China’s hostage diplomacy ramps up
Chinese trolls are secretly robots
And China is going after dangerous karaoke
That and more on this week’s China news headlines
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Surfshark. Whenever you go online,
if you want to protect your identity, you should be using a VPN like Surfshark.
This week’s China news headlines.
For more than two years, Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor
have been held captive in China. What were they guilty of? Being Canadian!
No, it was actually for being Canadian.
The Chinese Communist Party had them arrested in retaliation
for the Canadian government arresting Huawei’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou.
She was accused of actual crimes—fraud related to violating US sanctions on Iran—and
she was arrested in Canada in 2018 at the request of the US.
But China detained the two Canadian Michaels to pressure the Canadian government into releasing
Meng instead of extraditing her to the US. Because in China, the courts are controlled by the state.
In a country with rule of law, the courts are not.
So you can see why the Chinese regime is a little confused.
So detaining the two Michaels hasn’t worked so far,
which means it’s time for the Communist Party to up the ante.
This week, Michael Spavor was sentenced to 11 years in prison on spying charges.
No update on Michael Kovrigas of yet.
But Chinese courts have also rejected a death penalty appeal
for another Canadian, Robert Schellenberg.
Back in 2018, Schellenberg had originally been sentenced to 15 years in prison for
drug smuggling. Then a month later, he was retried and given the death penalty instead.
What changed in that month? Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada.
Speaking of Meng, her extradition trial is going on right now,
and is in the last stage before a judge rules on her fate.
So it’s convenient timing for the Chinese regime to sentence these Canadians now.
Also, by sentencing Schellenberg and Spavor, but not Michael Kovrig,
the Chinese authorities are dangling Kovrig’s fate like a carrot in front of the Canadian government.
And the Chinese court even indicated that Spavor could be released early, too.
“Mr. Spavor may not have to serve out his full sentence;
the court said that he would be deported, though it gave no details about the timing.”
Why does it feel like the timing has a lot to do with what happens with Meng Wanzhou?
Of course Canadians aren’t very pleased about what the Chinese regime
is doing to their people. And it's showing in different ways.
According to a new poll, the majority of Canadians support some
kind of boycott of the Beijing Olympics next year.
And politicians are speaking up too.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the sentencing of Michael Spavor.
And Conservative Opposition Leader Erin O'Toole is saying Canadians aren’t safe in China.
See? All it takes to bridge the political divide
is for an authoritarian regime to kidnap your citizens.
This whole situation should be a major warning to any Western businessmen
thinking China is a great place to invest. It’s not.
Speaking of incredibly dumb businessmen, Nike CEO John Donahoe.He’s the guy who has said,
‘Nike is a brand that is of China and for China.’
Remember, Nike is one of several
major US companies lobbying Congress to weaken a slave labor bill.
Well, Mr. Donahoe has some more wise words about China.
"China is a very important market for us,
we have a long-term history in China. We take a very long-term view with China,
we'll continue to invest in China while also operating a very responsible global supply chain."
Yes, very responsible.
Like when one of their suppliers used Uyghur forced labor.
The good news is that after that embarrassing story came out,
the supplier stopped using workers from Xinjiang. At least according to Nike.
Look, maybe Nike’s CEO has good intentions about getting rid of forced labor in
Nike’s supply chain. I mean, other than
lobbying against a bill that would legally require Nike to get rid of forced labor.
But as long as Nike invests in China, they’re contributing to an
authoritarian regime that is committing genocide. There’s no way around that.
And after the break, the Chinese regime may be done
tolerating its zero-tolerance approach to Covid-19.
Welcome back.
The Chinese Communist Party has consistently lied about...well everything, but recently
it’s been Covid numbers. It claims to have zero cases in places like Beijing, and even Wuhan.
But now it’s put millions under lockdown after a surge in the Delta variant.
And according to some reports, China is considering abandoning its zero tolerance approach
to Covid—because zero tolerance meant lockdowns so harsh, the economy was grinding to a halt.
Of course after those reports came out,
Chinese state-run media denied that they were abandoning anything.
It all sounds to me like a cover. There never were zero cases in China. That’s ridiculous.
They were covering it up. But with this new surge, the Party is blaming foreigners, so they can
cover up the coverup. Which was a coverup for the initial coverup. Look, there’s a lot of coverups.
Which is why control of the internet is so important to the Chinese regime.
And the top public relations director at Chinese social media giant Weibo
has been arrested for bribery.
This is part of an ongoing crackdown on China’s tech industry. I did a full episode about that
earlier this week. I’ll put the link below. But China’s control of the Internet doesn’t
stop there. According to this report from the non-profit Centre for Information Resilience,
China has launched a “spamouflage” campaign.
“The coordinated influence operation on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube uses a mix of artificial and
repurposed accounts to push pro-China narratives and distort perceptions on important issues.”
The fake or stolen accounts use “Bots [that] are almost indistinguishable from real people.
Though they appear to be human, these bots are simply
generated by cutting-edge artificial intelligence.”
If you’d like to see it in action,
check out the comment section on the China Uncensored instagram page.
But despite its attempts to control the Internet,
the Chinese Communist Party just can’t quite control the narrative.
Take for instance, Lithuania. My favorite Chinese state-run media,
the Global Times, just called it, “​a crazy, tiny country full of geopolitical fears”.
What did Lithuania do to so hurt the feelings of the Chinese people?
They’re establishing diplomatic offices with Taiwan.
Global times says Lithuania will pay the price for making radical moves on the Taiwan question.
And China has recalled its Lithuania ambassador.
Of course, the real Taiwan question is how do we liberate West Taiwan.
Actually the question is whether to call it West Taiwan or Mainland Taiwan. Let me
know in the comments. And with fan art. Email me at chinauncensored@gmail.com.
Any good ones I’ll put up on the China Uncensored instagram for the Chinese AI bots to attack.
Hong Kong’s largest Teachers Union is disbanding.
The Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union said it was due to ‘enormous pressure’ from authorities.
According to Amnesty International, “This 48-year-old institution, which
represents more than 90% of Hong Kong’s teachers, apparently had no choice but to cease operations
after education authorities severed ties with it last month amid threats of ‘national
security’ investigations and a coordinated smear campaign in Chinese state media.”
What? Just because your city has fallen to an authoritarian regime that
rewrites history to serve its own narrative, you think that makes teaching difficult?
More after the break.
Welcome back.
China is known for hacking—everybody. And that includes Israel.
The Chinese hackers disguised themselves as Iran apparently.
They targeted both government agencies and companies—likely to steal intellectual property.
But as I said, China hacks everybody. Including Russia.
That’s according to this new report from the Group-IB, a security consulting group in Russia.
According to the report, “Hackers mostly target state agencies, industrial facilities,
military contractors, and research institutes. The main objective is espionage: attackers gain
access to confidential data and attempt to hide their presence for as long as possible.”
This is interesting because the West has been very concerned about the relationship
between Russia and China. I mean, Xi Jinping even gave Putin a best friends medal.
I guess that’s how Putin is able to overlook the hacking,
and still hold joint military drills in Northwest China this week.
And in news that makes me question the very nature of humanity,
Tesla sales have predictably cratered in China, but investors don’t seem to mind.
Yes, even as the Chinese Communist Party actively, loudly screws Tesla,
some people just can’t get over the idea that China is still a great investment.
Maybe they can even sell China the rope China will use to hang them.
And finally, China’s massive state apparatus is going after...Karaoke!
Bet you didn’t see that one coming.
Yes, China is blacklisting illegal content in karaoke parlors.
Don’t worry, Chinese officials. This is not about your kind of illegal behavior in karaoke parlors.
No, the Chinese regime is blacklisting karaoke songs.
It’s part of a campaign to curb harmful content in entertainment venues.
Harmful songs? How about the harmful singers?
China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism said, “This decision came after certain songs, which
have already been banned in the country's Karaoke bars due to their harmful content since 2006,
are still constantly found in playlists in many venues.”
“China says it will ban songs that it deems a threat to national unity, security,
sovereignty, territorial integrity, honor, state religious policies or the national interest.”
Well, I guess that’s the end of popular Chinese karaoke songs like: “Country Roads, Take Me Home
to the Independent Country of Taiwan.” Or “Rockin’ in the Free Tibet.” Or “Livin’ on a Prayer.”
On top of that, it seems China’s anti-graft body is going after business drinking.
That’s a big risk.
Going after drinking may finally be the thing that motivates the Chinese people to revolt.
And if you do want to download some illegal karaoke songs online,
I won’t tell you how. But I do recommend you at least protect yourself from government spying.
And the best way to do that is with a VPN, like Surfshark.
When you go online—especially
in China—you need to be using a VPN like Surfshark to protect your identity.
Everytime you go on the internet, your government and your internet service provider can see
everything you do. And that’s not good. Especially if you’re in a country that
arrests foreigners just to get revenge on that foreign country’s government.
So whenever you go online, especially if you ever use public Wifi,
you really should be using Surfshark to protect yourself.
Plus, you can use one Surfshark account across an unlimited number of devices.
So if you need a VPN—and believe me, you do—check out Surfshark.
Go to surfshark.com/uncensored and use the code UNCENSORED
to get their special deal that includes 3 extra months for FREE.
Click the link below.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.