README.adoc

Dictatorship is becoming link:https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-party-term-limit.html[more and more precise under Xi] however.

Even <<mao-zedong>> admits it and put it into the constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_democratic_dictatorship[People's democratic dictatorship 人民民主专政], so funny.

Well known <<evil-west,Evil Western media>> that also call China a dictatorship:

* 2020-01-29 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/opinion/coronavirus-china-government.html "Coronavirus Spreads, and the World Pays for China's Dictatorship"
* 2018-03-04 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/04/xi-jinping-from-president-to-china-new-dictator "Xi Jinping's power play: from president to China's new dictator?"
* 2017-10-11 https://www.ft.com/content/cb2c8578-adb4-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e130 "Under Xi Jinping, China is turning back to dictatorship"

Further discussions about this useless terminology question:

* https://www.quora.com/Is-China-a-dictatorship

[[where-can-i-find-good-words-for-a-keyword-attack]]
==== Where can I find good words for a keyword attack? (我在哪里可以找到关键字攻击的好词？)

* List of blacklisted keywords in China
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_blacklisted_keywords_in_China
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中华人民共和国网络审查
* https://github.com/jasonqng/chinese-keywords
* https://github.com/cirosantilli/media/raw/master/complete-gfw-rulebook-for-wikipedia-v3.0.pdf[Complete GFW Rulebook for Wikipedia v3.0]
* <<china-digital-times>> This is was an amazing source, extremely comprehensive and up-to-date, but the series was stopped in September 2018:
** https://chinadigitaltimes.net/china/word-of-the-week/?view=all word of the week, ran from Mar 7, 2012 to Sep 20, 2018
*** https://chinadigitaltimes.net/china/cdt-censorship-digest/ "CDT CENSORSHIP DIGEST", monthly version of Word of the week started on Feb 10, 2020
** https://chinadigitaltimes.net/china/directives-from-the-ministry-of-truth/?view=all censorship directive reports
*** https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/category/有关部门/真理部指令/?view=all chinese version
** https://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/Main_Page a wiki version of the censored word lists, the ,"<<caonima,Grass-mud horse>> index" (cao3n2ma3 草泥马), with a censored term of the week section.
** https://chinadigitaltimes.net/china/sensitive-words-series/?view=all sensitive words list
** Fun 2015 ebook: https://github.com/cirosantilli/decoding-chinese-internet-pdf-download
** Has received funding from US Government to some extent: https://www.ned.org/china-digital-times-provides-crucial-insight-and-information-about-china-and-the-covid-19/

See also:

* <<censorship-monitoring>>
* <<tiananmen-square-protests-keywords>>

[[keyword-choice]]
===== How does Ciro Santilli choose keywords for the keyword attack? (三西猴如何为关键词攻击选择关键词？)

I haven't counted, but the limit for Stack Overflow is quite low, and I'm always almost at the maximum, which is about "Ciro Santilli" + 3 3-4 Chinese character events with a separator.

These are some of my prioritization guidelines:

* recent cases receive a large prime over the raw death toll, because older cases can always be attributed to other people.
+
E.g., I've heard there is even some opening towards acknowledging the Great Famine, thus 烏坎事件 (and others from my previous profile names)
* words must refer to a precise event, and must be clearly summarizable in very few chars, for increased impact, and profile name length limitations.
+
E.g. "High <<corruption,corruption>> rates, high pollution", although very serious, feel too generic.
* events that relate directly to freedom of speech receive a prime, since they can only happen in China and very few other countries.
+
E.g.: <<falun-gong>>, <<tiananmen>>.
+
Non e.g.: corruption and pollution. Those are hard to quantify, and there is always an immediate reply: china GDP per capita is low, same happens in India, Brazil, etc.
+
Freedom of speech however, is immediately verifiable (e.g. "my <<weibo,Weibo>> was taken down"), and undeniably caused by the current central government.
* the more people affected, and the more deeply they have been affected, the more important obviously

I am currently trying to maintain in my Stack Overflow Location a ranking of events in a single string, so that it can be easily copy pasted around. The location appears on every page if you hover over my account name, so it is likely in the HTML at least.

If you think that this list can be improved, please open an issue explaining how and why.

[[other-notable-keyword-attacks]]
==== Other notable keyword attacks (其他值得注意的关键字攻击)

[[notepad]]
===== Notepad++

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad++
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad++

It might be a newbie text editors for newbie Windows users, but at least they use it to good use by doing keyword attacks:

* 2019-10: "In October 2019 Notepad{plus}{plus}'s GitHub issue tracker was flooded with pro-Chinese and anti-western messages after a version codenamed "Free Uyghur" (v7.8.1) was released"
** https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/31/notepad_china_spam/
** https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/dp3icm/notepad_after_voicing_their_support_for_the/ "Notepad{plus}{plus}, after voicing their support for the Uyghurs, is now being bombarded by Chinese nationalists on Github." See e.g.: https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/7489 and earlier issues
* 2008-03: "In March 2008 the "Boycott Beijing 2008" banner was placed on Notepad{plus}{plus}'s SourceForge.net homepage": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerns_and_controversies_over_the_2008_Summer_Olympics#Boycotts

The creator appears to be a Vietnamese immigrant or descendant living in France. There are many such immigrants due to Vietnam being an ex-colony: https://github.com/donho Also he must have good reason to dislike the commies due to similar commit bullshit in Vietnam. He was at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Diderot_University[Paris Diderot] in 2000: https://donho.github.io/#education (https://web.archive.org/web/20190424004100/https://donho.github.io/#education[archive]).

====== Notepad++ Chinese browsers block (2020)

https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/17/notepad-plus-plus-blocked-in-china/ "Text editor Notepad{plus}{plus} banned in China after ‘Stand With Hong Kong' update" where "banned" means "the download page where they keywords are shown is now blocked in Chinese browsers". The rest of the website is still up. So no domain block due to HTTPS, browser only action for now.

This is an example of <<chinese-web-browser-censorship>>.

[[what-should-all-pro-democracy-people-do-about-china]]
=== What should all pro-democracy people do about China? (所有的民主派人士应该干什么？)

A propaganda slogan from a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance[French Resistance] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/法國抵抗運動[法国抵抗运动]) flyer (see also <<nazi>>):

____
To obey is to betray. +
To disobey is to serve.

服从就是背叛 +
违抗就是服务

Obéir c'est trahir. +
Désobéir c'est servir.
____

[[to-obey-is-to-betray]]
.To obey is to betray. To disobey is to server ("Obéir c'est trahir. Désobéir c'est servir" in French) flyer featuring the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Lorraine[cross of Lorraine] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/洛林十字[洛林十字]). <<snowden>> comes to mind. https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/images/Obéir_cest_trahir_Désobéir_cest_servir/1314227[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/To_obey_is_to_betray.jpg[height=400]

[[civil-disobedience]]
==== Civil disobedience (公民不服從)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/公民不服從

[[lie-flat-movement]]
===== Lie Flat movement (躺平主义)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/躺平

The movement notably contradicts one of the <<core-socialist-values>>: dedication (敬业).

* 2021-07-04 https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3139558/what-chinas-lie-flat-youth-and-global-climate-strikers-have-common What China’s ‘lie flat’ youth and global climate strikers have in common by <<scmp>>

Good cat lying down meme: https://www.marxist.com/china-lie-flat.htm

[[little-girl-has-ho-hopes-for-school-video-2021]]
====== Little girl has ho hopes for school video (2021, 小姑娘对学校没有希望)

* https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/pgrei5/so_much_lying_flat_sass_translation_in_comments/ on <<r-china>>
* Original poster:
** username: 11223344zslk
** profile page: https://www.douyin.com/user/MS4wLjABAAAA0HYKMT79Af9VeCnrjZ7m_9XrbzSR9IHG_08Cdeo5LMnbNYANllleThIZlY3BFpgC
* original video <<censorship,censored>>
** short URL: https://v.douyin.com/d2Dq1bb/
** full URL: https://www.douyin.com/video/7002895023582874915

Transcript and translation:

____
你害怕开学吗？ +
随便。 +
对这个学校有什么期待吗？ +
没有。 +
为什么呢？ +
不知道。 +
新学期有什么新的愿望吗？ +
呵？ +
新学期有什么新的愿望吗？ +
没有。 +
没有望阿。 +
你一点心愿都没吗？ 有没有小心愿阿？ +
没有。 +
希望怎么样有没有？ +
没有希望。 +

Are you afraid of starting school? +
Whatever. +
What are you looking forward in this school? +
Nothing. +
Why? +
I don't know. +
What hopes do you have for new school term? +
Huh? +
What hopes do you have for new school term? +
None. +
Hmmm, you don't have any hopes. +
You don't have any small wishes? +
None. +
What about hopes? +
I have no hope. +
____

Note: 没有希望。 would likely more accurately be translated as "I have no hopes for school". But the same sentence also means "I have no hope", and it was too tempting to recast it in terms of the Lie Flat movement.

On the background sign, we read:

____
二中青龙湾小学校师阳光台

Sunshine Terrace (? announcement board) of the teachers of the Qinglongwan Elementary School No. 2
____

The school is mentioned in a news report from 2020 at: https://moment.rednet.cn/pc/content/2020/08/24/8249389.html 市二中青龙湾小学9月1日将迎来首批学生 (City No. 2 Middle School Qinglongwan Primary School will welcome its first batch of students on September 1st) which says it is located at Qinglongwan Town, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lukou_District[Lukou District] in <<hunan>> (青龙湾小镇, 株洲县,)

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zasx2iTeOX0 (https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/629[GitHub reupload])
video::zasx2iTeOX0[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[photobomb]]
==== Photobombing-like attacks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photobombing

Explicitly forbidden in China by the law: <<real-username-law>>.

See also:

* <<marina-ovsyannikova>>
* <<keyword-attack>>

===== Appropriation attack

An appropriation attack is one where the attackers attempt to associate an existing symbol to their cause.

For example during the <<hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>> attackers attempted to use this technique to associate a generic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chun-Li[Chinese Chun-Li-like] character Mei from Blizzard's link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwatch_(video_game)++[Overwatch game] to try and get it blocked in China after the gaming company punished a pro gamer for defending the Hong Kong protests. Coverage https://www.businessinsider.com/blizzard-fans-overwatch-mei-hong-kong-protests-memes-2019-10 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191012094950/https://www.businessinsider.com/blizzard-fans-overwatch-mei-hong-kong-protests-memes-2019-10[archive]).

[[mei-with-hong-kong]]
.Mei from Blizzard's Overwatch was used in an attempted <<appropriation-attack>> during the <<hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>>. https://twitter.com/marnofavonlea/status/1182557311539150849[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mei_with_Hong_kong.jpg[height=600]

[[sport-event-live-broadcast-image-attacks]]
===== Sport event live broadcast image attacks (体育赛事直播图片攻击)

NBA in particular is super popular in China, and people sitting at the front row can easily bomb emissions due to the small court size:

* China's <<tencent>> halts NBA live broadcast over <<taiwan,Taiwanese>> flag
* https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3813842

Started in particular due to the <<lebron-james-opposes-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>>

[[enes-kanter-s-shoes]]
====== Enes Kanter's shoes (埃内斯·坎特, NBA)

TODO any good shots of him wearing the shoes while playing?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enes_Kanter
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/埃内斯·坎特
* https://twitter.com/EnesKanter/status/1453059299056422912
* https://www.scmp.com/sport/basketball/article/3153120/nba-player-enes-kanter-launches-withering-social-media-attack-xi

[[what-should-western-countries-do-about-china]]
==== What should Western countries do about China? (西方国家应该怎么对待中国？)

Force all their Western servers to accept <<ensi>> connections only: <<ensi>>.

Western governments must reciprocate unfair Chinese practices: https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/18508/why-dont-western-countries-penalize-chinese-companies-in-the-same-way-that-chin

Companies only care about money and have no long term view, the following must be imposed by governments on Western companies.

Serious sanctions must be pot on companies that sell sensitive things to dictatorships:

* <<western-companies-that-sell-censorship-technology-to-dictatorships,censorship or anti-privacy software>>

Related approaches taken by the CCP that should also be stopped dead by strict enforcement of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act[Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)]:

* <<chinese-interference-in-western-media>>, notably <<china-watch>>, must 
* <<ccp-apologists>>

Physical presence influence must be completely blocked, e.g. cultural centers that report directly to the CCP such as <<confucius-institute>> and <<cssa>> must be banned.

News about Chinese state media using Western social media:

* 2016 https://qz.com/671211/chinas-propaganda-outlets-have-leaped-the-top-of-facebook-even-though-it-banned-at-home/ "China's propaganda news outlets are absolutely crushing it on Facebook"

Accounts that are not labelled as being from the Chinese government, but which support the CCP, must be investigated to determine if they are actually funded by the Chinese government.

TODO what to do with websites of: <<chinese-government-media>>? Blocking them has the downsides that:

* it would be harder to monitor what crazy shit the commies are doing
* those censorship mechanisms could be reused to block good websites by Western governments that are becoming Evil

Let's just leave them up to start with, who gives a fuck about them? :-) If they are getting too many page views, we can make search engines add the disclaimer too.

Chinese social media such as <<wechat>> and <<tiktok>> must be banned. This is less serious than regular websites, because you can always repost on Western social media but without getting spied on:

* 2020-08-07 https://www.engadget.com/tiktok-wechat-executive-order-014615752.html "Trump executive order seeks to ban <<tiktok,TikTok>>, <<wechat>> 'transactions' in 45 days"

Whenever China kicks out a western journalist who is in China and reports there, the Western country must do the same and kick out a Chinese journalists for a Chinese media.

An upside of restricting Chinese servies is that it would hugely bolster <<censorship-circumvention>> technologies, as every Chinese expat would need to buy a VPN.

* https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/18508/why-dont-western-countries-penalize-chinese-companies-in-the-same-way-that-chin

Western governments must identify raw material dependencies on China, and reduce them, while at the same time forbidding technology transfer to China. China has been trading cheap resources for technology, and we must stop that now.

Unfair Chinese commercial practices must be reciprocated. Chinese companies should be forced to open joint ventures to operate outside of China, which is a trick China uses to control profits and more easily steal IP from Western companies:

* https://www.msn.com/zh-hk/news/other/us-entrepreneurs-make-a-choice-rewards-of-doing-business-in-china-often-outweigh-risks-of-losing-trade-secrets/ar-BBSPC69 (https://web.archive.org/web/20190905071456/https://www.msn.com/zh-hk/news/other/us-entrepreneurs-make-a-choice-rewards-of-doing-business-in-china-often-outweigh-risks-of-losing-trade-secrets/ar-BBSPC69:[archive])
* https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/02/china-joint-ventures-the-long-version.html (https://web.archive.org/web/20190905071738/https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/02/china-joint-ventures-the-long-version.html:[archive])

Sanctions must be imposed directly on Chinese officials. They must not be allowed to "escape to a better life or have investments in the West":

* 2020-08-08 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53699084 "Hong Kong: US imposes sanctions on chief executive Carrie Lam"

.<<rebel-pepper>> 2016-09-07 cartoon entitled "宽衣<<xi-jinping-memes,撒币>>" depicting <<xi-jinping>> as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_dance[pole dancer] and throwing money at other world leaders during the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_G20_Hangzhou_summit[2016 G20 Hangzhou summit] is a reference to how China buys political influence in other countries by promising profitable trade deals with those countries. https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/biantailajiaomanhua/biantailajiaomanhua-09072016131637.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_pole.jpg[height=400]

[[mark-government-controlled-social-media]]
===== Mark government controlled social media (将政府控制的社交媒体帐户标记为此类)

All posts of all state-sponsored social media accounts must be clearly marked as such.

This should be done not only for China, but of all countries, including Western democracies.

Even better, they should add funny censored images on top of those that are from dictatorship countries.

Furthermore, marked media from dictatorships must be forbidden to both monetize and pay to promote its content.

Any outlets that do not announce themselves as state sponsored but are, must be banned forever when they are found out.

What to do about personal accounts is much harder to decide however, and especially so in the case of <<ccp-apologists>>, where they might really not be state sponsored, and the creator's nationality won't help make the decision either.

Some websites have started marking such accounts, which is a great start.

* YouTube in 2018: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/2/16964190/youtube-state-funded-broadcasters
* Facebook in 2020: https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/04/facebook-adds-labels-identifying-state-controlled-media/
* Twitter in 2020:
** report https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3096380/twitter-begin-labelling-state-affiliated-media
** example from https://twitter.com/PDChina <<peoples-daily>> marked as "China state-affiliated media" and links to https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated-china

Reports of Chinese influence on social media:

* 2020-06 Twitter has also implicated in receiving advertising money from <<china-daily>>, see also: <<china-watch>>
** 2020-06-12 https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/information-operations-june-2020.html
** 2020-06-12 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/12/twitter-deletes-170000-accounts-linked-to-china-influence-campaign "Twitter deletes 170,000 accounts linked to China influence campaign"
** The Chinese government later contested this decision: https://variety.com/2020/digital/asia/china-victim-wants-twitter-to-delete-attackers-1234633860/
* 2020-04-07 https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/9397v8/chinas-been-flooding-facebook-with-shady-ads-blaming-trump-for-the-coronavirus-crisis "China's Been Flooding Facebook With Shady Ads Blaming Trump for the Coronavirus Crisis"

[[spy]]
===== China spy stories (中国间谍故事)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_intelligence_activity_abroad

Do not underestimate the CCP and its control over every Chinese companies and people. Every Chinese company and person is a potential spy.

This is <<evil-west,true for all countries however>>, and <<ciro-santilli>> does not not reproach China specifically for its secret service, e.g. <<snowden>> used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#NSA_sub-contractee_as_an_employee_for_Dell[Dell] as an NSA front-end.

The point is just that the West should not underestimate this menace that comes from a <<dictatorship>>.

For university espionage in particular see: <<university-espionage>>.

Some Chinese spy stories:

* 2020-03-20 Tarmo Kõuts from Estonia
** https://news.err.ee/1608148489/court-sentences-estonian-marine-scientist-to-prison-for-spying-for-china "Court sentences Estonian marine scientist to prison for spying for China"
* 2020-12-25 https://in.news.yahoo.com/detention-10-chinese-spies-afghanistan-040901520.html "Detention of 10 Chinese spies in Afghanistan leaves Beijing red-faced" TODO better source.
* 2020-12-09 Christine Fang https://www.axios.com/china-spy-california-politicians-9d2dfb99-f839-4e00-8bd8-59dec0daf589.html "Exclusive: Suspected Chinese spy targeted California politicians". In 2015, she was fucking some politicians and infiltrating parties, but as suspicions arose, Beijing likely called her back.
* 2020-09-21 Baimadajie Angwang
** https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/09/21/nypd-cop-charged-with-acting-as-china-agent.html "New York City police officer spied on fellow Tibetans for China, prosecutors charge"
* 2020-08-21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3hwdsbh6-M "I worked for the Chinese State Department – 中公教育党委 – offcn CCP Committee" more info at <<aaron-dewitt>>
* 2019-01-15 Kevin Mallory
** 2019-01-15 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46557096 "Kevin Mallory: The churchgoing patriot who spied for China"
+
Good profile. He was first approached via LinkedIn. As a related case, Jun Wei Yeo was arrested as LinkedIn spy recruiter in 2020: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-53544505
+
And those stupid Chines handlers gave him a phone that was supposed to be encrypted, but it crashed and then rebooted unencrypted, right when the FBI agents were around.
+
____
But after the 2008 real estate crash, his fortunes changed. His house plummeted in value, and later he lost his job.
____
** 2019-04-04 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/how-230-000-debt-linkedin-message-led-ex-cia-officer-n990691 "How a $230,000 debt and a LinkedIn message led an ex-CIA officer to spy for China"
+
Good profile, gives important points: he was 230k in debt, and "Mallory began reaching out to former CIA colleagues in an apparent effort to pump them for information. The ex-colleagues grew suspicious and contacted the CIA, prosecutors say."
** 2019-05-18 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48319058 "Kevin Mallory: Ex-CIA agent jailed for spying for China".
+
The article also contains a good summary section "CIA spy operation in China: Key dates".
* 2019-11: Wang Liqiang spy defection to Australia
** https://www.smh.com.au/national/defecting-chinese-spy-offers-information-trove-to-australian-government-20191122-p53d1l.html
* 2019-11: Jerry Chun Shing Lee, naturalized American, convicted for being double agent while working at CIA after being in custody for 2 years
** https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/former-cia-officer-sentenced-19-years-conspiring-chinese-spies-n1089341
* 2018-06-05 Ron Rockwell Hansen
** https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44364437

[[2010-dismantling-of-cia-s-network-in-china-2010]]
====== 2010 dismantling of CIA's network in China (2010 拆除中情局在华网络)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_China#2010

Around2010-2012 about 20 CIA spies in China were killed. One was shot right in the courtyard of a government building as a message to others.

After identifying some of the websites, possibly with a double agent, Iran was able to reach the rest through Google searches for similar sites.

The trouble started in when the CIA was investigating nuclear weapons in Iran in 2009.

The fact that China soon followed could indicate that Iran sold the secret to China.

TODO do we have any such sample websites or screenshots of them? https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/167

https://news.yahoo.com/cias-communications-suffered-catastrophic-compromise-started-iran-090018710.html mentions that:

____
A 2011 Iranian television broadcast that touted the government's destruction of the CIA network said U.S. intelligence operatives had created websites for fake companies to recruit agents in Iran by promising them jobs, visas and education abroad. Iranians who initially thought they were responding to legitimate opportunities would end up meeting with CIA officers in places like Dubai or Istanbul for recruitment, according to the broadcast.
____

therefore the websites might not have been in English.

TODO find that broadcast. News broke 2019-06-22[] apparently:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMilJGTIvkI "US calls for Iran to free alleged CIA spy" by euronews (in English) (2011-12-20) shows a forced confession on state television by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Mirza_Hekmati[]. He claims to have been tortured with forced drug withdrawal. Given that Iran is in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Crescent[Golden Crescent], Ciro would guess they gave him heroin, see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_in_Iran[] "Opium in Iran is widely available, and the country was thought to have the highest per capita number of opiate addicts in the world[1][2] at a rate of 2.8% of Iranians over age 15."

Iran claims to have captured spies working for CIA

* 2017-05-20 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-espionage-idUSKCN18G0UM "China killed CIA sources, hobbled U.S. spying from 2010 to 2012: NYT"
* 2018-10-02 https://news.yahoo.com/cias-communications-suffered-catastrophic-compromise-started-iran-090018710.html "The CIA's communications suffered a catastrophic compromise. It started in Iran."

[[ministry-of-state-security]]
====== Ministry of State Security (MSS, Guoanbu, 国安部)

* link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_State_Security_(China)++
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中华人民共和国国家安全部

The Chinese <<snowden,counterintelligence>> organ.

Report website launched in 2018 https://www.12339.gov.cn/[], some coverage:

* https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2141910/china-launches-website-report-foreign-spies-corrupt

[[pla]]
====== People's Liberation Army (PLA, 中国人民解放军)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国人民解放军

The Chinese army, and also one of the central intelligence agencies, notably on cyberattacks.

.A Chinese soldier smashes bricks on a colleague's head during joint Chinese-<<india>> anti-terrorism exercises in Kunming in 2007. http://mil.news.sina.com.cn/2014-02-26/0954766058.html from <<sina>> give the Chinese term "油锤贯顶". https://nastyhobbit.org/details.php?image_id=370[Source]. https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/military-brick-breaking-demonstrations-face-the-chop/[Better source with worse image quality].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/PLA_soldier_breaking_bricks_on_head.jpg[height=400]

[[the-west-must-ban-the-chinese-telecommunications-software-and-hardware]]
===== The West must ban the Chinese telecommunications software and hardware (西方必须禁止中国电信软件和硬件)

They are an entry point to spying, censorship and <<fake-news>>. Notable companies that should be banned:

* <<huawei>>
* <<tiktok>>
* <<zoom>>
* <<alibaba>>

Reports:

* 2020-02 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-media/u-s-imposes-new-rules-on-state-owned-chinese-media-over-propaganda-concerns-idUSKBN20C2G1 U.S. imposes new rules on state-owned Chinese media over propaganda concerns, the companies are: Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, China Daily Distribution Corp. and Hai Tian Development USA, Inc. See also: <<chinese-government-media>>.
** 2020-04-03 https://theintercept.com/2020/04/03/zooms-encryption-is-not-suited-for-secrets-and-has-surprising-links-to-china-researchers-discover/ 'Zoom's encryption is "not suited for secrets" and has surprising links to china, researchers discover"

[[what-should-western-media-do-about-china]]
===== What should Western media do about China? (西方媒体应该怎么对待中国？)

When you report something about a person, for fuck's sake include the person's name in the title of the article, at the very least the pinyin.

Then, in the body, also add the corresponding Chinese characters on the first mention. This is how you do it: "San Xihou (三西猴)"

Yes, Chinese people also have names. And yes, pinyin has infinitely more homonyms than characters.

In the body of the article, notably in photos, include the exact location of the event if applicable.

City at the very least, but if recognizable, where withing the city.

Yes, China is big! There are many different places in China.

[[western-companies-that-comply-with-chinese-censorship-requests]]
==== Western companies that comply with Chinese censorship requests (遵守中国审查要求的西方公司)

Western governments should prevent companies from complying to Chinese censorship requests, or at least impose fines and sanctions on them.

Citizens should boycott such companies and require them to be punished.

See also: <<western-companies-that-sell-censorship-technology-to-dictatorships>>

Some hell known companies and events:

* 2022 https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/intel-deletes-reference-to-xinjiang-after-backlash-in-china Intel deletes reference to Xinjiang after backlash in China
* 2020 <<hololive>>
* 2020 Outfront Media, see: <<lebron-james-opposes-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>>
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC[HSBC]
** 2020-06 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#Support_for_China's_Security_Law_for_Hong_Kong_(2020)[Support for China's Security Law for Hong Kong (2020)]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_L.P.[Bloomberg L.P.]
** 2020-02 https://theintercept.com/2020/02/18/mike-bloomberg-lp-nda-china/ "When Bloomberg News's Reporting on China Was Challenged, Bloomberg Tried to Ruin Me for Speaking Out"
* 2019-12 Shutterstock implements censorship for searches from China https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/08/in-wake-of-shutterstocks-chinese-censorship-american-companies-need-to-relearn-american-values/
* JPMorgan
** 2016-11 "Sons and Daughters" corruption hiring program for chidren of government officials: https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2016/11/17/jpmorgan-agrees-to-pay-264-million-fine-for-sons-and-daughters-hiring-program-in-china/#46746e305688

.2019 summary of companies that kowtow to China. https://twitter.com/hoho90272496/status/1182669015937966080[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Brand_censorship_chart.jpg[height=600]

.<<rebel-pepper>> 2019-10 carton showing several brands kowtowing to <<xi-jinping>>, while South Park alone gives the middle finger. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/china-hongkong-us-10102019153228.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_bat.jpg[height=400]

.<<rebel-pepper>> 2017-07 showing <<xi-jinping>> eating an Apple Inc. logo referring to the many events where Apple gave in to Chinese demands to have access to the Chinese market. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/China-Apple-cartoon-08242017103540.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Apple.jpg[height=400]

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WBsahU3X4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert[Stephen Colbert] comments in 2015 on how American films make a good image of China to be allowed in China by censors to increase sales.
video::V4WBsahU3X4[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[apple]]
===== Apple (苹果)

Summaries:

* https://applecensorship.com App Store monitoring by <<greatfire>>, source: https://github.com/greatfire/applecensorship

News:

* 2021-06-08 https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/07/apple-private-relay-unavailable-in-china/ Apple’s new encrypted browsing feature won’t be available in China, Saudi Arabia and more: report
* 2020-03-01 https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/01/china-roundup-apple-closes-app-store-loophole/ "China Roundup: Apple closes a 4-year-old App Store loophole"
* 2020-02-25 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/25/apple-censorship-requests-china-shareholder-groups-proposal
* 2019-04-12 https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/12/18305087/congress-apple-criticism-china-communist-tiananmen-pro-democracy "Lawmakers lash out at Apple for censoring a song about <<tiananmen,Tiananmen Square protests>>"
+
.Chinese flag with Apple characteristics. https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/11/apple-shares-tumble-5-amidst-china-concerns/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Apple_China_flag.png[height=400]
* 1999 https://www.lionsroar.com/apple-thinks-different-about-the-dalai-lama-in-china-2/ Apple censors <<dalai-lama>> for China

[[linkedin]]
===== LinkedIn (领英)

Immediately censors anything that the Chinese government asks to censor in China.

3 days after <<ciro-santilli>> put up anti-CCP messages on his LinkedIn, the account was banned in China, with a message under https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/cases/36977487[]:
____
Hi Ciro,

Your LinkedIn profile is an integral part of how you present your professional self to the world. That's why we believe it's important to inform you that due to the presence of prohibited content located in the headline, background image and volunteer experience sections of your LinkedIn profile, your profile and your public activity, such as your comments and items you share with your network, will not be made viewable in China. Your profile and activity continues to remain viewable throughout the rest of the countries in which LinkedIn is available.  We will work with you to minimize the impact and can review your profile’s accessibility within China if you update the headline, background image and volunteer experience sections of your profile.  But the decision whether to update your profile is yours.

In February 2014, we began offering a localized version of LinkedIn in China. We believe that people everywhere can benefit from Chinese individuals connecting with each other and LinkedIn members in other parts of the world, and that the creation of economic opportunity can have a profound impact on their lives and the lives of their families and communities.

While we strongly support freedom of expression, we recognized when we launched that we would need to adhere to the requirements of the Chinese government in order to operate in China.  As a reminder, your profile will remain viewable throughout the rest of the countries in which LinkedIn is available. 

If you have any questions, please contact Customer Service.

Regards,

LinkedIn Support Team
____

2021-10-14 https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/14/microsoft-to-pull-linkedin-from-chinese-market/ Microsoft to pull LinkedIn from Chinese market

The leading Chinese clone appear to be MaiMai (脉脉):

* https://maimai.cn/
* https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/maimai

300M investment and not even an English Wikipedia page, we live on different planets: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/脉脉

Interestingly however, Ciro still received some profile views from Chinese profiles from time to time, he wonders why, do they have a permit of some sort? E.g.:

* 2021-12-30 someone from 红山区公安分局 from Hongshan Public Security sub-department in Hongshan, Inner Mongolia
* 2021-09-29 someone from 北京云中融信网络科技有限公司 https://baike.baidu.com/item/北京云中融信网络科技有限公司/17048165[], an instant messaging services company.
* 2021-09-17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weber_Shandwick[Weber Shandwick]
** https://www.webershandwick.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2021-Geopolitical-Risk-Report.pdf 2021 REPORT ON GEOPOLITICAL RISKS TO BUSINESS REPUTATION by Weber Shandwick’s geopolitical Risk & Reputation Advisory Group
* 2021-08-09 https://www.linkedin.com/in/嘉伟-闫-bbbb60218/ 闫嘉伟 领英中国 - 内容审核 (Yan Jiawei), LinkedIn China, content audit based in Beijing. One of the censors mistakently viewed Ciro's profile without premium or internal tools! Hello. Started working there June 2021, no further personal information available.
* 2021-07-29:
** custommer service person from <<huawei>>
** financial consultant from Beijing
* 2021-05-23 LinkedIn profile view from https://www.linkedin.com/company/circussocial/ Circus Social https://www.circussocial.com/[]. Some of their China stuff: https://www.circussocial.com/blog/tag/china-social-media/
* 2021-03-23 https://my.cscglobal.com/ to cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship another compliance company, previous https://cms.securimate.com hits come to mind. China related articles:
** https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200728005641/en/CSC-Becomes-First-Foreign-Owned-Company-to-Receive-Domain-Registrar-License-in-China this company has some serious weight with Chinese regulators!
** https://www.cscglobal.com/service/webinar/china-web-policies/ talks mostly about ICP licenses
** https://www.cscglobal.com/service/webinar/china-ngo-law/
** https://www.cscglobal.com/cscglobal/pdfs/DBS/CSC-Your-Brand-Secured.pdf features Jayce Yeo, and mentions social media management
** https://medium.com/@hackermaderas/the-beginning-of-one-hackers-thoroughly-referenced-evidenced-osint-investigation-of-clearview-ai-1aa2e9109492 has a technical analysis that points that CSC has links to Clearview AI, and seem to be front-companies

<<brave-new-world-books>> comes to mind.

They also have a <<anonymous-account-ban>> policy for all countries:

* https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/28422/names-allowed-on-profiles you have to use your real name
* https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/topics/6042/6059/430 you have to use your real photo

Related:

* 2021-09 Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian https://hongkongfp.com/2021/09/29/microsofts-linkedin-censors-us-journalist-over-china-content-makes-disturbing-offer-for-reinstatement/
** https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1442838821339639819
* 2021-03-11 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/11/tech/linkedin-china-microsoft-intl-hnk/index.html "LinkedIn suspends new sign-ups in China":
+
____
We're a global platform with an obligation to respect the laws that apply to us, including adhering to Chinese government regulations for our localized version of LinkedIn in China," LinkedIn added. The company declined to elaborate on which local law it was examining.
____
* 2019-01-04 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/2180620/linkedin-adhering-beijings-rules-censors-chinese-profile-page-us-based "LinkedIn reverses course after censoring Chinese profile page of US-based human rights activist Zhou Fengsuo", see also: <<zhou-fengsuo>>
* 2014-06-04 https://money.cnn.com/2014/06/04/technology/linkedin-china-censorship/ "LinkedIn draws fire for China censorship" mentions: "Some LinkedIn (LNKD) users have received emails from the company in recent days informing them that their posts will not be shown in mainland China."

.3 days after <<ciro-santilli>> put up anti-CCP messages on his LinkedIn, the account was banned in China. They are quite efficient. <<zhou-fengsuo>> had notably https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-linkedin-zhou-fengsuo[previously achieved this]. Another report by a https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/linkedin-censorship-peter-humphrey[Peter Humphrey].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli_LinkedIn_China_ban.png[height=600]

[[chinese-interference-in-western-media]]
===== Chinese interference in Western media (中国干预西方媒体)

This lists links between owners of several US media outlets and China: https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/04/has-china-compromised-every-major-mainstream-media-entity/[] "A Rundown Of Major U.S. Corporate Media’s Business Ties To China". No direct evidence that this has affected the news however.

Related:

* 2021 Cinitalia <<china-radio-international>> offsohot publushing propaganda add-ons on the Italian newspaper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_Giornale[Il Giornale]
** https://www.reddit.com/r/ADVChina/comments/n9o2kp/italian_newspaper_controlled_by_chinese_news/
** Sample article: 2021-05-09 https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/mondo/report-che-confuta-teoria-genocidio-nello-xinjiang-1945268.html "Il report europeo che confuta il genocidio nello Xinjiang" (The European report that refutes the genocide in Xinjiang) about <<xinjiang-re-education-camps>>.

[[china-watch]]
====== China watch (2011-)

Campaign by <<china-daily>> to add paid articles/ads that read like news in/distributed with Western newspapers. They appeared to be marked as China watch ads, but still, they should be crushed.

* 2020-06: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post[Washington Post], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal[Wall Street Journal] and others figure on official fillings of newspapers paid by China Daily: https://efile.fara.gov/docs/3457-Amendment-20200601-2.pdf[].
+
https://www.opindia.com/2020/06/china-propaganda-daily-washington-post-new-york-times-wall-street-journal-millions-dollars-justice-department-newspapers-paid-content/ summarizes:
+
____
As per the documents filed by China Daily with the Justice Department, the Communist party mouthpiece had paid over $6 million to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), $4.6 million to the Washington Post, $2,40,000 to Foreign Policy, $50,000 to the New York Times, $34,600 to The Des Moines Register and $76,000 to CQ-Roll Call.

Besides, spending $11 million in advertising on prominent US papers, China Daily shelled out an additional $7.6 million to The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, and The Boston Globe for printing copies of its own paper. For instance, the Los Angeles Times reportedly received $657,523 for printing services. The Communist party-mouthpiece had also spent $2,65,822 on advertising on Twitter.
____
+
The Washington Post is the one that had received the most attention earlier on since 2011:
+
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#China_Daily_advertising_supplements
** https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/official-chinese-propaganda-now-online-from-the-wapo/70690/ "Official Chinese Propaganda: Now Online from the WaPo!"
+
They even had online distribution channel: http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/ It is https://web.archive.org/web/20200708133054/http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/[dead as of 2020-07], but https://web.archive.org/web/20180330150602/http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/[was alive in 2018]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Telegraph[Daily Telegraph]: UK Daily Telegraph stops publishing section paid for by China[piece of shit] tabloid, it comes as no surprise that they would sell out to any dictatorship
+
2020-04-14 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-telegraph-stops-publishing-section-paid-for-by-china "Daily Telegraph stops publishing section paid for by China"

China Daily itself claims certain partnerships: <<china-daily>> https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/static_e/global.html[]:

____
China Daily has also developed diversified cooperation with over 40 media organizations around the world, including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, etc.
____

===== bandinchina GitHub repository

https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina

Contains a "List of companies who have apologized to the Chinese government and implemented censorship requests".

It only lists companies that implemented censorship outside of China however (with Hong Kong, <<taiwan,Taiwan>> and Macau defined as outside of China), therefore it is basically a Taiwan flag takedown + Hong Kong / Taiwan censorship list:

* https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina/pull/56#issuecomment-541230090
* https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina/pull/84

Other interesting GitHub repositories: <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>.

[[western-companies-that-stood-up-against-the-ccp]]
===== Western companies that stood up against the CCP (反抗中共的西方企业)

See also:

* <<xinjiang-cotton>>

[[western-companies-that-supported-the-ccp]]
====== Western companies that supported the CCP (支持中共的西方企业)

See also:

* <<western-companies-that-comply-with-chinese-censorship-requests>>
* <<western-companies-that-sell-censorship-technology-to-dictatorships>>
* <<xinjiang-cotton>>

[[entertainers-who-support-the-ccp]]
==== Entertainers who support the CCP (支持中共的艺人)

Western:

* 2021-05-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cena[] for <<one-china-policy>>
** https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/26/john-cena-very-sorry-for-saying-taiwan-is-a-country about
** https://twitter.com/tony_zy/status/1397188279322173442 Apology video with English subtitles. YouTube reupload: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqjOrsMupgg
* <<lebron-james-opposes-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>>

Chinese who are famous in the West:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Chan#Political_views_and_controversy[Jackie Chan 陳港生] even though he is born in Hong Kong
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3T_Dd3O1UM spoke against the <<hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>>
** https://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news/fc/21/216376/Police-chief-says-Jackie-Chan-made-him
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Yifei#Controversy[Liu Yifei 刘亦菲] who starred in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulan_(2020_film)[Mulan 2020] Disney movie. To make matters more fun, some scenes were shot in <<xinjiang>>: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4004891
** https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/disneys-mulan-star-sparks-call-for-boycott-with-hong-kong-stance opposed the <<hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>>, notably saying "What a shame for Hong Kong". The <<chinese-government-media,People's Daily>> later quoted her: https://web.archive.org/web/20190816162331/http://en.people.cn/n3/2019/0816/c90000-9606859.html[]

Chinese celebrities who opposed the CCP:

* <<hao-haidong>>

[[entertainers-who-oppose-the-ccp]]
==== Entertainers who oppose the CCP (反对中共的艺人)

* 2021 <<enes-kanter-s-shoes>> what a hero
** 2021 ranks China below F in a Country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_list[tier list] video: https://youtu.be/x1PjAhpUjYQ?t=198[], appears to be a rip of this members-only content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NCcFkuosfI[]. Reddit entry: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/ptzygj/pewdiepie_you_are_a_legend/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PewDiePie[PewpDiePie]
** 2019 on <<hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>>: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhWZavn2OvM Hong Kong vs Joker Ends Fortnite [MEME REVIEW]

[[chinese-interference-in-the-western-education-systems]]
=== Chinese Interference in the Western education systems (中共对西方教育体系的干预)

Related about university interference:

* 2021-08-04 https://www.nzz.ch/english/swiss-phd-students-dismissal-spotlights-chinas-influence-ld.1638771 | https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/hsg-und-china-kritik-auf-twitter-kostet-doktoranden-abschluss-ld.1637789 Swiss PHD under pseudonum Oliver Gerber kicked out of doctorate for criticizing China on Twitter. Real name, his Twitter, and advisors were not disclosed because his girlfriend lives in China. University name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_St._Gallen[University of St. Gallen] (HSG, it specialises in business administration, economics, law, and international affairs, HSG also has among the most billionaire alumni in the world). On <<r-china>>: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/duplicates/oxc9qk/phd_student_in_switzerland_expelled_from_his/
* 2020-12-05 https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN28F05U "U.S. ends exchange programs with China, calling them 'propaganda'". Only five of the programs were terminated:
** Policymakers Educational China Trip Program
** U.S.-China Friendship Program
** U.S.-China Leadership Exchange Program
** U.S.-China Transpacific Exchange Program
** Hong Kong Educational and Cultural Program
* 2020-06-17 https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/US-blacklists-China-s-MIT-as-tech-war-enters-new-phase Harbin Institute of Technology denied MATLAB support for being in the entity list, apparenty since may: https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2020/05/commerce-department-add-two-dozen-chinese-companies-ties-wmd-and
* 2020-05-28 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/motion-backing-hong-kong-blocked-after-campaign-by-chinese-students-at-warwick-fsdfphr26 "Motion backing Hong Kong blocked after campaign by Chinese students at Warwick". The article mentions that "Just under 1,000 students voted in favour of the motion. Turnout was three times higher than other votes and officials said that it was a new record for participation."
* 2020-08 https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/craven-cowardice-unsw-condemned-for-deleting-posts-critical-of-beijing-20200803-p55hy5.html "'Craven cowardice': UNSW condemned for deleting posts critical of Beijing" University of New South Wales
* 2020-05 Drew Pavlou 柏乐志
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Queensland[University of Queensland], Australia, was trying to get rid of him for anti-CCP campaign
** https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/24/how-a-20-year-old-student-put-the-spotlight-on-australian-universities-cosy-relationship-with-china
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o1sZefER0E <<china-uncensored,China Unscripted>> interview

China buying pre-University educational institutions:

* 2021-06-11 https://archive.ph/RkHjR Insider investigation reveals officials helped sell access to California public schools to Chinese elite
* 2021-02-21 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9282617/British-private-institutions-bought-Chinese-firms.html "The British schools selling out to Beijing: Not only are private institutions being bought by Chinese firms but some are giving communist-approved lessons that are a threat to free speech", gives list of 17 schools bought
** 2021-03-24 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education-and-careers/2021/03/24/chinese-buying-private-schools-should-grateful/ "The Chinese are buying into our private schools and we should be grateful" what, lady, are you nuts?
* 2019-07-10 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-buy-up-more-of-england-s-private-schools-pjr6692bq "Chinese buy up more of England’s private schools", "Chinese investors have secured another foothold in the English private school sector with the £150 million purchase of CATS colleges."

[[confucius-institute]]
==== Confucius institute (孔子学院)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/孔子学院

News and reports:

* 2019-09 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-49511231 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191013185933/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-49511231[archive]) "Confucius Institutes: The growth of China's controversial cultural branch"
* 2019-01 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2019/01/11/u-s-universities-have-shut-down-confucius-institutes-heres-what-you-need-to-know/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20190616134959/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2019/01/11/u-s-universities-have-shut-down-confucius-institutes-heres-what-you-need-to-know/[archive]) "Why U.S. universities are shutting down China-funded Confucius Institutes"

[[university-espionage]]
==== University espionage (大学间谍)

Lists:

* 2021-02-08 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/8/uk-academics-investigated-over-china-military-research-report "Nearly 200 British academics at more than 12 universities in the United Kingdom are being investigated on suspicion of unwittingly helping the Chinese government build weapons of mass destruction"
* 2020-06-12 https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/fifty-four-scientists-have-lost-their-jobs-result-nih-probe-foreign-ties "Fifty-four scientists have lost their jobs as a result of NIH probe into foreign ties" and "In 93% of those cases, the hidden funding came from a Chinese institution." and "In the vast majority of cases, Lauer reported, the person being investigated has been an Asian man in his 50s."
* https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1262441045197049856.html List of professors around America caught selling secret research to the Chinese Communist Regime

People:

* 2020-11-17 Song Guo Zheng, Ohio State University
** https://www.linkedin.com/in/song-guo-zheng-md-phd-48893641/
** https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MhjbiKIAAAAJ&hl=en
* 2020-09 Haizhou Hu from University of Virginia: https://www.cbs19news.com/story/42560934/uva-researcher-arrested-on-federal-charges
* 2020-07 Houston consulate closed due to alllegations of facilitating intellectual property theft without public proof
** https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53497193
** https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/02/politics/us-chinese-diplomat-restrictions/index.html "US imposes new restrictions on Chinese diplomats" has been another direct effect of this most likely
* 2020-07 Juan Tang
** https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/23/chinese-researcher-wanted-by-fbi-flees-to-san-francisco-consulate-as-us-china-row-deepens "Chinese researcher wanted by FBI flees to San Francisco consulate as US-China row deepens"
** https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3094511/us-charges-four-scientists-hiding-ties-chinese-government has her PLA photos
* 2020 Hao Zhang: https://www.voanews.com/usa/chinese-professor-convicted-stealing-trade-secrets-china from Avago and Skyworks
* 2020 Charles Lieber
** https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00291-2
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_M._Lieber he had won a Wolf Prize in Chemistry
* 2019 Shih Yi-chi from UCLA
** https://www.linkedin.com/in/yi-chi-shih-9884bb20/
** https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3017017/us-federal-court-finds-chinese-american-engineer-shih-yi-chi-guilty

[[german-high-school-coordinator-2020]]
==== Chinese student coordinator in Germany tells exchange students not to support democracy (2020, 德国学校开班会4反对民主)

YET UNCONFIRMED VIDEO, we have to find who that person is exactly.

The video shows what seems to be Chinese a high school dorm coordinator saying that their Chinese exchange students must stay away from ideas <<democracy>> and freedom.

And remember that "democracy" and "freedom" are two of the <<core-socialist-values>>!

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOArB434ykU (https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/508[GitHub reupload])
video::aOArB434ykU[youtube,height=400,width=600]

First ripped from uploader's <<tiktok,Douyin>> account named Michael_c118, who also appears to be the person on the video.

Original proeminent report on the West: 2020-10-04 https://twitter.com/SDeutschlands/status/1312682617888796673 by "Voice From Germany 德國之音"

https://m.yorkbbs.ca/forum/chat/5228712.aspx contains reported screenshots of the Douyin profile (no web interface it seems), include a clear face shot.

Video also commented at:

* 2020-10-31 https://forum.gamer.com.tw/C.php?bsn=60076&snA=5984833 from our friends from <<taiwan>>
* 2020-10-25 https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/jhx2mc/chinese_student_coordinator_in_germany_talking_to/ on <<reddit>>
* 2020-19-04 https://twitter.com/HKokbore/status/1312802503956848641

Key markings:

* "德国学校开班会4"
* "This man is a coordinator of Chinese high school students who study in Germany"
* "We have to say there's some problems in our dorm right now"

https://twitter.com/Hujo_DR/status/1312793758203748357/photo/1 is a screenshot of the Douyin profile showing a phone number, which looks like a Chinese number due to prefix 139: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_China#Mobile_phones

The screnshots posted on yorkbbs link him to "北京智享德意国际教育" (Beijing Zhixiang German/Italian International Education).

Googling "北京智享德意国际教育 linkedin" leads to UNCONFIRMED a Yun Xiao https://www.linkedin.com/in/xiaoyun79/ | https://archive.vn/CzZft which is not marked as working in the above organization, but could be the person in the video based on the profile picture (uncertain), and also works with education, thus the Google hit at his current organization (北京智晗未来教育咨询有限公司).

Searching for Google exact hits to "北京智享德意国际教育" leads to https://www.tianyancha.com/company/3283146644 which rejects foreign visits as of 2020-10-26, shows up on Google cache at https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AihPPyAAZr8J:https://www.tianyancha.com/company/3283146644+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=ubuntu[on 2020-10-21] (https://archive.vn/xCfBQ[archive]).

[[thousand-talents-program]]
==== Thousand Talents Program (千人计划)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Talents_Plan
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/海外高层次人才引进计划

<<ciro-santilli>> believes that this is exactly the type of thing that poor countries need to do to get richer: https://cirosantilli.com/#what-poor-countries-have-to-do-to-get-richer[].

But we can't allow China to do it because China is a <<dictatorship,dictatorship>>.

[[cssa]]
==== Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA, 中国学生学者联合会)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Students_and_Scholars_Association

Abbreviation: CSSA.

News and reports:

* 2019-10-13 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-13/cssa-influence-australian-universities-documents-revealed/11587454 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191014032348/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-13/cssa-influence-australian-universities-documents-revealed/11587454[archive]) "Chinese Students and Scholars Association's deep links to the embassy revealed" in Australia.
* 2018-03-07 https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/chinas-long-arm-reaches-into-american-campuses-chinese-students-scholars-association-university-communist-party/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20191012103953/https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/chinas-long-arm-reaches-into-american-campuses-chinese-students-scholars-association-university-communist-party/[archive])

[[ufwd]]
==== United Front Work Department (UFWD, 中共中央统一战线工作部)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Front_Work_Department
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中共中央统一战线工作部

China's "Diaspora management" organ.

The likely organizers behind <<confucius-institute>>, <<cssa>>, and likely several forms of <<astroturfing>>.

==== Astroturfing

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

[[soft-power]]
===== Soft power (软实力)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/软实力

[[what-should-pro-democracy-chinese-living-in-china-do-about-the-dictatorship]]
=== What should pro-democracy Chinese living in China do about the dictatorship? 想要民主住在中国大陆的人应该干什么？

First of all, hide and stay safe, unless you can deal the final blow. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_War[World at war, 1973], ep. 16:

____
A dictatorship is like a snake. If you put your foot on its tail as you do it, it will just bite you and nobody will be helped. You have to strike the head.
____

Once that is taken care of, a few good options are:

* hide your thoughts, manipulate your enemies, infiltrate the corporate, political and military power circles, and go up the ladder
* if you are an technological innovator, leave China and come work for the West. Don't strengthen commie power.
+
Alternatively, with technology you could also try the anonymous rebellion route, but the risk of getting caught is significant, leaving the country first is likely a good idea. See also:
+
** <<terminus2049>>
** <<programthink>>

If you don't manage to do either of the above, don't do any technological work. Go work on the fields or washing dishes. Working well for Chinese companies makes the Chinese <<dictatorship,Dictatorship>> stronger and <<war,more deadly>>. See also: <<embargo>>.

And regardless: remember your kids that the commies are bastards every day.

[[reply-policy]]
=== Ciro Santilli's reply policy (三西猴的回答政策)

People get kind of passionate sometimes about politics. And some of them might also be just malicious <<wumao,wumaos>>, although it is generally not possible to distinguish between them.

If you are not a wumao, consider this:

* Ciro Santilli is one, and antagonists are millions. It is therefore not possible to reply to all antagonists.
* Ciro has in the past tried to be nice to stupid people, and they gave nasty replies
* all discussion is useless, <<effective,only the keyword attack has any chance of having any effect, and even that is slim>>

In order to not waste too much time on those, Ciro Santilli uses the following strategy.

If the original thread post is not very interesting, try to parse it quickly and reply once, always <<better-to-do,linking to the FAQ>>, and then unfollow the thread. This shows that you're still alive, and takes little effort.

Always quote reply, and always write down the ID of the OP on your reply, because discussions like this lead to a large number of comment and account deletions, which could make your reply not make much sense without the context.

After the link addressing anything that they might have said, add three randomly selected images from this repository to it. This is fundamental because the average <<little-pink>> does not speak English. Therefore writing is pointless.

Meme images, however, cross the language barrier beautifully. It is even better if they have Chinese captions.

Another way to see it is that we are creating a harder to censor <<instagram>> channel.

You can think of them metaphorically as throwing hand grenades over the <<gfw>>. Ciro strives to add the following elements in the image itself where applicable:

* English explanation
* Chinese explanation
* date
* location

Because the <<censorship,CCP censors politics>>, and the West does not, we can never "lose" a shitargument. Even if the <<wumao>> supports his country in a thread, just being in the same thread as the censored material could already be problematic for the wumao, as it is proof that they've seen something they should not have seen.

Therefore the only option for them is to run away.

Finally, also try to extract the email of the user from one of their repositories. When successful, Ciro takes a <<wayback-machine>> snapshot of the repository as proof of SHA, and then forks it to https://github.com/wumaoland to possibly keep their email safe in case of account deletion. You never know when this information might be useful.

Then, after replying, do your best never to read the inevitable reply again, and above all, never ever reply. An interesting reply never follows from a non-interesting original post. It is hard at first, but you will eventually get the hang of it.

If the user keeps generating notifications, block them as per link:CONTRIBUTING.md[], replying to a single person multiple times is useless.

Never block users for an initial <<shitpost,shitposts>>, just reply with a stupid joke instead. This approach creates more uncertainty and makes you look cooler. It also allows you to identify who the enemy is. Only block if the user is generating multiple notifications.

If a shitpost is made on most other social media except GitHub issues in this repository, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, immediately block the user on that website if you have the permission to do that, with a canned reply:

____
Hi <idiot's name>, I don't reply to China issues here, please open an issue at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues instead, cheers.
____

Note however that this is not possible on idiotic websites like <<quora>> where such comments may be deleted, possibly automatically, who the fuck knows, e.g. as done at: https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-I-walked-around-Beijing-with-a-t-shirt-that-said-freedom-of-speech-is-pretty-great/answer/Ciro-Santilli/comment/143227962 In that case just link to sections of the FAQ, or mute people, or maybe just block all comments on the post to not waste time with new useless notifications.

This is because it is not worth answering anywhere else where the information will be scattered and impossible to find later on, and especially on websites that are already blocked in China. Shitposts on Stack Overflow and other non-blocked websites are encouraged however, as they further help to get the website blocked in China.

For outbursts of activity from Chinese websites, usually programming (<<backlinks,v2ex, hacpai, pincong>>), only post the following canned answer and nothing else, because cowards/people who don't know English from the website might delete your posts, so you shouldn't waste time there with that shit:

____
大家你好

在我的GitHub中国FAQ repository我已经回答了好几个关于我常见的问题。

你们要是在那儿找不到一个回答，请在那个repository开一个issue，我马上就回答。

我不要再在这个网页评论。
____

Finally, don't forget the golden rule from https://biblehub.com/proverbs/26-4.htm[Proverbs 26:4]:

____
Don't answer the foolish arguments of fools, or you will become as foolish as they are.
____

which is now usually seen in the form https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/66460/origin-of-do-not-argue-with-idiots[of unclear attribution]:

____
Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
____

Where basically idiot == someone who creates posts that obviously aren't teaching you any new useful thing, or that not praising you :-)

Alternatively, there is also the Chinese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu[chengyu] version:

____
对牛弹琴
____

which means:

____
Playing the <<music,qin>> to a cow.
____

which means to talk to someone who does not have intellectual conditions of understanding what you are trying to say, bibliography:

* https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-idiom-playing-the-qin-to-a-cow_766205.html
* https://baike.baidu.com/item/对牛弹琴/3490

More <<wumao,wumao>> focused strategies at: <<how-to-deal-with-wumaos>>.

.Chinese translation of the above.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Pokemon_political_meme_little_pink_super_effective_zh.png[height=1200]

.Cartoon depiction of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu[chengyu] "Playing the <<music,qin>> to a cow" 《对牛弹琴》. https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/438181067.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Play_qin_to_cow.png[height=600]

.XKCD 386 "Duty Calls" and the famous "Someone is wrong on the Internet" quote. It is a waste of time to be like that. https://xkcd.com/386/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Someone_is_wrong_on_the_Internet.png[height=400]

[[asymmetric-information-warfare]]
==== Asymmetric information warfare (不对称信息战)

This is a term "invented" by <<ciro-santilli>> to denote the type of <<dictatorships-tend-to-work-together,democracy vs dictatorship>> propaganda warfare that naturally emerges.

* the <<dictatorship,dictatorship>> has <<censorship>> and legions of possibly non-anonymous supporters. Although most supporters are <<anonymous-account-ban,actually anonymous anyways>>
* the anti-censorship democracy has memes, and a few anonymous supporters

This concept is a mixture of the concepts of:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare[asymmetric warfare]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_warfare[information warfare]

.https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-super-effective[It's Super Effective!] meme by <<ciro-santilli>> describing how he deals with <<wumao,wumaos>> and <<little-pink,little pinks>>. Humour is the greatest weapon against dictators, and images help cross the language barrier. Composition CC BY-SA 2021, fair use on copyrighted individual elements.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Pokemon_political_meme_little_pink_super_effective.png[height=1200]

==== china-dictatorship reply bot

Due to the nature of <<asymmetric-information-warfare>>, Ciro has created a reply bot based on <<github>> Actions that does the above automatically, therefore handling 99% of the work, see:

* link:action.js[]
* link:.github/workflows/issue.yml[]

The bot works beautifully because it makes Ciro not feel the need to reply to every idiot <<wumao>> that comes along. Also Ciro can hide like a coward behind the bot by editing the bot's comment, which is perfect. This reminded Ciro from something that was said in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Call_Saul[Better Call Saul] S01 E01:

____
And they find themselves in a little room with a detective who acts like he's their best friend.

"Talk to me," he says. "Help me clear this thing up."

"You don't need a lawyer, only guilty people need lawyers."

And, boom, hey, that's when it all goes south.

That's when you want someone in your corner.

Someone who will fight tooth and nail.

Lawyers, we're like health insurance.

You hope you never need it, but, man, oh, man, not having it? No.
____

The bot is basically Ciro's lawyer, always loyally on his corner of the fighting ring.

There is only one bug with the bot as of 2021: if a <<wumao>> with unverified email makes several comments very fast, only the first one generates the reply, see e.g.:

* https://github.com/cirosantilli/cirosantilli/actions/runs/1097719382
* https://github.com/cirosantilli/cirosantilli/issues/52#issuecomment-892632342

Ciro is however curious how those unverified accounts can comment at all, as that seemd impossible when he last tried it with a dummy account, to be confirmed.

[[who-is-behind-this-amazing-faq]]
=== Who is behind this amazing FAQ? (谁是这个惊人的常见问题解答的幕后推手？)