Tag: china

Two weeks after the first “covid death” in China, 33 “vaccines” were already in development according to WHO document

Seventeen days after the first covid death worldwide was reported and before the first “covid death” outside China, the World Health Organisation (“WHO”) published a document that showed 33 covid “vaccines” were already under development.

On 11 January 2020, Chinese state media reported the first known death from an illness caused by a novel virus.  Seventeen days later, on 28 January, WHO published a document showing that 33 covid “vaccines” were in development.

According to WHO’s document, two of the vaccines were already in Phase 1 trials and were being tested in humans: a DNA vaccine developed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (“NIAID”) and an inactivated virus vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

This was 5 days before the first reported covid death outside China.

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TIKTOK THREAT IS PURELY HYPOTHETICAL, U.S. INTELLIGENCE ADMITS

THE PURPORTED THREAT of TikTok to U.S. national security has inflated into a hysteria of Chinese spy balloon proportions, but the official record tells a different story: U.S. intelligence has produced no evidence that the popular social media site has ever coordinated with Beijing. That fact hasn’t stopped many in Congress and even President Joe Biden from touting legislation that would force the sale of the app, as the TikTok frenzy fills the news pages with empty conjecture and innuendo.

In interviews and testimony to Congress about TikTok, leaders of the FBI, CIA, and the director of national intelligence have in fact been careful to qualify the national security threat posed by TikTok as purely hypothetical. With access to much of the government’s most sensitive intelligence, they are well placed to know.

The basic charge is that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, a Chinese company, could be compelled by the government in Beijing to use their app in targeted operations to manipulate public opinion, collect mass data on Americans, and even spy on individual users. (TikTok says it has never shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government and would not do so if asked. This week, TikTok CEO Shou Chew said that “there’s no CCP ownership” of ByteDance, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.)

Though top national security officials seem happy to echo these allegations of Chinese control of TikTok, they stop short of saying that China has ever actually coordinated with the company.

Typical is an interview CIA Director William Burns gave to CNN in 2022, where he said it was “troubling to see what the Chinese government could do to manipulate TikTok.” Not what the Chinese government has done, but what it could do.

What China could do turns out to be a recurring theme in the statements of the top national security officials.

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Chinese Scientists Implant First Pig Liver Into Brain-Dead Human

Who says nothing interesting ever happens in the world anymore? This week, in a “first of its kind” operation, a brain-dead human subject was implanted with the world’s first gene-edited pig liver transplant, according to SCMP. 

In what could be a pioneering move, Chinese scientists have transplanted a gene-edited pig liver into a human, aiming to potentially mark a solution to organ shortages, the report says.

The liver was modified to reduce rejection risks and was implanted into a brain-dead recipient, showing no rejection signs four days post-operation, as per the Air Force Medical University. SCMP writes that this procedure could significantly aid those with end-stage liver disease, possibly revolutionizing liver transplants. 

Gene editing advancements in China also promise to enhance efficiency and accessibility in plant modification, reflecting broader strides in medical innovation, the report continues.

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CIA allegedly made fake social media accounts to troll the Chinese government

The CIA allegedly launched a secret operation to troll Chinese officials and turn public opinion against them through leaked intelligence and negative news on social media. 

Reuters reports the operation began in 2019 and was also aimed at causing paranoia within Xi Jinping’s government. CIA agents reportedly made fake social media accounts to spread rumors, such as allegations that Communist Party members hid ill-gotten wealth outside the country, and criticize Chinese government initiatives, like saying a program financing infrastructure projects in other countries was corrupt.

The CIA declined to comment to Reuters, which could not confirm whether the program is still in place. Reuters said the operation, authorized by then-President Donald Trump, operated beyond China and used social media to influence public opinion in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the South Pacific. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which gave grants and loans for infrastructure projects, operates in developing countries in those regions. This initiative was one of the CIA program’s targets. 

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The U.S. Wants to Ban TikTok for the Sins of Every Social Media Company

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives will likely vote to force ByteDance to divest from TikTok, which sets the stage for a possible full ban of the platform in the United States (Update: it did). The move will come after a slow but steady drumbeat from politicians on both sides of the aisle to ban the platform for some combination of potential and real societal harms algorithmically inflicted upon American teens by a Chinese-owned company. 

The situation is an untenable mess. A TikTok ban will have the effect of further entrenching and empowering gigantic, monopolistic American social media companies that have nearly all of the same problems that TikTok does. A ban would highlight, again, that people who use mainstream social media platforms run by corporations do not actually own their followers or their audiences, and that any businesses/jobs/livelihoods created on these platforms can be stripped away at any moment by the platforms or, in this case, by the United States government. 

Bytedance and TikTok itself have been put into an essentially impossible situation that is perhaps most exemplified in a 60 Minutes clip from 2022 that went viral this weekend, in which Tristan Harris, a big tech whistleblower who has turned the attention he got from the documentary The Social Dilemma into a self-serving career as a guy who talks about how social media is bad, explains that China is exporting the “opium” version of TikTok to American children. 

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Banning TikTok is a Power Grab for the Deep State 

Legislators have made exceedingly clear that the intent of the bill they’re currently fast-tracking through Congress is “to finally ban TikTok in the United States,” as Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), chair of the House Republican conference, proudly put it.

“TikTok must be banned,” concurred Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), the Republican chief deputy whip.

“I applaud the strong bipartisan effort to ban TikTok,” added Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“No one is trying to disguise anything,” clarified Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX). “We want to ban TikTok.”

Some of the bill’s proponents, like Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), have been less forthcoming than their colleagues. Sherrill strangely repeats the common yet obviously specious claim that the bill “doesn’t ban TikTok,” which is just pure politician sleight-of-hand: No, the text does not specifically provide for an immediate, automatic, blanket ban of TikTok, but it does provide for a fatal ultimatum to effectuate the ban of TikTok within six months, requiring TikTok to comply with U.S. demands for divestiture from its parent company, ByteDance, or face federal prohibition. So while the legislation would not impose the ban right away, it does create the exact statutory mechanism by which TikTok is named and targeted for banning in the very near future.

Ultimately, the desired end-result is the same one that has been long sought by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), the bill’s leading sponsor: “To ban TikTok … before it’s too late.” The forced divestiture is merely a mechanism to achieve this predetermined outcome.

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China is Now Building our FBI Offices Inside the U.S.?

Molasky Construction of Las Vegas, Nevada cites its success in building U.S. Government Facilities, including several FBI field offices.

For our special and secure U.S. Government Facilities we need trustworthy companies that can deliver the best construction and renovation to make sure no foreign threat fills that building and network connectivity with different tricks of the trade to see, hear, and read everything going on in that facility.

It’s important that everyone, especially the key personnel in a construction company working sensitive programs are trustworthy themselves.  From experience, getting an insider is the most effective way of break into an organization.

Why try a Mission Impossible break and enter when you can have someone on the inside do the work for you? Now why would one of the individuals of this company performing sensitive construction also be a big advocate for the EB-5 Immigration Program?

Nothing necessarily wrong with being an advocate of EB-5.  But EB-5 advocacy and building of sensitive Government facilities should be an immediate screaming alarm of incompatible activities.  The EB-5 program has been fraught with fraud and abuse.  The EB-5 advocate in Molasky seems to have a strong intersection with EB-5 applicants from China.

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The Chinese company at the center of Biden’s crane concerns denies it’s a threat to U.S. national security

Chinese shipping cranes are fast becoming the latest item to get caught up in Washington and Beijing’s fractious relationship. U.S. officials have been talking about the security threat posed by Chinese-made cranes at U.S. ports for months. Then, last month, the U.S. announced an initiative to bolster cybersecurity at the country’s ports.

Now, the company at the heart of the controversy—China’s Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries, also known as ZPMC—is denying that it poses a security threat. ZPMC said it “strictly adheres to laws and regulations of relevant countries and regions,” in a statement released on Sunday.

ZPMC accounts for over 70% of the global market in shipping cranes. There are over 200 Chinese-made cranes at U.S. ports, accounting for “nearly 80%” of the total, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

These cranes help move goods through maritime ports. The cranes can often be controlled remotely, which U.S. officials fear could be an avenue for hackers to disrupt the economy. A recent congressional probe claimed to find over a dozen cellular modems on cranes that could be remotely accessed, the Wall Street Journal reports.

ZPMC, in Sunday’s statement, said that recent reports “can easily mislead the public without sufficient factual review.”

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Suspicious tech found in Chinese-made cargo cranes, fueling spying worries: Congress probe

An investigation by the US Congress into Chinese-built cargo cranes has found suspicious technology that could potentially be used to disrupt or spy on American commercial activities, according to a report.

The House Homeland Security Committee said that it has discovered cellular modems that were installed in cranes and which can be remotely accessed by hostile powers, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The committee’s discovery has fueled concerns in the Biden administration that cranes built by a Chinese firm, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries (ZPMC), could potentially be used to spy on US ports.

More than 12 cellular modems were found in Chinese-made cranes that were relied upon in several US ports, according to the Journal.

While some of the modems were used for operational functions such as monitoring and tracking maintenance remotely, others were installed despite the fact that the ports in which they were being used hadn’t requested them.

China “is looking for every opportunity to collect valuable intelligence and position themselves to exploit vulnerabilities by systematically burrowing into America’s critical infrastructure, including in the maritime sector,” Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said.

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China wants to rid itself of Western tech by 2027 — outlines domestic alternatives in ‘Document 79’

The WSJ reports that China is on an extensive push to drive out Western tech companies from the country and replace them with domestic alternatives. China reportedly started its domestic expansion in 2022 with a highly secretive “Document 79,” an initiative focused on deleting Western tech companies from the country. Since then, China’s new plan has been in full effect — domestic alternatives have replaced most Western software providers.

When initiated two years ago, Document 79 was a super sensitive document that only high-ranking officials were purportedly shown. Security was so paramount that copies of the document were not allowed to be made. The initiative set out by Document 79 is to replace foreign software in China’s IT systems by 2027, with state-owned firms required to provide quarterly updates on their progress in replacing foreign software with domestic alternatives.

Two years later, the fruits of Document 79 are now apparent. Microsoft, HP Enterprise, and Cisco’s market share in China has fallen drastically in the past several years. In 2018,  HP Enterprise had a 14.1% market share in China, but in 2023, that has fallen to just 4%. Cisco’s market share has halved in the past five years down to just 8%. Microsoft’s Chinese sales today account for just 1.5% of the company’s overall sales.

Most government institutions in China are now buying domestic technology over Western solutions, even if the Western solutions are superior due to Document 79. This includes everything from software to hardware solutions. Chinese customers who were buying IBM-powered rack-mount servers five years ago are now requesting Chinese-made rack-mount servers utilizing Huawei chips.

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