A Fierce Slap to Chinese tyrants

U.S. Senators Press Ahead With Hong Kong Bill

After House passage, legislation awaits action in Senate
By Daniel Flatley and Dandan Li

Hong Kong Bill Will Pass in the Senate, Says Rep. Chris Smith

Republican senators said Wednesday they want to move quickly on legislation to support pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong despite a "threat" of retaliation from China.
“Hong Kong is a high priority for me,” said GOP Senator Jim Risch, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. 

“We’re going to move on it as rapidly as we can.”

Senator Jim Risch

Senator Roy Blunt, a member of the Senate GOP leadership, said there haven’t been any discussions about the timing for a vote on Hong Kong legislation similar to a measure that passed the House Tuesday. 

That bill would subject the city’s special U.S. trading status to annual reviews and provides for sanctions against officials deemed responsible for undermining its “fundamental freedoms and autonomy.”
There is broad backing in both parties in Congress to show support for the protesters and punish China for any crackdown. 

The White House declined to comment on whether Trump would sign the Hong Kong legislation, but there are enough votes in the House to override a veto and no significant opposition in the Senate.
The next step will be up to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who’ll set the schedule for a vote, and he’s being pressed by his Republican colleagues.

“I think we’re going to get it up on the floor here fairly soon,” Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a China critic, told reporters.
South Dakota Senator John Thune, another member of Republican leadership, said that while he hasn’t looked closely at the four bills the House passed Tuesday, there are a number of senators “interested in making a strong statement on Hong Kong.”
Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said the main House bill, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, has deep bipartisan support, but there might be some Republicans who object to the bill being passed by unanimous consent without a floor vote.
Cardin said the fact that the House passed their four bills separately, rather than bundling them together, means the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act has a better chance of getting a vote in the Senate.

Demonstrators wave U.S. flags during a rally in support of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, Oct. 14.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang warned American lawmakers to stop "meddling" in China’s internal affairs.

Both Trump and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping have so far prevented the international uproar over Hong Kong from scuttling their trade talks. 

The two sides went ahead with negotiations and reached some broad agreements last week, even though the House vote was widely expected at the time.

A spokesman for the Hong Kong government “expressed regret” over the House action, which came hours before Chief Executive Carrie Lam addressed a raucous session of the Legislative Council. 

She barely managed a few words before pro-democracy lawmakers forced her to stop talking. 

She ended up delivering her annual policy address via video instead.
While the pro-democracy bloc only comprises about a third of lawmakers, Wednesday’s display showed they have the ability to shut down debate on major economic initiatives. 

That spells even more trouble ahead for an economy sliding into recession as protests against Beijing’s grip over the city grow increasingly violent.
China’s retaliation threat against the U.S. roiled markets during Asian trading, at one point wiping out a 0.8% rally in the regional equity benchmark.
U.S. lawmakers have embraced the Hong Kong protesters’ cause as the yearlong trade war fuels American support for pushing back against China, and they have hosted Hong Kong’s pro-democracy activists on Capitol Hill in recent weeks. 

The National Basketball Association’s struggle to manage Chinese backlash against a Houston Rockets executive’s support for the movement has only focused wider attention on the debate.
On Tuesday, the House passed H.Res. 543, a resolution reaffirming the relationship between the U.S. and Hong Kong, condemning Chinese interference in the region and voicing support for protesters. 

Lawmakers also passed the Protect Hong Kong Act, H.R. 4270, which would halt the export to Hong Kong of crowd-control devices such as tear gas and rubber bullets.

Joshua Wong arrives to speak on Capitol Hill on Sept. 17.

Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican and a sponsor of the main Hong Kong bill, dismissed the threats from Beijing.
“Retaliation, that’s all they ever talk,” Smith told Bloomberg TV. 

“They try to browbeat and cower people, countries, presidents, prime ministers and the like all over in order to get them to back off. We believe that human rights are so elemental, and so in need of protection. And that’s why the students and the young people are out in the streets in Hong Kong virtually every day.”
The House also adopted a resolution by Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel of New York and the panel’s top Republican, Michael McCaul of Texas, urging Canada to start U.S. extradition proceedings against Huawei Technologies Co. executive Meng Wanzhou. 

The resolution, H.Res. 521, also calls for the release of two Canadians detained in China and due process for a third sentenced to death for drug smuggling.

Ted Cruz

Tech Quisling

Senators Demand Answers from Mark Zuckerberg over Huawei Data Sharing Scandal
By Allum Bokhari 

Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and Bill Nelson (D-FL), the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, have sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg demanding answers on Facebook’s latest data scandal.
Earlier this week it was revealed that Facebook shared user data with “at least 60” phone manufacturers including Huawei, a company linked to the Chinese government and flagged as a national security threat by the CIA, FBI, and NSA.
A Democrat lawmaker has since accused Zuckerberg of lying to Congress when he told them that users had “complete control” over who sees their data on the platform.
Among the questions asked by Sens. Thune and Nelson, which can be read in full here, is whether Zuckerberg would like to amend his statement on this, given that the New York Times reported that phone manufacturers had access to data from Facebook users’ friends even when those friends denied them the permission to share their data with third parties.
The Senators also asked Zuckerberg if Facebook verified whether the phone companies complied with the social network’s rules on data-sharing, and if there was even any method to check.
The Senators also demanded transparency: a full list of the device manufacturers that Facebook granted data access to, including manufacturers with whom it has since ended partnerships with.
The letter requests a response from Zuckerberg by no later than 5:00 p.m. on June 18, 2018.

Tech Quisling

Facebook Gave Data Access to Huawei, Rogue Chinese Firm Flagged by U.S. Intelligence

By Michael LaForgia and Gabriel J.X. Dance

Facebook’s logo at an internet conference in Beijing in April. The social network has struck data-sharing partnerships with at least four companies in China.
Facebook has data-sharing partnerships with at least four Chinese electronics companies, including a manufacturing giant that has a close relationship with China’s government, the social media company said on Tuesday.
The agreements, which date to at least 2010, gave private access to user data to Huawei, a telecommunications equipment company that has been flagged by American intelligence officials as a national security threat, as well as to Lenovo, Oppo and TCL.
The four partnerships remain in effect, but Facebook officials said in an interview that the company would wind down the Huawei deal by the end of the week.
Facebook gave access to the Chinese device makers along with other manufacturers — including Amazon, Apple, BlackBerry and Samsung — whose agreements were disclosed by The New York Times on Sunday.
The deals were part of an effort to push more mobile users onto the social network starting in 2007, before stand-alone Facebook apps worked well on phones. 

The agreements allowed device makers to offer some Facebook features, such as address books, “like” buttons and status updates.
Facebook officials said the agreements with the Chinese companies allowed them access similar to what was offered to BlackBerry, which could retrieve detailed information on both device users and all of their friends — including religious and political leanings, work and education history and relationship status.
Huawei used its private access to feed a “social phone” app that let users view messages and social media accounts in one place, according to the officials.
Facebook representatives said the data shared with Huawei stayed on its phones, not the company’s servers.
Senator John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who leads the Commerce Committee, has demanded that Facebook provide Congress with details about its data partnerships. 

“Facebook is learning hard lessons that meaningful transparency is a high standard to meet,” Mr. Thune said.
His committee also oversees the Federal Trade Commission, which is investigating Facebook to determine whether the company’s data policies violate a 2011 consent decree with the commission.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia pointed out that concerns about Huawei were not new, citing a 2012 congressional report on the “close relationships between the Chinese Communist Party and equipment makers like Huawei.”
“I look forward to learning more about how Facebook ensured that information about their users was not sent to Chinese servers,” said Mr. Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.
“All Facebook’s integrations with Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo and TCL were controlled from the get-go — and Facebook approved everything that was built,” said Francisco Varela, a Facebook vice president. 

“Given the interest from Congress, we wanted to make clear that all the information from these integrations with Huawei was stored on the device, not on Huawei’s servers.”
Banned in China since 2009, Facebook in recent years has quietly sought to re-establish itself there. The company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has tried to cultivate a relationship with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, and put in an appearance at one of the country’s top universities.
Last year, Facebook released a photo-sharing app in China that was a near replica of its Moments app, but did not put its name on it. 

And the company has worked on a tool that allowed targeted censorship, prompting some employees to quit over the project.
Still, Facebook has struggled to gain momentum, and in January an executive in charge of courting China’s government left after spending three years on a charm campaign to get the social media service back in the country.
None of the Chinese device makers who have partnerships with Facebook responded to requests for comment on Tuesday.
Huawei, one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world, is a point of national pride for China and is at the vanguard of the country’s efforts to expand its influence abroad. 

The company was the recipient of billions of dollars in lines of credit from China’s state-owned policy banks, helping to fuel its overseas expansion in Africa, Europe and Latin America. 

Its founder, Ren Zhengfei, is a former engineer in the People’s Liberation Army.
The United States government has long regarded the company with suspicion, and lawmakers have recommended that American carriers avoid buying the network gear it makes. 

In January, AT&T walked away from a deal to sell a new Huawei smartphone, the Mate 10.
United States officials are investigating whether Huawei broke American trade controls by dealing with Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. 

The Trump administration has taken aim at Huawei and its rival ZTE in recent weeks, and in April the Federal Communications Commission advanced a plan to bar federally subsidized telecom companies from using suppliers that are considered national security threats.
Facebook has not entered into a data-sharing agreement with ZTE, officials at the social network said.
TCL, a consumer electronics firm, has accused the Trump administration of bias against Chinese companies and last June dropped a bid to buy a San Diego-based company that makes routers and other hardware.
Lenovo, a maker of computers and other devices, recently shelved ambitions to acquire BlackBerry after the Canadian government signaled that such a deal could compromise national security.