What China’s empty Chinese coronavirus hospitals say about its secretive system

Even after declaring a crisis, Beijing was focused more on propaganda than on managing the Chinese virus outbreak 
Emma Graham-Harrison

Flowers and a photo of the whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang at a hospital in Wuhan. 

China’s two new hospitals built in as many weeks were the official face of its fight against the Chinese coronavirus in Wuhan. 

As the city was locked down, authorities promised that thousands of doctors would be on hand to treat 2,600 patients on the facilities’ wards.
Timelapse videos tracked the fast construction of the hospitals, and state media celebrated their opening in early February. 

The only thing missing a week later? Patients.

Four days after its opening, the larger Leishenshan hospital had only 90 patients, on wards designed for 1,600, but was reporting no spare beds, Wuhan city health data, first reported by the Chinese magazine Caixin, showed. 

The other facility, Huoshenshan, had not yet filled its 1,000 beds a week after opening.
Meanwhile, the city was setting up emergency hospitals in exhibition halls and a sports stadium, and medics were still turning ill people away. 

China has the world’s largest army but it has not deployed any field hospitals to Wuhan.
The gulf between the vision of vast new hospitals created and thrown into action within days and the more complicated reality on the ground is a reminder of one of the main challenges for Beijing as it struggles to contain the Chinese coronavirus: its own secretive, authoritarian system of government and its vast censorship and propaganda apparatus.
Communist party apparatus well honed to crush dissent also muffles legitimate warnings. 

A propaganda system designed to support the party and state cannot be relied on for accurate information. 

That is a problem not just for families left bereft by the Chinese coronavirus and businesses destroyed by the sudden shutdown, but for a world trying to assess Beijing’s success in controlling and containing the disease.
“China’s centralised system and lack of freedom of press definitely delay a necessary aggressive early response when it was still possible to contain epidemics at the local level,” said Ho-fung Hung, a professor in political economy at Johns Hopkins University in the US.
Beijing did go public about the Chinese virus faster than during the 2002-3 Sars crisis.

But it has become increasingly clear that the local government was engaged in a concerted attempt to cover up the crisis during the early weeks of the outbreak, which allowed it to fester at a time when it would have been much easier to contain.

Two officials have been fired, Wuhan’s mayor admitted failings in a live interview on national television, and the central government has sent a team to investigate the treatment of the whistleblowing doctor Li Wenliang.
Security forces punished Li, 34, for trying to warn colleagues about the risks of a dangerous new disease at the end of December. 

Just over a month later he became one of the youngest victims of the Chinese coronavirus. 

His death made him a household name and triggered a rare discussion in China about freedom of speech.
In a biting essay that laid the blame for the crisis with Xi Jinping, a dissident intellectual claimed China’s centralisation and culture of silence had played a key role in the spread of the disease.
“It began with the imposition of stern bans on the reporting of factual information that served to embolden deception at every level of government,” Xu Zhangrun wrote in his essay Viral Alarm, When Fury Overcomes Fear, according to a translation by Geremie Barmé on the website ChinaFile.
“It only struck its true stride when bureaucrats throughout the system shrugged off responsibility for the unfolding situation while continuing to seek the approbation of their superiors,” Xu continued. 

“They all blithely stood by as the crucial window of opportunity to deal with the outbreak of the infection snapped shut in their faces.”

A Chinese coronavirus patient is discharged from a field module hospital after recovery in Wuhan. 

Without a free press, elections or much space for civil society, there are few ways for citizens to hold their rulers accountable. 

Instead, local officials answer only to a party hierarchy that puts a premium on stability and economic growth.
Prof Steve Tsang, director of the Soas China Institute, said: “China is not a poor country. But the incentives are not for a health director (for example) to respond to public health crises in Wuhan first and foremost. The incentive is to do what the party wants … and not embarrass the party.”

The cost of trying to curb the Chinese coronavirus when it first emerged – high-profile moves to close the market where it originated, cull and destroy livestock, quarantine and compensate victims, cancel mass festivities for the new year – would have seemed a risky gamble for little reward.
“That might have ended it, or not,” Tsang said. 

“[But] since you stopped the virus from developing, you have nothing to show. You quashed a potential threat that may not have existed.”
Even when the government reversed course and announced a crisis, it appeared to be focused more on propaganda than on managing the disease, he said. 

It could have deployed medics and a field hospital to Wuhan almost overnight rather than building new hospitals.
It is unclear why they chose not to do so. 

But a country setting up field hospitals looks like one in crisis. 

A government expanding hospitals looks like one in control. 

“Ten days is a very long time when you are looking at a public health crisis like that,” Tsang said. 

“But a new hospital built from the ground up, that’s a world record.”

Diggers begin constructing a new 1,000-bed hospital in Wuhan.

Questions about China’s transparency still hang over efforts to manage the disease. 

Scientists are concerned about its spread in areas that have become new hubs of the disease. 

Zhejiang and Guangdong province – both industrial centres – have reported more than 1,000 cases, as has inland Henan province.
That is higher than the number of cases reported in Hubei province when the lockdown of Wuhan was announced in January. 

But with the economy badly strained by the long shutdown, Chinese authorities are urging people to start heading back to work in “orderly” fashion in these areas.
There have also been doubts about the accuracy of the tally of cases, after many families reported struggling to get testing for sick relatives.The test numbers may be accurate, and disease control measures in place elsewhere may be sufficient to control a virus that scientists already understand much better than they did a few weeks ago. 

But if China cannot address the systemic failings that allowed the outbreak to fester originally, it may struggle to control this epidemic, avert the next one and secure the global trust and cooperation needed to fight disease.
“There is no one quick fix to the Chinese system to make it respond better next time,” said Hung. “But if there is one single factor that could increase the government’s responsiveness to this kind of crisis, [it would be] a free press.”

China's Final Solution: TikTok parent company ByteDance is working with China's Communist Party to spread propaganda on East Turkestan

• ByteDance, the company that owns the viral video app TikTok, is working closely with China's government to facilitate human-rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China's western colony of East Turkestan.
• The report, titled "Mapping more of China's tech giants: AI and surveillance," looked at the way major Chinese tech companies were involved in state-sanctioned surveillance and censorship using artificial intelligence packaged as popular apps and websites.
• ByteDance is collaborating with public security bureaus across China, including in East Turkestan where it plays an active role in disseminating the party-state's propaganda on East Turkestan.
• TikTok has been in the spotlight after it suspended the account of a US teenager Feroza Aziz after she posted a viral video on the app that was disguised as a makeup tutorial but criticized the Chinese government's treatment of Uighurs in East Turkestan.

By Rosie Perper

The Chinese company that owns the viral video app TikTok is working closely with China's government to facilitate human-rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in the western colony of East Turkestan, according to a new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
The report, titled "Mapping more of China's tech giants: AI and surveillance," looked at the way major Chinese tech companies were involved in state-sanctioned surveillance and censorship using artificial intelligence packaged as popular apps and websites.
ByteDance, the parent company of the viral-video sensation TikTok, was mentioned in the report alongside other major Chinese tech companies including Huawei, Tencent, and Alibaba, all of which -- ASPI wrote -- "are engaged in deeply unethical behavior in East Turkestan, where their work directly supports and enables mass human rights abuses."
China is running thousands detention centers and forced labor camps in East Turkestan. 

Interviews with people who were held in the facilities reveal beatings and food deprivation, as well as medical experimentation on prisoners.
In its research, ASPI singled out ByteDance and accused it of acting alongside the Communist Party to enforce the country's strict censorship laws.
"ByteDance collaborates with public security bureaus across China, including in East Turkestan where it plays an active role in disseminating the party-state's propaganda on East Turkestan," the report said.
ByteDance operates two versions of its viral video app — a China-based app called Douyin and the global app TikTok.
TikTok is one of the most downloaded phone apps in the world and has already entered more than 150 global markets.
Previous reports cited by ASPI indicated that "East Turkestan Internet Police" had a presence on Douyin in 2018 and created a "new public security and internet social governance model."
ASPI also cited recent reporting that said China's Ministry of Public Security's Press and Publicity Bureau signed an agreement with ByteDance that allowed ministry and police officials to have their own Douyin accounts to push ministry propaganda. 

The report also said ByteDance would "increase its offline cooperation with the police department," though it was unclear what that partnership would entail.

ASPI added that other tech giants, including Alibaba and Huawei, contributed cloud computing and surveillance technologies in East Turkestan.
In October, the US blacklisted 28 Chinese organizations and companies accused of facilitating human-rights abuses in East Turkestan.

And earlier this month, sources told Reuters that the US opened a national security investigation into ByteDance after its $1 billion acquisition of the US social-media app Musical.ly in 2017.
TikTok has been in the spotlight after suspending the account of a US teenager named Feroza Aziz who posted a viral video on the app that was disguised as a makeup tutorial but criticized the Chinese government's treatment of Uighurs in East Turkestan.
The company apologized in a statement published to its website on Wednesday, saying that it stood behind its initial decision to suspend Aziz's account but that its moderation process "will not be perfect."
East Turkestan has a population of about 10 million, many of whom are Uighur or other ethnic minorities. 

In May, US Assistant Secretary of Defense Randall Schriver said "at least a million but likely closer to 3 million citizens" were detained detention camps.
Satellite images reviewed by the Washington-based East Turkistan National Awakening Movement earlier this month identified at least 465 detention centers, labor camps, and suspected prisons in East Turkestan.
And a recent leak of classified Chinese government documents known as the "China Cables" laid out a manual for exactly how the detention centers were to operate, preventing escape by double locking all the doors and using a "points system" based on behavior that is linked "directly to rewards, punishments, and family visits".

Chinese Peril

China's Media Interference Is Going Global

BY AMY GUNIA / HONG KONG 

China is actively attempting to influence the global media to deter criticism and spread propaganda, according to a new report released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Monday.
The report, China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order says Beijing is using a variety of strategies including ramping up international broadcasting, undertaking extensive advertising campaigns, and infiltrating foreign media outlets to spread its world view.
“You can see that what is at stake is not only the Chinese authorities trying to spread their own propaganda…what is at stake is journalism as we know it,” Cédric Alviani, East Asia Bureau Director of RSF told TIME.
According to the report, the Chinese government is investing as much as $1.3 billion annually to increase the global presence of Chinese media. 

With this investment, Chinese state-run television and radio shows have been able drastically expanded their international reach in recent years. 

China Global Television Network is televised in 140 countries and China Radio International is broadcast in 65 languages.
The government is also spending significant sums to promote Chinese views by placing paid advertorials in Western media publications. 

Alviani said in an era where news media is struggling with profitability, media outlets have been tempted by advertising dollars. 

China has paid up to $250,000 to place ads in leading international publications.
“If you’re a subscriber to big media you trust the contents they provide to you, you implicitly trust the content they provide, it’s quite dangerous,” Alviani told TIME. 

“In the long run they have to make a decision, do they want to keep their credibility? Or do they want to carry Chinese propaganda?”
The report says China is also attempting to control foreign media outlets by buying stakes in them. 

Chinese ownership leads self-censorship, and journalists have been fired for writing about the country critically.
A columnist for South Africa’s Independent Online, of which Chinese investors held a 20% stake, had his column cancelled in Sept. 2018, hours after a column about China’s persecution of ethnic minorities was published.
In addition to buying stakes in media outlets, Beijing has influenced foreign media by inviting journalists, especially from developing countries, to China for training. 

The report mentions one example where 22 journalists from Zambia were invited to visit China for specially-designed event called the 2018 Zambia Media Think Tank Seminar.
By inviting journalists on lavish, all-expense-paid trips to attend seminars in China, Beijing wins many of them over and secures favourable coverage.
Lack of press freedom in China is well-documented, with the country ranking 176 out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index, but the report documents several cases of China is using the same tactics used to silence dissent at home to repress journalists overseas. 

China is “employing blackmail, intimidation and harassment on a massive scale,” says RSF.
“Chinese ambassadors extend their role outside of the regular diplomatic roles, they denigrate journalists anytime they write something that does not meet Chinese propaganda,” Alviani told TIME.
Despite China’s far-reaching influence into global media organizations, RSF hopes that journalists will work to document Chinese interference.
“It’s very likely that what we show in this report is only the tip of the iceberg. The purpose of the report is to stir interest for journalists so they’ll pay attention to the extent of Chinese influence in their regions,” Alviani said.

Chinese Fifth Column

China-funded Confucius Institutes trying to influence US public opinion should be constrained
By Rich Edson

WASHINGTON -- Senators are considering legislation to constrain Chinese government-funded institutes they say are spreading propaganda and limiting criticism of China at hundreds of elementary, middle and high schools and colleges across the United States.
Confucius Institutes “depict China as approachable and compassionate; rarely are events critical or controversial,” according to a bipartisan report from the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. 

“The Chinese government approves all teachers, events, and speakers. Some U.S. schools contractually agree that both Chinese and U.S. laws will apply.”
In the last 15 years, the Chinese government has opened more than 100 Confucius Institutes on college and university campuses in the U.S. and are also in more than 500 primary schools, according to the report. 

Since 2006, according to the subcommittee, China has directly provided more than $158 million to U.S. schools for Confucius Institutes. 

Investigators said they found no evidence of espionage at the institutes as their investigation, they said, focused on propaganda and influence.
“That level of access stifles academic freedom and provides students and others exposed to Confucius Institute programming with an incomplete picture of Chinese government actions and policies that run counter to U.S. interests at home and abroad,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, the subcommittee’s chairman.
“Given what our country experienced during the 2016 election and what we’re preparing to grapple with in 2020, it is critical that we be vigilant in combatting Chinese efforts to influence American public opinion,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., the subcommittee’s senior Democrat.

The subcommittee report cites Chinese government statements acknowledging their propaganda value to address criticism over human rights, Taiwan and individual freedom.

“We’re not against cultural exchange or language learning outright. We do view and recognize the value in this globalized world of cultural exchange, of foreign exchange, of language learning,” said a subcommittee investigator. 

“There are concerns schools need to be aware about how these things operate. And the public, faculty and students also need to be aware.”
The institutes, the schools they contract with and the Chinese government should reveal the details of their agreements, said the investigator. 

Without achieving that transparency, the investigator said senators are exploring legislation to address those concerns or would even pursue ways to shut them down.
In its study, the GAO found, “While 42 of 90 agreements include language indicating that the document was confidential, some agreements were available online or are shared upon request. Some officials at schools that did not post agreements online said this was consistent with handling of other agreements.” 

The report also read, “Nonetheless, school officials, researchers, and others suggested ways schools could improve institute management, such as by renegotiating agreements to clarify U.S. schools' authority and making agreements publicly available.”
Last year, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, sponsored a provision included in the National Defense Authorization Act that prohibits Pentagon funding of Confucius Institutes. 

He’s also pushed a bill that would lower the threshold for universities reporting foreign contributions from $250,000 to $50,000.
The subcommittee investigation found that nearly 70 percent of U.S. schools that received more than $250,000 from the Chinese government for Confucius Institutes failed to properly report those contributions to the federal government.
In 2010, the State Department granted more than $5 million to create American cultural events on Chinese campuses.
The department’s inspector general determined the U.S. effort was “'largely ineffective' in its mission due to Chinese interference” and closed the program late last year, according to the report.
“As China has expanded Confucius Institutes here in the U.S., it has systematically shut down key U.S. State Department public diplomacy efforts on Chinese college campuses,” said Senator Portman.
While there are more Confucius Institutes in the U.S. than any other country, the Chinese government has spent more than $2 billion expanding them across the world, according to the subcommittee.
“They show no signs of slowing,” said an investigator.

Chinese Spies

U.S. Congress urged to require Chinese journalists to register as agents
By David Brunnstrom

China's mole in New Zealnd: Yang Jian
Spying HQ: Xinhua serves the functions of an intelligence agency by gathering information and producing classified reports for the Chinese leadership. It had important offices at the United Nations in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and San Francisco.

WASHINGTON -- A report to the U.S. Congress released on Wednesday accused Chinese state media entities of involvement in spying and propaganda and said their staff in the United States should be required to register as foreign agents.
The annual report of the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission said that while China had tightened restrictions on domestic and foreign media, Chinese state media had rapidly expanded overseas.
The commission, created by Congress in 2000 to monitor national security implications of U.S.-China trade relations, said China’s state media expansion was part of a broader effort to exert greater control over how China is depicted globally, as well as to gather information.
The report highlighted the rapid growth of the Xinhua news agency and noted that it had offices at the United Nations in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and San Francisco.
“Xinhua serves the functions of an intelligence agency by gathering information and producing classified reports for the Chinese leadership on both domestic and international events,” the report said.
It quoted testimony to the commission by the U.S. Government-funded rights organization, Freedom House, as saying it was a “loophole” that individuals working for Xinhua and China’s People’s Daily newspaper were not covered by the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
FARA, first passed in 1938 in the lead up to World War Two to combat German propaganda efforts, requires foreign governments, political parties and lobbyists they hire in the United States to register with the Department of Justice.
The China Daily, an English-language newspaper owned by China’s government and ruling Communist Party, is already registered under FARA but only its top executives are required to individually disclose working for the publication.
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers is working to overhaul FARA after Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for President Donald Trump, and a business associate were indicted for failing to register under the law.
The reform, backed by powerful Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, could provide an opportunity for Congress to act on the commission recommendations.
On Monday, the Kremlin-backed television station RT America registered under FARA after U.S. intelligence agencies in a report in January called it a “state-run propaganda machine” that contributed to the Kremlin’s campaign to interfere with last year’s U.S. presidential election.
Under the act, RT will be required to disclose financial information. 

Moscow has said it views the action against RT as an unfriendly act.

Infantile Brainwashing

China’s Newest Propaganda Format: Children’s Bedtime Stories
By CARLOS TEJADA

HONG KONG — Sometimes “Goodnight Moon” just won’t do the trick.
So for parents struggling to get their little ones to rest their eyes for the night, China’s state propaganda apparatus has a suggestion: Tell your child about Xi Jinping’s ambitions to extend China’s political and economic power across Asia and the Middle East.
China Daily, a state-controlled media organization that aims primarily at an international audience, began releasing English-language videos this week describing a huge spending and infrastructure push called the Belt and Road Initiative, in the form of a child’s bedtime story. 

In the two videos released so far, a father uses a windup camel skittering across a map to describe trade across Asia along the old Silk Road, and how China plans to help develop the regions it once passed through.
Xi’s name is, of course, dropped prominently.
“They’re building new things like highways and railways and airports, and even pipeline and internet cables,” says a father trying to put his daughter to bed.
“So it’s just about moving stuff around?” she asks.
“That’s a big part of it,” he says. 

“But there’s a lot more.”

In a second video, the father expands on that point. 

“It’s not just about roads and rail and airports to move stuff,” he says. 

“It’s also about people and cooperation.”

Any country can join, the father says. 

“But,” he notes, “the United States hasn’t joined the initiative.”
“It’s China’s idea,” he says, “but it belongs to the world.”

The video identifies the father as Erik Nilsson, who is listed on LinkedIn as assistant director, features at China Daily. 

He did not respond to calls and an email requesting comment. 

An editor at China Daily’s new media desk declined to immediately answer questions.
China has been trying to polish its ham-handed approach to telling its story to skeptical audiences outside its borders, just as it has at home. 

In a video released two years ago, for example, China’s official broadcaster repackaged an important but dry story about the formulation of a new five-year economic and development plan into an animated ditty about the “Shisanwu.”

Then there were the foreigners who appeared in a video by the Communist Party’s newspaper, People’s Daily, calling Xi a great leader, a family man and a handsome fellow.

The Belt and Road videos were released ahead of a forum in Beijing next week dedicated to the infrastructure initiative. 

Xi and the leaders of countries including Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia and Turkey plan to attend.
It is not clear how China’s plans to help build infrastructure across the region will fare. 

But the benefits could be considerable for the country, which has far too many steel, glass and cement factories and is looking to find markets for that overcapacity.

China's overseas takeover spree meets growing resistance

Associated Press

HONG KONG – Corporate China's global shopping binge barreled on this week with more multibillion dollar deals, but Beijing is starting to discover that there are limits to what its money can buy.
In recent days German and European Union officials have moved to tighten up scrutiny or even block high-profile acquisitions in the latest sign of growing opposition to Chinese purchases of companies in key industries due to national security or competition concerns.
Swiss chemical giant Syngenta said Tuesday that EU regulators examining its proposed $43 billion takeover by state-owned ChemChina have "recently requested a large amount of additional information," which will drag the approval process out into the first quarter of next year.
At about the same time, the German government withdrew clearance for a Chinese company to buy semiconductor equipment maker Aixtron in a $670 million deal over unspecified security-related concerns — a decision that threatens to complicate German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel's trade visit to China next week.
"The surge in Chinese acquisitions of high-tech companies certainly has policymakers on high alert, especially in Germany," said Bjorn Conrad, vice president of research at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin, which tracks China's overseas investment. 

"That is because China is not playing by the rules."
He said some of the deals reflect a political strategy in which state-owned Chinese companies, spurred by an aggressive outbound industrial policy, unfairly exploit Europe's open markets to gobble up companies with core technologies to speed the country's technological advance.
European policymakers "are not naive when it comes to government-driven acquisitions. They will apply a much higher level of scrutiny in the future," Conrad said.
Chinese companies have invested nearly $200 billion so far this year in overseas firms, almost double the amount for all of 2015, according to Dealogic. 

The transactions have included a German robot maker, a Finnish video game company and an American appliance maker.
Just this week, HNA Group paid $6.5 billion for a 25 percent stake in the Hilton hotel chain, after one of its units earlier this year bought Carlson Hotels, operator of the Radisson and Country Inns & Suites brands. 

Meanwhile, Beijing-based China Oceanwide Holdings Group agreed to buy U.S. insurer Genworth Financial for $2.7 billion.
However, about $40 billion in proposed Chinese purchases has been cancelled since the start of 2015, reflecting resistance to such deals, according to Dealogic.
In Australia, the government blocked a Chinese group from leasing a Sydney electricity grid in an unusual turnaround, citing classified national security reasons. 

The deal involving state-owned State Grid Corp. and Hong Kong-based Cheung Kong Infrastructure group would have earned the government more than 10 billion Australian dollars (then-$7.6 billion).
The August decision was unusual in that the government had initially invited the companies to bid and only rejected them at the last minute on general security concerns unrelated to any specific country, said Hans Hendrischke, a professor at the University of Sydney Business School who specializes in Chinese investment in Australia.
However, "overall, certainly, I think the political outcome is clearly that the perception is created as if all of these are somehow directed against Chinese acquisitions of assets in foreign countries."
The concerns mirror those in the U.S.
Last month, 16 lawmakers wrote to the Government Accountability Office calling for a review of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., a federal inter-agency panel also known as CFIUS, saying it should be updated or expanded to keep pace with the surge of foreign acquisitions in strategically important sectors.
Specifically, the letter said the committee's powers might need to be widened in light of Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda's recent purchases of U.S. theater chains and the Hollywood studio Legendary Entertainment, citing fears about Beijing's censorship and propaganda efforts.
Tighter scrutiny by CFIUS or the prospect of it has already thwarted some high-tech deals.
State-owned Tsinghua Unisplendour in February scrapped a plan to buy a 15 percent stake in disk drive maker Western Digital, which would have made it the biggest shareholder, after the committee decided to investigate the $3.8 billion investment on national security grounds. 

A month earlier, electronics giant Philips aborted the sale of a majority stake in its LED components and auto lighting business to Chinese investor GO Scale Capital.