Huawei’s deep connections with China’s military.
Indictments in GE Intellectual Property Theft.
And an arresting slap.
That and more on this week’s China news headlines.
This is China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
This week’s China news headlines.
Huawei:
It’s the Chinese telecom company
that wants you to know
it poses no security risk,
because it totally has no connection
to the Chinese Communist Party.
Well, it turns out,
Huawei may actually be partly funded
by the Chinese Communist Party’s military.
A source speaking to the British newspaper the Times, said,
“The CIA accused Huawei of receiving funding
from China’s National Security Commission,
the People’s Liberation Army
and a third branch of the Chinese state intelligence network.”
Okay.
Just because Huawei may be funded
by the Communist Party’s state security apparatus,
doesn’t mean you should be worried they’re building
a backdoor into your phones or 5G networks,
so the Chinese military can sneak in.
It just might make you think twice about using Huawei equipment.
Huawei has of course denied all the accusations,
saying the company,
“does not comment on unsubstantiated allegations
backed up by zero evidence from anonymous sources.”
But it really can’t help that just last week,
this academic paper,
looking at publicly available records, concluded
“Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned.”
So how much control could the Communist Party
really have over Huawei?
Let’s just say,
it’s the Party’s way,
or the Huawei.
Wait, no.
It’s both.
They’re the same way.
Two Chinese men have been indicted for stealing trade secrets
from the American conglomerate GE.
Now China will now know the secret to GE’s success...
well maybe not.
One of the men is a former engineer at GE.
He was charged last August.
But the latest unsealed indictment gave more details,
“that the alleged theft was conducted to benefit China,
and that the Chinese regime provided
‘financial and other support’ to the Chinese companies
that received the stolen information.”
The two men are uncle and nephew.
It’s a family affair.
Together, the pair are charged with stealing
electronic files of design models,
engineering drawings,
and other info about the company’s gas and steam turbines.
Then, they allegedly “coordinated with Chinese government officials
to enter into research agreements
with Chinese state-owned institutions
to develop turbine technologies.”
That’s basically a textbook case of how
the Chinese government steals American intellectual property
and then puts it in the hands of Chinese companies.
Turbine theft is big business for the Chinese Communist Party.
Not just gas and steam turbines, but wind, too.
Yes, Xi Jinping loves his windmills.
The Confucius Institute!
It’s everyone’s favorite tool of Chinese
state-backed soft power propaganda.
The Confucius Institute is a free Chinese language program
paid for by the Chinese state,
and set up in schools across America,
and around the world.
You’ll learn useful Chinese phrases like,
Taiwan is part of China’s sacred territory.
And you won’t learn un-useful phrases like
Tiananmen Square Massacre.
And that’s why it’s so sad that Western Kentucky University
is getting rid of its Confucius Institute.
Now how will its students not learn about
the Tiananmen Square Massacre?!
The decision was made because of
US legislation created last year
“barring any U.S. university from using Pentagon resources
for any program involving Confucius Institutes.”
Remember that CCTV reporter
who allegedly slapped a Conservative Party member
at a Hong Kong democracy event...in London?
Well, that CCTV reporter was charged with common assault,
but she didn’t show up to her court date.
And now there’s a warrant out for her arrest.
Which is quite a twist—
since a few months ago,
the charges against her had been dropped,
because there wasn’t enough evidence.
Wait, not enough evidence?
Well at some point, the investigation was opened again.
This does seem like a tough case.
Only a mind like Sherlock Holmes could sort it out.
Taiwan is working to create a blacklist of certain tech companies,
and ban them from building critical infrastructure—
things like water and energy supply,
communications,
as well as government webcams,
servers, and computer software.
Of course this blacklist won’t be dedicated
to any country in particular.
But I’m sure if there were say,
a hostile country to the north
that’s repeatedly threatened to invade Taiwan,
and has tech companies known to work with that country’s military,
then those tech companies might be targeted.
Speaking of the military,
what about all those elderly Chinese soldiers
who served their country?
Well, the higher-ups want to make sure Chinese veterans
don’t “disturb social order”,
such as by asking for the retirement benefits they were promised.
Or by protesting when they don’t get them.
Or by protesting about how the police beat up
the previous group of veterans for protesting.
That’s why Chinese courts have imposed “heavy sentences”
on a group of veterans in eastern China.
18 of them have been sentenced to
between 2 and 6 years in prison
for “disturbing the social order,”
“intentional assault,”
or “the crime of preventing officials
from performing their duties.”
There’s no way the Communist Party
going after its own soldiers
will ever come back to bite them.
And finally, think your student loan debts are bad?
At least you didn’t borrow from a loan shark.
Probably.
Because one Chinese student
did borrow from from loan sharks.
He borrowed about 1,000 dollars,
and in a year,
it ballooned to almost 450 thousand dollars.
Graduates in China often struggle to make ends meet.
There’s a lot of graduates,
but not a lot of jobs.
That makes loans hard to pay back.
Plus, a lot of these loan sharks
put on a good show of being legitimate lenders.
So for the first time ever,
I actually feel better about my student loan debt.
Slightly.
And that’s it for this week’s China news headlines.
Now it’s time for me to answer a question from one of you—
a fan who support China Uncensored
with a dollar or more per episode,
by contributing through Patreon.
Charles Walter Brooke asks,
“Chris, what are the percentages of times
you are wearing dress pants vs just shorts, jeans, or whatever,
while you are filming the episodes?
Well, I hate to break it to you Charles,
but I actually do the whole show in the buff.
I feel more free that way.
This suit... is just CGI.
By the way,
thanks for filming the show Matt.
Matt: I hate this job.
And thank you to all my 50-Cent Army soldiers
who support China Uncensored.
It’s only because of your support that we’ve been able
to cover topics that most other media don’t want to,
because they prefer to get advertising dollars,
or make cars in Xinjiang,
rather than criticize the Chinese Communist Party.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
See you next time.