Chinese people beware!
Foreign Spies and Hostile Forces are out there
And only the Party can protect you
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
It’s almost time to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.
And you know what that means! It’s time to crack down on sinister, hostile foreign forces.
You see, there’s a problem with today’s youth in China. They don’t love the Communist Party
enough. In fact, some even are enamoured with the West, and its false promises of freedom.
That’s why at the end of last year,
Chinese leader Xi Jinping started a new campaign to boost youth patriotism.
And in the lead up to the CCP’s 100-year anniversary, people are being asked to
monitor each other and whether they’re making harmful comments on history.
Which is basically anything that’s not the Party line.
And now, China is implementing new counter espionage regulations.
These regulations target what the Communist Party calls foreign spies and hostile forces. And
anyone who might associate with them. Well this sounds fun.
State-run Xinhua interviewed a senior official at the Ministry of State Security. He said, “Overseas
espionage and intelligence agencies and hostile forces have intensified infiltration into China.”
And they’re “stealing secrets in various ways and in more fields,
which poses a serious threat to China's national security and interests.”
Oh, I see what’s happening here.
This is that thing where the Chinese Communist Party criticizes “hostile foreign forces”
for things that the Communist Party is actually doing to other countries.
But it’s not like these are vague, overarching regulations.
They’re very limited in scope. The regulations only apply to “agencies,
groups, enterprises and institutions and other social organizations”.
So....every possible organization then.
Is your Beijing stand-up comedy club being infiltrated by hostile foreign forces?
No, seriously, because Beijing is monitoring comedy shows for prohibited content.
Prohibited content like jokes.
Anyway, the Ministry of State Security says these “agencies, groups,
enterprises and institutions and other social organizations” will be responsible
for “arranging their working staff to sign letters of commitment before taking up posts,
reporting their activities related to national security, giving education to personnel ahead of
their departures abroad, and interviewing personnel after their return to China.”
Great! Everyone gets a debriefing if they’ve talked to foreigners.
And it kind of sounds like that might include universities and private businesses.
Also, the way it’s set up sounds like if one person gets in trouble,
the entire organization gets in trouble.
So you’ll want to be as overbearing as possible in how you implement these new regulations.
According to a Chinese national security expert interviewed by state-run Global Times, “Cases of
Chinese people working in various industries who were wooed by money or intimidated to engage in
espionage activities and became pawns of foreign spy intelligence agencies are numerous.”
Yeah, that’s exactly what Chinese intelligence agencies do to Americans.
Anyway, this is part of a broader push to warn Chinese people about the dangers
of foreign spies. Global Times recently published
this helpful graph to help educate the masses about the risk of foreigners.
They may target University students
or young active internet users
using money, friendship, or beauty.
That’s right young active internet users. Beware my beauty.
Malcolm Davis , of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, says “[Beijing] is wanting
to bring commercial companies, universities, media and think tanks even more under government
control to monitor and report the activities of Western entities operating in China,
so this makes it more challenging for Western companies to do business than it already is.”
Even more challenging? Here’s an idea:
MAYBE WESTERN COMPANIES SHOULD STOP DOING BUSINESS IN CHINA!
Crazy, I know.
Obviously, it’s very vague what the Communist Party means when it talks about spying.
The Global Times gives an example of a 20 year old Chinese journalism student
who worked for “a mainstream Western media outlet”.
The student “engaged with more than 20 hostile foreign groups and more than a dozen officials
of a Western country”, providing evidence “that could be used to stigmatize China”.
So it sounds like this student journalist was...doing journalism.
Journalism that damaged China’s national security. He was arrested in 2019.
If you ask me, the Party doesn’t want Chinese people interacting
with Westerners and maybe hearing things that might make them question the Party.
Which is why the main goal of these regulations is not actually to stop foreign spies—but
to give the CCP even more access to spy on Chinese citizens.
Listen to this, “The regulation also gives national security organs access to buildings,
internal materials, electronical media kits”—yes,
electronical—“facilities, or computers and information systems of the companies involved.”
Of course that also applies to Western companies in China.
So in a way, the CCP is bringing together Chinese people and Western companies by
giving the shared experience...of being spied on by Chinese authorities. Beautiful.
And now it’s time to answer a question from a member of the China Uncensored 50 Cent Army,
fans who support us on the crowd funding website Patreon.
Nick S asks, “Is Hong Kong still worth visiting?
It's a shame I only found out in the last year or so how awesome this city is.
Once international travel opens up I'd like to see it before it's changed completely…”
Now that’s a great question. I love Hong Kong. One of my favorite places I’ve ever visited. You know,
despite it being the only place I’ve been teargassed.
Beautiful city, great people, great food and culture. However, the National Security Law
is an absolute beast. Technically it applies to everyone on the planet. So if you’ve been involved
in criticizing the Chinese Communist Party anywhere in the world, and you go to Hong Kong,
you could get in trouble with authorities. Now they said that would never happen.
But if you watch China Uncensored on a regular basis,
you know not to trust anything the Chinese Communist Party says.
The sad fact is that Hong Kong is now pretty much
just another Chinese city. Currently the US State Department warns Americans should,
“Reconsider travel to the PRC’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) due to
both arbitrary enforcement of local laws and COVID-19-related travel restrictions.”
And they specifically cite the dangers of the National Security Law that I just talked about.
So Nick, it’s still possible to go to Hong Kong. But it’s a lot more risky than it used to be.
You should basically treat it like you’re going to mainland China.
Thanks for your question Nick, and thanks for joining the China Uncensored 50 cent army!
And a big thank you to everyone who supports China Uncensored on Patreon. We could not do this show
without you. So thank you for joining us in the fight to expose the Chinese Communist Party to
the world. If you’re interested in joining, head over to Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored.
Once again I’m Chris Chappell, see you next time.