Matt Turpin's China Articles - September 10, 2023
Friends,
I’m writing this week’s issue on Thursday so hopefully nothing significant changes before it is published on Sunday morning (fingers crossed).
Xi Jinping has decided to skip the G20 Summit at the last minute, sending his loyal lieutenant, Li Qiang, in his place. This is a significant snub to Prime Minister Modi, who has invested significant political capital into this year’s Summit.
While the PRC Government refuses to provide a reason for Xi skipping at the last minute, Indian press speculates that growing Sino-Indian tensions are at the root of Xi’s decision. Jake Sullivan, the U.S. National Security Advisor seems to share this opinion, at least based on the answer he gave to a question during a White House press briefing on Tuesday: “As far as the question of tensions between India and China affecting the summit: Really, that’s up to China. If China wants to come in and play the role of spoiler, of course, that option is available to them.”
Others also point out that Xi likely views the G20 as a forum that favors the West and given that Russian President Putin will not attend, Xi may be showing solidarity with his friend in Moscow.
At least one Japanese commentator ventured that Xi faced strong opposition from Party elders during the Beidaihe leadership retreat in early August. If this is true, it contradicts at least some reports that came out of Beidaihe that almost no Party elders were in attendance and that the retreat was a demonstration of Xi’s dominance over the Party.
I run through these details to highlight how difficult it has become to reckon what’s happening at the top of the PRC Government and within the Party’s leadership… we still don’t know what happened to Qin Gang, the Chinese Foreign Minister or even if he is still alive and in the last six weeks the leadership of the PRC’s nuclear forces has been purged.
So what might be going on? Below are some plausible scenarios…
Scenario #1 - Xi only wants to attend events that he can dominate
Whether it’s the inaugural China-Central Asia Summit that Xi hosted in May at the former imperial capital of Xian or BRICS Summit last month in Johannsberg where Xi pushed through a BRICS expansion, Xi Jinping no longer wants to attend international events where he has to complete for dominance.
Speculation #2 - Xi is threatened politically and can’t leave the country
Under this scenario the domestic political situation for Xi Jinping is far worse than many had assumed. The sacking of Qin Gang, the purging of the PLARF (People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force), and the dismal economic situation has enabled factions within the Party to mobilize against Xi Jinping.
Speculation #3 - Xi wants to snub Modi and gain leverage over Biden
The decision to skip the G20 Summit is not related to a wider policy shift or domestic difficulties, but simply a decision to embarrass Indian Prime Minister Modi (after Xi got what he wanted at the BRICS Summit) and put pressure on President Biden to ensure that Xi doesn’t back-out of the APEC Summit Biden will host in mid-November in San Francisco.
Speculation #4 - Xi wants to show solidarity with Putin
Last year’s G20 Summit in Indonesia was embarrassing for Xi as the PRC was forced to accept language in the Leaders communique that criticized Russia. While its likely that India would have resist similar condemnations of Putin’s war on Ukraine, it is possible that Xi decided to pull out in protest over the perception that the G20 gaged up on Russia last year.
Speculation #5 - Xi is sick
It is is possible that Xi Jinping is simply sick and the Party in typical fashion refuses to release any details that might present Xi in a bad light.
Speculation #6 - Something I haven’t thought of
Perhaps there are dynamics unfolding that we simply can’t comprehend at this point and given the opacity of the PRC system we are unlikely to know the true cause for months or years to come (for example, we still don’t know why Xi Jinping disappeared from public view and missed key meetings with foreign leaders for a few weeks back in 2012 right before he ascended to power as the country’s leader… “The Mysterious Case of China’s Disappearing Heir Apparent,” NPR, September 11, 2012).
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On Thursday this week, I participated in the inaugural Brookings debate on China policy… if you have a spare hour and a half, please watch. Demetri Sevastopulo, the U.S.-China Correspondent for the Financial Times, served as our moderator and did a great job! My fellow panelists and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on these issues, but we had a respectful discussion and I think it’s a topic that’s critical for all of us to wrestle with.
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Finally, tomorrow is the 22nd Anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11… please take a moment to reflect on those who were killed and injured that day.
As with nearly everyone else I know, I can distinctly remember where I was when I learned of the attacks that changed so many of our lives.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. ‘Defending democracy’ a losing strategy against authoritarian narratives
Chris Zappone, The Strategist, September 1, 2023
Not so long ago, the consensus around defending democracy on the internet was nearly a settled matter. A sort of de facto understanding held that to fight disinformation and defend democracy, we should resist the impulse to try to control information or the behaviour of authoritarians we oppose.
The statement of values, though, does little to blunt the power of illiberal narratives on the democratic imagination.
If anything, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (now X) highlights the folly of approaches that rely on simply policing social media—because what happens when the mind of one of those policing (in this case, the platform’s owner) is won over by the Kremlin’s narratives on Ukraine?
Musk’s invocations of ‘free speech’ actually make the platform more accommodating to the sorts of voices that embrace Kremlin propaganda with gusto.
But X is just one platform among a growing array of communication options.
And it’s across this galaxy that the Kremlin, its proxies and its friends level accusations at Western democracy (‘imperialism!’), frame events (‘NATO expansionism!’) and draw ominous conclusions (‘deep state-controlled propaganda media!’). Opponents are told we’re ‘Russophobic’ and that our values threaten their ‘traditional’ civilisations.
Likewise, the People’s Republic of China racialises political debates, accusing critics of xenophobia. This muddies the real issue of racism in democracy, while falsely presenting the Chinese Communist Party as a spokesperson for the racially vilified.
These influences point back to a well-established conundrum for liberal society: how do we ensure that our own freedoms aren’t used by adversaries to undermine our society and its interests?
Classifying these views as ‘disinformation’, as has become the custom, isn’t entirely accurate. Many of these ideas have their origins in democracies, or at least find an audience here.
We need to think less about how to police content on networks to ‘defend democracy’ and consider how to defend our minds and political culture against the arguments, views and ideas that dismember and neutralise liberal democracy’s values.
Ideas rarely stand alone; they are inevitably linked to other ideas.
So, when the Russian foreign ministry claimed last year that Russia would be ‘forced to take retaliatory steps’ if Finland joined NATO, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek correctly noted that the ‘decision appears “forced” only if one accepts the whole set of ideological and geopolitical assumptions that sustain Russian politics’.
COMMENT – I think Chris Zappone, an editor at the Sydney Morning Herald, makes a great set of points in this piece. To summarize: we are in a cold war with Beijing and Moscow and they are waging intense political warfare campaigns against us.
Just playing defense is not enough, democracies must wage their own political warfare against these regimes… they are much more vulnerable to this than they portray themselves to be.
2. How China Demands Tech Firms Reveal Hackable Flaws in Their Products
Andy Greenberg, Wired, September 6, 2023
Some foreign companies may be complying—potentially offering China’s spies hints for hacking their customers.
For state-sponsored hacking operations, unpatched vulnerabilities are valuable ammunition. Intelligence agencies and militaries seize on hackable bugs when they're revealed—exploiting them to carry out their campaigns of espionage or cyberwar—or spend millions to dig up new ones or to buy them in secret from the hacker gray market.
But for the past two years, China has added another approach to obtaining information about those vulnerabilities: a law that simply demands that any network technology business operating in the country hand it over. When tech companies learn of a hackable flaw in their products, they’re now required to tell a Chinese government agency—which, in some cases, then shares that information with China's state-sponsored hackers, according to a new investigation. And some evidence suggests foreign firms with China-based operations are complying with the law, indirectly giving Chinese authorities hints about potential new ways to hack their own customers.
Today, the Atlantic Council released a report—whose findings the authors shared in advance with WIRED—that investigates the fallout of a Chinese law passed in 2021, designed to reform how companies and security researchers operating in China handle the discovery of security vulnerabilities in tech products. The law requires, among other things, that tech companies that discover or learn of a hackable flaw in their products must share information about it within two days with a Chinese agency known as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The agency then adds the flaw to a database whose name translates from Mandarin as the Cybersecurity Threat and Vulnerability Information Sharing Platform but is often called by a simpler English name, the National Vulnerability Database.
The report’s authors combed through the Chinese government's own descriptions of that program to chart the complex path the vulnerability information then takes: The data is shared with several other government bodies, including China’s National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Teams/Coordination Center, or CNCERT/CC, an agency devoted to defending Chinese networks. But the researchers found that CNCERT/CC makes its reports available to technology "partners" that include exactly the sort of Chinese organizations devoted not to fixing security vulnerabilities but to exploiting them. One such partner is the Beijing bureau of China's Ministry of State Security, the agency responsible for many of the country's most aggressive state-sponsored hacking operations in recent years, from spy campaigns to disruptive cyberattacks. And the vulnerability reports are also shared with Shanghai Jiaotong University and the security firm Beijing Topsec, both of which have a history of lending their cooperation to hacking campaigns carried out by China's People Liberation Army.
“As soon as the regulations were announced, it was apparent that this was going to become an issue,” says Dakota Cary, a researcher at the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub and one of the report’s authors. “Now we've been able to show that there is real overlap between the people operating this mandated reporting structure who have access to the vulnerabilities reported and the people carrying out offensive hacking operations.”
Given that patching vulnerabilities in technology products almost always takes far longer than the Chinese law’s two-day disclosure deadline, the Atlantic Council researchers argue that the law essentially puts any firm with China-based operations in an impossible position: Either leave China or give sensitive descriptions of vulnerabilities in the company’s products to a government that may well use that information for offensive hacking.
COMMENT – Its time for the Biden Administration to employ the full suite of authorities granted by President Obama’s April 2015 Executive Order 13694.
For those of you who don’t recall EO 13694, the title is: Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities.
There are a couple of key provisions: 1) the order declares a ‘national emergency’ and invokes the authorities of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA); 2) it grants the power to block and seize the property of persons involved with cyber-enabled economic espionage; 3) blocks the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry of individuals determined to be involved in these activities; and 4) that the United States Government does not need to provide prior notice to these individuals before their property is seized.
To my knowledge, we have only threatened to use the powers in this EO (namely in the fall of 2015 to get Xi Jinping to pinky-swear that China would never conduct cyber-enabled economic espionage) and have not used those powers despite evidence that Xi and the Party continues to conduct cyber-enabled economic espionage.
As with other failed efforts to impose significant costs on the PRC for malign activities, like cyber-enabled economic espionage, it is the Treasury Department that is responsible for employing these measures and it is the Treasury Department that refuses to take action. This has been the case for both Democratic and Republican Administrations.
If Members of Congress want to see a change, they must hold Senate-confirmed officials responsible for these failures and receive commitments from any future nominees that they will use the authorities granted to the Treasury Department to impose costs on the Chinese economy.
3. Huawei Phone Is Latest Shot Fired in the U.S.-China Tech War
Ana Swanson, New York Times, September 6, 2023
The release of a homegrown Chinese smartphone during a visit by the Biden official in charge of regulating such technology shows the U.S.-China tech conflict is alive and well.
In the midst of the U.S. commerce secretary’s good will tour to China last week, Huawei, the telecom giant that faces stiff U.S. trade restrictions, unveiled a smartphone that illustrated just how hard it has been for the United States to clamp down on China’s tech prowess.
The new phone is powered by a chip that appears to be the most advanced version of China’s homegrown technology to date — a kind of achievement that the United States has been trying to prevent China from reaching.
The timing of its release may not have been a coincidence. The Commerce Department has been leading U.S. efforts to curb Beijing’s ability to gain access to advanced chips, and the commerce secretary, Gina M. Raimondo, spent much of her trip defending the U.S. crackdown to Chinese officials, who pressed her to water down some of the rules.
Ms. Raimondo’s powerful role — as well as China’s antipathy toward the U.S. curbs — was reflected online, where more than a dozen vendors cropped up on Chinese e-commerce sites to sell phone cases for the new model with Ms. Raimondo’s face imprinted on the back. Doctored images showed Ms. Raimondo holding the new phone, next to phrases like “I am Raimondo, this time I endorse Huawei” and “Huawei mobile phone ambassador Raimondo.”
COMMENT – I saw the above story and had a sense of déjà vu… China Tests Stealth Fighter as Gates Visits (Elisabeth Bumiller and Michael Wines, New York Times, January 11, 2011).
As a colleague pointed out, this is a perfect example of a “product release ambush.”
4. Raimondo’s trip proves that just engaging Beijing isn’t enough
Josh Rogin, Washington Post, August 31, 2023
This week, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo became the latest high-ranking U.S. official to journey to China to engage with the country’s top leaders. It was a worthy effort. But now it has played out, and the Chinese government hasn’t budged. As President Biden would say: What’s the plan, Stan?
The administration’s theory was that reestablishing high-level dialogue with Beijing might “build a floor” under the ever-worsening bilateral relationship. Biden has said he doesn’t want a Cold War with China. So Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, special envoy for climate John F. Kerry and now Raimondo have each spent significant time and effort traveling to China over the past three months.
Some see the administration as weak for dispatching four officials before Beijing did anything to reciprocate. Biden’s team has responded, rightly, that engaging with Beijing is the responsible thing to do. But now is a good moment to look at the results — or lack thereof.
Despite meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in June, Blinken came home empty-handed; the Chinese government wouldn’t even agree to establish a military-to-military crisis hotline. The most newsworthy part of Yellen’s trip was that she inadvertently ate “magic mushrooms” (although she said she didn’t hallucinate). And Chinese officials rebuffed Kerry’s call for quicker climate action. Before Raimondo even arrived, Chinese hackers broke into her email account.
Raimondo set expectations so low that her announcement of two new dialogues to manage U.S.-China economic tensions might seem like progress. Unfortunately, it is anything but. Creating discussion forums that meet on a schedule is exactly how Beijing dodges U.S. and international concerns about its behavior. Inevitably, while these meetings are pending, the United States holds off from actions that might upset Beijing.
“Once you get into these calendar-based engagements, it’s never a good time to do something tough competitively,” former National Security Council official Ivan Kanapathy told me. “That’s what it seems like we are building toward.”
5. Revisiting the Hedge Strategy with Renewed Urgency
Michael Brown and Rear Admiral (ret) Lorin Selby, War on the Rocks, September 7, 2023
Deterring China in the Indo-Pacific requires a different set of U.S. capabilities than wars in the Middle East or Ukraine. The vast maritime expanse and China’s buildup across the South China Sea would make it difficult for U.S. forces to operate within the first and second island chains. Most of America’s major weapon systems are 30 years old and many of the new major systems for a high-end conflict won’t be operational until the 2030s.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has tasked the Chinese military with modernizing by 2027 to be ready for military action and he has declared that he will reunify Taiwan with China by force if necessary. Many defense and intelligence officials including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former Indo-Pacific commander, and the CIA director have all stressed the risks of invasion by 2027. We believe that the United States should act quickly to deter Chinese military action.
The United States should implement a hedge strategy across all domains. This strategy would require developing and purchasing small and low-cost, unmanned, many, and smarter weapons and designs to complement existing exquisite (costly, complex, massive, and few) weapon systems. The hedge strategy should leverage emerging technologies with an emphasis on adopting these technologies at scale within the next three years.
COMMENT – An important piece by my friend and Hoover colleague, Mike Brown, and the former Chief of Naval Research, Rear Admiral (ret) Lorin Selby.
We’ve spent a decade analyzing how best to deter an increasingly aggressive and capable People’s Liberation Army. It is well past time that we implement the procurement recommendations they make in this piece and adapt our operational concepts to match these new capabilities.
We need a sense of urgency.
A solid first step would be for the first-term Senator from Alabama to lift his block on the confirmation of the nation’s military leadership, so that they can get to work.
6. China’s Road to Ruin: The Real Toll of Beijing’s Belt and Road
Michael Bennon and Francis Fukuyama, Foreign Affairs, August 22, 2023
This year marks the tenth anniversary of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, the largest and most ambitious infrastructure development project in human history. China has lent more than $1 trillion to more than 100 countries through the scheme, dwarfing Western spending in the developing world and stoking anxieties about the spread of Beijing’s power and influence. Many analysts have characterized Chinese lending through the BRI as “debt trap diplomacy” designed to give China leverage over other countries and even seize their infrastructure and resources. After Sri Lanka fell behind on payments for its troubled Hambantota port project in 2017, China obtained a 99-year lease on the property as part of a deal to renegotiate the debt. The agreement sparked concerns in Washington and other Western capitals that Beijing’s real aim was to acquire access to strategic facilities throughout the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Americas.
But over the last few years, a different picture of the BRI has emerged. Many Chinese-financed infrastructure projects have failed to earn the returns that analysts expected. And because the governments that negotiated these projects often agreed to backstop the loans, they have found themselves burdened with huge debt overhangs—unable to secure financing for future projects or even to service the debt they have already accrued. This is true not just of Sri Lanka but also of Argentina, Kenya, Malaysia, Montenegro, Pakistan, Tanzania, and many others. The problem for the West was less that China would acquire ports and other strategic properties in developing countries and more that these countries would become dangerously indebted—forced to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other Western-backed international financial institutions for help repaying their Chinese loans.
In many parts of the developing world, China has come to be seen as a rapacious and unbending creditor, not so different from the Western multinational corporations and lenders that sought to collect on bad debts in decades past. Far from breaking new ground as a predatory lender, in other words, China seems to be following a path well worn by Western investors. In so doing, however, Beijing risks alienating the very countries it set out to woo with the BRI and squandering its economic influence in the developing world. It also risks exacerbating an already painful debt crisis in emerging markets that could lead to a “lost decade” of the kind many Latin American countries experienced in the 1980s.
To avoid that dire outcome—and to avoid spending Western taxpayer dollars to service bad Chinese debts—the United States and other countries should push for broad-based reforms that would make it more difficult to take advantage of the IMF and other international financial institutions, imposing tougher criteria on countries seeking bailouts and demanding more transparency in lending from all their members, including China.
Authoritarianism
7. The G-7 Becomes a Power Player
G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Policy, August 21, 2023
8. Xi to skip G20 summit in India, China to send Li instead
Martin Quin Pollard, Laurie Chen, and Liz Lee, Reuters, September 4, 2023
9. Xi Jinping’s absence challenges G20 status as global leadership forum
Henry Foy, James Politi, and Joe Leahy, Financial Times, September 1, 2023
10. G20 summit: US urges China not to 'play spoiler' at leader's meet
BBC, September 6, 2023
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has asked China to set aside its issues with India and play a "constructive role" in the upcoming G20 summit. Mr Sullivan said it was up to China if it "wanted to play the role of a spoiler" instead.
His remarks come after China confirmed that its leader, Xi Jinping, would not attend the meeting. India will host the summit in the capital Delhi on 9 and 10 September.
11. China’s top spy agency casts doubt over Xi Jinping attending APEC talks
Yuanyue Dang, South China Morning Post, September 4, 2023
Ministry of State Security calls on Washington to ‘show real sincerity’ in social media post. It also accuses US of being ‘two-faced’ in its China policy, which it says is ‘doomed to fail’
China’s top spy agency has cast doubt over President Xi Jinping’s attendance at the coming Apec summit in San Francisco in a social media post calling on the US to “show real sincerity”.
In the WeChat post on Monday, the Ministry of State Security said that despite positive signals from senior US officials during recent China visits, Washington’s new approach was to “compete” with Beijing.
The ministry – which oversees the secret police and intelligence – accused the US of being “two-faced” in its China policy, which it said was “doomed to fail” as Beijing would not follow Washington’s agenda.
COMMENT – Probably not a good idea to give the Ministry of State Security a WeChat account.
As a colleague speculated, is this just the MSS trolling the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?
12. Biden ‘disappointed’ about reports Xi isn’t likely to attend G20 summit
Miranda Nazzaro, The Hill, September 3, 2023
13. Xi reprimanded by elders at Beidaihe over direction of nation
Katsuji Nakazawa, Nikkei Asia, September 5, 2023
14. China Mobilizes BRICS Media in Praise of Xi
Arthur Kaufman, China Digital Times, August 24, 2023
15. National Security after China’s 20th Party Congress: Trends in Discourse and Policy
Sheena Chestnut Greitens, China Leadership Monitor, August 29, 2023
16. Li Qiang Versus Cai Qi in the Xi Jinping Leadership: Checks and Balances with CCP Characteristics?
Guoguang Wu, China Leadership Monitor, August 29, 2023
17. CLM Insights Interview with Chun Han Wong
China Leadership Monitor, August 29, 2023
18. Mystery around China’s new science and tech body a sign of secrecy to come, analysts say
South China Morning Post, Channel News Asia, September 4, 2023
19. China's new national map has set off a wave of protests. Why?
The Independent, September 2, 2023
20. AUDIO – Drum Tower: Inside Fortress China
The Economist’s Drum Tower, September 5, 2023
21. Xi Jinping puts China’s security ahead of tackling its economic woes
Edward White and Sun Yu, Financial Times, September 4, 2023
22. China’s spy agency blasts US for ‘engagement and containment’ approach
Joe Leahy, Financial Times, September 4, 2023
23. How Xi Returned China to One-Man Rule
Weiyi Cai, Aaron Byrd, Chris Buckley, and Pablo Robles, New York Times, September 2, 2023
24. China Bans iPhone Use for Government Officials at Work
Yoko Kubota, Wall Street Journal, September 6, 2023
25. China’s Xi fights fires at home and abroad
Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, September 5, 2023
Environmental Harms
26. Illegal Fishing in Southeast Asia: Scope, Dimensions, Impacts, and Multilateral Response Peter Chalk, Jamestown Foundation, July 21, 2023
27. NOAA report accuses seven nations, including China and Taiwan, of supporting illegal fishing
Nathan Strout, Seafood Source, September 4, 2023
Foreign Interference and Coercion
28. Pelosi Says Chinese Leaders Lack ‘Shared Values’ With US
Billy House and Francine Lacqua, Bloomberg, August 31, 2023
29. Cambridge University to end partnership with Chinese missiles company
Emma Yeomans, Times, September 4, 2023
30. A Clash of Worldviews
Nathan Levine, Foreign Affairs, August 30, 2023
31. China says it is positive on improving relations with Vatican
Reuters, September 4, 2023
32. US expects to upgrade Vietnam ties, risks China anger
Francesco Guarascio, Reuters, September 4, 2023
33. In China’s shadow, U.S. rushes back to neglected Seychelles
Liz Sly, Washington Post, September 3, 2023
34. In overture to China, pope sends greetings to a 'noble' people
Philip Pullella, Reuters, September 3, 2023
35. Britain’s foreign secretary defends trip to China in response to a barrage of criticism from colleagues
Duncan Bartlett, The China Project, September 1, 2023
36. Watching China in Europe - September 2023
Noah Barkin, GMF, September 1, 2023
37. China’s Disinformation Fuels Anger Over Fukushima Water Release
Motoko Rich and John Liu, New York Times, August 31, 2023
38. U.S. Officials Are Streaming to China. Will Beijing Return the Favor?
David Pierson, Keith Bradsher, and Olivia Wang, New York Times, September 1, 2023
39. Caught Between China and the West, a Pacific Island Nation Ousts Its Leader
Natasha Frost and Christopher Cottrell, New York Times, September 5, 2023
Human Rights and Religious Persecution
40. Hong Kong detention center overflowing as thousands serve time for protests
Siyan Cheung , Radio Free Asia, September 6, 2023
41. UK solar could be ‘dumping ground’ for products of Chinese forced labour, ministers warned
Patrick Wintour, The Guardian, September 3, 2023
42. WeChat Targets LGBTQ+ and Feminist Accounts In Mass Censorship Event
Alexander Boyd, China Digital Times, August 30, 2023
43. The Last Minarets of Yunnan
I-wei Jennifer Chang, Foreign Affairs, September 6, 2023
44. China: Unrelenting Crimes Against Humanity Targeting Uyghurs
Human Rights Watch, August 31, 2023
45. Keeping forced-labor cotton out of the US is proving nearly impossible
Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz, September 4, 2023
Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage
46. Sleight of hand: How China weaponizes software vulnerabilities
Dakota Cary and Kristin Del Rosso, Atlantic Council, September 6, 2023
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) published the “Regulations on the Management of Network Product Security Vulnerabilities” (RSMV) in July 2021. Even before the regulations were implemented in September 2021, analysts had issued warnings about the new regulation’s potential impact. At issue is the regulations’ requirement that software vulnerabilities—flaws in code that attackers can exploit—be reported to the MIIT within forty-eight hours of their discover by industry (Article 7 Section 2). The rules prohibit researchers from: publishing information about vulnerabilities before a patch is available, unless they coordinate with the product owner and the MIIT; publishing proof-of-concept code used to show how to exploit a vulnerability; and exaggerating the severity of a vulnerability. In effect, the regulations push all software-vulnerability reports to the MIIT before a patch is available. Conversely, the US system relies on voluntary reporting to companies, with vulnerabilities sourced from researchers chasing money and prestige, or from cybersecurity companies that observe exploitation in the wild.
Software vulnerabilities are not some mundane part of the tech ecosystem. Hackers often rely on these flaws to compromise their targets. For an organization tasked with offensive operations, such as a military or intelligence service, it is better to have more vulnerabilities. Critics consider this akin to stockpiling an arsenal. When an attacker identifies a target, they can consult a repository of vulnerabilities that enable their operation. Collecting more vulnerabilities can increase operational tempo, success, and scope. Operators with a deep bench of tools work more efficiently, but companies patch and update their software regularly, causing old vulnerabilities to expire. In a changing operational environment, a pipeline of fresh vulnerabilities is particularly valuable.
COMMENT – For over a decade, the U.S. and other countries have faced an incredibly well-resourced, state-sponsored economic espionage campaign by the PRC. This report from the Atlantic Council provides one more piece of evidence that Beijing is a malign actor when it comes to economic and commercial practices.
47. Has Huawei overcome U.S. sanctions by developing its own 5G chip?
Reuters, September 1, 2023
48. U.S. denies blocking chip sales to Middle East
Stephen Nellis, Reuters, August 31, 2023
49. Steering Capital
Zongyuan Zoe Liu, The Wire China, September 3, 2023
50. Exclusive: Meet the shadow agents searching the world in China’s talent war
Dannie Peng, South China Morning Post, September 4, 2023
51. ‘New stage’ of cooperation as 1 of China’s big 4 banks opens Saudi Arabia branch
Kinling Lo, South China Morning Post, September 6, 2023
52. Exclusive: China to launch $40 billion state fund to boost chip industry
Julie Zhu, Kevin Huang, Yelin Mo, and Roxanne Liu, Reuters, September 5, 2023
53. How China is trying to boost its stock market
Reuters, September 4, 2023
54. Europe's carmakers fret over China's EV prowess at Munich car show
Victoria Waldersee, Reuters, September 4, 2023
55. Raimondo warns China patience of US business is 'wearing thin'
Diane Bartz and Phil Stewart, Reuters, September 3, 2023
56. VIDEO – China’s Economic Downturn: Structural, Cyclical, or Both?
Center for Strategic & International Studies, Youtube, August 31, 2023
57. When China thought America might invade
The Economist, August 31, 2023
58. China’s Share of US Imports Falls to Lowest Since 2006
Matthew Boesler, Bloomberg, September 6, 2023
59. US to check on chips used in Huawei’s ‘Made in China’ smartphone
Eleanor Olcott, Financial Times, September 6, 2023
60. Chinese lenders extend billions of dollars to Russian banks after western sanctions
Owen Walker and Cheng Leng, Financial Times, September 3, 2023
Cyber & Information Technology
61. TikTok removes 284 accounts linked to Chinese disinformation group
Josh Taylor, The Guardian, August 31, 2023
62. Tencent, others begin enforcing China's new oversight move on apps
Josh Ye, Reuters, September 4, 2023
63. Cybercrime to cost Germany 206 billion euros in 2023, survey finds
Reuters, September 1, 2023
64. Huawei Teardown Shows Chip Breakthrough in Blow to US Sanctions
Vlad Savov and Debby Wu, Bloomberg, September 4, 2023
65. Chinese memes make U.S. envoy unwitting brand ambassador for new Huawei phone
Meaghan Tobin, Washington Post, September 7, 2023
66. US curbs AI chip exports from Nvidia and AMD to some Middle East countries
Stephen Nellis and Max A. Cherney, Reuters, August 31, 2023
67. China State Media Declares Huawei Phone a Victory in US Tech War
Bloomberg, August 31, 2023
68. A Fake Signal App Was Planted On Google Play By China-Linked Hackers
Thomas Brewster, Forbes, August 30, 2023
Military and Security Threats
69. Why LinkedIn is a snooper’s paradise
Gareth Corfield, The Telegraph, August 24, 2023
70. Chinese gatecrashers at US bases raise espionage concerns -WSJ
Reuters, September 4, 2023
71. VIDEO – China’s Emergence as a Second Nuclear Peer: Implications for US Nuclear Deterrence
Brad Roberts, NSI, June 21, 2023
72. VIDEO – Building a Strategic Framework for Tailored Deterrence of China in Space
Krista Langeland, NSI, June 13, 2023
73. Intersections: Technology, National Security, and US-China Strategic Competition
CNA, August, 2023
74. Telstra-owned Pacific mobile network likely exploited by spies for hire
ABC News, September 1, 2023
75. Hackers stole Microsoft signing key from Windows crash dump
Sergiu Gatlan, Bleeping Computer, September 6, 2023
76. Chinese Smishing Triad Gang Hits US Users in Extensive Cybercrime Attack
Deeba Ahmed, Hackread, September 2, 2023
77. U.S. and Western Intelligence Assurance Practices in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict and Their Lessons
Zhang Gaoyuan, CSIS, March 27, 2023
78. Game Changer in Underwater Warfare? New Chinese Study Claims Breakthrough Technique to Track U.S. Stealth Submarines
Tim McMillan, The Debrief, August 28, 2023
79. Pentagon Plans Vast AI Fleet to Counter China Threat
Nancy A. Youssef and Michael R. Gordon, Wall Street Journal, September 6, 2023
One Belt, One Road Strategy
80. Many Italian parties are against China's Belt and Road Initiative, foreign minister says
Silvia Amaro, CNBC, September 2, 2023
81. Italy Seeks to Leave China’s Belt and Road Initiative—Without Angering Beijing
Margherita Stancati, Wall Street Journal, September 4, 2023
Opinion Pieces
82. Welcome to the New Era of Nuclear Brinkmanship
Hal Brands, Bloomberg, August 27, 2023
83. Japanese Fisheries Become China’s Newest Geopolitical Target
Riley Walters, The Messenger, September 1, 2023
84. This Cold War Is Different
Mark Leonard, Project Syndicate, September 1, 2023
85. Decoupling isn't phoney
Noah Smith, Noahpinion, August 30, 2023
86. Is China a Developing Nation? I Don’t Think So
Mihir Sharma, Bloomberg, September 3, 2023
87. Huawei Chip Shows US Curbs Are Porous, Not Useless
Tim Culpan, Bloomberg, September 4, 2023
88. The Book Banners of Hong Kong
Wall Street Journal, September 1, 2023
89. China Wins in Central America
Wall Street Journal, September 4, 2023
90. Leaving China
Blake Stone-Banks, Persuasion, September 1, 2023
COMMENT - Many long-term expatriates are leaving the PRC due to political upheavals and uncertainties about the country's future.
The author reflects on his time in the PRC, where he witnessed the rapid technological advancements and societal changes, but feels that the country no longer welcomes foreigners.