THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION ADMITS IT COVERED UP THE CHINESE SPY BALLOON.
THE US AND CHINA RESTORE LIMITED MILITARY TALKS. And bodies are piling up as a new illness spreads
in China. THAT AND
MORE ON THIS WEEK’S CHINA NEWS HEADLINES. Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
You know, sometimes it sucks to be right.
A new NBC News report about China’s spy balloon alleges…
that US officials tried to cover it up to avoid damaging the United
States’ relationship with China. Listen, fellas, you don’t want to
compromise your integrity for a relationship with someone who’s just gonna hurt you.
NBC reports that “Administration officials at first hoped to conceal
the balloon’s existence from the public, and from Congress,
according to multiple former and current administration and congressional officials.”
However, it also says that “A senior Biden administration denied that
there was an attempt to keep the balloon secret.”
So either somebody’s lying, or different parts of the US
government aren’t talking to each other. Both are plausible, really.
NBC reports that “Privately, Biden administration officials complain that the political outcry over
the balloon was wildly disproportionate to any threat it posed to U.S. national security.”
They believed China was so angered and humiliated by the outcry that it did
more damage to the relationship than if the balloon had gone unnoticed by the public.
Gee, could that be why they still haven’t released the results of the investigation?
It would be great to actually know how much of a danger it actually was.
General Glen VanHerck , the Air Force commander responsible for defending America’s airspace,
said at one point that “the balloon was not an imminent threat and did
not have hostile intent, so he did not have the authority to shoot it down.”
What exactly is the definition of “hostile intent”, then? Does
he think “spy balloons” are just pranks countries play on each other for funsies?
Also, if it’s true that it was too much of a danger to shoot down over
land because of how big it was, doesn’t that kinda mean it’s an “imminent threat”?
Also, the US wouldn’t have to worry about China looking stupid and being
humiliated if the CCP didn’t do stupid and humiliating things.
And speaking of China interfering in other countries,
Zambia’s foreign minister has stepped down after public outcry over his Chinese business dealings.
This video circulating online shows men counting piles of cash. One of
the men is rumored to be foreign Minister Kakubo and another a Chinese businessman.
Call me cynical, but I always assume people in charge are corrupt. But do they have to
be so cartoonishly corrupt? This is one step below lighting a cigar with
a $100 bill and wiping their shoes off on an orphan manatee skin rug.
Some handwritten notes on social media added fuel to the allegations.
This one describes an agreement for $100,000 between a Chinese and a Zambian mining company,
and is signed by a Mr. Zang and Kakubo. And here’s another one about
a transaction for $200,000. Now none of the footage is really a
smoking gun. However, Kakubo didn’t deny that they were real or that they implicated him,
which means there’s a pretty good chance they do.
He didn’t deny it? Is it weird that I think despite the cartoonish levels of corruption
on display, I’m impressed he’s actually kinda being honest about it? That’s the bar we’re at.
But even if he had denied it, there would still be a pretty good chance that they implicated him.
What Kakubo did do was call them “malicious claims over a business transaction" and say he
was stepping down because he didn’t want the government "distracted" by the controversy.
Which I guess makes a little bit of sense, since this is about as distracting as
A giant spy balloon in the sky, that poses no imminent threat, we swear.
It didn’t help that last year, he was accused of receiving a bribe
after “he was spotted leaving the office of a Chinese-owned cement company with a briefcase.”
Now, walking out of an office with a briefcase might not seem that
suspicious. But if it involves a Chinese company, I guess people assume the worst.
Well, maybe not *the worst.* I just assume it’s a briefcase full of cash.
Considering it’s a Chinese company, the worst would actually be it’s filled with
human organs. Which would be horrible… since it would ruin the briefcase!
Last week, we reported that a month after Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met at APEC and
agreed to restore military-to military communication, it still hadn’t happened.
Since then, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has reportedly spoken
to his Chinese counterpart over a video call.
“In previewing Thursday's call, senior defense officials said…there is still
more work to do to ensure open and reliable lines of communications”
I’m guessing they mean for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin He still
has yet to meet his Chinese counterpart since China froze communication in 2022.
Now, it’s true that after Xi Jinping sacked his defense minister in October,
Austin doesn’t really have a counterpart.
But as we’ve said before, that doesn’t seem like the real reason communications aren’t happening.
General Zhang Youxia, the Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission,
has been meeting with the defense secretaries of other countries.
And if he really wanted to meet with Austin, I think the US would make it happen.
Which makes the US trying to cover for China’s spy balloon even worse,
because they’re defending someone they’re in a relationship with who doesn’t even return
their calls. Time to move on, America. There’s plenty of fish in the sea.
Actually, that’s not even true since China overfishes like crazy. So stop defending them!
And after the break, Chinese crematoriusm are in
overdrive
Welcome back.
The funeral
business in central China is booming again after an increase in hospitalizations.
“Local residents in Henan revealed that government-run crematoriums are operating
day and night, and that the number of funerals has increased sharply.”
I’d say the only Chinese business that isn’t a risk to invest in is the funeral business,
but when dealing with China, you always run the risk of upsetting the government
and them responding by using you to help further prop up the funeral business.
China’s CDC recently published new mask guidelines. They require anyone visiting
a hospital or riding on public transportation to wear a mask,
meaning there’s something the government is worried about going around.
Another ominous sign: one of China’s vaccine ambassadors passed away recently. Hong Kong
actress Kathy Chow Hoi-mei suddenly died at her home on December 11. She was 57 years old.
Just seven days before Hoi-mei’s death, she did a PSA on China’s new inhalable covid vaccine.
Her cause of death has not been revealed. But according to her medical records,
which were leaked online, she had been coughing and wheezing for a week before her death.
But don’t worry. I’m sure there’s no reason
to suspect anything’s wrong with China’s Covid vaccines.
China is warning its military fans that they could face prison time for posting photos online.
The Ministry of State Security warned that “Some individual military enthusiasts
severely endanger national military security by illegally obtaining
information regarding national defense and disseminating them on the internet.”
Yeah. Because what kind of monster would try to
Illegally obtain information about a country’s national defense. Someone
you *definitely* shouldn’t be defending, that’s who!
Those who do post illegal photos or videos could face up to seven years in prison.
The agency is clearly worried about Western intelligence
gathering sensitive data through open-source methods like social media.
Yeah, wouldn’t it be an absolute shame if a nation used a social media platform to
spy on other people. I can’t imagine anything that terrible happening!
A report in the Wall Street Journal this week detailed how the CIA has relied heavily
on open-source data because it’s had a hard time cultivating spies in China.
Around 2010, its network of informants was discovered and either arrested or killed,
crippling US spying efforts there.
Because of that, “The vast majority of U.S. intelligence on China now comes from electronic
snooping—intercepting phone calls, emails and every other form of digital communication”
It’s also created an entire team dedicated to sifting
through the mountains of open-source data online.
To counter this, China’s Ministry of State Security this week asked the public for
tip-offs on foreign espionage. It claimed that some foreign spies were caught after a suspicious
landlord spotted a mysterious ‘green light’ in a house he had rented to a foreign company.
It claimed “The green light turned out to be coming from video monitoring equipment
used by foreign agents to collect intelligence from a nearby naval base”
Whether that’s true or not, we don’t know.
But you know that if China’s super paranoid about foreign espionage,
that’s probably because it’s got a massive espionage network of its own.
Remember, whatever China accuses its adversaries of doing, it’s probably doing it twice as much.
And after the break, Chinese companies are using
American AI to develop their own AI. Does that count as cheating?
Welcome
back.
China has put a big emphasis on developing artificial intelligence.
But instead of, you know,
actually developing its own AI, it’s relying on American AI to train its learning language model.
OpenAI suspended the account of Chinese company
ByteDance after it allegedly used its GPT to build a rival AI product.
As part of its terms of service, OpenAI says its model can’t be used for making rival products.
According to OpenAI, its technology was used “during nearly every phase
of development, including for training and evaluating the [ByteDance] model.”
But China might not need its own AI if OpenAI gets good enough at Chinese censorship.
A Chinese dissident who goes by Sydney Winnie posted on X that ChatGPT wasn’t
able to generate images of specific public places in China like Tiananmen Square.
Probably because nothing ever happened there, and definitely not on June 4,
1989. Why did I pick such a specific date? Oh, no reason.
Sydney Winnie also said that it could generate images of 9/11 but not the Tiananmen square
massacre, which I remind you, is a thing that definitely didn’t happen on June 4, 1989.
The Epoch Times tried to replicate the test. It asked ChatGPT to first generate an image
in New York of people who love peace and second an image of people who love
peace and oppose the tanks that rolled into Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.
“An image of New York was generated for the first request. However,
in response to the second request, the chatbot said it could not generate images or visual
content and referred to a ‘sensitive political context like the Tiananmen Square protests.’"
Gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with OpenAI trying to get patents in China.
But technology is being used for a lot of nefarious things these days. Things
YouTube might consider too sensitive to talk about. That’s why I’m hiding
these topics in gaming content on my new show Deep Thoughts While Gaming. The latest is on
Incels and Dating Apps According to Outlast Trials. I think you’re going to like it.
And if you want to prevent China from taking over the world with espionage and AI,
hit that orange button to support us on Patreon.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappel. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.