Tag: china

Software Engineer Imprisoned for Developing Application to Break China’s Internet Censorship

Two people, who were detained by Shanghai State Security Police in October 2021 for developing software that circumvents the Great Firewall, received six- and five-year prison sentences on June 12, 2023.

He Binggang and his fiancée Zhang Yibo, together with several others, were arrested on Oct. 9, 2021, for developing and maintaining software that helps people living in China to access overseas internet platforms, according to the Falun Dafa Infocenter.

The Chinese regime set up Great Firewall (GFW), or Golden Shield Project, in 1998, which is managed by the regime’s Ministry of Public Security to monitor and censor what can and cannot be seen in China through an online network.

He and Zhang are Falun Gong adherents, a spiritual practice that has been persecuted inside China since 1999 and has been the subject of intense political propaganda.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual improvement practice based on principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, with five slow-moving, gentle exercises that have significant physical benefits. The practice has been very popular in China, with an estimated 70 million to 100 million practitioners in the country before the Chinese communist regime began to persecute the belief and its followers in July 1999.

He and Zhang had developed software called oGate that allows Chinese people to freely access websites and information available outside of China but which are blocked by the GFW and otherwise unavailable inside China.

A group of Chinese non-IT activists, including lawyers and journalists, launched BanGFW on March 8, 2023.

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Lab Leak Theory: 1, Misinformation Cops: 0

The lab leak theory of COVID-19’s origins gained tremendous legitimacy this week as The Wall Street Journal confirmed independent reports that the earliest outbreak occurred at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in November 2019.

“Patients zero” are now presumed to be three Chinese scientists, including Ben Hu, who worked extensively on gain-of-function research (the manipulation of viruses to make them more dangerous), which was funded by grants from the U.S. government. Those cases occurred in November 2019—well before the Huanan wet market outbreak favored by some in the scientific community as the more likely origin story—and they occurred among the very people one would predict if the virus originated in a lab. This is quite damning, to say the least. Anyone still clinging to an animal origin theory—remember the pangolins and raccoon dogs?—is running up against Occam’s razor.

Assuming the intelligence reports are accurate and that Hu and his colleagues did contract the earliest cases of COVID-19, the implications are huge. This would mean that substandard safety protocols at the Wuhan lab probably unleashed a killer pathogen on the rest of the planet, and the Chinese government attempted to cover it up.

China is hardly the only government on the hook; the lab leak also means that research paid for by U.S. tax dollars—and vouched for by coronavirus czar Anthony Fauci, the nation’s foremost gain-of-function advocate—is partly to blame for a pandemic that killed millions of people worldwide. Fauci, the very person tasked with leading the U.S. response to COVID-19, was in charge of the government agency that gave Hu, the gain-of-function researcher initially sickened with the disease, millions of dollars to experiment with bat coronaviruses.

Information on the central role played by Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was made public by the White Coat Waste Project, a watchdog group that uses public records requests to scrutinize federal funding of science. The Journal cited the organization’s work, writing that it confirmed Hu’s receipt of U.S. funding.

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NATO Chief Says Russia Must Lose in Ukraine to Send Message to China

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg met with President Biden in Washington on Tuesday and said Russia must lose in Ukraine to send a message to China as the Western alliance increasingly has its eyes on the Asia Pacific.

“President Putin must not win this war, because that will not only be a tragedy for Ukrainians, but also make the world more dangerous,” Stoltenberg said at the White House before a meeting with Biden.

“It will send a message to authoritarian leaders all over the world, also in China, that when they use military force, they get what they want, and we will then become more vulnerable. So it’s our security interest to support Ukraine,” he added.

Stoltenberg’s comments come as NATO is planning to boost ties with countries in the Asia Pacific. According to a report from Nikkei Asia, the alliance is preparing documents to increase relations with its four main partners in the region, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.

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Scientists working at Wuhan Institute of Virology alongside Chinese military ‘were combining world’s most deadly coronaviruses to create mutant strain capable of sparking a pandemic just before the Covid outbreak began’

Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were running risky experiments to create deadly mutant coronaviruses by fusing newly discovered strains – just before the outbreak of Covid-19.

US investigators believe Covid-19 was created by scientists at the Wuhan lab through experiments on a similar coronavirus discovered in a mineshaft in southern China.

Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were fusing deadly coronaviruses to create highly-infectious mutant strains, that were then used to infect albino mice, the US investigators claim.

The research programme was kept secret and covered up due to it being funded by the Chinese military with the aim of developing bioweapons, the investigators believe.  

The secret initiative in turn led to the creation of Covid-19, which was then leaked into the city of Wuhan through a lab accident, before it spread across the globe, the US investigators claim. 

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China’s failed attempt to erase the Tiananmen square massacre

On Jun 4, 1989, Chinese troops stormed through Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, killing and arresting thousands of pro-democracy protesters in what would become known as the Tiananmen Square massacre. The Tiananmen massacre was precipitated by the peaceful gatherings of students, workers, and others in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and other cities in April 1989 calling for freedom of expression, accountability, and an end to corruption. The government responded to the intensifying protests in late May 1989 by declaring martial law. This was but a prelude the the planned crackdown the Chinese Communist party unleased on the unsuspecting pro democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.

Between June 3 and 4, 1989, the tanks rolled into the square and the military opened fire and killed untold numbers of peaceful protesters and bystanders. China’s statement at the end of June 1989 said that 200 civilians and several dozen security personnel had died in Beijing following the suppression of “counter-revolutionary riots” on 4 June 1989. Outside sources has put the number of at least several thousands, and up to 10,000 people who were massacred by the Chinese security forces, according to recently declassified documents. Following the killings, the government implemented a national crackdown and arrested thousands of people for “counter-revolution” and other criminal charges, including disrupting social order and arson.

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China Launches Massive Online Censorship Sweep Ahead of Tiananmen Square Anniversary

The Chinese Communist government is ramping up online censorship ahead of the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, massacre of student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square – an event that is illegal to commemorate or discuss in China.

Beijing scrubs China’s heavily sealed, policed, and censored backwater of the Internet of Tiananmen content every year, but this time they, scrubbed a bridge right off the digital map. Users of China’s Baidu search engine – which, like Google and other search providers, has a mapping feature – suddenly found themselves unable to locate Sitong Bridge in Beijing. Early this week, Baidu began claiming “no related places found” when the bridge is searched for, although some intrepid users were able to get around the clumsy censorship by using different versions of the Chinese alphabet.

Sitong Bridge became a political topic last October when a man began hanging banners from the bridge criticizing dictator Xi Jinping and his heavy-handed coronavirus lockdown policies.

“No PCR tests, but food; no lockdowns, but freedom; no lies, but respect; no Cultural Revolution, but reform; no dictator, but vote; no [to being] slaves, but we the people,” one of the banners read.

The Sitong Bridge banners helped to inspire the massive nationwide protests that ultimately prompted Xi to abandon his lockdown policies, even though the Chinese government had long insisted the lockdowns were perfectly conceived, deftly executed, and highly effective at restraining the Wuhan coronavirus.

The protesters adopted white sheets of paper as a symbol of defiance, borrowing a (literal) page from the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement of 2019, which taunted the island’s Beijing-controlled government by daring the police to arrest them for waving papers that bore no message at all. Protesters waving blank paper assembled on other bridges as a tribute to the Sitong Bridge dissident, and they chanted a slogan from one of his banners: “Freedom, Not Lockdown.”

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CIA Head Took ‘Secret’ Trip to Beijing

CIA Director William Burns held “clandestine” meetings with Chinese intel agencies during an unannounced trip to Beijing last month, US officials told the Financial Times, suggesting the visit was intended to “stabilize” deteriorating relations with the People’s Republic.

Burns had no formal diplomatic engagements in China and “only met intelligence officials” for talks in May, FT reported on Friday, citing five unnamed sources familiar with the trip. Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, CBS and other agencies later confirmed the report, but offered few additional details.

“Last month, director Burns traveled to Beijing where he met with Chinese counterparts and emphasized the importance of maintaining open lines of communications in intelligence channels,” a US official said in a statement to FT and several other outlets.

The sources did not say what was discussed during the meetings, which mark the Joe Biden administration’s highest-level visit to China since outgoing State Department deputy Wendy Sherman traveled to Tianjin in 2021.

A career diplomat, Burns is seen as a “trusted interlocutor” by the PRC, according to former senior White House official Paul Haenle, who worked on China policy during his time in government. “They would welcome the opportunity to engage him quietly behind the scenes. They will see a quiet, discreet engagement with Burns as a perfect opportunity,” he told the Financial Times.

Burns’ trip took place around the same time that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with one of China’s top foreign policy officials, ex-Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The White House did not announce those talks beforehand, but later said the two sides had “candid, substantive, and constructive discussions on key issues,” including Taiwan. 

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Taiwan Receives Stinger Missiles as Part of Free Military Aid Package from US

Taiwanese media has reported that Taiwan received delivery of Raytheon-made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles from the US as part of a $500 million package of free military aid that Washington has been preparing for Taipei.

According to Taipei Times, the Stingers arrived in a Boeing 747 on Thursday night. So far, the US and Taiwanese governments have not confirmed the delivery, but both sides said recently that the $500 million in weapons would be sent soon.

The $500 million in free weapons is being pulled from US military stockpiles using the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), the primary way the Biden administration has been arming Ukraine. The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes $1 billion in PDA for Taiwan.

The military aid for Taiwan is unprecedented as the US has sold weapons to the island since severing relations with Taipei in 1979 to open up with China but hasn’t provided arms free of charge.

The NDAA also included $2 billion for Taiwan under the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing program, which gives foreign governments money to purchase US arms. But the FMF funds did not make it past the appropriations committee.

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Report details CIA’s alleged color revolution efforts

The CIA has been attempting to foment “color revolutions” around the world for decades, with its efforts making use of a vast arsenal of technical means, a report by two Chinese cybersecurity entities has claimed.

The document was compiled by China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center and cybersecurity company 360, and was released by the Global Times on Thursday. It alleges that Washington’s tech advantage allowed it to hold sway over institutions and individuals across the globe that use US-made digital equipment or software.

According to the report, the CIA has attempted to overthrow governments in at least 50 states, with the 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine, the 2014 ‘Sunflower Revolution’ in Taiwan, and the 2009 ‘Green Revolution’ in Iran allegedly among the most notable examples.

In many cases, America’s technological edge granted Washington unprecedented possibilities to execute its plans for regime change, the report claims. It adds that the CIA relies on methods including “48 advanced cyber weapons.”

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4 Ways That Joe Biden Could Get America Into A Nuclear War

Have you ever looked at Joe Biden and wondered if this guy is going to get us all killed? 

If so, you are definitely not alone.  Biden is an ill-tempered lunatic that is not all there mentally, and his foreign policy team includes well-known warmongers such as Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken and Victoria Nuland.  Over the past two years they have been provoking our enemies every chance they get, and that has pushed us to the brink of war with several of them.  They keep telling us that they know exactly what they are doing, but if they get this wrong we are not going to get a “do over”.  Once the missiles start flying, there will be no going back. 

The following are 4 ways that Joe Biden and his minions could get America into a nuclear war…

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