foot on the land of freedom and democracy in the United States, they chose freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and universal values,” Yan said. “However, many people are still affected by the CCP and [are] under its authoritarian control.

“The CCP takes advantage of the relatively free, democratic, and human rights-oriented social environment in the United States to plant a large number of their agents among the six million Chinese living in the country.”

Yan suggested that overseas Chinese “should cherish the free environment, stand on the side of universal values, cleanse out all the toxins of the CCP and be reborn as a free person.”

The National Counterintelligence and Security Center of the United States warned on July 6 that as tensions between the United States and China grow, the CCP are trying to manipulate state, local and business leaders to support Beijing-friendly policies and advance CCP geopolitical interests.

Lin Dan contributed to the report.




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China censors "Minions", Universal Pictures kowtows
« Reply #236 on: August 25, 2022, 07:22:52 AM »
China Censors ‘Minions’ Ending; Expert Says Hollywood Under Pressure to ‘Kowtow’ to CCP
By Andrew Thornebrooke August 24, 2022 Updated: August 24, 2022biggersmaller Print


China’s vast censorship efforts are under scrutiny again, after it was revealed on social media that the Chinese version of the new children’s film “Minions: The Rise of Gru” featured an altered ending that supported the communist regime’s policies.

While the global version of the film ends with two anti-heroes riding into the sunset after a heist (MARC:  Without knowing more, I cannot say the Chinese do not have a point here), the Chinese version ends with one character going to prison for 20 years and the other renouncing his evil ways. The latter then dedicates his life to raising three children, in an apparent reference to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping’s three-child policy.

During an interview with NTD, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times, long-time Hollywood executive and “Feeding the Dragon” author Chris Fenton said that it was not clear if the censored ending was created by the film’s Chinese distributor or Universal Pictures.

In either event, Fenton said, Universal would likely have had little incentive to go against the wishes of the CCP.

“As far as Universal Studios is concerned, if they want to have that movie released [in China], they have no choice but to comply,” Fenton said.

Fenton said there were likely two overriding motivations driving Universal to comply with the censorship. The first is a desire for access to the Chinese box office. The second is its newly opened Universal Studios theme park in Beijing. NBCUniversal’s Universal Parks & Resorts holds a minority 30 percent stake in the park, while five state-run companies own the remaining 70 percent majority through the Beijing Shouhuan Cultural Tourism Investment Company.

Despite the effort to turn the film into communist propaganda, Fenton said there was a silver lining to the incident insofar as the edits were only made to the Chinese release of the film and that the regime had not successfully encouraged such alterations to the global release.

“We’re noticing that some of these edits just to get a movie into China are basically just for China, which is a positive,” Fenton said. “I’m not feeling like Hollywood is necessarily censoring itself after a movie is made in order to please Chinese censors for the worldwide cut of the movies. It’s being done just for the domestic cut.”

“That said, there’s still a lot of premeditated censorship in Hollywood, in terms of sensitive items that they know China is going to have problems with and possibly blackball not only the studio, but all the individuals involved with the film to begin with.”

Hollywood Caters to the CCP
To that end, Fenton said that Hollywood executives had long catered to the whims of the CCP in pursuit of the expansive Chinese market. Now, he said, the CCP is closing its jaws around those companies operating in the country, taking their ideas and funding to prop up Chinese competitors.

“A lot of people like myself were embarking on this U.S.-China collaborative business model because we thought we were getting our products and services from the United States into a market that was normally closed off to them,” Fenton said.

“We really created our own worst enemies over there,” Fenton said. “And on top of it, we really mitigated our beliefs, our principles, our values, the things that made us Americans and made us part of the democratic world in order to get that access. And I think a lot of us now are regretting it.”

Fenton said that the risk and reward calculus for Western businesses operating in China is changing, underscoring that China is unlikely to open itself back up any time soon. Under Xi’s rule, he said, Western companies, particularly in cultural industries such as film, are increasingly being required to submit to the whims of the Party.

“[Xi] is ruling that country with an iron fist,” Fenton said. “There’s a lot of resentment around the world towards him and his government and that is causing them to retreat even further.”

“I just don’t simply see an opening occur that’s going to make things better for Hollywood nor really any industry that’s trying to gain access to that market without doing some serious kowtowing to that government.”

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ET: Chinese dominace of REEs not necessary
« Reply #237 on: August 25, 2022, 07:25:28 AM »
second

US ‘Heavily Dependent’ on China for Rare Earth Elements: Experts
By Andrew Thornebrooke August 24, 2022 Updated: August 24, 2022biggersmaller Print



The U.S. dependency on China for rare earth elements is a security risk and is being exacerbated by the Biden administration’s forced transition to so-called green technologies, according to lawmakers and experts.

The Biden administration’s top-down push toward renewable energy requires an enormous growth in the mining of rare earth elements. Currently, the United States relies on the mining and processing powers of China, which has far worse environmental regulations, to achieve many of its needs.

“We’re heavily dependent on foreign adversarial nations,” Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) said during an Aug. 22 interview with NTD, an affiliate media outlet of The Epoch Times. “If today, the communist country of China stopped selling us their critical and rare earth minerals, we would be in deep trouble from our national defense to our manufacturing across the globe.”

Rare earth elements are a number of elements with unique characteristics that have made them vital to new technologies. Critical minerals are those rare earth elements that have no substitute, are limited in supply, or are economically vital.

Stauber’s comments come just weeks after U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the United States would try to end its “undue dependence” on rare earths, which it requires to manufacture various technologies, from solar panels to electric vehicle batteries to smartphones.

“It’s unfortunate that this administration has put their dependency for both critical minerals and rare earth minerals in the hands of the communist country of China,” Stauber said. “It’s simply unacceptable when we have the critical minerals and a few of the rare earths right here in the United States. This administration just won’t let us mine.”

US-RAREEARTHS
Wheel loaders fill trucks with ore at the MP Materials rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., on Jan. 30, 2020. (Steve Marcus/Reuters)
According to Stauber, the Biden administration lacks the political will to simply mine the needed elements domestically. For example, nickel, copper, and cobalt are all present at extant mining operations in Minnesota. However, instead of allowing U.S. companies to mine these, the administration is pursuing a policy of “friendshoring,” wherein it merely transfers supply chains for offshored goods from China to more friendly nations, such as South Korea.

“We have the best environmental standards, best labor standards, and the opportunity to secure our supply chain dependency and put the destiny of our great nation in the palm of our own hands,” Stauber said.

“It doesn’t have to be this way. We must have an administration that understands the importance of securing our critical minerals and our rare earth minerals. We have to return this country, the United States of America, to mining and mineral dominance. And we can do that, if we have the political will.”

China Weaponizing Rare Earths
Ann Bridges, a Silicon Valley author and policy adviser at the Heartland Institute, said the fear of China weaponizing its growing power of rare and critical elements isn’t without precedent.

“In 2010, Japan and China actually had a conflict over rare earths,” Bridges told NTD. “China responded by cutting off Japan’s access to the rare earths, which really had an impact on Japan’s manufacturing capabilities.

“So it is not outside of the scope of the imagination to believe that in a time of warfare, indeed, China would leverage this kind of power.”

China is the largest global player in many critical minerals, for which demand is currently skyrocketing because of technological development. To that end, Bridges said the administration’s top-down push for electric vehicles and other global climate initiatives could ultimately threaten U.S. security if it’s not more carefully conducted.

“The current administration is all about climate, right, saving the environment?” Bridges said. “A big part of that is the push into electric vehicles, but that needs a lot of rare earth minerals and elements. And then suddenly, it’s like, well, where are we getting that? China?

“We need to be very careful about how we accept kind of a single worldview, whether it’s coming from communist China, whether it’s coming from the World Economic Forum.”

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ET: China backed companies using lawfare to stall western satellite launches
« Reply #239 on: August 31, 2022, 08:40:07 AM »
China-Backed Companies Using Lawfare to Stall Western Satellite Launches, CEO Says
By Andrew Thornebrooke and Paul Greaney August 30, 2022 

Corporations with backing from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are waging legal warfare to prevent Western companies from deploying new, state-of-the-art communications satellites, according to one CEO.

Wireless entrepreneur and Rivada Networks CEO Declan Ganley, in an interview with NTD’s “Fresh Look America” program, spoke about how China-backed elements within a company Rivada acquired attempted to sabotage its efforts to deploy a multi-billion-dollar constellation of 600 satellites. The interview will air at 7 p.m. ET on Aug. 31.

Those satellites make use of super high bandwidth ka band frequencies, which overlap with frequencies used by 5G technologies. Vitally, the allocation of ka spectrum covered by the company’s filing is senior to that of other constellations, such as that of Starlink, which means its satellites would take priority in the event the trajectories of satellites from both sides came into the same orbit.

“This is prime real estate,” Ganley said. “This is ultra-high priority rights. This is shared spectrum. It’s thousands of megahertz of shared spectrum.”

“This is one of the highest priority slots … It’s above Elon Musk’s Starlink constellation.”

Ganley’s company, Rivada, has been struck with numerous legal disputes of Chinese origin, however, following its acquisition of Trion Space, the shell company that held the license to use the ka spectrum.

Chinese stakeholders in Kleo, another company acquired by Rivada, also owned a minority stake in Trion, and have attempted to thwart the company’s use of the filings.

Throughout dozens of lawsuits, the Chinese faction with Kleo sought to gain control over the filings in an apparent effort to use the European company to launch Chinese satellites that could “cover every square meter of the planet with high-speed secure communications,” according to Ganley.

“You would have the highest speed network in the world, with the lowest latency covering parts of the world, covering every major city and everything else, but also, every rural area, every stretch of ocean,” Ganley said.

“This is the most state-of-the-art communications network that the planet will have ever seen.”

Strategic Interest

To that end, Ganley said that he believed the sheer scale and tenacity of the Chinese efforts to thwart his company from deploying the satellites signaled that the CCP had some sort of strategic interest in gaining control of the filings.

“The effort that’s been put into it, it does somewhat underline that this must have had some sort of strategic importance for the CCP and their friends,” Ganley said.

“Otherwise, the resources wouldn’t be available to wage the kind of very high profile and public lawfare that they are waging.”

Thankfully for Rivada, the company has its own reserves to draw on, given its financial backing from several high-profile investors like PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel.

Ganley said that the company was “moving forward with determination,” had effectively removed the Chinese faction’s claims to the filing, and requested that a U.S. court strike down the Chinese faction’s most recent lawsuit.

“The key thing is that we have amputated the Chinese involvement from those licenses,” Ganley said. “And frankly, they’ve got no bridge back to it as much as they might try to create one.”




Crafty_Dog

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Re: China Chinese penetration of America
« Reply #243 on: September 08, 2022, 08:00:58 AM »
Proves nothing with regard to John, but IIRC Tony made over a million representing the Russians/a Russian bank or something like that.

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Re: China Chinese penetration of America
« Reply #244 on: September 08, 2022, 08:02:36 AM »
Proves nothing with regard to John, but IIRC Tony made over a million representing the Russians/a Russian bank or something like that.

Yeah, the FBI will be right on the Podestas right after they do a forensic exam of Hunter's laptop.



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Biden, Podesta Bros, and Huawei
« Reply #248 on: September 15, 2022, 01:26:32 PM »
US Green Initiatives Benefit Top Officials’ Family Members With Ties to China: Cybersecurity Expert
By Hannah Ng and Tiffany Meier September 14, 2022 Updated: September 14, 2022biggersmaller Print


As the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) (pdf) seeks to spend some $369 billion toward energy and climate programs over the next 10 years, those green initiatives will mostly benefit family members of top officials with ties to the Chinese regime, according to Rex Lee, a cybersecurity adviser at My Smart Privacy.

“There’s concern … that potentially lawmakers and or their family members stand to benefit [greatly] from legislation that they have influence over and are creating policy and making laws in Washington DC,” Lee told the “China in Focus” program on NTD News, the sister media of The Epoch Times.

To prove this argument, he pointed to Tony Podesta, the brother of former Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta who recently joined the Biden administration to serve as a senior adviser on “clean energy innovation and implementation.”

John Podesta was tapped to “oversee implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act’s expansive clean energy and climate provisions and will chair the President’s National Climate Task Force in support of this effort,” the White House said on Sept. 2.

Yet, Tony Podesta, Lee said, “represents Huawei and their lobbying efforts go directly back to the White House, which means that … he has a direct line to [President] Joe Biden.”

“Huawei … is allowed to market in the United States as a result of having some of Trump and Obama’s executive orders repealed by the Biden administration,” he added.

The U.S. Department of Commerce officials in 2021 granted applications worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Chinese tech company Huawei—which was blacklisted under the Trump administration over national security concerns—to buy chips for its auto supply business.

“I think this is happening with green technology, as well … if you look at the lobbying efforts from the solar panel, panel manufacturers out of China, as well as the battery manufacturers out in China,” Lee opined.

The other conflict of interest that Lee further pointed out, arises from a lithium refining company in Pittsburgh, which has Paul Pelosi Jr., the son of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), as a member of its Advisory Board.

Another company named by Lee is BHR, a Chinese private equity firm, in which Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden held a 10 percent stake as of last May, according to company records.

BHR is reportedly backed by major state financial institutions such as the Bank of China and the China Development Bank Capital.

Lee said that it is concerning when “these family members are going to benefit or these families or these lawmakers are going to benefit financially from the laws that they’re legislating.”

Energy Dependence
With Democrats rolling out plans to ban gas-powered cars, the demand for materials to produce EV batteries such as lithium and cobalt, is expected to surge.

That increasing demand would make America become even more energy dependent on China, according to the expert.

“Ninety-five percent of cobalt mining is done in Africa through Chinese companies that have worked with the governments in Africa to mine the cobalt over there,” Lee said.

“Sixty-two percent of lithium will flow back through China as well,” he added.

BYD Company, the Chinese electric car and battery giant, had reached an agreement to acquire six lithium mines in Africa, according to a May 2021 report from China’s The Paper.

Lee further called for Americans to raise the issue of these lobbying efforts with their lawmakers.

“You can look up what companies are lobbying what laws and then write your lawmaker about these things … and hold your lawmaker accountable,” Lee said.

“We shouldn’t allow any foreign company … any companies from other countries to lobby. And that in itself is a threat to the United States and our ability to compete, much less let companies from adversarial nations such as China and Russia,” he said.

The Epoch Times reached out to Pelosi’s office and the Biden administration for comment.

Anne Zhang and Dorothy Li contributed to this report.

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WT: Former Los Alamos nuke scientists aid China's advanced weapons
« Reply #249 on: September 24, 2022, 03:42:28 AM »
Former Los Alamos nuclear scientists aid China’s advanced weapons, private study says
By Bill Gertz - The Washington Times - Thursday, September 22, 2022

The Chinese government targeted scientists at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory for recruitment, with more than 160 researchers returning to China over more than three decades to help nuclear and other advanced weapons programs there, according to a new report by a private security and intelligence firm.

According to the report released Thursday by Strider Technologies, between 1987 and 2021, an estimated 162 scientists who once worked at Los Alamos returned home to China and took part in a variety of domestic research and development programs.

“Former Los Alamos scientists have made, and continue to make, considerable contributions to the PRC hypersonic, missile and submarine programs that present an array of security risks for the United States and the entire free world,” says the 32-page report, “The Los Alamos Club: How the People’s Republic of China Recruited Leading Scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory to Advance Its Military Programs.”

“Our research shows the PRC has seen a significant return on their investment with advances in critical military technologies. Now, more than ever, it is a national security imperative for the U.S. and our allies to identify and protect leading talent in both the public and private sectors,” said Greg Levesque, CEO and co-founder of Strider.

Ken deGraffenreid, a former senior U.S. counterintelligence official, said that Congress has ignored for decades repeated cases of Chinese communist successes in stealing sensitive U.S. secrets.