Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[MilEME09]

https://calgaryherald.com/news/world/chinese-state-broadcaster-repeatedly-pans-away-as-xi-jinping-coughs-violently-during-key-speech/wcm/2231e6b1-04aa-4142-a9fe-1bc765aee320?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR39rGZKMEBmvGeBqruNkjTAf7aNl64-HEieLVxL05lz1gsihkZDS0AbdcY#Echobox=1602775977

Well now, is Xi sick? could he have covid 19? if so how much of China's leadership is actually sick as well?

 

[blacktriangle]

See article here

:worms:

So when are you starting your company? I'm sure you could find some willing to volunteer their time to help you out...  :nod:

 

[OldSolduer]

https://calgaryherald.com/news/world/chinese-state-broadcaster-repeatedly-pans-away-as-xi-jinping-coughs-violently-during-key-speech/wcm/2231e6b1-04aa-4142-a9fe-1bc765aee320?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR39rGZKMEBmvGeBqruNkjTAf7aNl64-HEieLVxL05lz1gsihkZDS0AbdcY#Echobox=1602775977

Well now, is Xi sick? could he have covid 19? if so how much of China's leadership is actually sick as well?

A good question.

I wonder how many of the leadership were subjected to the 9mm cure....pure speculation on my part.

 

[Jarnhamar]

China accuses Canada of condoning media criticism of Hong Kong comments

“If the Canadian side really cares about the stability and the prosperity in Hong Kong, and really cares about the good health and safety of those 300,000 Canadian passport-holders in Hong Kong, and the large number of Canadian companies operating in Hong Kong SAR, you should support those efforts to fight violent crimes,” Cong said in a video news conference from the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa.

Cong was asked whether his remarks amounted to a threat, to which he replied, “That is your interpretation.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/7405084/china-canada-comments-ambassador/

 

[Kat Stevens]

China accuses Canada of condoning media criticism of Hong Kong comments

“If the Canadian side really cares about the stability and the prosperity in Hong Kong, and really cares about the good health and safety of those 300,000 Canadian passport-holders in Hong Kong, and the large number of Canadian companies operating in Hong Kong SAR, you should support those efforts to fight violent crimes,” Cong said in a video news conference from the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa.

Cong was asked whether his remarks amounted to a threat, to which he replied, “That is your interpretation.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/7405084/china-canada-comments-ambassador/

About as subtle as a smack in the head with a pillowcase full of doorknobs.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Dear PM Trudeau: C'mon man!

Sweden bans Huawei, ZTE from upcoming 5G networks

Sweden on Tuesday [Oct. 20] banned on security grounds the use of telecom equipment from China’s Huawei and ZTE in its 5G network ahead of a spectrum auction scheduled for next month, joining other European nations that have restricted the role of Chinese suppliers.

Telecoms regulator PTS said here the decision followed advice from the country’s armed forces and security service, which described China as “one of the biggest threats against Sweden” [emphasis added, imagine a Canadian federal agency saying anything so frank].

European governments have been tightening controls on Chinese companies building 5G networks, following diplomatic pressure from Washington, which alleges Huawei equipment could be used by Beijing for spying. Huawei has repeatedly denied being a national security risk.

The United Kingdom in July ordered Huawei equipment to be purged completely from Britain’s 5G network by 2027, becoming one of the first European countries to do so.

China said that no “concrete evidence” that equipment from its companies pose threats to national security in Sweden had been provided.

“We urge the Government of Sweden to comply with market principles of open development and fair competition, revisit its decisions,” the Chinese embassy in Sweden said in a statement on its website.

Huawei and ZTE did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“The ban leaves network operators with less options and risks slowing the rollout of 5G in markets where competition is reduced,” said Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight.

In a potential sign it might retaliate, its telecoms regulator also issued a notice on Tuesday calling for stricter supervision of foreign telecoms companies in the country.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-huawei/sweden-bans-huawei-zte-from-upcoming-5g-networks-idUSKBN2750VZ

Mark
Ottawa

 

[CBH99]

“We urge the Government of Sweden to comply with market principles of open development and fair competition, revisit its decisions,” the Chinese embassy in Sweden said in a statement on its website.


How about...

"We urge the Government of China to comply with international law and not arbitrarily detain foreign citizens as political hostages,"


Can't be a dick all the time, then cry when nobody wants to play 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

“We urge the Government of Sweden China to comply with market principles of open development and fair competition, revisit its decisions,”

Fixed it for ya

 

[tomahawk6]

Chinese bomber with large hypersonic missile.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a34416759/chinese-bomber-carrying-hypersonic-missile-video/

 

[a_majoor]

Taking "Unrestricted Warfare" to new levels:

https://nypost.com/2020/10/20/meet-your-chinese-facebook-censors/

Meet your (Chinese) Facebook censors
By Sohrab AhmariOctober 20, 2020 | 8:04pm | Updated

China is one of the most censorious societies on Earth. So what better place for ­Facebook to recruit social media censors?

There are at least half a dozen “Chinese nationals who are working on censorship,” a former Facebook insider told me last week. “So at some point, they [Facebook bosses] thought, ‘Hey, we’re going to get them H-1B visas so they can do this work.’ ”

The insider shared an internal directory of the team that does much of this work. It’s called Hate-Speech Engineering (George Orwell, call your office), and most of its members are based at Facebook’s offices in Seattle. Many have Ph.D.s, and their work is extremely complex, involving machine learning — teaching “computers how to learn and act without being explicitly programmed,” as the techy website DeepAI.org puts it.

snip

When it comes to censorship on social media, that means “teaching” the Facebook code so certain content ends up at the top of your newsfeed, a feat that earns the firm’s software wizards discretionary bonuses, per the ex-insider. It also means making sure other content “shows up dead-last.”

Like, say, a New York Post report on the Biden dynasty’s dealings with Chinese companies.

To illustrate the mechanics, the insider took me as his typical Facebook user: “They take what Sohrab sees, and then they throw the newsfeed list into a machine-learning algorithm and neural networks that determine the ranking of the items.”

Facebook engineers test hundreds of different iterations of the rankings to shape an optimal outcome — and root out what bosses call “borderline content.”

It all makes for perhaps the most chillingly sophisticated censorship mechanism in human history. “What they don’t do is ban a specific pro-Trump hashtag,” says the ex-insider. Instead, “content that is a little too conservative, they will down-rank. You can’t tell it’s censored.”

And if that wasn't bad enough:

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16662/china-fentanyl-source

China Is Killing Americans with Fentanyl - Deliberately
by Gordon G. Chang
October 21, 2020 at 5:00 am

For one thing, the Communist Party, through its cells, controls every business of any consequence.... Beijing tightly controls the banking system and knows of money transfers instantaneously.... Furthermore, fentanyl cannot leave the country undetected, as virtually all shipped items are examined before departing Chinese soil.

Chinese gangs are large and far-flung. In China's near-totalitarian state, it is not possible for them to operate without the Communist Party's knowledge. And if the Party somehow does not know of a particular gang, it is because it has decided not to.

China's postal service has to know that it has become, among other things, the world's busiest drug mule.

The regime has adopted the doctrine of "Unrestricted Warfare," explained in a 1999 book of the same name by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. The thesis of the authors, both Chinese Air Force colonels, is that China should not be bound by any rules or agreements in its attempt to take down the United States.... The regime, consequently, is using criminality as an instrument of state policy.... China's officials will stop at nothing to increase the power of their regime.

Actions which individually are below the threshold of military response, but collectively weaken and confuse the adversary, providing the death of a thousand paper cuts.

 

[YZT580]

no wonder that Justin admires the Chinese way of doing things.  Think of all the explanations and apologies that he could have left unsaid under their system

 

[blacktriangle]

Actions which individually are below the threshold of military response, but collectively weaken and confuse the adversary, providing the death of a thousand paper cuts.

100%.

 

[a_majoor]

A fascinating read which really puts how China attempts to gain influence through politicians in context:

https://www.baldingsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/KVBJHB.pdf

 

[MarkOttawa]

I really wonder if this will work vs the PRC:

Marines Hop Islands, Set Up Long-Range Fires as Force Preps for Clash with China

Marines in Japan got a look at what the Corps’ future missions could look like during a recent island-hopping naval exercise in the East China Sea.

After a small team of reconnaissance Marines landed on an island during the first-of-its-kind Exercise Noble Fury, a larger force swooped in on MV-22 Ospreys and AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters. The grunts “quickly seized control of the island, establishing defensive positions,” according to a news release on the exercise.

The Marines then coordinated with Seventh Fleet sailors, who had identified a target they couldn’t engage. After passing info along to the Marines ashore, an Air Force MC-130J Super Hercules landed on an expeditionary airfield in the middle of the night with a high-mobility artillery rocket system, or HIMARS.

“The HIMARS team fired a notional shot, destroying the target, and quickly loaded back into the MC-130J, taking off minutes after landing on the island,” the release states. The Marines then loaded into CH-53E Super Stallions, it adds, and “were on the move again to prepare for follow-on missions.”..
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/10/22/marines-hop-islands-set-long-range-fires-force-preps-clash-china.html

As for the US Army:

U.S. Army Flexes New Land-based, Anti-Ship Capabilities

Finding ever new and efficient ways to sink enemy ships is usually assigned to the U.S. Navy and, to a lesser extent, the Air Force, but not anymore.

Though still focused on its primary role of maneuvering against land forces and shooting down air and missile threats, the Army is quietly developing an arsenal of long-range maritime strike options.

As the Army carves out an offensive role in the Pentagon’s preparations for a mainly naval and air war with China, service officials now seek to develop a capacity for targeting and coordinating strikes on maritime targets with helicopter gunships in the near term and with long-range ballistic missiles by 2025…

Targeting ships from land-based artillery systems is not unique to the Army. The U.S. Marine Corps plans to introduce the Raytheon-Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile, firing the ground-based anti-ship cruise missile from a remotely operated Joint Light Tactical Vehicle...
https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/missile-defense-weapons/us-army-flexes-new-land-based-anti-ship-capabilities

Duplication of efforts?

Mark
Ottawa

 

[a_majoor]

Not a duplication of efforts, but readying different tools to do the job. The PLAN will have a much different task defending against mobile missile batteries suddenly appearing on an island than defending against ramjet powered artillery shells being fired from US allied nations surrounding the South China Sea (or for that matter, the Americans using the long range cannon off the back deck of a transport ship).

Add to the mix lurking US attack submarines, USAF "arsenal aircraft" unloading large numbers of munitions at once, US Navy plans to fit hypersonic missiles to their destroyers or F-35s using stealth to move in close and identify (and sometimes attack) targets and the PLAN and PLAAF potentially have their hands full.

This isn't going to be a one sided game by any means, the Chinese have tools like ballistic missiles and SSK's which the US will find difficult to deal with as well. But in the back of my mind I think of the Battle of Jutland, where the battleship fleets of the Royal Navy and the Imperial German Navy clashed - it ended as a technical stalemate, but other events like the economic blockade against Germany and the idea of a Communist Revolution infecting large parts of the German body politic ended up having a far greater impact on the war.

 

[blacktriangle]

Not a duplication of efforts, but readying different tools to do the job. The PLAN will have a much different task defending against mobile missile batteries suddenly appearing on an island than defending against ramjet powered artillery shells being fired from US allied nations surrounding the South China Sea (or for that matter, the Americans using the long range cannon off the back deck of a transport ship).

Yup. No reason the US Army can't focus on bolstering partner nations by deploying and sustaining some very long range systems (both kinetic and otherwise) and allowing the USMC to focus on mobility and fighting within the contested areas themselves. It makes sense, at least to me, for each service to provide complimentary capabilities to achieve this overall goal.

I just see all of this as a way to counter what China has already been doing for years, with the ultimate goal being containment, not open engagement.

 

[MarkOttawa]

The rot seems broad and deep--see this from a major story by the excellent investigative reporter Sam Cooper of Global News, note PM Trudeau angle at end of quote (further links and several images--rogues' galleries?--at original)::

Suspects in alleged Markham illegal casino mansion linked to B.C. casino suspects

B.C. real estate developer Yongtao Chen stepped onto the podium in a Vancouver hotel ballroom and enthusiastically waved a red flag to a loud round of applause.

He had just accepted a new role as chairman of the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations (CACA) and was displaying their banner at an August 2018 political gala in Vancouver.

The alliance is a pro-Beijing umbrella group that says it represents about 100 Chinese community associations across Canada and works with Chinese state officials to build mutually beneficial ties between the two nations.

But Canadian intelligence sources suspect the organization is part of a network directed from Beijing to undertake both legal and illegal tasks abroad.

Some 400 people were in the crowd at the gala, decked out in tailored suits and evening gowns. The guests included China’s top consular officials in B.C. and Canadian politicians from all levels of government.

Chen pledged to build ties between community groups in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal and “unite entrepreneurs” under the alliance’s banner.

One of the entrepreneurs in the room was Yongtao Chen’s business partner, a Toronto real estate tycoon named Wei Wei.

But two years later, Wei is facing multiple criminal charges in relation to allegations that he was running illegal gambling operations out of his massive marble-floored 53-room mansion in Markham, Ont.

And according to law enforcement sources, the business and political ties of some CACA leaders like Wei and Yongtao Chen are of increasing concern for Canada’s national security as RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service investigators probe networks they believe may involve the hidden hand of the Chinese state and organized crime…

The connections of CACA leaders with alleged illegal casino operators including Jin and Wei appear to be in keeping with the practices utilized by Beijing’s so-called United Front, intelligence sources said. And the fact that alleged criminals and leaders from CACA frequently attend meetings endorsed by China’s official United Front Work Department supports this allegation, the sources say.

…experts such as David Mulroney, Canada’s former ambassador to China, say the Party uses organized crime in United Front networks to infiltrate Western governments.

“There is a very tight, incestuous relationship between organized crime in China and within diaspora communities, and the United Front,” Mulroney said in an interview. “Co-opting criminal networks is one of the Party’s preferred tools for the infiltration of target organizations and communities for foreign interference operations.”

And a number of Canadian intelligence sources interviewed by Global News say it is suspected Beijing mobilizes leaders in business and politics in the United Front, while clandestinely using organized crime agents for illegal tasks including human smuggling and money laundering…

According to current and former Canadian intelligence officers, China has been very effective at using real estate and casino tycoons and their political donations to facilitate meetings between their government representatives and Canadian officials. One of the sources told Global News that Canada has failed to counter this increasing threat of ‘elite capture.’

In 2016 and 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau participated in at least a handful of fundraising events in the Toronto and Vancouver regions that featured wealthy entrepreneurs such as Wei. A media report in the National Post also revealed that Trudeau met twice with Wei, including at a Toronto-area Liberal fundraiser in 2016.

Also with Wei at these meetings was a Chinese billionaire and member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Bin Zhang, who later made a $1-million donation to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, the Globe and Mail previously reported.

A former CSIS intelligence officer told Global News that he was concerned about donations to the Trudeau foundation from a Chinese tycoon…
https://globalnews.ca/news/7416772/markham-illegal-casino-mansion-b-c-casino-link/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MilEME09]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/politics/article-chinese-canadian-groups-laud-belligerents-that-fight-against-canada/?utm_medium=Referrer%3A%20Social%20Network%20%2F%20Media&utm_campaign=Shared%20Web%20Article%20Links&__twitter_impression=true


Well now, China seems to be continuing to rewrite the history books to fit their own internal propaganda narrative. Can not wait to see how this one goes over.

 

[dimsum]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/politics/article-chinese-canadian-groups-laud-belligerents-that-fight-against-canada/?utm_medium=Referrer%3A%20Social%20Network%20%2F%20Media&utm_campaign=Shared%20Web%20Article%20Links&__twitter_impression=true


Well now, China seems to be continuing to rewrite the history books to fit their own internal propaganda narrative. Can not wait to see how this one goes over.

I particularly like the backpedalling at a great rate of knots at the end - "oh, did I share *that*?  Totally not what I wanted it to mean!"  :

 

[a_majoor]

Long article from the Gatestone Institute outlining the existential threat China is presenting to the West and indeed much of the world. "We" will need a steady and steadfast political leadership, and the ability and will to employ all the tools of DIME (Diplomacy, Information, Military, Economic) in order to meet the threat.

There is a great deal to digest in this, so I will provide the link for you to read:

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16705/china-existential-threat