Evil Company

Huawei terror: New Zealand bars Chinese firm on national security fears

BBC News

New Zealand has become the latest country to block a proposal to use telecoms equipment made by China's Huawei because of national security concerns.
Spark New Zealand wanted to use Huawei equipment in its 5G mobile network.
However, a NZ government security agency said the deal would bring significant risks to national security.
The move is part of a growing push against the involvement of Chinese technology firms on security grounds.
5G networks are being built in several countries and will form the next significant wave of mobile infrastructure.
Huawei, the world's biggest producer of telecoms equipment, has faced resistance from foreign governments over the risk that its technology could be used for espionage.
Telecoms firm Spark New Zealand planned to use equipment from the Chinese firm in its 5G network.
The head of NZ's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) told Spark the proposal "would , if implemented, raise significant national security risks", the company said.
Intelligence services minister Andrew Little said Spark could work with the agency to reduce that risk.
"As the GCSB has noted, this is an ongoing process. We will actively address any concerns and work together to find a way forward," Huawei said.

What other countries have concerns?
The move follows a decision by Australia to block Huawei and Chinese firm ZTE from providing 5G technology for the country's wireless networks on national security grounds.
The US and UK have raised concerns with Huawei, and the firm has been scrutinised in Germany, Japan and Korea.
Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that the US government has been trying to persuade wireless providers to avoid using equipment from Huawei.
In the UK, a security committee report in July warned that it had "only limited assurance" that Huawei's telecoms gear posed no threat to national security.
Only one country is standing by Huawei: Papua New Guinea said this week it would go ahead with an agreement for Huawei to build its internet infrastructure.
The Pacific nation has seen a surge in investment from China over the past decade.

What are the fears?
Experts say foreign governments are increasingly worried about the risk of espionage by China, given the close ties between companies and the state.
Tom Uren, visiting fellow in the International Cyber Policy Centre at Australia's Strategic Policy Institute, said the Chinese government had "clearly demonstrated intent over many years to steal information".
"The Chinese state has engaged in a lot of cyber and other espionage and intellectual property theft," he said.
Links between firms and the government have fueled concerns that China may attempt to "leverage state-linked companies to be able to enable their espionage operations", Mr Uren said.
Those concerns were exacerbated by new laws introduced last year that required Chinese organisations assist in national intelligence efforts.
The laws enable the Chinese state to compel people and companies to assist it, Mr Uren said.
The combination of new rules and a history of espionage have increased the perceived danger of using companies like Huawei and ZTE in critical national infrastructure.
"It's hard to argue that they don't represent an elevated risk," Mr Uren added.

Chinese Fifth Column At Harvard, And The Proposed Pro-China Unified Korea

• Professor Allison states that the crisis could be solved by first, China removing the Kim regime, and unifying North and South Korea under a pro-Beijing Seoul, second, removing U.S. troops, and third, ending the U.S.-South Korea alliance.
• It is revanchist appeasement on a grand scale. It is a realism ready to throw international law, democracy and human rights away for a fleeting moment of safety.

By Anders Corr

Graham Allison at Harvard University mooted a solution to the North Korea conflict in the New York Times on May 30. 

Allison starts by scaring us with a high likelihood of war, about 75%, in similar conflicts between a major power and a smaller rising power in history. 

That I believe. 

He implies a 33% chance that the North Korea crisis, like the Cuban missile crisis, could spiral into a nuclear war. 

That I doubt.

A photo taken on May 21, 2017 shows an art installation featuring propaganda loudspeakers arranged to read: 'Peace', at the Peace dam, north of Hwacheon near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea. Contruction of the 'Peace Dam' was intermittent from 1987 to 2005, reportedly as a response to the threat of accidental or intentional flooding from the North Korea's Imnam Dam which lies further up river, across the DMZ. North Korea on May 22 confirmed the 'successful' launch of a medium-range ballistic missile, Pyongyang's state media reported, adding the weapon was now ready to be deployed for military action.

After shocking us with the threat of catastrophic war, Allison uses that risk to justify his proposal to avert the crisis. 

Allison states, in a manner that sounds like he has first-hand knowledge, that “some people in Mr. Xi’s circle” say the crisis could be solved by first, China removing the Kim regime, and unifying North and South Korea under a pro-Beijing Seoul, second, removing U.S. troops, and third, ending the U.S.-South Korea alliance. 

Like Xi reportedly provided to Trump, these “people in Mr. Xi’s circle” even give a historical justification to buttress the Chinese proposal for China’s administration and shaping of Korean unification. 

In the core of his argument, Allison says, “Had North Korea not attacked the South in 1950, the United States would never have intervened. So if China were to assume responsibility for removing the Kim regime, denuclearizing the country, and reunifying the peninsula under a government in Seoul friendly to Beijing, would the United States remove all its bases from the South and end its military alliance?”
In other words, Allison appears to advise, or at least uncritically repeat Chinese advice, that China and North Korea are threatening us with nuclear war, so give in and give up South Korea. 

That advice is buttressed by an ostensible lack of U.S. historical presence on the peninsula. 

Allison’s proposal dovetails nicely with Trump’s understanding after Xi’s history lesson, in which “Korea actually used to be a part of China.”
These questionable interpretations of history lead to Allison’s surprising proposal for what amounts to capitulation. 

It is revanchist appeasement on a grand scale. 

It is a realism ready to throw international law, democracy and human rights away for a fleeting moment of safety.

That is not the America of Paul Revere and George Washington, who risked it all for liberty. 

And, what of other proposals, such as an election in North Korea, or economic sanctions against China until China forces the North to stop its nuclear weapons development? 

If China can remove the Kim regime and unify the peninsula, surely it can remove North Korea’s nuclear weapons. 

Surely tough economic sanctions against China would not result in nuclear war.

These options are not mentioned by Allison, who focuses his opinion piece on fear and allied concessions.
China has taken slivers of territory in the Philippines, Vietnam and India, and since 1972 the U.S. has shown acquiescence, fear and a lack of resolve to defend that territory, and along with it democracy and international law. 

Given demonstrated U.S. fear, why shouldn’t China go for an entire nation like South Korea? 

In the process, did “some people in Xi’s circle” nudge a Harvard professor to write an opinion piece in the New York Times to soften up public opinion beforehand?
What I will call Allison’s proposal, because he is the first I know to make it publicly, lacks any mention of democracy and human rights in South Korea. 

And what of democracy and human rights in the North? 

Would Allison’s proposal mean that the North Korean police could, with support or as part of his “government in Seoul friendly to Beijing”, root out democratic opposition in the South? 

Does Allison really think that China would disassemble North Korea’s police state apparatus, which appears much more like Beijing’s government than does South Korea’s democracy? 

If China is really to make Seoul pro-Beijing, which appears to be a nondemocratic Chinese condition in Allison’s proposal, then one should expect Kim Jong-un’s regime to be transported to Seoul, with or without Kim Jong-un, rather than democracy transported to Pyongyang.
Don’t expect Beijing to deal fairly with pro-democracy South Koreans, or even to honor any protections for South Koreans in this telling Chinese future for the Korean Peninsula. 

We learned our lesson in Hong Kong, where China violated its promise to respect democracy after it took over from the U.K. 

China cannot be trusted. 

Hong Kong citizens who thought they would get democracy are now literally ground into the pavement as Hong Kong police, who answer to mainland authorities, suppress their brothers and sisters in pro-democracy demonstrations with arrests, pepper spray, tear gas, and beatings.

People watch a screen showing news coverage of the Pukguksong-2 missile rocket launch at a public square in central Pyongyang on May 22, 2017. North Korea declared its medium-range Pukguksong-2 missile ready for deployment after a weekend test, the latest step in its quest to defy UN sanctions and develop a weapon capable of striking US targets. 

The proposal from Allison is contrary to principles such as democracy, human rights, and freedom of speech that I, as a graduate of Harvard University, thought my school represents. 

I was frankly shocked when I read the opinion. 

But perhaps I should have expected this. 

Harvard gets significant revenues from Chinese students, including Xi Jinping’s daughter, who graduated in 2014. 

Harvard has a lucrative Harvard-branded school in China itself, and a Harvard China Fund that is seeking $50 million to support Harvard’s presence in China. 

Only four of the Fund’s Web pages actually mention democracy or human rights. 

The Belfer Center at Harvard, which Allison directs, gets millions of dollars annually in corporate and other funding, including from what appear to be Chinese, Saudi, and Singaporean sources. 

The 2013 announcement by the Belfer Center of a new focus on China completely disregards human rights and international law, applauds an authoritarian leader, mentions democracy only once and tangentially, and appears flippant or even accepting of the prospect of China replacing the U.S. as the number one power in the world.
It is unclear whether Harvard, in its engagement with China, is following the United Nations principles on corporate social responsibility. 

They are outlined in the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. 

Robert Precht writes that U.S. universities operating in China have a duty to follow them, according to which, “an enterprise’s corporate responsibility entails making a clear and public policy commitment, implementing due diligence processes, and providing or cooperating in the creation of remedies for human rights violations. 

Due diligence requires assessing risks of human [rights] violations by both the enterprise itself and by its business partners.”
While my pointing to authoritarian funding sources will be called a “cheap shot”, or the equivalent of an ad hominem attack by academics who benefit from corporate and authoritarian funding, I think that as Chinese influence in the U.S. increases, it is increasingly important for elite institutions of foreign policy to refuse authoritarian funding and return to pure foreign policy research driven by professors not donors. 

It is my belief that corporate and foreign funding of elite institutions lull their foreign policy analysts into a somnolent approach to defense, democracy and human rights, especially when it comes to China. 

The optics of corporate and foreign financial entanglements hurt Harvard’s image of rigorous academic impartiality.
Given that the Harvard Kennedy School of Government is one of the top U.S. foreign policy establishments, we should all be very worried that Allison’s proposal issued forth from those hallowed halls. 

If this pro-China approach is on the surface at Harvard and elsewhere, what lurks beneath? 

I believe the same applies to other foreign or corporate-funded elite foreign policy establishments in the U.S., such as the Council on Foreign Relations, Asia Society, National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

While all of these establishments have great people, and elements within them that are pro-democratic and pro-human rights, there is a palpable defeatism and lack of emphasis on these liberal topics, and an acceptance of authoritarian realist arguments, that I find disturbing. 

Realism is not tough when it promotes appeasement, it is weak. 

By showing fear, it invites attack. 

Appeasement actually increases the risk of war.
Elite foreign policy think tanks like the Belfer Center are environments largely devoid of the oxygen of the billions whose human rights are violated, and who yearn for more democracy. 

In these institutions, pro-authoritarian proposals such as Allison’s can be made, unopposed. 

Human rights and democracy can be largely ignored while enjoying Champagne and canapés with corporate and authoritarian Chinese donors. 

By falling over themselves in search of ever greater funding, these establishments are out of touch with the people. 

But they are very much in power. That is a threat to democracy.

Their elite myopia causes a bias toward corporate preferences in international relations. 

And these corporate preferences are for a symbiosis of peace, trade and profit. 

Prima facie, that sounds splendid. 

Academics and policymakers alike applaud, even luxuriate in, this positive effect of international trade on keeping the peace. 

But their elision of billions of humans who suffer under the “peace” of increasingly authoritarian governments is inexcusable. 

In Allison’s proposal, for example, the Chinese-manufactured risk of nuclear war with North Korea leads to the implied conclusion that peace should be purchased at any cost, including the cost of suspending democracy and human rights for South Korean citizens, because they would lose those rights under a stipulation of rule by a pro-Beijing Seoul. 

This begs the question. 

If South Korea is not worth fighting for, what is? 

Japan? 

Hawaii? 

America west of the Mississippi? 

In his panicked embrace of peace, that has been left unanswered.
Allison has written a piece that I have made a case in point for a much larger issue of increasing Chinese dominance through violence, threats of violence, and economic influence. 

The increasingly global dominance of China is no minor threat. 

Allison’s proposal is a testament to that. 

China uses violence and economics to seek territorial expansion and increased global influence, and does so through direct attacks on our values of liberal democracy, even in the heart of our most prestigious universities.
Allison makes China’s argument, with absolutely no mention of costs to democracy or human rights. 

He focuses on the threat of nuclear war as if we should run scared at the very mention of this horrific outcome. 

No. 

We and our values must stand resolved before such threats. 

The U.S. and our allies are far more powerful than North Korea and its allies, including China. 

It would be foolish to allow North Korea and China to threaten us with nuclear weapons, and then give concessions as a response. 

That will only encourage more threats down the road, and more concessions. 

That is not peace, it is the failed strategy of appeasement.

The Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group, including the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70), operate with the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group including, USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships in the western Pacific region June 1, 2017. 

It is time for Harvard to stop allowing professors to take corporate or foreign funding for foreign policy research. 

With an endowment of $36 billion, Harvard has enough money to fund these projects. 

If Harvard truly cares about education, Harvard should encourage donors to give to other far less fortunate universities where dollars will stretch further and cover education, not catering and the compensation of its fund managers. 

Seven of them made a total of $58 million in 2015. 

Perhaps the decrease in political bias, or appearance of such, that results from a principled refusal of foreign and corporate money will help clarify education at Harvard. 

Clarity is all-important during these dangerous times.
The motto of Harvard is Veritas, Latin for “Truth.” 

The Chinese government methodically suppresses truth through disinformation and draconian restrictions on freedom of speech. 

Harvard, per its motto, should take a far more principled stand against the authoritarianism that China, and especially Xi Jinping, is increasingly attempting to foist upon not only Asia, but the world. 

There can be no place for elision or appeasement. 

If you are not against China’s aggression and violation of human rights, you are not Harvard.

World's Stupidest President

Trump talk about Koreas draws China silence, dispute from Seoul
By Christopher Bodeen and Youkyung Lee

In this Tuesday, April 25, 2017 photo released by the U.S. Navy, the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer, left, is underway alongside the Republic of Korea multirole guided-missile destroyer Wang Geon during a bilateral exercise. Wayne E. Meyer was on a scheduled western Pacific deployment with aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. 

BEIJING — Trump's assertions about the Koreas drew silence Friday in Beijing, which refused to confirm it was turning up pressure on North Korea, and consternation in Seoul, which dismissed Donald Trump’s claim that he would get South Korea to renegotiate a trade deal and make it pay for a missile defense system.
South Korea contradicted statements Trump made in an interview Thursday with Reuters news agency in which he also said there is “a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea,” as the North continues to develop nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
Regarding the South, Trump said he would fix or end what he called a “horrible” bilateral trade deal, and would make the Asian ally pay $1 billion for the THAAD missile defense system now being deployed in its territory.
Woo Taehee, South Korea’s vice trade minister, said the country had not been notified of any trade renegotiation, and that there have been no working-level talks with the U.S. regarding the 5-year-old trade deal.
Woo said the trade ministry was trying to confirm the details of the media reports on Trump’s remarks. 

He said there have been “no pre-talks” with the U.S. regarding the issue.
The U.S.-South Korea free trade deal is not the only free trade pact that the Trump administration is reconsidering. 

Earlier this week the White House leaked the possibility of the U.S. abandoning the North American Free Trade Agreement. 

Trump called that off hours later, saying he would seek to renegotiate the trade deal with Canada and Mexico and pull out of NAFTA only if he couldn’t secure a favorable deal.
In a separate statement, South Korea’s defense ministry said there is no change in its plan under which the U.S. covers the cost for operating THAAD, now being deployed in the country’s southeast. Under an agreement reached during the administration of Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, South Korea offers the land and facilities for THAAD but not the cost of operations, the Defense Ministry said.
The U.S. missile defense system, meant to deter North Korean aggression, has become a thorny issue between South Korea and China, which opposes it because its powerful radars can peer through not only North Korean but Chinese defenses. 

At the same time, Trump has lauded Xi Jinping since their meeting in Florida early this month, expressing confidence that China will try to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson went a step further Thursday, saying that China has threatened to impose unilateral sanctions on North Korea if it conducts further nuclear tests. 

Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang would not confirm that Friday.
Geng reiterated China’s support for U.N. sanctions on the North but repeatedly avoided giving a direct answer when asked at a daily news briefing about what other plans China might be considering.
“As for what kind of actions China will take if North Korea conducts another nuclear test, it is a hypothetical question and there is much speculation about that, so I have no comment on it,” Geng said.
“China firmly opposes any actions that violate the United Nations Security Council resolutions. This position is quite clear,” he said.

China wants North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program, but has opposed unilateral sanctions imposed without a U.N. mandate.
Beijing has come under growing U.S. pressure to use its leverage as North Korea’s largest trading partner and main source of food and fuel aid to compel it to heed U.N. resolutions.
Tillerson said Thursday that Washington was aware that China was in communication with the government in Pyongyang.
“They confirmed to us that they had requested the regime conduct no further nuclear test,” he said on Fox News Channel.
Tillerson said China also told the U.S. that it had informed North Korea “that if they did conduct further nuclear tests, China would be taking sanctions actions on their own.”
While Beijing says it backs the U.S. in finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis, it remains unclear what actions it has taken or plans to take beyond those mandated by the U.N.
China in January suspended coal imports from North Korea for the rest of the year, but it did so following the passage of a Security Council resolution capping the North’s coal exports. 

Other economic activity with North Korea remains robust.
Notwithstanding Tillerson’s comments, there’s scant evidence that China’s government has changed policies, said Daniel Sneider, a Korea expert from Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.
While China might take actions intended to send a message to North Korea — a recent shortage of gasoline in Pyongyang sparked speculation that China was working behind the scenes — Beijing is firmly opposed to measures that might seriously destabilize the regime, possibly sending refugees across the border into China and placing U.S. and South Korean troops in the North.
“North Korea exists as a client state of China for the sake of China, not us, and because the Chinese don’t want to have the Korean Peninsula dominated by the U.S.,” Sneider said.
“Their main goal is to keep the Americans from doing something crazy and see if they can drag the North Koreans back to the negotiating process where they can reduce the level of tensions.”

History's Stupidest President

Donald Trump accused of 'shocking ignorance' after suggesting Korea used to be part of China
By Rachel Roberts 

Feeble-minded: Donald Trump said in an interview that Korea "used to be part of China" following his meeting with Xi Jingping.

Donald Trump has been accused of “shocking ignorance” after stating that Korea used to be part of China after he met Xi Jingping earlier this month.
Speaking in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Mr Trump said that Mr Xi “Went into the history of China and Korea … and you know, you’re talking about thousands of years … and many wars. And Korea actually used to be a part of China.”
Commentators believe Trump might have heard Xi’s potted history of the countries from a Chinese perspective as there is a growing school of nationalist thought in China that ancient Korean kingdoms were part of the Chinese empire.
Trump revealed the Chinese leader had explained the situation on the Korean Peninsular – divided into communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea following the Second World War -- which led him to conclude, “After ten minutes, I realised it’s not so easy.”
South Korean daily newspaper Korea Joonang Daily said in an editorial: “We are dumbfounded that the leader of 21st-century China made such a ridiculous claim. If Trump really conveyed Xi’s words correctly, it is nothing but a grave challenge to the identity of the Korean people. “
It added: “As China’s power has grown remarkably over the last three decades, China’s historical perception is increasingly taking a worrisome turn.”
Rah Jong-yil, a former South Korean ambassador to both London and Tokyo, told The Telegraph: “I suspect that Xi said, in effect, that Korea was part of China because it was overwhelmingly under Chinese influence historically and Trump bought that.
“It shows his shocking ignorance of the situation in north-east Asia. 

That is very disturbing to us.
"Somebody needs to enlighten Trump about the facts of the region and he should not fall for this sort of silly nationalism from the Chinese," Mr Rah added.
”It is true that the Korean peninsula was under the influence of China, but that was under the Ming dynasty -- which was a long time ago and nothing to do with the People's Republic of China.
“In the distant past, Korea may have looked up to China as a model of political or economic development, but today we consider the communist-led nation to be economically, politically and socially backward.”
Critics have repeatedly claimed there are gaping holes in Trump’s knowledge of world affairs and history.
Earlier this month, it was suggested he may not know the name of the leader of North Korea after he repeatedly referred to Kim Jong-un as “this gentleman” in a Fox News interview.
He also appeared to think he was dealing with the now deceased father of Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il, who was in power in North Korea during the Clinton presidency and for most of Barack Obama's first term.
He said: “You know, they’ve been talking with this gentleman for a long time. You read Clinton’s book, he said, ‘Oh, we made such a great peace deal,’ and it was a joke.
“You look at different things over the years with President Obama. Everybody has been outplayed, they’ve all been outplayed by this gentleman. And we’ll see what happens. But I just don’t telegraph my moves.”
Washington has been attempting to work out how to deal with the hard line communist state and its suspected nuclear arsenal for decades. 

Trump’s position appears to be hardening with his recent warning that, “if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will.”

World's Stupidest President

Trump says Korea was “part of China”
By Nikhil Sonnad

Is that part of China?

Following his meeting with Xi Jinping, Donald Trump made a shocking admission of ignorance to the Wall Street Journal, on the subject of China and North Korea: “After listening [to Xi] for 10 minutes I realized that…it’s not so easy.” 

Trump has been called out for having his views on such an important geopolitical issue shift dramatically in a matter of minutes. 

He also may not know who rules North Korea.
Right before that line about listening to Xi, though, Trump said something arguably even more shocking. 

He claimed that “Korea actually used to be a part of China.” 

This is a glaring historical inaccuracy that has, somehow, not yet enraged South Korea, which is usually extremely defensive about suggestions that it is lesser than China or has ever been dependent on it.
Trump also made it clear in the interview that when he says Korea “used to be a part of China,” he is talking about the entire Korean Peninsula, not just the North. 

Here’s the full quote:
[Xi] then went into the history of China and Korea. Not North Korea, Korea. And you know, you’re talking about thousands of years …and many wars. And Korea actually used to be a part of China.
“No respectable historian would make such a claim,” said Kyung Moong Hwang, a history professor at the University of Southern California and author of A History of Korea, when I asked him via email to assess Trump’s statement.
We can assume that Trump did not have ideas of his own about this matter of Asian history, and in fact got this notion from Xi. 

But where would Xi have gotten it? 

“It’s possible that Xi said something like this, as such a story has been part of the nationalist history project under the Chinese Communist Party for a couple of decades,” added Hwang.
There are two moments in history that come close. 

The first was under the Han Dynasty, which in the second century BC set up four “commanderies” in the northern part of Korea. 

These, however, were more like British colonial rule in India, and not a formal union of Chinese and Korean territory. 

Still, Chinese researchers have tried to argue that this places Korea within “Chinese local history.”
The extent of China’s Han Dynasty.

The next moment came in 13th century AD, when the Mongol empire’s global domination happened to include both China and Korea. 

After a total of seven campaigns to take Korea, the Mongols succeeded, but “even then, the Mongols controlled China more directly than Korea,” said Hwang. 

Setting aside the controversial question of whether the empire of Mongol invaders counts as “China,” Korea was regardless only a vassal state of the Mongols.
If Xi said “something like this,” though, it is unlikely that he said anything as strong as Korea being “part of China.” 

He could have reasonably said something to the effect of, “Korea was once a part of the same empire as China.” 

That would apply to the Yuan Dynasty, the one set up by the Mongols and ruled by Kublai Khan. 

Or he may have said, “China once ruled Korea,” which could maybe work for the Han Dynasty. Trump could have then interpreted either of those statements as meaning Korea was “part” of China—which would be wrong, of course. 

Or maybe there was a translation issue. 

We’ll probably never know what Xi actually said.
Still, to Hwang’s point, the perception of Korea being part of China has some credibility in the mainland. 

For example, one question on Zhidao—a question-and-answer site akin to Quora—asks (link in Chinese), “Do Koreans know that Korea was once part of China?”
To which the top answerer responds, correctly, “you are mistaken.”