China's Final Solution to the Muslim Question

China is secretly imprisoning over one million Muslims — but they've left 2 big pieces of evidence behind

• More than one million Muslims have been caught up in China's "re-education camps" over the last year.
• The camps, which operate outside the courts, are designed to indoctrinate ethnic minority Uighurs and force them to reject their religious beliefs.
• Bids for constructing or renovating these centers, as well as staff job ads, provide clear evidence of the purpose and scale of these re-education programs.
• Uighurs face constant surveillance in East Turkestan, which experts consider a testing ground for the a wider surveillance state.

By Tara Francis Chan
Uighur security personnel patrol near the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in western China's Xinjiang region.

In East Turkestan, many locals read endlessly, write often, and sing loudly.
But not by choice.
In extrajudicial indoctrination camps around Xinjiang, ethnic Uighur men and women are forced to study Chinese history, write personal reflections, and sing songs like "Without the Communist Party, there is no New China." 

Many are beaten, tortured, and are unable to go home.
China considers this process "re-education." 

It runs outside the court system with people dragged away for infringements like talking to a loved one overseas or having a beard, and there is no course for appeal.
A recent estimate put the number of people who have been, or are currently, interned since April 2017 just over one million.
Though the exact total is unknown, Adrian Zenz, a social researcher at the European School of Culture and Theology, pored over local job ads and government bids to find new evidence of the system's existence and scale.
Old town of Kashgar, in East Turkestan

Since 2016, there were government bids to construct or upgrade 73 facilities in East Turkestan that, despite various names, appeared as though they will operate, wholly or at least in part, as re-education centers.
Re-education centers are often disguised as vocational training hubs, as many were in these bids, but the details betray their hidden purpose.
Together, the facilities required guard rooms, video surveillance, security fences, police equipment, police living quarters, handheld security inspection devices, steel-reinforced concrete walls, and even iron chains.
"Many of these facilities are heavily secured, to an extent that they do not just aim to keep potential intruders out, but to keep those inside under tight surveillance." Zenz told Business Insider.
Twenty bids listed new or upgraded monitoring or video surveillance. 

One bid from January wanted 122 cameras to cover the whole facility without leaving any "dead angles."
One center required security nets, the renovation of a guard room, and "four watchtowers." 

Another, submitted on 25 April, requested an 86,000 square-foot "underground facility."
These security features, according to Zenz, confirm reports that vocation centers frequently function as internment camps, though many facilities likely sit on a continuum.
"All we know is that a substantial number of facilities, likely capable of holding at least several hundred thousand, are geared more towards the re-education side. Some are explicitly and directly marked as re-education facilities. More than likely, facilities with a stronger vocational training focus can likewise hold several hundred thousands," said Zenz.

"Some even specifically state that they are designed to perform 're-education.' 

An official government notice from April 2017 pertaining to these facilities in a particular prefecture mandated that training topics include military drill, Chinese language, legal knowledge, ethnic unity, religious knowledge and patriotic education."

A policeman holding shield and baton guards a security post leading into a center believed to be used for re-education in Korla in East Turkestan on Nov. 2, 2017.

Job ads are also a huge giveaway
As easy as it may be to silently whisk away thousands of people to new re-education centers, skyrocketing prisoner would also require a huge recruitment drive.
According to Zenz, from May 2017, counties with large ethnic minority populations "initiated a wave of recruitments" for so-called education and training centers.
But ads for such staff were often listed in the same ads as open police positions, and some ads even preferred recruitees with a military or police background.
Other job ads conflated the two roles, hiring "training center policing assistants." 

If the staff were being hired to work at a regular vocation center the high number of security personnel would be "difficult to explain," said Zenz.
Ads also frequently lacked required skills or qualifications that would normally be crucial to providing vocational training. 

Many required only a middle-school education whereas other provinces, where few Uighur would live, usually require at least a bachelor degree.
In one East Turkestan county, where Uighurs make up 95% of the population, 320 jobs available at a "training center" had three criteria: have a middle-school education, be loyal to the Chinese Communist Party, and be part of the ethnic majority Han.
An Uighur woman protests in front of policemen on July 7, 2009 in Urumqi, the capital East Turkestan

Re-education isn't the only problem Uighurs face
In an attempt to crack down on religion, authorities in East Turkestan have targeted almost any form of religious expression by Uighur Muslims.
Women have been banned from wearing burqas and veils. 

Residents were barred from fasting during Ramadan with restaurants ordered to stay open despite religious obligations. 

And in 2016, millions of East Turkestan residents were ordered to surrender their passports and must seek permission to travel abroad.
Authorities have installed surveillance apps on residents' phones and begun collecting DNA samples, fingerprints, iris scans, and blood types from all East Turkestan residents aged between 12 and 65. 

They have also collected voice samples that may be used to identify who is speaking on tapped phone calls.
There's also 40,000 facial-recognition cameras that are being used to track, and block, the movement of Uighurs in the region.
East Turkestan is considered by experts to be a testing ground for what the US State Department has described as "unprecedented levels of surveillance."
The concern is East Turkestan could also be a testing ground for a nationwide re-education system.

Trial begins for former CIA officer accused of spying for China

By David Shortell

A rare espionage trial began Wednesday in Virginia as a jury heard testimony rife with references to covert communications devices and blocks of stashed cash payouts.
In a shabby hotel room in Shanghai last year, three Chinese men, all surnamed Yang, had questioned Kevin Patrick Mallory, a former CIA covert officer, about the new Trump administration's foreign policy. 

What did he know about the THAAD missile system? 

The administration's stance on the South China Sea?
"They were a little bit coy," Mallory later recalled. 

"I asked them point blank" if they worked for the government and "they didn't deny it."
Mallory was sitting across from a CIA investigator in the spy agency's headquarters in May of 2017 as he recounted the episode and how a headhunter had approached him on LinkedIn for what he thought was an interview for a job consulting with a Chinese think tank.
This week in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, Mallory sat next to defense attorneys as video from that CIA meeting played out -- a central piece of evidence in the case brought by the Justice Department accusing him of spying.
As tension between the US and China climbs amid threats of a trade war, Mallory's case is emblematic of another challenge from the superpower: aggressive new efforts by Chinese intelligence to go after American state secrets, experts say.
It could mean a life sentence for the 60-year-old Virginia man. 

Deciphering the case may be a challenge for the men and women of the jury, who heard two divergent motivations behind a fact that Mallory does admit: that he sent four pages of documents to the Chinese men and received from them thousands of dollars that he did not properly declare on customs intake paperwork.
Mallory "betrayed his country" and sold classified information to the Chinese to stave off "mounting personal debt," prosecutor Jennifer K. Gellie said.
He had "fallen on hard times," Mallory's defense attorneys conceded, but the former Army veteran is a "loyal and patriotic American who has served his country with distinction throughout his life."
They said he had grown suspicious that his interviewers were in fact intelligence operatives and "tried to string the Chinese agents along" and warn the CIA so as not to let an opportunity to learn about an adversary's sources and methods "slip away."
The trial in the Eastern District of Virginia is expected to last at least a week. 

The government says it will call witnesses from the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, where Mallory had also been employed.
Jury members on Wednesday briefly saw the documents Mallory transmitted over a modified Samsung cellphone that Gellie said contained discussion of human source information.
Mallory's attorney, Geremy C. Kamens, said one document was so "generic" that it had no use, and called two pages of handwritten notes that accompanied it "essentially gibberish."
Two CIA employees testified Wednesday -- one under a pseudonym and behind a folding wall so as to remain anonymous -- about a series of phone calls and text messages they'd received from Mallory asking them to put him in contact with officials in the agency's East Asia division before and after his meetings in Shanghai.
Mallory had stopped working as a CIA case officer in 1996 and left an intelligence position at the DIA in 2010, but had known one of the men through his church, and the other through consulting work Mallory had done at the CIA from 2010 to 2012, according to court documents and testimony.
"He was practically begging to set up a meeting," Kamens said.
Days after he finally landed the May 2017 sit-down at CIA headquarters, Mallory took the Samsung phone to a follow-up meeting with the CIA investigator at a Virginia hotel, officials testified Wednesday. 

Two FBI special agents were also there to interview Mallory and review the contents of the phone.
On June 22, 2017, Mallory was charged with delivering defense information to aid a foreign government and making false statements, and has pleaded not guilty.
His arrest is one in a string of high-profile Chinese espionage cases in the past two years that Peter Mattis, a former intelligence official and China expert, says is on trend with a recent generational shift in the Chinese intelligence apparatus.
"In terms of coming after and trying to get sources in the US intelligence community, [the Chinese] have become more aggressive and they've got better tradecraft and they're putting more money into it," Mattis said.
Former State Department employee Candace Marie Claiborne is fighting charges in the District of Columbia that she lied to the FBI about her failure to report thousands of dollars' worth of gifts she allegedly received from two Chinese intelligence agents. 

Claiborne has pleaded not guilty.
Earlier this month, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a former CIA case officer believed to have helped China identify and kill members of the US spy network in the country, pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage.
"As far as we can tell from public reporting Kevin Mallory [was paid] $25,000 for a handful of documents," Mattis said. 

"That's a fairly hefty chunk of money for a relatively small amount of information."

US rebrands Pacific command amid tensions with China

By Ryan Browne

The US announced Wednesday that it would rebrand the command responsible for overseeing US military operations in Asia, a move that comes amid heightened tensions with China over the militarization of the South China Sea.
US Pacific Command will now be called US Indo-Pacific Command, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said while speaking at a change of command ceremony in Hawaii, where the command's headquarters is located.
"In recognition of the increasing connectivity of the Indian and Pacific Oceans today we rename the US Pacific Command to US Indo-Pacific Command," Mattis said.
"It is our primary combatant command, it's standing watch and intimately engaged with over half of the earth's surface and its diverse populations, from Hollywood, to Bollywood, from polar bears to penguins," Mattis said of the command.
Adm. Harry Harris, who oversaw US military operations in the region until Wednesday, has been tapped by President Donald Trump to serve as the US ambassador to South Korea. 

Adm. Phillip Davidson will now lead the Indo-Pacific Command, which oversees some 375,000 US military and civilian personnel.
US officials say the name change is meant to better reflect the command's areas of responsibility, which includes 36 nations as well as both the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
The US has increased cooperation with India in a range of areas, including defense cooperation, and both Washington and New Delhi have voiced concerns about what they see as an increased assertiveness by China's military.
The rebranding comes in the wake of a series of actions by both the Chinese and US militaries that have raised tensions in the South China Sea. 

The US and the majority of the international community reject Beijing's claims of ownership of the area.
In recent months US officials have said that the Chinese military has deployed anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missile systems, and electronic jammers to contested features in the Spratly Islands region of the South China Sea.
China also recently landed a nuclear-capable H-6K bomber aircraft on Woody Island for the first time.
Those actions led the US to disinvite China from participating in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Exercise, which the US Navy calls "the world's largest international maritime exercise," and involves some 26 nations including India and countries like Vietnam and the Philippines which actively contest China's claims to the South China Sea.
"China's continued militarization of disputed features in the South China Sea only serve to raise tensions and destabilize the region. As an initial response to China's continued militarization of the South China Sea we have disinvited the PLA Navy from the 2018 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Exercise," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Logan told CNN last week.
"We have called on China to remove the military systems immediately and to reverse course on the militarization of disputed South China Sea features," he added.
The US Navy also sailed two warships Sunday past a handful of disputed islands in the South China Sea, including Woody Island where the Chinese bomber landed, a move that drew the immediate ire of Beijing.
Two US defense officials told CNN that the guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins and the cruiser USS Antietam sailed within 12 miles of four of the Paracel Islands in what the US Navy calls a "freedom of navigation operation," which are meant to enforce the right of free passage in international waters.
Two US officials said that during the freedom of navigation exercise a Chinese naval vessel shadowed the US warships, coming close enough to the US ships that the encounter was considered unprofessional but safe.
"It's international waters, and a lot of nations want to see freedom of navigation," Mattis told reporters Tuesday while en route to the change of command ceremony.

US admiral says China is Asia's biggest long-term threat

By Brad Lendon

The US admiral expected to become the country's next ambassador to South Korea says North Korea remains the most imminent threat to peace in the Pacific but China's "dream of hegemony" is Washington's biggest long-term challenge.
Adm. Harry Harris spoke Wednesday as he turned over the reins of the US Pacific Command to Adm. Phil Davidson at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in a ceremony that also announced the rebranding of US military assets in the region to the US Indo-Pacific Command.
Harris, who has been at the helm of the most expansive US military command for three years, hammered home points he's made repeatedly during his term.

Adm. Phil Davidson, left, relieves Adm. Harry Harris, right, as commander of US Indo-Pacific Command during a ceremony at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Wednesday.

"North Korea remains our most imminent threat and a nuclear-capable North Korea with missiles that can reach the United States is unacceptable," he said.
However he added, "China remains our biggest long-term challenge. Without focused involvement and engagement by the United States and our allies and partners China will realize its dream of hegemony in Asia."
It is unclear what role Harris will play in talks with North Korea leading up to a hoped-for summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12. 

Harris' nomination went to the Senate on May 18 ahead of his expected confirmation.
US rebrands Pacific command amid tensions with China

The admiral had been Trump's choice for to fill the vacant ambassador post in Australia, but that nomination was pulled hours before his confirmation hearing in April. 

Sources told CNN at the time that the move was the idea of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has been instrumental in laying the groundwork for a Trump-Kim summit.
While Harris has always been a hawk on North Korea during his term at Pacific Command, he has also issued warnings on China as Beijing has pursued a more muscular military posture in the Pacific and established a military presence on man-made islands in areas the US and its allies contend are international waters.
Harris was still in charge of Pacific Command last week when it pulled an invitation for China to participate in the 2018 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) military exercise, the world's largest international maritime warfare exercise.
US officials said that decision was made after Beijing's recent deployment of missile systems and the first landing of a Chinese bomber on an island in the South China Sea.

US plans 'steady drumbeat' of exercises in South China Sea, Mattis says

Standing alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a news conference in Washington on May 23, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called the US decision "unhelpful."
In Hawaii Wednesday, Mattis said, "we should cooperate with Beijing where we can but stand ready to confront them where we must."
The admiral and future ambassador also warned his successors to keep an eye on Moscow, saying Russia is trying to act as "the spoiler" in the Indo-Pacific.
"A geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific," Harris said.
"Great power competition is back and I believe we're approaching an inflection point in history.... Freedom and justice hang in the balance."

Against China's unfair policies, Trump's mistake is not going far enough

BY MORGAN WRIGHT

Trump and his Chinese "friend"

What can Michael Corleone in “The Godfather: Part II” teach us about the way Trump is handling China and ZTE?
“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”
I’ve written before on the threat from Chinese firms. 

Earlier this month, I laid out the case for why ZTE deserved the economic death penalty. 

Last month, I opined on the need for a people warfare strategy against China and how it bullies U.S. firms that want to do business in China.
One remedy I called for was reciprocity: Let’s make Chinese firms doing business in the United States follow the same rules that China imposes on us.
“If you want to invest in China, produce in China, sell in China, you will need a Chinese partner that will share ownership of your company. You will need to contribute technology, patents, licenses to that joint venture, which you will share. And you will do R&D together in which the Chinese company will gain a stake.”
That was the statement of Scott Kennedy with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

He called China’s approach “coerced pressure.”
It has never been a fair fight. 

I’m still against letting ZTE off the hook, but I’m not the president. 

You take the world as you find it, not as you wish it was. 

There are a lot of economic factors playing into the decision to lift the sanctions against ZTE. Congress is set to oppose the president.
Before taking a knee-jerk response, let’s see what the deal might actually get for the United States. It’s less about the money (a proposed $1.3 billion fine which Congress will waste in the first 30 seconds), and more about the access and oversight of a major national security threat to our nation.
In October 2012, the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released the “Investigative Report on the U.S. National Security Issues Posed by Chinese Telecommunications Companies Huawei and ZTE.” 

It seems this provided the model for Trump to use in corralling ZTE and its renegade behavior.
Five recommendations were made:

“Recommendation 1: The United States should view with suspicion the continued penetration of the U.S. telecommunications market by Chinese telecommunications companies.”
This was evident when the Pentagon finally announced a ban on the sale of Huawei and ZTE mobile phones on U.S. military bases. 

The cascading effect of this will be extremely difficult for ZTE to overcome with the American consumer.

“Recommendation 2: Private-sector entities in the United States are strongly encouraged to consider the long-term security risks associated with doing business with either ZTE or Huawei for equipment or services. U.S. network providers and systems developers are strongly encouraged to seek other vendors for their projects. Based on available classified and unclassified information, Huawei and ZTE cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence and thus pose a security threat to the United States and to our systems.”

Mission accomplished. 

In 2008, the Treasury Department, through its Committee on Foreign Investment, blocked the sale of 3com, an American company that makes anti-hacking computer software for the military, to Huawei on national security grounds.
In 2010, Sprint said security was the official reason it would not consider bids from Huawei and ZTE for the $7 billion upgrade of its network. 

Even though the report was issued in 2012, the issues from the blocked 2008 3com sale were well known.
In 2011, the U.S. Commerce Department announced Huawei "Will not be taking part in the building of America's interoperable wireless emergency network for first responders due to U.S. government national security concerns."

“Recommendation 3: Committees of jurisdiction within the U.S. Congress and enforcement agencies within the Executive Branch should investigate the unfair trade practices of the Chinese telecommunications sector, paying particular attention to China’s continued financial support for key companies.”
This is an ongoing effort. 

In April of this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Huawei is also under investigation by the Justice Department for violating export sanctions to — you guessed it — Iran. 

This is another opportunity to reign in China’s telecommunications unfair trade practices.

“Recommendation 4: Chinese companies should quickly become more open and transparent, including listing on a western stock exchange with advanced transparency requirements, offering more consistent review by independent third-party evaluators of their financial information and cyber-security processes, complying with U.S. legal standards of information and evidentiary production, and obeying all intellectual-property laws and standards. Huawei, in particular, must become more transparent and responsive to U.S. legal obligations.”
Trump has proposed replacing ZTE’s current management team, and hiring American compliance officers. 

While not enough, it is closer to this recommendation than anything that has been accomplished before. 

ZTE should be made to list on one of the U.S. stock exchanges and feel the weight of American bureaucracy. 

That’ll teach them.

"Recommendation 5: Committees of jurisdiction in the U.S. Congress should consider potential legislation to better address the risk posed by telecommunications companies with nation-state ties or otherwise not clearly trusted to build critical infrastructure. Such legislation could include increasing information sharing among private sector entities, and an expanded role for the (CFIUS) process to include purchasing agreements."
Mission accomplished again. 

In November 2017, before ZTE was slapped with sanctions, legislation was introduced by a bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers. 

These identical bills would “broaden the authority of the (CFIUS), an interagency committee that reviews foreign investments in U.S. companies, to determine whether such investments pose a risk to national security. The proposed bill, called the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (“FIRRMA”), would broaden CFIUS’s jurisdiction to include review of certain joint ventures and minority investments, and represents the most significant effort to revise the CFIUS process since the passage of the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007.”

The mistake Trump made was in not going far enough. 

Require the same level of ownership in Chinese companies doing business in the U.S. as China dictates to American businesses. 

Make Huawei and ZTE register to be on the U.S. stock exchange. 

Let the SEC and IRS bring their regulatory magnifying glasses.
Let’s take the art of the deal and turn it into an offer China can’t refuse. 

That would make Don Corleone smile.

Sina Delenda Est

US will continue to confront China over disputed islands, Mattis says
By Lukas Mikelionis

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis lands in Kabul on March 13, 2018 on an unannounced trip to Afghanistan. 

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday that the U.S. will continue to confront China’s increasing militarization of islands in the South China Sea -- despite the U.S. angering Beijing over the weekend by sending two Navy ships to the region.
Mattis rebuked China and said the country hasn’t abided by its promise to stop militarization of the Spratly Islands, a disputed territory whose ownership is contested by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Mattis said U.S. ships are maintaining a "steady drumbeat" of naval operations and will confront “what we believe is out of step with international law."
“You’ll notice there is only one country that seems to take active steps to rebuff them or state their resentment [to] them, but it’s international waters and a lot of nations want to see freedom of navigation,” Mattis told reporters while enroute to Hawaii.

His comments came after the two U.S. warships sailed close to the Paracel Islands, north of the Spratlys, promoting an angry response from China, which claims to have sent ships and aircraft to counter the U.S. Navy’s presence in the area.
The U.S. operation on Sunday was planned in advance, but similar military exercises have become routine amid China’s increasing militarization of the islands.
Officials at the Pentagon have long criticized China’s actions in the disputed islands, claiming the Chinese government has not been open about its military build-up and has been using the islands to gather intelligence, Reuters reported.

China deployed truck-mounted surface-to-air missiles or anti-ship cruise missiles at Woody Island, according to recent satellite photos. 

Earlier this month, China also landed bombers in the islands.
“When they (Chinese) do things that are opaque to the rest of us, then we cannot cooperate in areas that we would otherwise cooperate in,” Mattis told reporters, adding that American diplomats were working on the issue and heard concerns about Chinese actions not just from the U.S. government but other regional allies as well.
He is expected to raise the issue with Chinese officials during a security forum in Singapore later this week.

Trade War

White House Moves Ahead With Tough Trade Measures on China

By Ana Swanson

Wilbur Ross, left, the United States commerce secretary, and Li Keqiang in Beijing last year. Mr. Ross is expected to return to Beijing on June 2 to continue trade talks.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said on Tuesday that it would proceed with plans to impose a series of punitive trade-related measures on China in the next month, intensifying pressure on Beijing as trade talks between the countries continue.
The White House said in a statement that the United States would move ahead with its plan to levy 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion of imported Chinese goods, despite recent remarks by Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, and other administration officials that the tariffs would be suspended while the countries continued their negotiations.
The administration had previously announced a list of goods that would be subject to tariffs, including flat-screen TVs and medical devices. 

It then held a series of hearings on the tariffs, giving the public a chance to influence the final list. 

The White House said it would detail the final list of goods that will be subject to the tariffs by June 15, and the duties would be imposed shortly after that, the statement said.
The White House said the Trump administration would also move forward with restrictions on Chinese investment and with stronger export controls meant to limit the access that Chinese people and companies have to American technology — a measure the administration said was for national security purposes.
Those restrictions will be announced by June 30 and adopted soon after that, the administration said, adding that the United States would also continue to pursue a trade case it has filed against China at the World Trade Organization involving intellectual property rights.
Trade talks between the two countries will continue, the statement said, and the United States has asked Beijing to remove “all of its many trade barriers” that prevent American companies from doing business in China, and has also said that “tariffs and taxes between the two countries be reciprocal in nature and value.”
The White House has planned to send Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, to China on June 2 to continue the trade negotiations. 

The last round of talks concluded on May 19 with the countries announcing little progress toward resolving a long list of complaints the American negotiators had previously identified. 

President Trump subsequently said he was not satisfied with the negotiations, and that they had a “long way to go.”
Mr. Trump has often talked about challenging what he has described as China’s unfair trade practices, but his advisers are deeply divided over the best course for doing so. 

Some, like Mnuchin, have focused on a potential compromise deal that would require China to buy huge amounts of American products while still forestalling the possibility of a trade war.
Other advisers have pushed for tougher action, demanding that China make substantial reforms to its economy to end the subsidies it provides to developing industries and to allow American companies equal access in the Chinese market. 

Those requests in particular have provoked a backlash from China, which has threatened its own potential set of tariffs on $50 billion in American goods.
On Friday, Mr. Trump said he had reached a deal that would allow the embattled Chinese telecom firm ZTE to remain in business, raising criticism and fears from Congress that he was backing off from his tougher promises on trade.
ZTE has been hit with tough sanctions by the United States, and its fate had become a bargaining chip in negotiations, with Xi Jinping appealing directly to Trump for help.

Why a new office building in Taiwan is heightening U.S.-China tensions

By Richard C. Bush

On the morning of June 12, Taipei time, there will be a ceremony to mark the opening of a new office building in Taiwan’s capital city. 

But it is not just any office building. 

It is the new building of the American Institute in Taiwan. 

With the opening looming, there has been much speculation whether the Trump administration would send of senior official to Taiwan to mark the occasion. 

That idea has also evoked strong opposition from China.
The AIT opening—and even the name American Institute in Taiwan—is entwined in the “one-China policy” of the United States. 

When the Carter administration established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China in 1979, it agreed to terminate diplomatic relations with the government on Taiwan, known as the Republic of China, and to conduct relations with Taiwan on an unofficial basis. Congress created AIT to conduct those unofficial relations. 

Taiwan has its counterpart mechanism in Washington, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office.
Despite the circumlocutions, it’s no secret that AIT’s Taipei Office works for the U.S. government. 

Its personnel are U.S. government officers who temporarily separate from their various agencies (State, Defense, Commerce, etc.) to work in Taiwan. 

In their interactions with Taiwan government agencies, AIT personnel promote U.S. interests and carry out an array of U.S. programs.
Since AIT opened in 1979, the men and women of AIT have worked out of a facility in Taipei that was built in 1950 and used to be the office of the Military Assistance Advisory Group. 

They have long deserved a new building, and now they are getting it. 

For Taiwan, moreover, this new, not inexpensive building signifies a strong and enduring American commitment to the island and its people.
China is not happy with the scope and scale of the U.S. relationship with Taiwan, particularly in the security field. 

If it had its way, it would probably prefer that Washington have a simple trade office in Taipei, as other countries have. 

But one of the interests on which AIT officers labor is maintaining peace and security in the Taiwan Strait, which should be in China’s interest as well.
Beijing also objects to U.S. actions that suggest that its relationship with Taiwan is actually official. So when reports surfaced that the Trump administration might send a Cabinet-level official to Taiwan for the AIT opening, China undertook a campaign to stop that idea in its tracks, claiming that such an action would violate the “one-China principle.”
It happens that successive administrations have interpreted the U.S. one-China policy much more flexibly than the strict fashion in which China defines its one-China principle. 

As long ago as 1992, the George H. W. Bush administration sent Secretary of Commerce Barbara Franklin to visit Taiwan, and later administrations sent people at that level.
Naturally, the Taiwan government and public would appreciate the affirmation that Cabinet-level attendance would represent. 

Just as naturally, the government and the public would be disappointed if a Cabinet-level head does not attend.
China chose the path of confrontation when conciliation was possible.
Yet it is important to view the administration’s decision on this specific issue in light of the poor state of Taiwan-China relations. 

China does not like Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s democratically elected president, because it fears that her Democratic Progressive Party will lead Taiwan down the road of legal independence, thus foreclosing its goal of unifying Taiwan. 

Actually, China’s fears of independence are unfounded. 

President Tsai has repeatedly said that she will maintain the status quo between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. 

Beijing still chose contention over coexistence, and has taken a number of steps to punish Taiwan for electing President Tsai: stealing away the countries with which Taiwan has diplomatic relations, restricting its role in the international community, conducting military exercises near Taiwan, and so on.
To repeat: China chose the path of confrontation when conciliation was possible. 

Going back to the 1950s, U.S. administrations have stressed that the peaceful resolution of differences between China and Taiwan is an “abiding interest” of the United States. 

The Trump administration has reaffirmed that position and made clear that it is China that is currently engaged in destabilizing behavior. 

It should therefore seize opportunities to signal its opposition to China’s punitive tactics. 

Sending a senior U.S. official is one of those opportunities.

Australia's Chinese Fifth Column

Beijing Bob enlists Labor in new China influence row
By Nick McKenzie & Nick O'Malley

Chinese agent Bob Carr, aka Beijing Bob

Former Labor Foreign Minister Bob Carr, aka Beijing Bob, is using ALP senator Kristina Keneally to quiz the prime minister and senior officials about Malcolm Turnbull’s key former adviser on Beijing’s espionage and interference operations in Australia.
Fairfax Media has confirmed that Carr, who heads a think tank created by a Chinese businessman closely connected to Beijing, has asked Senator Keneally to use parliament to find out details of the employment, job title, and contract of government adviser John Garnaut.
Mr Garnaut is a China expert and former Fairfax Media China correspondent who was tasked by the prime minister in August 2016 to conduct a highly classified inquiry with ASIO into Beijing’s clandestine activities in Australia.

China's fifth column: Beijing Bob (L) and Huang Xiangmo (R)

The inquiry, which has never been released, is understood to have examined the activities of Huang Xiangmo, the same Chinese businessman who created Carr’s Australian China Relations Institute, and who separately headed a Sydney lobbying organisation aligned with the Chinese Communist Party.
Carr first suggested in a phone call to Senator Keneally and her office on the evening of February 27 that she use the parliament to ask questions about Mr Garnaut, according to sources familiar with the matter. 

He subsequently asked Ms Keneally on at least one other occasion to use parliament to scrutinise Mr Garnaut’s work.

ASIO chief Duncan Lewis sounds fresh alarm over Chinese interference threat

Carr’s role in pushing for questions to be asked was only disclosed to many in the ALP after Senator Kimberly Kitching quizzed senior bureaucrats on May 22 about Mr Garnaut, relying on questions scripted by Labor staffers.
Labor sources said that Senator Kitching, who could not be reached for comment, was later told by Senator Keneally that Carr had requested the questions be asked.
Two Labor sources who spoke to Senator Kitching said she was “furious”. 

She also revealed to ALP colleagues that Senator Keneally had told her that Carr “will owe you a favour” for having asked the questions.
Carr and Ms Keneally told Fairfax Media that the questions about Mr Garnaut were not written by Carr, with Ms Keneally stating that it was "legitimate to ask questions on notice or in estimates about staffing and contractual arrangements to determine who is providing advice to government". 

Carr said he had never met Senator Kitching.
After he was quizzed by Fairfax Media, Beijing Bob released a statement describing Mr Garnaut as one of ''the leaders of the recent anti-China panic in the Australian media" who should not be "carrying on the campaign" while on the Prime Minister's payroll.
Senator Keneally also placed questions on notice to Mr Turnbull on May 18 that mirror those suggested by Carr and later asked by Senator Kitching.
Ms Keneally has asked in what “capacity” Mr Garnaut worked for the government between September 2015 and June 2017.
“What was his job title, to whom did he report, and what were the dates of his employment,” Ms Keneally asked in her question on notice.
Fairfax Media has confirmed that between August 2016 and September 2017, Mr Garnaut was responsible for what is known in national security circles as the Garnaut-ASIO inquiry.
The inquiry probed efforts by Beijing to influence Australian political parties, academia and the media. 

It is understood to have examined the activities of, among others, Huang Xiangmo, the former financial backer of Carr’s think tank, a Chinese billionaire and big political donor.
Huang previously provided generous funding to the Carr-led ACRI and has boasted about hiring Carr to head the pro-China think tank.
Huang’s relationship with NSW senator Sam Dastyari led to Dastyari’s resignation from parliament in December 2017, paving the way for Senator Keneally to take his spot.
The revelations about Carr come with Labor divided over whether to support reforms proposed by Mr Turnbull to counter what ASIO has described as "unprecedented" levels of Chinese interference in Australia. 

Mr Garnaut helped shape the reforms.

Former Turnbull policy adviser John Garnaut.

Mr Garnaut's involvement in a classified inquiry has been well known in Canberra for 12 months, although the findings of the inquiry have never been released.
In March, Fairfax Media reported Mr Garnaut delivered incendiary testimony about clandestine Chinese government interference operations in Australia before a US Congress national security committee in Washington DC.
Mr Garnaut was described in this story as “Mr Turnbull’s China specialist in 2016 before shifting to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to work on China-related policy."
The story also stated that Mr Garnaut was "a private consultant... assisting western government agencies, including in the US, to deal with influence operations.”
While denying he had any role in pushing Ms Keneally to ask questions about Mr Garnaut, Beijing Bob said on Monday night it was reasonable to scrutinise Mr Garnaut. 

In response to the questions asked by Ms Kitching, the department of prime minister and cabinet said that he was currently contracted as a specialist speechwriter.
Beijing Bob said in his statement of Mr Garnaut: “Fuelling a campaign against a friendly foreign country is incompatible with an advisory and speech writing role on the Prime Minister’s staff.
"When the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister give the impression of reining in rhetoric on China, the revelation that Mr Garnaut has been on the Prime Minister’s payroll is decidedly unhelpful.”
Last week, the foreign interference laws were back at the centre of political debate after an explosive speech in federal parliament by Liberal MP Andrew Hastie and which explored allegations Beijing was interfering in Australian politics.

China's Sons and Daughters program

Ivanka Trump has scored a batch of new trademarks in China as her father continues trade talks with Beijing.

By Julia Horowitz

Seven trademarks were officially registered to Ivanka Trump this month with China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce, according to the government's trademark database. 

They are for items such as kitchenware, furniture, paper products and cosmetics.
The approvals come as Donald Trump remains engaged in trade negotiations with China on a wide range of issues.
Ethics experts say this raises conflict-of-interest concerns, since Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, both serve as senior advisers in the White House.
"They come at a time when her father and his administration, in which she and her husband work, are making enormously consequential decisions with and about China," said Norm Eisen, the former ethics chief for President Barack Obama and a CNN contributor.
"The conflict comes because we do not know if the Trump administration is making these official decisions [on China] to benefit the US, or to get more trademarks and other benefits for the Trump family," he added.
Eisen is an attorney in lawsuits against Trump that allege that the president's acceptance of payments and other benefits from foreign governments is in violation of the Constitution.
Abigail Klem, president of the Ivanka Trump brand, said in a statement that the fashion line regularly files for trademarks, especially in areas where trademark infringement is common.
"The brand has filed, updated, and rigorously protected its international trademarks over the past several years in the normal course of business, especially in regions where trademark infringement is rampant," she said. 

"We have recently seen a surge in trademark filings by unrelated third parties trying to capitalize on the name and it is our responsibility to diligently protect our trademark."
The company's recent actions were protective in nature, intended to guard against people unrelated to Ivanka Trump who want to capitalize on her name, and not necessarily because the brand intends to sell those products, a company spokesperson said.
Since her father's election, Ivanka Trump has stepped away from the management of her business, though she still retains an ownership stake. 

She isn't legally required to sell all her assets in order to work in the White House, though she is subject to rules for federal employees that prohibit her from participating in matters in which she has a financial interest.
The trademarks received preliminary approval in February 2018, and economic tensions between the US and China did not begin in earnest until March. 

Trademarks typically take about three months in China to move from preliminary approval to final approval.
The green-light comes at a time when the stakes between the two nations are incredibly high.
China and the United States recently committed to put on hold threats of tariffs that would have amounted to tens of billions of dollars. 

The countries said China would "significantly increase" purchases of US goods and services to reduce their trade imbalance, a top Trump administration demand.
But the situation remains in flux. China has not put a dollar amount on its commitment to boost purchases, and hasn't made any material concessions on intellectual property theft. 

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is scheduled to go to China on June 2 through June 4 to continue discussions, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Trump is also still working out what to do about ZTE, the Chinese phone and telecom equipment maker that was crippled by a US export ban issued last month, in punishment for violations of its sanctions against North Korea and Iran.
Easing penalties on ZTE is a priority for Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, and the Commerce Department briefed members of Congress on Friday about a tentative deal. 

But blowback from senators from both parties has been severe, eliciting questions about whether Trump will move forward with his reprieve.
Ivanka Trump's Chinese trademarks aren't the only Trump family business project to raise eyebrows amid negotiations with Beijing.
Earlier this month, a state-owned Chinese construction company formalized plans to develop a theme park in Lido, Indonesia — part of a broader project for which the Trump Organization has existing licensing agreements.
The move led ethics experts to voice concerns about the potential for quid pro quo dealings between Trump and China. 

The president isn't in charge of the Trump Organization anymore, but he has not sold his ownership stake in the company.

Chinese Students Protest in America, Face Danger at Home

One mainlander’s story of resistance and risk.

BY QIU ZHONGSUN

I took one final look at the posters I had just taped to the bulletin board in a student lounge at the University of California, San Diego. 

Superimposed over the face of Xi Jinping were three simple words in red: Not My President. 

My own face had been concealed under a hoodie as I put the pictures up — and I’d waited, along with a friend, until late at night to make sure no one saw us.
I had to take these measures to protect my identity because for mainland Chinese like myself, the oppression we face at home follows us abroad. 

The Chinese Communist Party has learned how to project its regime of surveillance and coercion deep inside the borders of liberal democracies. 

Initiating a campaign of political resistance, even in a Western country, meant risking my safety and that of my family back in China.
Just a few days earlier, on Feb. 25, the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp legislative body, had announced a proposal to remove constitutional term limits on the presidency, which since the 1980s had been limited to two five-year terms. 

Chinese presidents aren’t elected, but the selection process, ever since reformer Deng Xiaoping, had been a matter of consensus among the top echelons of the party, deliberately limiting the strength of any one individual. 

After the proposal inevitably passed, it would smooth the course for Xi, chosen for the critical roles of both party chairman and president in 2012, to become president for life instead of quitting in 2022.
News of the proposal swept China’s social media, and posts expressing frustration, shock, and helplessness flooded online platforms — but only for a few short hours. 

Then, all the discussion was deleted as the myriad censors who now police the Chinese internet kicked into high gear.
That was when I and two of my friends finally decided to act. 

As mainland Chinese studying and living in Western countries, we’ve been watching with dismay from afar as Xi has cracked down on human rights activists, nullified Hong Kong’s democratic promises, and revived a personality cult that reminds some Chinese of what China experienced under former leader Mao Zedong. 

Xi’s power grab was the last straw. 

We were raised to embrace the Communist Party, but now we felt it was time for those of us who live overseas to speak up for those silenced at home.
So we decided to start a Twitter campaign called #NotMyPresident and encourage like-minded Chinese students at universities around the world to print out our posters and put them up on their campuses. 

Within a month, Chinese students at more than 30 schools around the world had joined us, including at Cornell University, London School of Economics, University of Sydney, and the University of Hong Kong, expressing their disapproval for a Chinese president for life. 

After Foreign Policy’s initial coverage, Western media outlets such as the New York Times and the BBC featured our campaign.
But we had to be extremely cautious in making our voices heard. 

Putting up posters is a common political activity on college campuses in democratic countries. 

But for Chinese studying at these same campuses, it is dangerous to publicly express opinions that go against the party line. 

We know that our career prospects back in China are likely to suffer if we are publicly known to have criticized the party; it will be more difficult for us to make connections, snag interviews, and receive job offers and promotions. 

Chinese authorities have also been known to harass the families of outspoken Chinese students abroad, to interrogate Chinese returnees, or, in extreme cases, even kidnap Chinese abroad
Cand force them back to China.
So we planned carefully and took steps to protect our identities. 

The first challenge was to set up secure communication among the organizers. 

We avoided discussing anything regarding the campaign on WeChat, the most popular instant messaging application in the Chinese-speaking world, because it is rigorously monitored by the Chinese government. 

That means that Chinese security officials may read WeChat messages sent between people who aren’t even in China.
But even with encrypted messaging applications backed by Facebook and other Western technology companies, we still used burner phones to sign up as we were afraid that eventually companies behind the service would hand over the control of the user data to Chinese authorities — just as Apple did in February, when it agreed to house all Chinese users’ data locally.
The consequences if our identities got out could be dire. 

Organizing a campaign that questions the fundamental legitimacy of China’s top leader is a punishable crime in China. 

Citing the designated charge of “inciting subversion of state power,” Chinese authorities can arrest and prosecute citizens who dare to disagree without due process — and that would include us, although the protest took place thousands of miles away from home.
As we publicized the campaign, we encouraged potential participants to put up the posters under cover of darkness and to wear masks in order to protect their own identities as well. 

We have learned from previous incidents that the Chinese community abroad is unlikely to support dissident speech — and that Chinese student groups effectively serve as watchdogs for the "motherland" on foreign campuses. 

Many Chinese students remember the Shuping Yang incident in May 2017. 

An undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, Yang criticized environmental problems in China and praised democratic values during her commencement speech. 

Her speech was recorded, put online, and went viral in China. 

Chinese state media labeled her speech as “anti-China,” and angry netizens dug up her parents’ address and posted it online. 

Throughout the incident, the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) at the university did not provide any support to Yang. 

Rather, the CSSA denounced her speech as “intolerable” and questioned her real motives. 

Yang eventually posted an apology on Chinese social media. 

In 2008, a Duke University student named Grace Wang attempted to mediate between pro-Tibet and pro-Beijing student protesters and was subsequently attacked on the Chinese-language internet; she received violent threats, and her parents back in China went into hiding.
As more and more schools joined the campaign, our Twitter account started to garner attention — both wanted and unwanted. 

On the one hand, we tried to discourage students in mainland China from participating. 

With the help of deep learning and artificial intelligence, the government has put into place sweeping public surveillance technology.
We also faced a barrage of phishing attempts. 

Every day, we received dubious password reset requests in the inboxes of each campaign-related account: Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, even the Dropbox account we used to host our posters for download. 

Some of these were from unknown parties, claiming that our Twitter account was blocked and inviting us to click on the “unlock” button. 

Other, more subtle attempts would appear as emails from potential campaign participants — but instead of sending a picture of the posters they put up on campus, as we requested from all our participants, a suspicious link was included.
Despite the risks that every participant faced, the support we received greatly exceeded our expectation. 

One participant at the University of California, Irvine sent a moving message: “I struggled for a while about whether to put those posters up because I was worried that I might get caught by someone who disagrees with my action. Yet, Martin Luther King Jr. once said, ‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.’ So I decided to take the risks because what Xi did is absolutely wrong, and people are being silent for too long. I hope this can make a difference and pray that things will get better.”
When we put up posters at UC San Diego on that cold early spring night, we hoped it would be a small rebellion, a personal farewell to the ideology of party supremacy we were raised to believe. 

It turns out we are not alone.

Chinese Subversion

A secret government report uncovered China's attempts to influence all levels of politics in Australia
By Tara Francis Chan
Australia's red menace

A secret report commissioned by Australia's prime minister found attempts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to influence all levels of government.
The report found the CCP's interference attempts have been going on for a decade, and described China as the country that is most concerning to Australia.
The inquiry was led by a former government adviser who spoke to the US Armed Services Committee about China's growing political interference earlier this year.
A classified government report uncovered attempts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to influence all levels of politics in Australia.
The report was commissioned by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2016, and used the resources of both the prime minister's office and the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO).
According to the Australian news outlet 9News, and later confirmed by Fairfax Media, the yearlong inquiry found the CCP has tried to influence policy and gain access to all levels of government for a decade. 

The report also described China as the most concerning country to Australia.
It was the work of this inquiry, which also looked into China's influence attempts on the media and academia, that led Turnbull to propose new laws targeting espionage, foreign political donations and foreign interference in December 2017.
At the time of the announcement, Turnbull confirmed the existence of the report, but did not indicate its findings.
"When I initiated a report into this in August last year, through my department, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) had made significant investigative breakthroughs and delivered a series of very grave warnings," said Turnbull. 

"But our agencies lacked the legislative tools they needed to act. And it's fair to say that our system as a whole had not grasped the nature and the magnitude of the threat.'
He added: "The findings of the report are necessarily classified. But I can say the reasons for initiating this work were justified and the outcomes have galvanized us to take action."
It has now been revealed that the inquiry, which also reportedly looked into political donors linked to China, was headed by John Garnaut, a former senior adviser to Turnbull and a former China news correspondent.
In March, Garnaut spoke to the US House Armed Services Committee about China's interference operations within Australia, describing the CCP as "very good at it" particularly compared to Russia.
"Unlike Russia, which seems to be as much for a good time rather than a long time, the Chinese are strategic, patient, and they set down foundations of organizations and very consistent narratives over a long period of time," Garnaut told the committee.
"They put an enormous amount of effort into making sure we don't talk about what it's doing," he said, adding that countries have "failed to recognize a lot of the activity that has been going on."
Garnaut's comments were echoed last week by the head of ASIO, though he did not explicitly mention China.
"Foreign actors covertly attempt to influence and shape the views of members of the Australian public, the Australian media and officials in the Australian government, as well as members of the diaspora communities here in Australia," Duncan Lewis told an Australian Senate estimates hearing. "Clandestine interference is designed to advance the objectives of the foreign actor to the detriment of Australia and to our national interests."
Relations have become strained between China and Australia ever since Turnbull proposed the new legislation last year.

Rogue President

China Just Bribed Trump to Undermine National Security
By Paul Krugman

Trump announced this week that he was working with XiJinping to help save ZTE.

Did the president of the United States just betray the nation’s security in return for a bribe from the Chinese government?
Don’t say that this suggestion is ridiculous: Given everything we know about Donald Trump, it’s well within the bounds of possibility, even plausibility.
Don’t say there’s no proof: We’re not talking about a court of law, where the accused are presumed innocent until proved guilty. 

Where the behavior of high officials is concerned, the standard is very nearly the opposite: They’re supposed to avoid situations in which there is even a hint that their actions might be motivated by personal gain.
Oh, and don’t say that it doesn’t matter one way or the other, because the Republicans who control Congress won’t do anything about it. 

That in itself is a key part of the story: An entire political party — a party that has historically wrapped itself in the flag and questioned the patriotism of its opponents — has become entirely complaisant in the possibility of raw corruption, even if it involves payoffs from hostile foreign powers.
The story so far: In the past few years ZTE, a Chinese electronics company that, among other things, makes cheap smartphones, has gotten into repeated trouble with the U.S. government. 

Many of its products contain U.S. technology — technology that, by law, must not be exported to embargoed nations, including North Korea and Iran. 

But ZTE was circumventing the ban.
Initially, the company was fined $1.2 billion. 

Then, when it became clear that the company had rewarded rather than punished the executives involved, the Commerce Department forbade U.S. technology companies from selling components to ZTE for the next seven years.
And two weeks ago the Pentagon banned sales of ZTE phones on military bases, following warnings from intelligence agencies that the Chinese government may be using the company’s products to conduct espionage.
All of which made it very strange indeed to see Trump suddenly declare that he was working with Xi Jinping of China to help save ZTE — “Too many jobs in China lost” — and that he was ordering the Commerce Department to make it happen.
It’s possible that Trump was just trying to offer an olive branch amid what looks like a possible trade war. 

But why choose such a flagrant example of Chinese misbehavior? 

Which was why many eyes turned to Indonesia, where a Chinese state-owned company just announced a big investmentin a project in which the Trump Organization has a substantial stake.
That investment, by the way, is part of the Belt and Road project, a multinational infrastructure initiative China is using to reinforce its economic centrality — and geopolitical influence — across Eurasia. 

Meanwhile, whatever happened to that Trump infrastructure plan?
Back to ZTE: Was there a quid pro quo? 

We may never know. 

But this wasn’t the first time the Trump administration made a peculiar foreign policy move that seems associated with Trump family business interests.

Last year the administration, bizarrely, backed a Saudi blockade of Qatar, a Middle Eastern nation that also happens to be the site of a major U.S. military base. 

Why? 

Well, the move came shortly after the Qataris refused to invest $500 million in 666 Fifth Avenue, a troubled property owned by the family of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.

Qatar may be about to make a deal on 666 Fifth Avenue, a troubled property owned by the family of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.

And now it looks as if Qatar may be about to make a deal on 666 Fifth Avenue after all. 

I wonder why?
Step back from the details and consider the general picture. 

High officials have the power to reward or punish both businesses and other governments, so that undue influence is always a problem, even if it takes the form of campaign contributions or indirect financial rewards via the revolving door.
But the problem becomes vastly worse if interested parties can simply funnel money to officials through their business holdings — and Trump and his family, by failing to divest from their international business dealings, have basically hung a sign out declaring themselves open to bribery (and also set the standard for the rest of the administration).
And the problem of undue influence is especially severe when it comes to authoritarian foreign governments. 

Democracies have ethical rules of their own: Justin Trudeau would be in big trouble if Canada were caught funneling money to the Trump Organization. 

Corporations can be shamed or sued. 

But if Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin make payoffs to U.S. politicians, who’s going to stop them?
The main answer is supposed to be congressional oversight, which used to mean something. 

If there had been even a whiff of foreign payoffs to, say, Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter, there would have been bipartisan demands for an investigation — and a high likelihood of impeachment.
But today’s Republicans have made it clear that they won’t hold Trump accountable for anything, even if it borders on treason.
All of which is to say that Trump’s corruption is only a symptom of a bigger problem: a G.O.P. that will do anything, even betray the nation, in its pursuit of partisan advantage.

French spy charged with treason fell for Chinese honeytrap

By David Chazan

French Defense Minister Florence Parly

Paris -- A former French intelligence agent facing treason charges was reportedly ensnared by a Chinese "honeytrap" when he began an affair with an interpreter in Beijing, it emerged on Sunday.
The retired spy, named as Henri M, 71, and another former operative, Pierre-Marie H, 66, are accused of passing "information detrimental to fundamental national interests" to a foreign power.
According to a report in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper, Henri M fell for a woman who worked as an interpreter for the French ambassador in Beijing after he was posted there in 1997 as station chief for France's DGSE foreign intelligence service. 

Security sources confirmed the report.
The interpreter, who has not been named, was reportedly suspected of being an informant. 

Pierre Morel, the ambassador, became concerned about the relationship and asked for Henri M to be recalled to France in 1998.
Henri M left the intelligence service and started a business importing Chinese furniture.

He returned to Beijing in 2003, where he married the former interpreter the following year. 

The couple moved to Hainan Island, which serves as China's nuclear submarine base, and Henri M opened a restaurant.
Many questions remain about why he and Pierre-Marie H were only arrested two decades after Henri M first came under suspicion. 

Franck Renaud, author of a 2010 book that alluded to the scandal, said: "Did the DGSE want to avoid a crisis and, at the same time, let Chinese intelligence believe that Henri M might be a double agent feeding them false information?"
Florence Parly, the French defence minister, confirmed the charges but declined to specify whether the foreign power involved was China.

Losing China-backed projects positive for Malaysia: report

By Edward White in Taipei

Prime minister Mahathir Mohamad

Malaysia’s threat to cancel a suite of Chinese-backed infrastructure projects could ultimately be positive for the south-east Asian country’s economy despite probably slowing the pace of headline growth, according to one economist.
 Malaysia’s new prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has promised to review all Chinese projects and renegotiate any “unequal treaties”.
This move has threatened to destroy the image of Malaysia as a key pillar of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative. 
 “If the projects are cancelled, investment growth would drop sharply, and GDP growth would likely slow. But cancelling the projects may actually be in Malaysia’s best interests,” said Alex Holmes, Asia economist for Capital Economics, in a research note on Monday. 
 Mr Holmes said that because the Malaysian economy was already growing at respectable year-on-year pace of 5.4 per cent in the first quarter, the additional investments from China “could have caused the economy to overheat, leading to a rise in inflation”. 
 The proposed Chinese investments, which included ports and rail projects, could also lead to the country being “saddled with bad debts”, weighing on an already-poor fiscal situation, he said. 
 And he added: “some of these projects are of dubious economic value. Malaysia already has good infrastructure, equivalent to what you’d expect in a developed economy, and much better than countries at a similar income level.”

New Zealand: Trojan Horse with Chinese Characteristics

New Zealand's Five Eyes membership called into question over China links
Both major political parties have links to China’s Communist party

By Eleanor Ainge Roy in Dunedin

China’s foreign minister Wang Yi shakes hands with New Zealand’s foreign minister Winston Peters in Beijing on 25 May.

The New Zealand government’s relationship with China has come under the spotlight after a former CIA analyst in the US said the nation’s participation in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance needs to be reconsidered.
Giving testimony to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission , Peter Mattis said Jacinda Ardern’s Labour party had accepted money from donors with links to the Chinese Communist party, while former prime minister Bill English had routinely briefed Jian Yang, a National MP who was revealed to have worked at an institution that trained Chinese spies.

“Australia and New Zealand both face substantial problems with interference by the Chinese Communist party,” Mattis told the hearing.

New Zealand's Chinese fifth column: case officer Jian Yang (L) and Bill English (R)

“In both cases, the CCP [Chinese Communist party] has gotten very close to or inside the political core, if you will, of both countries. The primary difference between the two has simply been their reaction.”
“In New Zealand, both the last prime minister, Bill English, and Jacinda Ardern have denied that there’s a problem at all,” he went on.
“I think that at some level the Five Eyes or the Four Eyes need to have a discussion about whether or not New Zealand can remain, given this problem with the political core.”
The Five Eyes is an intelligence network made up of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Nigel Haworth, the Labour party president, said he had no idea “what or to whom” the Mattis testimony was referring, and all political donations to Labour were above board and complied with the Electoral Act.
“All party donations over $15,000, including who they are from, are listed on the Electoral Commission website for anyone to inspect,” Haworth said.
The National leader, Simon Bridges, said it was “completely false” that former prime minister and National leader English routinely shared information.
China expert Prof Anne-Marie Brady from the University of Canterbury has frequently warned of growing Chinese influence in New Zealand, a message echoed by Hillary Clinton on a recent trip to the country, saying New Zealand needed to take the threat “seriously”.
“If a proud, independent democracy like New Zealand can’t deal with Chinese political interference activities, this is a really bad sign to the rest of the world of the way things are going,” said Brady, who has had her home and office burgled in thefts she has linked to her work on Chinese foreign influence.
“Other countries are worried about New Zealand, and the apparent silence on the issue from our government ... New Zealand is the canary in the coal mine, if we can’t deal with it, who can?”

China is taking digital control of its people to chilling lengths

The Chinese government’s unsettling new system will see citizens rated by ‘good deeds’
By John Naughton

Digital technology as social control: China’s social credit system aims to go further than paying for services via smartphone.

Watching Donald Trump trying to deal with China is like watching a clown dancing in front of an elephant. 

The US president’s entire approach is transactional – the methodology he employed in his allegedly successful career as a property developer. 

It’s all sticks and carrots, bluff and counter-bluff, aggressive bluster followed by rapid retreats. 

But then Xi Jinping leant on Trump to rescue the Chinese tech company ZTE, brought to its knees by a US ban because it had evaded sanctions on trade with Iran. 

Trump duly complied and ZTE executives breathed again.
And so it goes on. 

But behind these scenes a much bigger long‑term game is being played out. 

If it were a board game, it would be called Hegemony. (drat: a quick search reveals that there are already games on this theme.) 

Hegemony is an old concept, much beloved of Marxists, coined to describe the (military or cultural) predominance of one country or group over others. 

From the mid-1940s until 1990, the world was overshadowed by two hegemons – the US and the USSR. 

After the Soviet Union imploded, the US became the sole global hegemon. 

But now, with the rise of China, that hegemonic grip seems to be loosening.
The big issue, then, is whether we are witnessing a tectonic shift in geopolitics. 

My guess is that we are. 

Trump, who has the attention span of a newt, probably can’t see what’s going on, but the Chinese do – and so too do many parts of the US government, notably those concerned with economic development and national security, and some of the more reflective members of Congress.
What these folks understand is that hegemonic power is largely about industry – and therefore about technology. 

And the dominant industries of the future will be dominated by information technology rather than by heavy industries such as steel and cars. 

Which is why there is now so much panic in the US about wholesale theft of intellectual property by Chinese agencies and the astonishing progress that the country is making in computing and artificial intelligence.

In the old days, western snobbery led to the complacent view that the Chinese could not originate, only copy. 

One hears this less now, as visitors to China return goggle-eyed at the extent to which its people have integrated digital technology into daily life. 

One colleague of mine recently returned exasperated because he had been expected to pay for everything there with his phone. 

Since he possesses only an ancient Nokia handset, he was unable to comply and had been reduced to mendicant status, having to ask his Chinese hosts to pay for everything.
If the future is digital, therefore, a significant minority of China’s 1.4 billion citizens are already there. 

More significantly, the country’s technocratic rulers have sussed that digital technology is not just good for making economic transactions frictionless, but also for implementing sophisticated systems of social control.
In particular, they are adapting the ubiquitous “reputation rating” system by which online platforms try to get feedback on vendor and customer reliability. 

The government is beginning to roll out its social credit system, which is designed to “raise the awareness of integrity and the level of trustworthiness in Chinese society”. 

It will focus on four aspects of behaviour: “honesty in government affairs”, “commercial integrity”, “societal integrity” and “judicial credibility”.
When first conceived in 2007, the intention was to replicate the credit rating systems common in the west for assessing people’s financial creditworthiness. 

But why, thought the Chinese, stop at finance? 

Why not use the technology to assess how “good” a citizen one is? 

Everyone starts off with a baseline allowance of, say, 100 points. 

You can earn bonus points by doing “good deeds” such as separating and recycling rubbish. 

On the other hand, behaving in what is regarded (by the state) as antisocial behaviour can lose you points. 

Examples of deductible behaviour can apparently include: not showing up at a restaurant without cancelling your booking, cheating in online games, leaving false product reviews and even jaywalking. 

And if your social credit score is too low, you find yourself barred from taking flights or travelling on certain trains.
As a way of using digital technology for social control, this takes some beating. 

There are already pilot systems in operation. 

The Chinese plan to have the system fully in place by 2020. 

By which time it will be ready for export to other countries – who will be queueing up to buy it, because one of the things states do is to buy the current hegemon’s technology. 

In 2020, though, Donald Trump will still be ranting on about steel dumping and import tariffs. 

And running for a second term.