Chinese Fifth Column

Zuckerberg’s Anti-Tyranny Rhetoric Roils Chinese Employees
Tensions between Facebook’s large community of Chinese employees and the company’s management have been on the rise since Zuckerberg became more critical of Beijing. 

By Wayne Ma

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Georgetown address about free speech last month drew hostility and skeptical commentary from his Chinese employees. 

Zuckerberg’s criticism of Chinese video app TikTok and China’s censorship of the internet renewed long-standing complaints that Facebook’s management is biased against communist China, according to one Chinese employee who saw messages in Facebook’s internal discussion groups.

Tensions between Facebook management and its large fifth column of Chinese employees have been on the upswing over the past year or so, since Zuckerberg abandoned efforts to get Facebook allowed back into China and instead became more critical of Beijing. 

Many of the company’s newer Chinese employees were hired from mainland China and are unapologetically supportive of the Chinese government.

Facebook is grappling with its large fifth column of Chinese employees, some of whom are becoming more vocal and critical in internal company forums over what they claim is a bias against communist China.

But in the past couple of months complaints of anti-China bias have overlapped with unhappiness about working conditions at Facebook, crystallized by the suicide of a Chinese employee at Facebook headquarters. 

Infiltration by Chinese Spies
The increasingly vocal criticism by Chinese employees is the latest example of how workers at big tech companies such as Google and Amazon have turned pro-China activists, protesting their employers’ business dealings with the U.S. government and complaining about other issues. 

But in this case, Zuckerberg has to walk a fine line, trying to keep an aggressive group of Chinese employees happy while not alienating Facebook’s many anti-China critics in Washington, D.C. 

If he goes too far to appease the Chinese employees, he could hand his critics in Washington more ammunition.

“We’re seeing Chinese employees emerge as a dangerous force from tech companies,” said Matt Sheehan, a fellow at the Paulson Institute whose research focuses on the relationship between Silicon Valley and China. 

Further complicating the challenges facing Zuckerberg are comments by longtime Facebook board member Peter Thiel, who accused Google of working with China’s military and that its leadership has been infiltrated by Chinese spies. 

Thiel said Google was behaving in a “seemingly treasonous” manner. 

A Large Chinese Fifth Column
The ranks of Chinese workers at Facebook—the vast majority of whom are software engineers and data and research scientists—have been increasing in recent years, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees.
The total number couldn’t be learned, although it likely numbers in the thousands (Facebook employed nearly 36,000 people as of Dec. 31). 

Facebook has more Chinese as a share of its U.S. workforce than Apple, Google or Microsoft, according to an analysis of federal filings. 

Some 42% of its U.S. employees were Chinese in 2018, up from about a third in 2014, the filings show. At Google, the percentage in 2018 was 37% and at Apple it was 23%. 

Facebook’s share of green card sponsorships for Chinese employees also has been growing annually since 2013, rising from 25% to 44% of sponsorships in the nine months ending in June.
The internal group Chinese@FB, which Facebook hosts for its Chinese employees, counts more than 6,000 members and is the largest of its kind at the company, current and former employees say.
One former Chinese employee, who worked at Facebook between 2015 and 2019, said there were so many Chinese employees that he sometimes could get away with speaking only Chinese at work. 

Other former Chinese employees recounted being asked by their managers to be mindful of non-Chinese speakers after holding work conversations in Chinese.Chinese workers said they were drawn to Facebook’s results-focused culture and by what they said was its willingness to quickly sponsor employees for permanent residency in the U.S. 

Many Chinese employees hired a decade or so ago rose through the ranks to become directors and vice presidents, which has led to even more hiring of Chinese workers, according to current and former employees. But as the number of Chinese hires has increased, Facebook has had to rely more on mainland China as a source of new talent. 

A decade ago, many of Facebook’s Chinese hires were employees with graduate degrees from American universities who had spent years getting used to the country’s culture.  

In contrast, many of these newer hires haven’t spent as much time in the U.S. and still get their news from China’s state-controlled media and use Chinese social media to keep in touch with friends and family back home, several current and former Chinese employees said. 

They don’t share the U.S. view of the internet as a haven for free speech and open debate.
These employees added that China’s rise as an economic, technological and political power in recent years has made Chinese nationals more assertive about their country’s place in the world.

National Security Risk

Facebook has taken a number of steps in the past year that have been interpreted by its Chinese employees as hostile to the Chinese government. 

Last year Facebook invited Taiwan’s president to a Facebook-sponsored event in Taipei promoting the territory’s economy and e-commerce industry. 

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen posed for photos with Facebook Vice President for Asia-Pacific Dan Neary and gave a speech highlighting Taiwan’s strong ties with Facebook. 

Chinese employees said in internal groups that the meeting legitimized Taiwan’s claim to self-rule and jeopardized Facebook’s chances of entering China. 

Simon Milner, Facebook vice president of public policy for Asia-Pacific, was forced to defend the event in the messaging groups, according to employees who saw the messages.
Zuckerberg’s public comments have also turned more critical of communist China. 

In March, for instance, Zuckerberg said Facebook would never host data in countries with a track record of violating human rights and last month he said it was never able to reach an agreement with Chinese authorities over how to operate its services free from censorship.
Also this year, Facebook’s Milner visited Hong Kong where he met with a number of local lawmakers and government officials, according to two people familiar with the meetings, which were announced in Facebook’s internal groups. 

The meeting sparked online complaints after Milner met with Alvin Yeung, a Hong Kong pro-democracy legislator, saying the meeting could be viewed as legitimizing pro-democracy demonstrators’ claims to self-autonomy, the people said.
The pro-China activism within the Chinese employee community, and the criticisms of the company they sometimes spark, has alarmed some senior Facebook executives, said a person who is familiar with management’s thinking. 

Some executives, including David Wei, a Facebook vice president of engineering many Chinese Facebook employees said acts as an informal liaison between senior management and Chinese employees, are closely monitoring the internal message groups and have moved to clamp down on discussions when they get heated, the person said. 

For instance, in September, Wei weighed in, urging calm.
“I would encourage everyone in the discussion to try your best to understand each other’s point of view,” he wrote in a post on Chinese@FB. 

“When a discussion gets heated, consider having a tea time in person. Our respectful communication policy ask is that we don’t attempt to convert people’s political views.”

Facebook didn’t respond to a request for comment about these specific incidents with Chinese employees. 

Chinese Lying is a Pleonasm

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Accuses Huawei of Lying About Ties to Chinese Government
VOA News

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has accused the head of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies of lying about his company's relationship with the government in Beijing.
Pompeo said in a CNBC interview Thursday that Huawei "is tied not only to China but to the Chinese Communist Party." 
He added, "The existence of those connections puts American information that crosses those networks at risk."
Huawei, the world's largest maker of telecommunications network equipment, is a leader in 5G technology.
It has been trying to win contracts to build a global network that would make the internet much faster.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at a press conference in London, May 8, 2019.

Last week, the U.S. government banned American companies from doing business with Huawei, escalating a heated trade war between the world's two largest economies.
CEO Ren Zhengfei  says Huawei does not work with the Chinese government, an assertion Pompeo dismisses.
"To say that they don't work with the Chinese government is a false statement," Pompeo said of Huawei.
"He is required by Chinese law to do that," Pompeo added.
"The Huawei CEO on that at least isn't telling the American people the truth, nor the world."
Pompeo confirmed a recent New York Times report that China was using a high-tech surveillance system as part of a policing effort that could track and subdue members of ethnic groups, including Muslim Uighurs.
The United States alleged earlier this month that Beijing had confined significantly more than a million minority Muslims in concentration camps.
Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankia said Tuesday in a Fox News interview there were training centers for those convicted of minor offenses.
Pompeo responded that the facilities were actually "authoritarian re-education institutions."

Spying Company

President Trump expected to sign order paving way for U.S. telecoms ban on Huawei
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order this week barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk, paving the way for a ban on doing business with China’s Huawei, three U.S. officials familiar with the plan told Reuters.
The order, which will not name specific countries or companies, has been under consideration for more than a year but has repeatedly been delayed, the sources said, asking not to be named because the preparations remain confidential. 

It could be delayed again, they said.
The executive order would invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president the authority to regulate commerce in response to a national emergency that threatens the United States. 

The order will direct the Commerce Department, working with other government agencies, to draw up a plan for enforcement, the sources said.
If signed, the executive order would come at a delicate time in relations between China and the United States as the world’s two largest economies ratchet up tariffs in a battle over what U.S. officials call China’s unfair trade practices.
Washington believes equipment made by Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world’s third largest smartphone maker, could be used by the Chinese state to spy. 

Huawei did not immediately comment.
The White House and Commerce Department declined to comment.
The United States has been actively pushing other countries not to use Huawei’s equipment in next-generation 5G networks that it calls “untrustworthy.” 

In August, Trump signed a bill that barred the U.S. government itself from using equipment from Huawei and another Chinese provider, ZTE Corp.
In January, U.S. prosecutors charged two Huawei units in Washington state saying they conspired to steal T-Mobile US Inc trade secrets, and also charged Huawei and its chief financial officer with bank and wire fraud on allegations that the company violated sanctions against Iran.
The Federal Communications Commission in April 2018 voted to advance a proposal to bar the use of funds from a $9 billion government fund to purchase equipment or services from companies that pose a security threat to U.S. communications networks.
Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai said last week he is waiting for the Commerce Department to express views on how to “define the list of companies” that would be prohibited under the FCC proposal.
The FCC voted unanimously to deny China Mobile Ltd’s bid to provide U.S. telecommunications services last week and said it was reviewing similar prior approvals held by China Unicom and China Telecom Corp.
The issue has taken on new urgency as U.S. wireless carriers look for partners as they rollout 5G networks.
While the big wireless companies have already cut ties with Huawei, small rural carriers continue to rely on both Huawei and ZTE switches and other equipment because they tend to be cheaper.
The Rural Wireless Association, which represents carriers with fewer than 100,000 subscribers, estimated that 25 percent of its members had Huawei or ZTE equipment in their networks, it said in an FCC filing in December.
At a hearing Tuesday, U.S. senators raised the alarm about allies using Chinese equipment in 5G networks.
The Wall Street Journal first reported in May 2018 that the executive order was under review. 

Reuters reported in December that Trump was still considering issuing the order and other media reported in February that the order was imminent.

China gave Trump a list of crazy demands, and he caved to one of them

By Josh Rogin 

Trump's scattershot economic policy has surrendered the world stage to China: Trump welcomes Xi Jinping in April 2017 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. 

After top Trump officials went to Beijing last month, the Chinese government wrote up a document with a list of economic and trade demands that ranged from the reasonable to the ridiculous. 

On Sunday, Trump caved to one of those demands before the next round of negotiations even starts, undermining his own objectives for no visible gain.
The Chinese proposal is entitled, “Framework Arrangement on Promoting Balanced Development on Bilateral Trade,” and I obtained an English version of the document, which is the Chinese government’s negotiating position heading into the next round of talks. 

That round begins this week when Xi Jinping’s special economic envoy Liu He returns to town.
Bullet point 5 is entitled, “Appropriately handling the ZTE case to secure global supply chain.”
“Having noted China’s great concern about the case of ZTE, the U.S. will listen attentively to ZTE’s plea, consider the progress and efforts ZTE has made in compliance management and announce adjustment to the export ban,” the document states.
Trump took a big step in that direction Sunday when he tweeted that he had instructed the Commerce Department to help get ZTE “back into business, fast,” only weeks after the Commerce Department cut off its supply of American components because it violated U.S. sanctions on sales to North Korea and Iran. 

Trump’s tweet set off a panic both inside and outside the administration among those who worry that Trump is backing down from his key campaign promise to stand up to China’s unfair trade practices and economic aggression.
As Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) pointed out Monday, the problems with ZTE go well beyond sanctions-busting. 

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed cutting ZTE and other Chinese “national champion” companies off from U.S. infrastructure development funds because the U.S. intelligence community views their technology as a national security risk.
White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters issued a rare tweet clarification, explaining that Trump wanted Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to “exercise his independent judgment” to resolve the ZTE case “based on its facts.” 

Ross told the National Press Club on Monday that the ZTE restrictions are “separate from trade.” Still, Ross added, he is looking at “alternative remedies” for ZTE and expects to find some “very, very promptly.”
What the heck happened here? 

Some officials believe that the camp of Trump officials trying to avoid a trade war with China — led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow — are winning the never-ending battle for the president’s limited attention. 

Mnuchin is trying to control the China negotiations and elbow out U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Director Peter Navarro.
My Washington Post colleagues reported that Trump may have gotten ahead of a brewing “mini-deal” whereby the United States provides relief for ZTE and, in return, China eases its restrictions on U.S. agricultural imports. 

If that’s the case, the Trump administration “just got blackmailed,” according to Derek Scissors, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
“Our actions against ZTE might have been excessive, but what you can’t do is say, ‘Just kidding’ when the Chinese start complaining about it,” he said. 

“The idea that we did it and then reversed ourselves is awful.”
As I’ve written before, a short-term deal would a penny-wise, pound-foolish approach, because confronting China’s large-scale unfair and illegal practices should be an urgent strategic priority. 

The United States gets one shot to show China that we are serious about forcing it to change its behavior — and, if it won’t, that we are serious about defending ourselves.
Trump is signaling he’s willing to give up the one piece of leverage that is actually getting the Chinese government’s attention before receiving anything concrete in return. 

That’s not only bad negotiating. 

It also sends the message that the United States doesn’t have the stomach for the larger economic battles with China to come.
Nobody knows whether Trump will approve whatever “deal” Mnuchin and company put on his desk after the next round of talks. 

Trump may change his mind again. 

But here are some of the other demands in China’s proposal, to watch out for on Trump’s Twitter feed:

• The United States commits to eliminating the sanctions imposed after China’s crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989
• The United States relaxes export restrictions on technology such as integrated circuits
• The United States allows U.S. government agencies to purchase and use Chinese information technology products and services
• The United States agrees to treat Chinese investment and investors equally to those from other countries and place no restrictions on Chinese investment
• The United States agrees to ensure Chinese businesses can participate in U.S. infrastructure projects
• The United States agrees to strengthen protection of Chinese intellectual property. (Seriously!)
• The United States agrees to drop its anti-dumping cases against China at the World Trade Organization
• The United States agrees to terminate its investigations into Chinese intellectual property theft and not impose any of the sanctions Trump already announced

“They expect to be treated the same way our treaty allies are treated, which is ridiculous,” Scissors said. 

The demands in the document are crazy, he said, “But we actually accepted one of China’s crazy demands.”
If Trump concedes to Beijing’s other demands, he would be declaring the United States’ surrender in the economic struggle against China before the fight really begins. 

Trump administration officials are now saying that won’t happen. 

But Trump’s unforced error on ZTE undermines the entire effort.