Category Archives: China

Obama Admin Ok’d China Huge Investments in US, Security Threats

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In recent months, perhaps years, we have witnessed how China is a major threat to our national security. What we don’t know is the depth and width of that threat matrix but the Trump administration is for sure addressing the issues as fast as they can.

China says US orders it to close its consulate in Houston ... source

The theft by the Chinese Communist Party of intellectual property appears to have no limit and hence the cost cannot be determined either. Below are just a few items of interest that prove the points above.

  1. (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday indicted two Chinese nationals over their role in what the agency called a decade-long cyber espionage campaign that targeted defense contractors, COVID researchers and hundreds of other victims worldwide. U.S. authorities said Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi stole terabytes of weapons designs, drug information, software source code, and personal data from targets that included dissidents and Chinese opposition figures. They were contractors for the Chinese government, rather than full-fledged spies, U.S. officials said. An unnamed “UK artificial intelligence and cancer research firm” was on the list of 25 victims released by the US Department of Justice
  2. The United States ordered the Chinese government and diplomatic staff to shutter the Chinese consulate located in Houston and to leave the country in 72 hours. In a Tweet by Senator Marco Rubio:“# The Chinese Consulate in Houston is a massive spy center, forcing it to close is long overdue,” he said, describing it as a “central node” of the Chinese Communist Party’s spy operations. .“It had to happen,” he tweeted. (locals called the fire department to report a fire at that location, but upon arrival found they could not enter sovereign land and it was merely Chinese personnel burning documents) A firetruck is positioned outside the Chinese Consulate Wednesday, July 22, 2020, in Houston. Authorities responded to reports of a fire at the consulate. Witnesses said that people were burning paper in what appeared to be trash cans, according to police. China says the U.S. has ordered it to close its consulate in Houston in what it called a provocation that violates international law. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) source

    Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said during a news conference Wednesday that “the unilateral closure of China’s consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China.”

    He warned of firm countermeasures if the U.S. does not reverse itself. Besides its embassy in Beijing, the U.S. has five consulates in mainland China, according to its website. They are in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Shenyang.

  3.  In 2015, Chinese company acquired a Texas oil fields in $1.3 billion deal where Yantai Xinchao acquire oil assets in the western Texas Permian Basin that are currently owned by Tall City Exploration and Plymouth Petroleum. The deal is part of a larger transaction between Yantai Xinchao and a second Chinese firm. The purchase, which includes oil fields in the state’s Howard and Borden counties, has already been approved by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment, the filing said.
  4. China (CNOOC) has increasingly been looking to the Americas for raw materials it needs to sustain the boom. As private investment dwindled with the global financial crisis, the cash-flush Chinese went on a regional shopping spree. Noted in 2018: — Goldman Sachs (GS) said it would create a $5 billion fund with China Investment Corporation, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, to invest in US companies.
    — Qualcomm (QCOM) signed $12 billion in non-binding deals to supply semiconductors to Chinese smartphone brands Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo.
    —Sinopec (SHI), China’s state-owned oil and gas company, said it would explore an investment of up to $43 billion in Alaska’s energy sector.
    — China Energy Investment Corp., which is also state-owned, signed a non-binding agreement with the state of West Virginia to invest nearly $84 billion in shale gas and chemical manufacturing projects.
    — Boeing (BA) announced that it would sell about $37 billion worth of planes to a government holding company that buys jets for state-owned carriers such as Air China and China Southern Airlines.
  5. Perhaps worst of all is Nike and Apple.               Why? Slave labor known as Uighars. Per the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in part:The Chinese government has facilitated the mass transfer of Uyghur and other ethnic minority1 citizens from the far west region of Xinjiang to factories across the country. Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour, Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.This report estimates that more than 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang to work in factories across China between 2017 and 2019, and some of them were sent directly from detention camps.2 The estimated figure is conservative and the actual figure is likely to be far higher. In factories far away from home, they typically live in segregated dormitories,3 undergo organised Mandarin and ideological training outside working hours,4 are subject to constant surveillance, and are forbidden from participating in religious observances.5 Numerous sources, including government documents, show that transferred workers are assigned minders and have limited freedom of movement.6

    (gotta wonder where former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is now right?) –>Since 2017, more than a million Uyghurs and members of other Turkic Muslim minorities have disappeared into a vast network of ‘re-education camps’ in the far west region of Xinjiang,11 in what some experts call a systematic, government-led program of cultural genocide.12 Inside the camps, detainees are subjected to political indoctrination, forced to renounce their religion and culture and, in some instances, reportedly subjected to torture.13 In the name of combating ‘religious extremism’,14 Chinese authorities have been actively remoulding the Muslim population in the image of China’s Han ethnic majority.

    The ‘re-education’ campaign appears to be entering a new phase, as government officials now claim that all ‘trainees’ have ‘graduated’.15 There is mounting evidence that many Uyghurs are now being forced to work in factories within Xinjiang.16 This report reveals that Chinese factories outside Xinjiang are also sourcing Uyghur workers under a revived, exploitative government-led labour transfer scheme.17 Some factories appear to be using Uyghur workers sent directly from ‘re-education camps’.

    The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has identified 27 factories in nine Chinese provinces that are using Uyghur labour transferred from Xinjiang since 2017. Those factories claim to be part of the supply chain of 83 well-known global brands.18 Between 2017 and 2019, we estimate that at least 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang and assigned to factories through labour transfer programs under a central government policy known as ‘Xinjiang Aid’ (援疆).19

Cold War with China Escalating due to S. China Sea?

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South China Sea dispute - INSIGHTSIAS source

WSJ/HONG KONG—The U.S. plans to for­mally op­pose a swath of Chi­nese ter­ri­to­r­ial claims in the South China Sea, ac­cord­ing to peo­ple fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter, as Wash­ing­ton takes a harder line against Bei­jing’s ef­forts to as­sert con­trol over the strate­gic wa­ters.

While Wash­ing­ton has pre­vi­ously said it sees Bei­jing’s ex­pan­sive sov­er­eignty claims over most of the South China Sea as un­law­ful, the State De­part­ment is pre­paring to is­sue a po­si­tion pa­per that of­fi­cially re­jects spe­cific Chi­nese claims for the first time, the peo­ple said.

Such a ges­ture de­parts from past U.S. prac­tice of not tak­ing sides on ter­ri­to­r­ial dis­putes in the South China Sea, the peo­ple said.

The pa­per could be is­sued this week, the peo­ple said, just af­ter the fourth an­niver­sary of a 2016 rul­ing by an in­ternational tri­bunal that found no le­gal ba­sis for Bei­jing’s claims to his­toric and eco­nomic rights in most of the South China Sea.

Re­cently, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has crit­i­cized Bei­jing for as­sert­ing “un­law­ful mar­itime claims” in the South China Sea while ramp­ing up naval op­er­a­tions to chal­lenge those claims This month, the U.S. sent two air­craft car­ri­ers to par­tic­i­pate in one of its largest naval ex­er­cises in re­cent years in the South China Sea—at the same time that China was hold­ing drills in the area.

The State De­part­ment didn’t im­me­di­ately re­spond to re­quests for com­ment.

China has re­peat­edly re­jected the rul­ing, is­sued by a tri­bunal at the Per­ma­nent Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion in The Hague fol­low­ing a le­gal chal­lenge brought by the Philip­pines in 2013. Bei­jing didn’t take part in the tri­bunal, which it has in­sisted had no ju­ris­dic­tion on the mat­ter. In­stead, China con­tin­ued ef­forts to build ar­ti­fi­cial is­lands around dis­puted South China Sea fea­tures and for­tify them with weaponry.

At the time of the rul­ing, the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion called on rel­e­vant par­ties to re­spect it while stat­ing that the U.S. doesn’t take sides on spe­cific ter­ri­to­r­ial dis­putes in the South China Sea. Wash­ing­ton has long in­sisted that it has an in­ter­est in main­tain­ing free­dom of nav­i­ga­tion in the area.

In the pa­per, the U.S. would state that “Chi­na’s mar­itime claims pose the sin­gle great­est threat to the free­dom of the seas in mod­ern his­tory,” ac­cord­ing to a draft seen by The Wall Street Jour­nal. “We can­not af­ford to re-en­ter an era where states like China at­tempt to as­sert sov­er­eignty over the seas,” the draft said.

The U.S. re­jects a num­ber of Chi­nese claims to cer­tain ar­eas and fea­tures in the South China Sea that are also claimed by South­east Asian coun­tries, in­clud­ing Brunei, Ma­laysia, In­done­sia, the Philip­pines and Viet­nam, ac­cord­ing to the draft.

Wash­ing­ton also states its view that Chi­nese ef­forts to “ha­rass South­east Asian fish­ing or hy­dro­car­bon de­vel­op­ment, or to uni­lat­er­ally un­der­take such ac­tiv­i­ties on its own, in these ar­eas, are un­law­ful,” ac­cord­ing to the draft.

***

The U.S. is not a party of the UN Law of the Sea treaty that sets out a mechanism for the resolution of disputes. Despite that, the State Department noted that China and its neighbors, including the Philippines, are parties to the treaty and should respect the decision.

The United States has no claims to the waters but has deployed warships and aircraft for decades to patrol and promote freedom of navigation and overflight in the busy waterway.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea and routinely objects to any action by the U.S. military in the region. Five other governments claim all or part of the sea, through which approximately $5 trillion in goods are shipped every year.

China has sought to shore up its claim to the sea by building military bases on coral atolls, leading the U.S. to sail warships through the region in what it calls freedom of operation missions. More here.

45 Goals for America

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They are not good and many are real today. So a hat tip to Cleon Skousen, a former FBI agent and to The Blaze from 2018. The thought came to me over the weekend and I began poking around open source information for more research. Perhaps this will help the reader ask very different questions of U.S. Representatives in Congress.

45 Communist goals for America | TheBlaze

It was Jan. 10, 1963, that Congressman Albert S. Herlong. Jr. from Florida read the list of 45 Communist goals for America into the Congressional Record. The purpose of him reading this was to gain insight into liberal elite ideas and strategies for America that sound awfully familiar today.

The list is attributed to Cleon Skousen, researcher and author of “The Naked Communist.”

On Wednesday’s episode of “Pat Gray Unleashed,” Pat and producer Keith revisited Cleon Skousen’s book and compared it to the current state of affairs in America and to the Democratic Party’s platform.

Do any of these hit close to home?

Here’s the list:

1. U.S. should accept coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.2. U.S. should be willing to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

These encapsulate the Kennan Doctrine, which advocated for the “containment” of communism. Establishment figures supporting the amoral containment policy at least implicitly worked with the communists in scaring the wits out of the American people concerning atomic war.

President Ronald Reagan undid the doctrine when he took an aggressive stand against the Evil Empire by backing freedom fighters from around the world that were struggling against the left-wing communist jackboot. As a result, the Soviet Union and its satellites imploded, a considerable and unexpected setback to the international communist edifice.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament by the U.S. would be a demonstration of “moral strength.”

The nuclear freeze advocates supported a freeze on

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

Today, there are calls to end the embargo on the slave island of Cuba, there were complaints about the embargo against Iraq, and the U.S., not Saddam Hussein, was blamed for the suffering of the Iraqi people. Would they have advocated for free trade with Hitler and his National Socialist regime?

5. Extend long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

Such aid and trade over decades contributed greatly to the left-wing communist liquidation of over 100 million people worldwide, according to the well-documented “Black Book of Communism.”

This aid and trade marks a shameful chapter in American history. Without the aid and trade, the left-wing international communist behemoth would have imploded on its own rot a lot sooner and umpteen millions would have been saved from poverty, misery, starvation and death.

7. Grant recognition of Red China and admission of Red China to the U.N.

Not only did President Jimmy Carter fulfill this goal but he also betrayed America’s allies in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Iran, Afghanistan, Angola and elsewhere.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the Germany question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the U.S. has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces.

There are still American intellectuals, and elected members of Congress, who dream of an eventual one world government and who view the U.N., founded by communists such as Alger Hiss, the first secretary-general, as the instrument to bring this about.

World government was also the dream of Adolf Hitler and J.V. Stalin. World government was the dream of Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers.

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

While the idea of banning any political party runs contrary to notions of American freedom and liberty, notions that are the exact opposite of those held by the left-wing communists themselves, nevertheless these goals sought to undermine the constitutional obligation of Congress to investigate subversion. The weakening of our government’s ability to conduct such investigations led to the attack of 9/11.

It is entirely proper and appropriate for our government to expect employees, paid by the American taxpayer, to take an oath of loyalty.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the U.S.

In his book “Reagan’s War,” Peter Schweizer demonstrates the astonishing degree to which communists and communist sympathizers have penetrated the Democratic Party. In his book, Schweizer writes about the presidential election of 1979.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions, by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

This strategy goes back to the founding of the American Civil Liberties Union by Fabian Socialists Roger Baldwin and John Dewey and Communists William Z. Foster and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn among others.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for Socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations that are under Communist attack.

The success of these goals, from a communist perspective, is obvious. Is there any doubt this is so?

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV & motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings,” substituting shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. ” Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”

24.Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural and healthy.”

This is the Gramscian agenda of the “long march through the institutions” spelled out explicitly: gradual takeover of the “means of communication” and then using those vehicles to debauch the culture and weaken the will of the individual to resist.

Today those few who still have the courage to advocate public morality are denounced and viciously attacked. Most Americans are entirely unwitting regarding the motives behind this agenda.

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a “religious crutch.”

This has been largely accomplished through the communist infiltration of the National Council of Churches, Conservative and Reform Judaism, and the Catholic seminaries.

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state”

Replacing belief in the creator with belief in the earthly man-controlled State.

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

And replace our nation of “laws, not men” with royal decree emanating from appointed judges and executive orders. Replace elected officials with bureaucrats.

30. Discredit the American founding fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of “the big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

Obliterating the American past, with its antecedents in principles of freedom, liberty and private ownership is a major goal of the communists then and now.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture – education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

Public ownership of the means of production, the core principle of totalitarianism.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

Turn America into a socialist police state.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand or treat.

The Soviets used to send “social misfits” and those deemed politically incorrect to massive mental institutions called gulags. The Red Chinese call them

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose communist goals.

Psychiatry remains a bulwark of the communist agenda of fostering self-criticism and docility.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

Done! The sovereign family is the single most powerful obstacle to authoritarian control.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

Outcome-based education, values clarification or whatever they’re calling it this year.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special interest groups should rise up and make a “united force” to solve economic, political or social problems.

This describes the dialectical fostering of group consciousness and conflict, which furthers the interests of authoritarianism.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

The results of this successful campaign are increasingly obvious in the world today.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally Reservation so the U.S. cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.

This would mark a complete subversion of our Constitution and an end to representative sovereign government as we know it, which is the whole idea.

 

 

Check the Corruption in the Paycheck Protection Program

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The federal government has not disclosed most of the forgivable coronavirus-stimulus loans issued to businesses under the $660 billion federal Paycheck Protection Program.

The Small Business Administration has publicly released lists of the forgivable loans under $150,000 issued in each state but it did not include the names of the recipients.

Loans under $150,000 make up the bulk of the loans issued. According to SBA data through June 30, 2020, loans under $50,000 represented 66.8% of all loans provided, $50,000 to $100,000 represented 13.8% and $100,000-$150,000 represented 6%.

The state-by-state lists the SBA released included only the names of the lenders, including banks and credit unions, that approved the loans as well as the estimated number of jobs the loan will help retain. To date, banks have earned billions in taxpayer-funded fees for issuing the loans as part of PPP, which was setup by the $2.2 trillion CARES Act. The SBA hasn’t said whether individual bank branches directly received forgivable PPP loans.

As Just the News previously reported, the federal government isn’t going to conduct a review of most taxpayer-funded forgivable loans issued under the program.

Pennsylvania Treasury, Joe Torsella - State Treasurer source

According to the SBA, the loan is forgivable if “at least 60 percent” of it is used toward payroll. The rest can be used for qualified expenses such as rent and utilities. More here.

***

So…let’s take a look at some details of corruption shall we? Then measure your outrage…if you can. It may also be a good time to call your representative and ask them if they took any PPP money of any kind or ask them if they are outraged and what are they gonna do about it.

  1. Movie star and Trump hater, Robert De Niro: He got $28 million.
  2. A law firm founded by VP Joe Biden Monzack Mersky McLaughlin and Browder, of which Biden no longer has an interest but he maintained close ties. Monzack, who has donated thousands to Biden’s presidential campaign, attended a state dinner at the White House for Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2011. The law firm is also a registered agent for companies tied to Biden.
  3. EDI Associates in San Rafael, California, has 52 employees and says it’s in the “full-service restaurant business,” government documents show. The company received between $350,000 and $1 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) money. EDI is partially owned by Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
  4. A progressive political consulting firm that receives large payments from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D., N.Y.) reelection campaign and activist Shaun King’s PAC raked in hundreds of thousands in taxpayer money meant to help small businesses.

    New data show that between $350,000 and $1 million flowed from the Paycheck Protection Program, a federal program created to help small businesses cope with the economic downturn caused by coronavirus, to Middle Seat Consulting, a Washington, D.C.-based digital firm that provides services to far-left Democrats.

  5. The campaign of Christine Eady Mann, a Democratic candidate for Congress running in Texas’s 31st district, received $28,600 in May from the PPP, a federal program designed to help small businesses. Mann’s campaign said it used the loan to offset “challenging” fundraising numbers. The campaign repaid the loan in full six weeks later.

There are many more but here is the kicker of it all perhaps….

NP: Entities led by high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, collaborators with state-owned enterprises, and Confucius Institute partners rank among the beneficiaries of the U.S. government’s coronavirus pandemic bailout.

These companies received up to $3.4 million from the U.S. federal government according to Treasury Department’s records released on Monday.

Beyond funding the opposition in the ongoing economic and information warfare between China and the U.S., Chinese companies often coerce American companies to comply with their censorship standards, routinely steal intellectual property, and spearhead massive outsourcing-fueled trade deficits at great cost to American jobs and workers.

Despite this, CCP-linked companies which benefited from the program meant to save American businesses and jobs hurt by the coronavirus include:

China United Transport, $350,000-$1,000,000

As a global transportation and logistics company, China United Transport’s brands itself as a lifeline for the global supply chain.

With weekly shipments to “Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Tianjing, Dalian, Qingdao, and Ningbo,” the company works with several Chinese state-owned ocean and air carriers.

China United lists AirChina, a state-owned enterprise that has received awards from the CCP and boasts it “has always demonstrated its strong brand image as a government-controlled enterprise” in its company profile.

Another partner, COSCO Shipping Lines, features 11 out of its 13 board members listing CCP affiliations in their biographies.

The Chairman and Managing Director Yang Zhijian, for example, serves as the Deputy Secretary of the CCP’s Central Committee and Deputy Managing Director Qian Weizhong serves as Party Secretary.

The CCP also retains a majority stake in partners China Eastern Airline and China Southern Airline.

China Manufacturers Alliance, $350,000-$1,000,000

China Manufacturers Alliance is a facilitator of U.S. dependence on Chinese manufacturing, defining its mission as “uniting major tire manufacturers in China under a unique and powerful cooperative alliance.”

Beyond serving as a boon for the Chinese economy, its parent company is Shanghai Huayi Group. The group is headed by CCP members including its president Lili Gu and Technology Director Dengxi Wu.

Boardmember Liu Genyuan has also advised the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative, a predatory investment scheme whereby China funnels extensive amounts of money to developing countries who often default on the loans they are provided.

This allows the CCP to seize control of critical infrastructure and facilitate the regime’s quest to end the world’s reliance on the West by bringing countries into their technological and financial orbit.

China Luxury Advisors, $150,000-$350,000

China Luxury Advisors, which strives to “engage the global Chinese consumer,” boasts on its homepage that it’s a Tencent International Premium Agency Partner and Official Alibaba Partner.

Tencent has been identified by the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation as a “tool of the Chinese government,” noting the company has “no meaningful ability to tell the Chinese Communist Party ‘no’ if officials decide to ask for their assistance.”

It also provides “a foundation of technology-facilitated surveillance and social control” as part of the CCP’s broader crusade “to shape the world consistent with its authoritarian model,” the report added. And CCP collaboration is not far-fetched: its CEO is also known to have direct links to the CCP, currently serving as a Congressional Deputy and Standing Committee member and assisting the CCP with “law enforcement and security issues” and collaborating on “patriotic” video games.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma is a member of the CCP who insisted at a Wall Street Journal event to “be in love with them,” referencing the CCP. Forbes reported the “Chinese Government Has A Huge “Stake” In Alibaba” in 2015 and The New York Times unearthed the company’s “deep political connections of the investment firms, Boyu Capital, Citic Capital Holdings and CDB Capital, the China Development Bank’s private investment arm” in 2014.

The Times also noted Alibaba’s “senior executive ranks included sons or grandsons of the most powerful members of the ruling Communist Party.”

China Luxury Advisors also “works closely with WeChat to register and manage official accounts, develop mini-programs, create content, and place advertising across Tencent’s platforms.” WeChat is a Tencent-owned messaging app with a track record of banning or censoring users who share content counter to the state’s narratives and users are often subject to CCP surveillance and data breaches.

China Institute, $150,000-$350,000

China Institute has a nearly 100-year history of working alongside the CCP. Notable events it touts on its timeline include:

China Institute is instrumental in the Chinese Government’s decision to provide additional funds to Chinese students through its Committee on Wartime Planning for Chinese Students in the United States.

The New York-based advocacy group also hosts a Confucius Institute in partnership with East China Normal University (ECNU), a state-funded University which advertises its adherence to CCP “education and other related policies” in its teachings.

The partnership has allowed Confucius Institutes to metastasize into nine K-12 schools despite being controversial operations replete with “undisclosed ties to Chinese institutions, and conflicted loyalties,” propaganda, and intellectual property theft, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).’

The Confucius Institute’s Beijing Headquarters, colloquially known as “Hanban,” pushes teachers to use “teaching resources” penned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself.

Chinatex, $150,000-$350,000

Chinatex is a global cotton trading enterprise focusing on apparel. The company’s introduction page boasts of its state-owned status and subservience to the CCP’S five-year plans:

In July 2016, Chinatex was integrated into Cofco Group as its wholly-owned subsidiary subject to approval by the State Council. According to its 13th Five-Year Plan, Chinatex is now adhering to the overall guiding principle of “professional management and industrialization development”, shouldering the important historical missions of “serving as the major force in maintaining the safety of the national cotton industry, a leader in cotton market regulation, and a practitioner of green, environmentally friendly factories”, vigorously enhancing its vitality, influence and control in the industry, and striving to become a world-class cotton merchant.

The Beijing-based manufacturer is responsible for siphoning American manufacturing and textile jobs.

GateChina, $150,000-$350,000

GateChina’s flagship website is WenxueCity, a Chinese-language news aggregator intended for expatriates. The outlet routinely links to content from CCP run and funded media outlets such as China Network Television.

The news of the loans going to CCP-linked companies is sure to raise eyebrows, especially given the Trump administration’s recent focus on China in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and the crackdown in Hong Kong.

A few more items are here like:

In Los Angeles, luxury residential brokerage the Agency received a $2 to 5 million PPP loan to retain 104 employees, according to the SBA data. Stimulus recipients in L.A. also included a number of Chinese developers, like Greenland Group, which received two $1 to $2 million loans to retain a total of 339 employees; and Shenzhen New World Group, which received two $2 to $5 million loans for a total of 533 employees. Shenzhen New World has been implicated as a major player in a bribery scheme surrounding recently-arrested City Councilmember Jose Huizar.

While U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies are not barred from receiving PPP assistance, lack of guidance in the early days of the program had led to significant confusion among potential borrowers.

Last month, an L.A. marketing agency that had received a PPP loan sued its Canadian landlord Onni Group, alleging the foreign company was seeking “back-door” access to the program by demanding the funds be used to pay rent. Check out more here.

 

Do You Recognize Chinese Propaganda?

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Fake accounts, false news stories, bots and media paid by Chinese operatives. Sounds like Russia right? Same playbook, only perhaps more aggressive. As a public service, this article provides you as an internet user, a consumer of news and holding accounts on social media, be fair warned you could be vulnerable to Chinese propaganda.

(UPI) — The Trump administration on Monday designated four more major Chinese state-run media outlets as foreign missions for being propaganda mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist Party, a move that will likely worsen already strained relations between Washington and Beijing and attract retaliatory measures.

China Central Television, China News Service, the People’s Daily and the Global Times were all designated Monday as foreign missions as they are “substantially owned or effectively controlled” by the Chinese government, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

The companies will have to report the names of their staff and their real estate holdings to the Office of Foreign Missions within the State Department, treating the companies as arms of the Chinese government in the United States like foreign embassies or consulates.

“The decision to designate these entities is not based on any content produced by these entities, nor does it place any restrictions on what the designated entities may publish in the United States,” she said. “It simply recognizes them for what they are.” More here.

 

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There is a backstory, a good one on how this came to be.

A radio station controlled by the Chinese Communist Party propaganda outlet Phoenix TV has been ordered by the Trump administration to cease its broadcasts within 48 hours.

Here’s how pro-China station Phoenix TV got into the White ... source

The Federal Communications Commission ruled on Monday that a Mexico-based radio station owned in part by Phoenix TV—one of the Communist regime’s leading propaganda organs—must end its broadcasts due to its failure to disclose its ties to China.

Prior to the FCC’s ruling, the station was exploiting a loophole that allows content produced in the United States to be broadcast from foreign radio towers, such as those in Mexico. Phoenix TV, which is headquartered in California, produced its content domestically and then used the more powerful Mexican station to broadcast across the U.S. border.

The FCC denied a license for that radio station, XEWW-AM, because it “failed to include in their application a key participant, Phoenix Radio, which produces the Mandarin programming in its studio,” the agency disclosed. Phoenix Radio, Phoenix TV’s radio affiliate, was using the station to broadcast Chinese propaganda across Southern California, in violation of FCC statutes.

Phoenix TV first found itself in Congress’s crosshairs earlier this year, after one of its reporters confronted President Donald Trump during a White House briefing about the coronavirus pandemic and Chinese government efforts to cover up the illness. The station’s presence at the White House generated concerns about the proliferation of Chinese state-controlled press organs in the United States.

The Mexican radio station failed to disclose Phoenix TV’s “extensive role” in producing content, an FCC spokesperson told the Washington Free Beacon. “It was a violation of the Communications Act for that company, which has ties to the Chinese government, not to be included on the application filed with the Commission. Therefore, the application was deficient and was dismissed.”

Phoenix TV used Mexican radio towers to skirt U.S. laws barring the dissemination of foreign propaganda in America. The FCC’s ruling is a sign the Trump administration seeks to more aggressively police these types of outlets, which for years have operated with little oversight. Congress has moved in recent months to crack down on a range of Chinese broadcasters and social media accounts that help the Communist regime saturate the American marketplace with state-approved propaganda.

The Free Beacon first reported in April that Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) was leading a charge to see the Mexican station shut down over its ties to Phoenix TV. Cruz introduced legislation exposing how Phoenix TV used a series of corporate cutouts to purchase the Mexican radio station and use its airwaves to broadcast Communist propaganda in the United States. The legislation would have closed loopholes in the FCC’s statutes that permitted Phoenix TV to operate in this manner.

“Today’s decision sends an important message to the world that the U.S. will not allow China to exploit FCC loopholes and spread its propaganda over our airwaves,” Cruz told the Free Beacon. “More importantly, this decision is a critical step in countering the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to control what Americans see, hear, and ultimately think.”

The FCC ruling accuses XEWW-AM’s owners of trying to hide the station’s ties to Phoenix TV. The station’s license application, the FCC said, did not disclose Phoenix TV’s role in producing the station’s broadcasts. The license was rejected on this basis. While the station can resubmit its application at a later date, it is likely to be rejected due to mounting concerns about Phoenix TV’s distribution of Communist regime propaganda.

Cruz first raised concerns with the FCC in 2018, when the H&H Capital investment group purchased the Mexican station. H&H, Cruz said, is completely enmeshed in Phoenix TV’s operations. H&H is owned in large part by Vivian Huo, a U.S. citizen and Beijing native who formerly worked for several Chinese-run media outlets.