China

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31700111

Archived

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The Australian sinologist Geremie Barme observes that there are “haunting parallels” between the values shared by [U.S. President] Donald Trump and [China's] Xi Jinping. They both possess autocratic personalities. Their signature chants echo each other: Trump’s “Fight, Fight, Fight” and Xi’s “Struggle, Struggle, Struggle”, and they share values.

[...]

How to measure such a convergence? Helpfully, the Chinese Communist Party compiled a checklist for us. Document No. 9 was published in 2013, during Xi’s first months as president.

The document lists the regime’s “seven taboos” [...]

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The first taboo is “Western constitutional democracy”. Essential to this is the separation of powers. [...] A practical example is that, in a liberal democracy, a citizen can challenge a government decision in court.

But China’s dictators reject this in favour of “the monolithic leadership of the Party”. And Trump’s America, too, [...] The administration chose to ignore the ruling [of a judge to not deport Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador]. White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Stephen Miller, said: “It is without doubt the most unlawful order a judge has issued in our lifetimes.”

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Second, the concept of “universal values” is forbidden. Xi regards human rights as a challenge to the rule of the party. And Trump? “The concept that everyone is equal is undermined by the administration’s attack on DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] policies,” says Barme, who has been writing on the growing convergence of US and Chinese values since 2017 on China Heritage [...] Trump is basically pursuing a massive re-segregation by race, class, wealth and values.”

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Xi’s third taboo is “civil society”, which Document No. 9 describes as a “serious form of political opposition”. The party bans or strictly regulates any effort at citizens’ organising for a shared purpose, whether it’s a charity, trade union or environmental NGO [...]

Trump seeks to delegitimise and halt civil society movements with which he disagrees. Trump’s defence secretary in 2020, Mark Esper, has written that Trump asked him to order troops to fire into crowds of Black Lives Matter protesters: “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”

Trump pardoned more than 1000 people convicted of invading and vandalising the Capitol on January 6, but says people vandalising Tesla cars will be branded “domestic terrorists” by his administration, opening the prospect of severe punishments. “That’s incredibly familiar territory,” says Barme, citing China’s use of the term “subverting state power” to crush protest movements.

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China’s fourth “unmentionable” is neoliberalism – because it’s an idea that undermines state control of the economy [...] Similarly, Trump is leading a retreat from US neoliberalism by applying new tariffs. He is a mercantilist who believes that government should engineer positive trade balances through market intervention.

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The fifth is independent journalism. China’s censorship and propaganda machinery is notorious for quashing independent reporting and debate. Xi has said that all media outlets in China share the same family name – “the Party”.

In the US, Trump recently [...] said that CNN and MSNBC were “illegal, what they do is illegal” and “has to stop”. Their crime? They “literally write 97.6 per cent bad about me”. Separately, Trump sues media outlets whose coverage he dislikes [and] has threatened to revoke broadcast licences and jail journalists

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China’s sixth taboo is what Xi calls “historical nihilism”. This is aimed at curbing honest accounting for the Party’s previous mistakes such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Criticism of the Party’s past could undermine opinion of the Party’s present, he fears.

Barme says that a showcase of the Trumpian equivalent is his opposition to The New York Times′ 1619 Project, which reframed US history around the experience of slaves. Trump set up a committee in rebuttal, the 1776 Committee. He favours revisionist histories of the Confederacy, slavery and the Civil War.

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The final taboo is against any effort to challenge “reform and opening” as defined by Xi. Barme finds its analogue in Trump’s intolerance for criticism of his executive orders.

The US, of course, remains vastly freer and more contested a society than the People’s Republic. But after a mere two months into Trump’s current term, the trends are all China’s way, seven for seven.

It’s growing harder by the day for Australia and other US allies to claim “shared values” with America under Trump.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31682934

Archived

Top diplomats from France and Indonesia have agreed to a new maritime security project which aims to "to ensure peace and safety" at sea in the Indo-Pacific region.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot’s visit to Jakarta, his second stop on his four-day Asia tour, comes amid ongoing trade tensions between the European Union and Beijing.

He told reporters on Wednesday that the Indo-Pacific Port Security Project "is close to my heart," promising France's support.

Neither he nor his Indonesian counterpart, Sugiono, gave any further details on what exactly the project will entail.

Earlier this month, during a discussion about the project at the Ottawa Conference on Security and Defence, Indonesia's naval chief of staff, Admiral Muhammad Ali, said it would address various maritime security challenges, including piracy, terrorism and other illegal activities, and would likely involve collaboration between several countries in the Indo-Pacific.

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Military cooperation between France and Indonesia has grown in recent years.

French air force planes made a stopover in Jakarta in July as part of a visit to Southeast Asia that was meant to display France’s commitment to regional security.

Archived

Taiwan's National Immigration Agency (NIA) has revoked the residence permits of two more Taiwan-based Chinese influencers after concluding they had openly advocating for China's unification of Taiwan by force.

[...] The NIA said Xiao Wei (小微) and En Qi (恩綺) are required by law to leave Taiwan shortly, but did not specify the deadline for the two to go.

The NIA said the decision to revoke their family-based long-term residence permits came after the agency consulted with [Taiwan's] Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), which supervises cross-strait exchanges.

Last week, the NIA had revoked the residence permit of another Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), who openly advocated in her social media account -- Ya Ya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣) -- for China's unification of Taiwan by force.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31647886

Archived

Elon Musk’s aerospace giant SpaceX allows investors from China to buy stakes in the company as long as the funds are routed through the Cayman Islands or other offshore secrecy hubs, according to previously unreported court records.

The rare picture of SpaceX’s approach recently emerged in an under-the-radar corporate dispute in [the U.S. state of] Delaware. Both SpaceX’s chief financial officer and Iqbaljit Kahlon, a major investor, were forced to testify in the case.

In December, Kahlon testified that SpaceX prefers to avoid investors from China because it is a defense contractor. There is a major exception though, he said: SpaceX finds it “acceptable” for Chinese investors to buy into the company through offshore vehicles.

“The primary mechanism is that those investors would come through intermediate entities that they would create or others would create,” Kahlon said. “Typically they would set up BVI structures or Cayman structures or Hong Kong structures and various other ones,” he added, using the acronym for the British Virgin Islands. Offshore vehicles are often used to keep investors anonymous.

Experts called SpaceX’s approach unusual, saying they were troubled by the possibility that a defense contractor would take active steps to conceal foreign ownership interests.

Kahlon, who has long been close to the company’s leadership, has said he owns billions of dollars of SpaceX stock. His investment firm also acts as a middleman, raising money from investors to buy highly sought SpaceX shares. He has routed money from China through the Caribbean to buy stakes in SpaceX multiple times, according to the court filings.

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Federal law [in the U.S.] gives regulators broad power to oversee foreign investments in tech companies and defense contractors. Companies only have to proactively report Chinese investments in limited circumstances, and there aren’t hard and fast rules for how much is too much. However, the government can initiate investigations and then block or reverse transactions they deem a national security threat. That authority typically does not apply to purely passive investments in which a foreign investor is buying only a small slice of a company. But experts said that federal officials regularly ask companies to add up Chinese investments into an aggregate total.

The U.S. government charges that China has a systematic strategy of using even minority investments to secure leverage over companies in sensitive industries, as well as to gain privileged access to information about cutting-edge technology. U.S. regulators view even private investors in China as potential agents of the country’s government, experts said.

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It’s not uncommon for foreigners to buy U.S. stock through a vehicle in the Cayman Islands, often to save money on taxes. But experts said it was strange for the party on the other side of a deal — the U.S. company — to prefer such an arrangement.

ProPublica spoke to 13 national security lawyers, corporate attorneys and experts in Chinese finance about the SpaceX testimony. Twelve said they had never heard of a U.S. company with such a requirement and could not think of a purpose for it besides concealing Chinese ownership in SpaceX. The 13th said they had heard of companies adopting the practice as a way to hide foreign investment.

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The new material adds to the questions surrounding Musk’s extensive ties with China, which have taken a new urgency since the world’s richest man joined the Trump White House. Musk has regularly met with Communist Party officials in China to discuss his business interests in the country, which is where about half of Tesla cars are built.

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The Delaware court records reveal SpaceX insiders’ intense preoccupation with secrecy when it comes to China and detail a network of independent middlemen peddling SpaceX shares to eager Chinese investors. (Unlike a public company, SpaceX exercises significant control over who can buy into the company, with the ability to block sales even between outside parties.)

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The experts said the court testimony is puzzling enough that it raises the possibility that SpaceX has more substantial ties to China than are publicly known and is working to mask them from U.S. regulators. A more innocent explanation, they said, is that SpaceX is seeking to avoid scrutiny of perfectly legal investments by the media or Congress.

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Musk’s business interests in China extend far beyond SpaceX’s ownership structure — a fact that has drawn criticism from Republican lawmakers over the years. In 2022, after Tesla opened a showroom in the Chinese region where the government runs Uyghur internment camps, then-Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted, “Nationless corporations are helping the Chinese Communist Party cover up genocide.”

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In recent years, the billionaire has offered sympathetic remarks about China’s desire to reclaim Taiwan and lavished praise on the government. “My experience with the government of China is that they actually are very responsive to the people,” Musk said toward the end of Trump’s first term. “In fact, possibly more responsive to the happiness of people than in the U.S.”

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59490626

The Beijing-based company Emposat had planned to operate a satellite ground station in the village of Vlkoš in South Moravia. However, Czech PM Petr Fiala’s cabinet rejected the project due to concerns that it could be used for spying.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31629438

Archived

Finn Lau [...] fled [Hong Kong] after local officials arrested him at a pro-democracy demonstration in 2020. Months later, while he was walking down a quiet street in London, three masked men jumped him and beat him unconscious. Now 31, Lau still has a faint scar on his boyish face.

British authorities called the incident a hate crime, but Lau was convinced that Beijing had sent the men to silence him. He wasn’t being paranoid: Last year, Chinese authorities declared that Lau would be “pursued for life.” They froze his remaining assets in Hong Kong and offered a bounty for information leading to his arrest. Since then, fake journalists have approached Lau seeking interviews, dozens of social-media accounts have impersonated him, and he’s received death threats. A group on Telegram posted his address in London, forcing him to move multiple times. The intimidation extended to his family members in Hong Kong. Eventually they had to flee too.

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Lau is one of thousands who fled Hong Kong to Britain once the protests started—and particularly since June 2020, when China passed a national-security law that led to often-violent suppression. [...] Assailants have stalked them in public and smeared them online. Letters have shown up at their neighbors’ doors promising a reward for turning over dissidents to the Chinese embassy. Back home, government authorities have suspended their retirement savings and interrogated their families. Some have been attacked.

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Even though China’s responsibility [for assaults of Chinese exiled dissidents] is an open secret, Western governments have struggled to deter the country from interfering on their soil. Xi’s crusade appears so brazen and far-reaching that it suggests he has little fear of provoking the West. By the same measure, it seems to reveal that something else really does scare him: China’s exiles.

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Accounts of intimidation and harassment have emerged from virtually every corner of Britain where Hong Kongers have gathered. In 2019, a group of men dragged a refugee through the gates of the Chinese consulate in Manchester and assaulted him. Similar incidents have occurred in London’s Chinatown and on college campuses, including in Southampton, where Chinese students attacked Hong Kongers during a demonstration in 2023. Videos of the incident circulated on Weibo, China’s version of X, and prompted death threats against the victims.

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In 2023, the Hong Kong government offered rewards for information leading to the arrests of [exiled dissident Simon] Cheng and 12 other overseas dissidents, six of whom lived in Britain. Officials in Hong Kong interrogated Cheng’s family, who became a focus of attention in Chinese media. “Watching my father dodge the news cameras on television sent me into a deep depression,” Cheng said. In an effort to protect his parents, Cheng encouraged them to sever ties with him. “If needed, criticize me and cut me off,” he wrote on X. “My hope is that my parents can enjoy a dignified, peaceful, and serene old age—until our next life.”

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On Christmas Eve, Hong Kong issued bounties on six more exiles, including Chloe Cheung, who was 19 at the time. “I came here to protect my future,” Cheung told me. She had moved to the city of Leeds with her family in 2020. “I had dreams of pursuing a career in business or finance,” she said. “The bounty has changed all of that.”

She showed [...] a video on her phone of a Chinese man shouting death threats at her during a protest she helped organize in November. After another demonstration, two Asian men followed her into a restaurant; she alerted the police, who opened an investigation. On Instagram and X, strangers send her sexually explicit messages written in Mandarin. Friends have asked her to stop contacting them, worried that ties to her could create problems for their relatives in Hong Kong. “It feels impossible, suddenly, to meet new people or apply for jobs,” she said. “I have no idea who I can trust.”

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Alberto Fittarelli, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog group, who [said] China has two main goals when it targets activists online: to encourage self-censorship and to “discredit the targets in the eyes of the audience hosting them.”

That strategy nearly ruined the livelihoods of two exiled painters, who go by Lumli and Lumlong. When I visited their London apartment, which doubles as their studio, it was filled with oversize canvases depicting baroque scenes from the protests in Hong Kong. For years, mysterious accounts had posted hateful comments on the Facebook page they used to sell their artwork, which Lumli and Lumlong took with them when they fled Hong Kong in 2021. (A standard post: “You dogs and rioters will all die with your family.”) Many of the profiles showed signs of fakery; they were created recently, had few followers, rarely posted, and used simplified Chinese characters typical of mainland China. Experts at Citizen Lab told me the accounts’ features are “consistent with what has been observed over the years for pro-China networks.”

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31583668

China’s failure to meet a key carbon emissions target has raised concerns about its ability to achieve carbon neutrality, a potentially decisive factor in global efforts to avert the worst effects of climate change.

China’s carbon intensity – a measurement of carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) – fell 3.4 percent in 2024, missing Beijing’s official target of 3.9 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

China is also behind its longer-term goal of slashing carbon intensity by 18 percent between 2020 and 2025, as set by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its most recent five-year plan.

Under China’s “dual targets”, President Xi Jinping has pledged to reach peak emissions before the end of the decade and carbon neutrality by 2060.

China’s progress is being closely watched around the world due to its paradoxical position as the world’s top polluter – responsible for about 30 percent of global emissions – and the world’s leader in renewable energy investment.

The country’s success or failure to meet its emissions targets will have major implications for the international community’s efforts to keep average temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, a benchmark set by the United Nations to avert “catastrophic” effects of climate change.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31526877

Archived

Since 1 March, thousands of posts containing violent insults and death threats have flooded the social media accounts of the two French journalists and Cash Investigation on Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter), and the comment sections of videos attacking the reporters and the outlet, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

The harassment followed an episode of Cash Investigation, a renowned journalism show produced by Premières Lignes, that aired on 6 February. The report, “Auchan, Decathlon... The Secrets of a Golden Family,” investigated one of Decathlon’s Chinese suppliers. In the episode, the journalists visited two textile factories in China’s Shandong province owned by the subcontractor.

On 16 March, RSF observed that Chinese state-controlled entities, including the Xinhua news agency, began relaying the online campaign’s rhetoric, discrediting the journalists and the programme as “poorly made propaganda against China.” By repeating key narratives from the online attacks, these state outlets are reinforcing, legitimising and expanding the harassment campaign on an international scale, a practice known as information laundering.

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The online hate campaign soon escalated. Hostile private messages multiplied, and Cash Investigation and the two journalists were singled out by an X account with over 7 million followers. Attacks also appeared in Chinese blog posts and videos criticising the documentary. On X, they received death threats and insults, mainly in Chinese and English, such as: “Go to hell,” “Your mother is dead” and “Your [loved ones] will die a horrible death.”

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While the harassment campaign originally stemmed from Chinese accounts, it later gained traction among Western influencers linked to China. Some verified X users joined in, with their posts amassing over 300,000 views. One such figure, Andy Boreham — a New Zealander based in Shanghai — identifies himself as a video journalist for Shanghai Daily on X. His account was labelled as state-affiliated media by X ​until the platform withdrew the label in April 2023. He also runs a YouTube channel aiming to “counter the Western anti-China narrative.” In a 2022 interview with the New Zealand outlet Newsroom, he declared: “I’m extremely proud to be a voice for China.”

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All of these narratives served as material for Chinese state news agencies, whose publications have amplified the smear campaign against Cash Investigation and the two journalists. After news reports were published in French and English by the Xinhua agency — which is indexed on Google News, according to RSF information — state-run newspapers People’s Daily and China Daily followed suit. Xinhua’s Chinese-language publication was even shared by the Chinese embassy in France on the Chinese social media platform WeChat. What began as a smear campaign on obscure accounts is now being picked up by media outlets that rely on Xinhua, which operates more than 180 foreign bureaus worldwide.

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Archived

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While the financial, economic, technological, and national-security implications of DeepSeek’s achievement have been widely covered, there has been little discussion of its significance for authoritarian governance. DeepSeek has massive potential to enhance China’s already pervasive surveillance state, and it will bring the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) closer than ever to its goal of possessing an automated, autonomous, and scientific tool for repressing its people.

Since its inception in the early 2000s, the Chinese surveillance state has undergone three evolutions. In the first, which lasted until the early 2010s, the CCP obtained situational awareness — knowledge of its citizens’ locations and behaviors — via intelligent-monitoring technology. In the second evolution, from the mid-2010s till now, AI systems began offering authorities some decision-making support. Today, we are on the cusp of a third transformation that will allow the CCP to use generative AI’s emerging reasoning capabilities to automate surveillance and hone repression.

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China’s surveillance-industrial complex took a big leap in the mid-2010s. Now, AI-powered surveillance networks could do more than help the CCP to track the whereabouts of citizens (the chess pawns). It could also suggest to the party which moves to make, which figures to use, and what strategies to take.

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Inside China, such a network of large-scale AGI [artificial general intelligence] systems could autonomously improve repression in real time, rooting out the possibility of civic action in urban metropolises. Outside the country, if cities such as Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — where China first exported Alibaba’s City Brain system in 2018 — were either run by a Chinese-developed city brain that had reached AGI or plugged into a Chinese city-brain network, they would quietly lose their governance autonomy to these highly complex systems that were devised to achieve CCP urban-governance goals.

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As China’s surveillance state begins its third evolution, the technology is beginning to shift from merely providing decision-making support to actually acting on the CCP’s behalf.

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DeepSeek [...] is this technology that would, for example, allow a self-driving car to recognize road signs even on a street it had never traveled before. [...] The advent of DeepSeek has already impelled tech experts in the United States to take similar approaches. Researchers at Stanford University managed to produce a powerful AI system for under US$50, training it on Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental. By driving down the cost of LLMs, including for security purposes, DeepSeek will thus enable the proliferation of advanced AI and accelerate the rollout of Chinese surveillance infrastructure globally.

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The next step in the evolution of China’s surveillance state will be to integrate generative-AI models like DeepSeek into urban surveillance infrastructures. Lenovo, a Hong Kong corporation with headquarters in Beijing, is already rolling out programs that fuse LLMs with public-surveillance systems. In Barcelona, the company is administering its Visual Insights Network for AI (VINA), which allows law enforcement and city-management personnel to search and summarize large amounts of video footage instantaneously.

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The CCP, with its vast access to the data of China-based companies, could use DeepSeek to enforce laws and intimidate adversaries in myriad ways — for example, deploying AI police agents to cancel a Lunar New Year holiday trip planned by someone required by the state to stay within a geofenced area; or telephoning activists after a protest to warn of the consequences of joining future demonstrations. It could also save police officers’ time. Rather than issuing “invitations to tea” (a euphemism for questioning), AI agents could conduct phone interviews and analyze suspects’ voices and emotional cues for signs of repentance.

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Cross post from https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31499147

In the 1990s, the textile industry in Nigeria was a key driver of the economy, providing employment to hundreds of thousands in Africa's most populous country.

"It was full of activities, from Kaduna, Kano, Lagos and Onitsha, textile factories were located in all those places," said Hamma Ali Kwajaffa, the head of Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association.

Textile mills across the country produced high-quality fabrics for Nigerian buyers as well as international markets. Booming production chains also supported local cotton farmers.

Today, however, only a few factories remain, and even those are struggling amid the influx of cheap textiles from abroad — particularly from China.

[...]

"China already produces all the raw materials," said Anibe Achimugu, president of the National Cotton Association of Nigeria. "This means they can produce at a cheaper price."

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Are Chinese rivals copying Nigerian designs?

Kwajaffa of the Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association pointed out that imported textiles are often made of polyester rather than cotton. Polyester is cheaper, but is also considered lower in quality.

According to Kwajaffa, imported textiles often fade quickly and do not last as long as cotton fabrics. However, because some of the foreign fabrics mimic Nigerian-made designs, consumers may mistakenly attribute them to local manufacturers. Also, clothes smuggled from China are sometimes illegally marked as "Made in Nigeria" and sold at lower prices, he said.

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In 1997, the Nigerian government introduced the Textile Development Fund Levy Policy, a 10% tax on imported textiles intended to support local production.

More than two decades later, Kwajaffa said this money "has not reached the manufacturers."

Without financial support, local producers have continued to lose ground against cheaper imports. The decline has resulted in millions of people — textile workers, as well as cotton farmers and traders — losing their jobs. Industry figures show that Nigeria once had over 150 textile mills. Today, fewer than four remain in operation, according to Achimugu.

[...]

Cross-post da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31486879

Archived

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28 European countries have raised concerns about the deteriorating human rights situation in Tibet in their joint statement at the ongoing 58th session of the UN Human Rights Council on 20 March 2025. The joint statement was read by honourable Miroslaw Broilo, Permanent Representative of Poland to the UN Office in Geneva.

The joint statement was issued by 28 European Countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Honourable Miroslaw Broilo, in his oral statement noted, “We are concerned about the situation in China, in particular in Tibet and Xinjiang (East Turkistan) and the treatment of Human Rights defenders, lawyers and Journalists. China must refrain from Transnational Repression.”

In their written submission, the 28 European countries have reiterated their concerns about “the very serious human rights situation in China” and have urged China to “abide by its obligations under national law, including its own Constitution, and international law, to respect, protect and fulfil the rule of law and human rights for all.”

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A study examining 969 cases of individuals arrested, prosecuted, and tried for "disturbing social order" (DSO) crimes between 2008 and 2022, alongside nearly 200 cases of "endangering state security" (ESS) crimes, reveals a significant increase in the duration from initial detention to the issuing of sentencing.

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DSO crimes are the most common charges against human rights defenders, and include the now infamous picking quarrels and provoking troubles (article 293) and gathering a crowd to disrupt Public Order (article 290).

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ESS crimes, considered the most severe charges against rights defenders, include the well-known subversion of state power, inciting splittism, and colluding with foreign forces charges.

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Cross posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31441446

"Exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws."

"Our ability to provide consular assistance in China is limited due to the level of transparency in China’s judicial system. It may also impact your ability to obtain effective legal assistance."

In China, you may also be subject to:

• severe punishments, even for non-violent acts such as financial crimes. Chinese authorities may also apply the death penalty for crimes deemed serious, including drug offences
• an exit ban, which you may only learn about as you go through customs and immigration controls when trying to leave China. An exit ban may prevent you from leaving the country if you, your family or your employer and/or business associates are involved in any open civil or criminal investigations, including business disputes

If you are a dual citizen, you should always travel using your valid Canadian passport and present yourself as Canadian to Chinese authorities. If you enter China on a Chinese passport or identity card, the Chinese government may consider you a citizen of China, and refuse to grant you access to Canadian consular services.

[...]

Cross posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31438063

Archived

Spanish socialism criticizes Franco's dictatorship ...

In December, Sánchez announced more than 100 events to celebrate that anniversary. In his presentation of these events, the socialist leader stated that with Franco's death, Spain went from "being a dictatorship, poor and isolated, to one of the most complete democracies in the world" [...]

... but it has friendly relations with the communist dictatorship of China

Last year, the PSOE (Sánchez's party) held a cordial meeting with representatives of the Communist Party of China (CPC), that is, the sole party of the largest dictatorship in the world, directed from Beijing and which has governed mainland China for 76 years without free elections, systematically violating human rights and committing the largest genocides perpetrated by the movement communist, with up to 82 million deaths during Mao's bloody rule. Of all current dictatorships, Beijing's is the one that has killed the most people, by far.

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A communist dictatorship that violates human rights

Let us remember that Communist China (and I call it that so as not to confuse it with free and democratic China, also known as Taiwan) occupies 172nd place out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders world press freedom list, a worse position than other dictatorships such as Venezuela, Russia, Belarus and Cuba.

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The Chinese version of the Gulag and the Uyghur genocide

Let us also remember that the CPC dictatorship maintains a vast network of concentration camps and detention centers, the Laogai, which is the Chinese version of the Soviet Gulag, where political prisoners have been imprisoned for a wide variety of reasons for 76 years, suffering all kinds of inhuman and degrading treatment.

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Sánchez doesn't seem to care about all these atrocities, about which he has never even voiced the slightest criticism. If all that mattered to him, he wouldn't praise the dictatorship that commits them, and his party wouldn't have such friendly relations with the CPC.

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Archived

China has entered an ‘Age of Sarcasm’. Anywhere outside of state-sponsored parties, entertainment shows, or the comedies and skits on television, China’s rulers and official corruption have become the main material for the sarcastic humor that courses through society. Virtually anyone can tell a political joke laced with pornographic innuendo, and almost every town and village has its own rich stock of satirical political ditties. Private dinner gatherings become informal stage shows for venting grievances and telling political jokes; the better jokes and ditties, told and retold, spread far and wide. This material is the authentic public discourse of mainland China, and it forms a sharp contrast with what appears in the state-controlled media. To listen only to the public media, you could think you are living in paradise; if you listen only to the private exchanges, you will conclude that you are living in hell. One shows only sweetness and light, the other only a sunless darkness. — Liu Xiaobo, Chinese human rights activist, 2010 Nobel Peace Prize

Since the victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War, and the subsequent retreat of the Republic of China (ROC/ Taiwan) to the island of Taiwan, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been the recognizable state of mainland China. During this time, China was certainly an independent actor forging their own destiny, but wasn’t really a player in the global arena at large, having been incorrectly viewed by Western intelligence agencies as a Soviet satellite or proxy. Reality was far different and much has changed the last 70+ years as China is now the second most powerful empire, the third largest in area (influence/hegemony), and the second strongest military power in the world.

[...]

In the early 2010’s, Xi Jinping came to power and with him has brought a far more assertive China, creating Chinese-led investment banks for international lending, as well as consolidating his own personal power. Political repression has increased greatly under Xi, with routine human rights violations against marginalized parts of Chinese society and regular purges of political opponents. Since 2017, the CCP has been engaged in a harsh crackdown (genocide?) in Xinjiang, with over a million people—mostly Uyghurs but including other ethnic and religious minorities—imprisoned in internment camps. The Chinese congress in 2018 also altered their constitution to remove the two-term limit on holding the Presidency of China, permitting Xi Jinping to remain president of the PRC (and general secretary of the CCP) for an unlimited time. Xi is a dictator, in effect.

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China passed a national security law in Hong Kong that gave the government wide-ranging tools to crack down on dissent and Chinese citizens had to endure some of the most draconian measures in the entire world during the COVID pandemic.

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What China is trying to do is expand its ever growing soft power [globally] into regions they hope to one day project hard power. This gives them diplomatic leverage over weaker countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, thus gaining greater control of their resources gradually, as well as their fidelity in global affairs.

[...]

While it’s great that these places [in less developed regions] will indeed develop, it will be in the interests of the corporate-owned economy (I.E. political and economic elites in these locales) and that of China’s domestic leadership class. Sure, these countries will have newly built infrastructure and will modernize but the benefit is really for empire, not the people. Nothing about the internal subjugation of the working class and poor will change whether it’s American or Chinese empire partaking in the looting. In fact, one could argue that repression of the mass populace will be more acute in areas controlled by China as their leaders don’t pay lip service to optics about democracy, human rights, etc.

[...]

China is simply updating the playbook of empire, evolving its own variant of neocolonialism, and there’s no reason to think China won’t eventually use its expanding military power to protect these Chinese investments across Africa, Asia, and Latin America once they come under threat of rebel forces, rival regimes, leaders who won’t adhere to their interests, etc. It’s how imperialism works and China is already expanding its military presence into the Solomon Islands, having signed a security agreement with their government, as well as their existing base in Djibouti. China also has investments across nearly the entire African coastline that will allow for possible future Chinese naval bases and military assets. They’ve also been building many artificial islands that they turn into military installations in the South China Sea. International waters claimed as their own. Prompting fierce condemnation from Vietnam, the Philippines, and other countries with their own claims.

[...]

Taking control of the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea would allow them to control globally important semiconductor and microchip industries in Taiwan, as well as to dominate vital commercial shipping lanes, which they could use as leverage to force the US out of the region, and would open doors for further power projection in the Indo-Pacific where China wants to dominate.

[...]

besides these possible future conflicts, there’s a very real present day war where China has vested, though highly understated, interests—the Russo-Ukrainian War. Sure, China has tried to portray itself as an independent party but essentially no one views it as such besides dogmatic China and Russia supporters. China has been crucial in propping up Moscow’s economy in the face of devastating Western sanctions, buying more oil and gas than ever before and with plans only to increase. The Chinese have also been providing non-lethal aid (armor, tech to field drones, etc.) pretty much since the invasion began. Their “peace plan” also functioned more as a line in the sand than a true peace proposal. It said nothing about the roughly 20% of Ukraine occupied by Russia, only called for a ceasefire and end to Western sanctions (a non-starter as Beijing knows), and had absolutely nothing to say about future security guarantees for Ukraine. Sounds more like “Russian peace.”

[...]

What’s evident is the Chinese empire has grown vastly more assertive the last decade. [...] What’s not evident is how all the escalating tensions with the US will ultimately unfold. From the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan strait to the South China Sea and Eastern Europe on down to the Middle East and Africa, geopolitical tensions are coming to a head in ways we’ve not seen in 80+ years.

[...]

Archived

Beneath the glossy façade of China’s economic rise lies a grim reality—one the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would rather the world ignore. Xinjiang, home to the Uyghur people, has become a sprawling open-air prison, where mass detentions, coercive assimilation, and relentless state surveillance have transformed an entire ethnic group into a community of silent sufferers.

Beijing’s official narrative presents its policies in Xinjiang as counter-terrorism measures, but the evidence tells a different story—one of cultural erasure, forced labour, and crimes against humanity. A Bloody History of Betrayal

China’s repression of the Uyghurs is neither new nor accidental. For centuries, the Uyghur homeland—historically known as East Turkestan—has been caught in the crosshairs of competing dynasties. The Qing Dynasty saw periods of both empowerment and oppression for the Uyghurs, but with the rise of Communist China in 1949, the noose tightened. Led by the ruthless Wang Zhen, the Chinese military crushed Uyghur resistance, dismantling local autonomy and imposing brutal land reforms that dispossessed Uyghur farmers. Residents watch a convoy of security personnel armed with batons and shields patrol through central Kashgar in western China's Xinjiang region, 2017. | AP

The CCP’s justification? National security. The reality? A calculated effort to bring Xinjiang under Beijing’s iron grip.

[...]

China’s crackdown intensified under Xi Jinping, who declared a “People’s War on Terror” in Xinjiang. The result was the creation of sprawling concentration camps—euphemistically branded vocational training centres—where over a million Uyghurs were detained without trial. Survivors’ testimonies paint a horrifying picture: brainwashing sessions, forced renunciations of Islam, physical abuse, and sexual violence.

Children were forcibly separated from their parents and placed in state-run orphanages to be indoctrinated with Communist Party ideology. The goal was clear—break the Uyghur spirit and erase their cultural identity, one generation at a time.

[...]

China’s assault on Uyghur culture extends far beyond mass incarceration. In an effort to Sinicize Xinjiang, the government has outlawed Islamic practices, demolished mosques, and criminalized fasting during Ramadan. Uyghur-language schools have been shut down, and replaced with Mandarin-only education designed to erase native identity.

[...]

China’s treatment of the Uyghurs also serves a strategic purpose. Xinjiang is a key node in Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, and the CCP views the Uyghur population as an inconvenient obstacle. By forcibly relocating Uyghurs and resettling Han Chinese in their place, Beijing aims to neutralize resistance while cementing its economic dominance in the region.

[...]

The forced labour industry in Xinjiang is another grotesque element of this oppression. Uyghur detainees are exploited in textile and agricultural sectors, supplying global brands with products tainted by modern-day slavery. Companies worldwide have been complicit, either through direct sourcing or willful ignorance.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31330252

The anti-dumping duties range from 26.3% to 56.1% and will help re-establish fair competitive conditions on the EU market between glass fibre yarns imported from China and those produced domestically.

[...]

Investigations found strong evidence of WTO-incompatible Chinese subsidies offered to exporting producers both in China and abroad, via the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as efforts to circumvent EU measures through the setting up of production in third countries outside China.

[...]

Archived

Just one year after its passage, Hong Kong’s Article 23 law has further squeezed people’s freedoms and enabled authorities to intensify their crackdown on peaceful activism in the city and beyond, Amnesty International said.

“Over the past year, Article 23 has been used to entrench a ‘new normal’ of systematic repression of dissent, criminalizing peaceful acts in increasingly absurd ways,” said Amnesty International’s China Director Sarah Brooks.

“People have been targeted and harshly punished for the clothes they wear as well as the things they say and write, or for minor acts of protest, intensifying the climate of fear that already pervaded Hong Kong. Freedom of expression has never been under greater attack.”

People convicted and jailed for peaceful expression

The Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (known as Article 23) took effect on 23 March 2024. Amnesty International’s analysis shows that 16 people have since been arrested for sedition under Article 23. Five of them were officially charged under the law, and the other 11 were released without charge. None of those arrested is accused of engaging in violence, while the authorities have accused two of them of inciting violence without yet disclosing any details.

Three of the charged individuals – after facing around three months’ pre-trial detention – were convicted for, respectively, wearing a T-shirt and mask printed with protest slogans; criticizing the government online; and writing protest slogans on bus seats. They were sentenced to between 10 and 14 months in prison.

The remaining two charged people have been held in detention awaiting trial since November 2024 and January 2025, respectively. They are accused of publishing “seditious” posts on social media platforms.

[...]

• Beijing’s diplomatic rhetoric advocates upholding international rules and norms, but this diverges sharply from both its words to party officials at home and its actions abroad that undermine and violate international laws and institutions.
• Beijing benefits from an international order in which other powers are restrained by rules that it claims are biased and so chooses not to follow. This explains how Foreign Minister Wang Yi can both promise to “safeguard … the international system with the United Nations at its core” and reject inconvenient international rulings as “a political circus dressed up as a legal action.”
• Polls suggest Beijing’s rhetoric is resonating with other countries, as Beijing offers itself as a new partner of choice to provide stability in an uncertain world. Its actions instead suggest it intends to divide democracies and create more freedom of action for Beijing.

Archived article

“We are ready to work with the international community, including Australia, to safeguard the victory in the Second World War and the international system with the United Nations at its core,” said Wang Yi (王毅), foreign minister of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), to Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong on February 21 [...] This is the latest statement over many years in which the PRC presents its foreign policy as reinforcing the international order that the United States and Europe claimed to uphold.

However, Beijing’s status quo language belies the fundamental changes to the international order that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been pursuing. Beijing has benefited enormously from the international system to date, but especially when other powers are restrained by rules it claims are biased and so chooses not to follow.

[...]

Since early 2017, Beijing has presented the PRC as a responsible power that upholds the status quo of the old international order. That message has often come from the very top. [...] For example, Xi Jinping told the World Economics Forum in January 2017 that “We should adhere to multilateralism to uphold the authority and efficacy of multilateral institutions. We should honor promises and abide by rules.”

[...]

Later, Wang Yi told the China-France Strategic Dialogue “China adheres to multilateralism and supports the rules-based multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core” (FMPRC, January 24, 2019). The refrain has continued to the present day. Last fall, Xi criticized European tariffs on electric vehicles at the 19th G20 Summit, saying, “We should press ahead with reforming the World Trade Organization (WTO) [and] oppose unilateralism and protectionism … It is important to avoid politicizing economic issues, avoid fragmenting the global market, and avoid taking protectionist moves in the name of green and low-carbon development."

[...]

These words from the CCP leadership may be soothing to the outside world, but they diverge sharply from internally oriented words for the Party faithful that emphasize struggle and change [...]. Here and with select partners, Xi has been clear for years about his desire to change the international system. In his first international trip as CCP general secretary in 2013, Xi told a Russian audience about the need for a “New Type of International Relations” that amounts to a fundamental restructuring of the values embedded in international institutions and the application of the CCP’s so-called “consultative democracy” on a global scale [...]. More recently, Xi’s speech at a study session of the Central Committee in 2023—which was reprinted in the 2025 New Year’s issue of Qiushi, the Party’s theory journal—repeatedly noted the challenge that the PRC’s development constitutes to the Western-centric order.

[...]

This divergence in rhetoric suggests that the words of CCP leaders should not be taken at face value and that instead Beijing should be judged by its actions. However, there, too, it has consistently violated rules and norms that do not align with its preferences.

[...]

One notable example of Beijing’s claim to uphold international law is in the South China Sea. In 2002, Beijing entered into a non-binding agreement, the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) nations. This committed the parties to “universally recognized principles of international law” and noted “their respect for and commitment to the freedom of navigation in and over flight above the South China Sea” per the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

[...]

Beijing’s behavior gives lie to these commitments. In 2016, a Tribunal [...] found unanimously in the Philippines favor that the PRC had breached its obligations under no fewer than 16 articles of the Convention, was often “aware of, tolerated, protected, and failed to prevent” harmful activities, and “has not cooperated or coordinated with the other States bordering the South China Sea” to attempt to resolve them.

[...]

In 2024, the spokesperson for the PRC Embassy in Manila responded to a question about the ruling, characterizing is as “essentially a political circus dressed up as a legal action … China does not accept or recognize it, and will never accept any claim or action thereon”.

[...]

Last year, the PRC Coast Guard escalated the confrontation with Philippine counterparts, leading to physical ship-to-ship altercations in which at least 8 sailors were injured powerful water cannons to damage Philippines supply ships [...] The PRC has claimed areas like the sea around Second Thomas Shoal where these clashes took place as its own territorial waters. As such, it argues that freedom of navigation does not apply and that the Coast Guard can engage in so-called domestic law enforcement operations. Such aggressive and dangerous operations have continued in 2025 and remain in violation of international law (YouTube/Associated Press, February 1).

Other examples also reveal Beijing’s commitment to international order and global governance as a cynical effort to exploit the rules. In reality, its policies have capitalized on the restraint of other countries in areas like trade and international law. For instance, Wang Yi’s discussion of international cooperation in the auto sector is undermined by the PRC’s predatory, brute-force economics that have long been antithetical to the trading order.

[...]

Additionally, the PRC has used the World Bank to legitimize its mass repression in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region through vocational programs.

[...]

Beijing’s ostensible support for international rules and institutions that restrain the United States and European powers will continue to be a theme as long as the CCP leadership sees that the narrative has traction. Concerns about the Trump Administration’s inconsistency make the CCP’s status quo narrative seem soothing. However, American and European governments should not mistake these narratives for anything other than a wedge to divide democracies and create more freedom of action for Beijing.

[...]

The rise of Chinese private security companies in Myanmar will reshape conflict dynamics. This report to the UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries highlights how such companies are proxies for the Chinese State, importing authoritarianism, intensifying militarisation, undermining human rights, and exploiting legal loopholes to operate with impunity.

[...]

Since Myanmar’s 2021 coup, widespread human rights abuses have underscored urgent concerns about the role of foreign private security companies (PSCs), most of which are from China. This report examines the human rights implications of Chinese PSCs operating in Myanmar, not merely as commercial actors but as State-connected forces blurring the line between private security and military intervention. This analysis focuses on how these actors undermine civil and political rights and how their unchecked power exacerbates the nation’s human rights crisis. We present our findings to inform the United Nations OHCHR Work Group on the Use of Mercenaries’ inquiry into the impact of mercenaries and private military and security companies.

[...]

The legal framework provides only vague guidelines on the use of force. While the Penal Code (1861) requires that any private use of force be proportionate (Art. 99), its provisions do not prevent excessive force in practice. The Private Security Service Law (2025) allows PSCs to detain offenders, but its only reference to the use of force is that PSCs may defend themselves under the Penal Code (Arts. 28.v-vi), leaving room for inconsistent practices and potential abuse in volatile settings.

[...]

Chinese economic interests are deeply entwined with Myanmar’s strategic landscape, notably through the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), a key pillar of China’s global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). What began as a series of infrastructure projects has evolved into a broader effort to secure China’s supply chains, energy security, and regional influence. As Myanmar’s State capacity has collapsed, the security risks to these investments have surged, directly impacting the human rights of local populations.

Chinese interests have suffered collateral damage in conflict zones across Myanmar. At least 23 of 34 Chinese infrastructure projects are located in areas marked by instability, including Rakhine, northern Shan State, and the central lowlands.[8] Incidents, such as the seizure of a Chinese-owned nickel processing plant in Sagaing[9] and the occupation and subsequent burning of the Alpha Cement factory in Mandalay, underscore the vulnerability of these investments.

Moreover, public perceptions of China’s support for the military have provoked targeted attacks, with 32 factories allegedly damaged in the months following the coup, amounting to losses of US$37 million. Such violence not only endangers property but also directly threatens the right to a safe, secure environment.

In response to escalating security challenges, China has increasingly pressed all actors for greater protection of its assets. This pressure has led to disproportionate measures by the military, including the imposition of martial law, harsh crackdowns that have claimed at least 22 protesters’ lives, and punitive 20-year sentences for at least 28 campaigners. High-profile incidents, like the October 2024 bombing of the Chinese consulate in Mandalay, show that anti-China sentiment remains high. Consequently, China’s demand for robust security mechanisms has grown, prompting an expansion of Chinese PSCs in Myanmar.

[...]

When the military seized power in 2021, six of the nine registered foreign PSCs in Myanmar were Chinese. These companies, tasked with protecting CMEC projects and Chinese personnel, offer services from static guarding to surveillance and risk assessments, particularly in areas where Chinese assets face local resistance.

[...]

Chinese PSCs as proxies of the Chinese government

[...]

China remains fundamentally aligned with the Myanmar military, operating under the belief that a military victory will best serve its broader economic and strategic objectives. Even as the military loses territorial control, it continues to dominate key urban centres, infrastructure, and economic zones vital to Chinese business. Through arms shipments, infrastructure investments, and security cooperation, China backs the military, indirectly contributing to severe human rights abuses, including threats to life, liberty, and due process.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31221791

A small number of Melbourne residents have received anonymous letters purporting to offer a police bounty of $203,000 if they inform on Kevin Yam, an Australian citizen and pro-democracy activist wanted for alleged national security crimes in Hong Kong, linking him to two nearby locations.

A spokesperson for the [Australian] foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, [said] the letter was “deeply worrying” and that the matter would be raised directly with officials from China and Hong Kong.

The anonymous letter – mailed from Hong Kong and delivered to some Melbourne homes on Friday – contained a photograph of Yam with a headline alleging he was a “wanted person”. It then detailed a range of alleged “national security related offences” and offered HK$1m (A$203,000) from the Hong Kong police to anyone who provided information on his whereabouts or took him to Hong Kong or Australian police.

Yam is a lawyer who lived in Hong Kong for 20 years before returning to Australia in 2022. He is one of eight overseas-based activists, the subject of Hong Kong police arrest warrants, accused in July 2023 of breaching its controversial national security law that grants authorities sweeping extraterritorial powers to prosecute acts or comments made anywhere in the world that it deems criminal.

Yam has criticised the crackdown on dissent and erosion of judicial independence in the Chinese-controlled city and has been accused of encouraging foreign governments to impose sanctions against members of the judiciary, prosecutors and government officials.

[...]

Archived

Beginning in 1979, the Chinese government decided to implement the well-known—and highly controversial—one-child policy to try to confront, to the greatest extent possible, the problem of the country’s exponential population growth. The rule envisaged, as its name implies, the bearing of a single child with limited exceptions. In case of non-compliance, the consequences could range from loss of job or party membership to more extreme ones such as reproductive violence.

[...]

While the one-child policy was the universal law, there were some exceptions introduced that allowed families to have more than one child in very specific cases. These mostly concerned families that were part of an ethnic minority group or whose first child was born with a handicap. Other exceptions included allowing for more than one child if the family’s first kid was a daughter or they lived in rural areas.

It’s important to note that many of these exceptions conceded by the Communist Party were directly related to the difficulty in enforcing the policy in rural areas. In less developed and rural areas, families often relied on their children for labor power, meaning that implementing the one-child policy required a larger social change than needed in urban areas. Additionally, rural families were harder to monitor.

[...]

Although gender may seem to be a less obvious element of China’s one-child policy, it was a crucial component. Not only did this cultural gender preference cause a large demographic imbalance between boys and girls, but it also led to phenomena like mass adoptions and even infanticides of baby girls. The government has also occasionally contributed to unethical and extreme measures by carrying out forced abortions and sterilisations in order to make families comply with the policy.

[...]

The one-child policy, which reigned in the country for more than 30 years, has also resulted in the development of an entire generation of children—who are now also adults —that do not appear in Chinese state records. People who fall into this group are popularly called “Heihaizi“, China’s “black children” who could not obtain a hukou— an official household registration. Such children were primarily second-born or later children who, upon birth, had no recognized right to exist due to this family planning policy.

[...]

For the millions of Heihaizi, this administrative hole causes devastating consequences. They can’t access regular public services such as healthcare, get legally married, or even use public transportation. Moreover, they can’t go to school and get a formal education as normal citizens, and when they become adults, they can’t legally get a job.

[...]

Moreover, despite the promises of the Chinese Communist Party, a great number of people have not yet been able to obtain official registration. The fines to be paid by Heihaizi and their families are still very high, and acquiring the documents necessary for a life in the open still seems to be a utopia for many.

[This is a piece by Research Scholar of East Asia Studies in History Division, Lund University, Sweden.]

Unable to find a domestic spouse, some Chinese men have turned to “purchasing” foreign brides. The growing demand for these brides, particularly in rural areas, has fuelled a rise in illegal marriages. This includes marriages involving children and women who have been trafficked into China primarily from neighbouring countries in south-east Asia.

[...]

Determining the extent of illegal cross-border marriages in China is challenging due to the clandestine nature of these activities. But the most recent data from the UK’s Home Office suggests that 75% of Vietnamese human-trafficking victims were smuggled to China, with women and children making up 90% of cases.

[...]

The Woman from Myanmar, an award-winning documentary from 2022, follows the story of a trafficked Myanmar woman who was sold into marriage in China. The film exposes the harsh realities faced by many trafficked brides.

It captures not only the coercion and abuse many of these women endure, but also their struggle for autonomy and survival in a system that treats them as commodities. Larry, a trafficked woman who features in the documentary, explained that she saw her capacity to bear children as her pathway to survival.

[...]

Here is the article in Chinese.

"It is a long-standing tradition of the Chinese Communist Party to use foreigners to voice its propaganda for added credibility," said Mareike Ohlberg, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.

Foreign influencers cooperate with the Chinese government, the media and third parties to create and boost content that supports government narratives, Ohlberg said. One of the most common topics that foreign influencers focus on is whitewashing human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The U.N. Human Rights Office and groups like Amnesty International estimate that more than 1 million people – mostly Uyghurs – have been confined in internment camps in Xinjiang.

One of the most recent and maybe most popular foreign characters in China is a French national, Marcus Detrez, who became a media sensation in 2024.

[...]

Last year, Detrez posted a series of historic photographs on the Chinese social media platform Douyin that depicted life under the Japanese occupation in the early 20th century. He claimed the images were taken by his grandfather and said he wanted to donate them to China.

Detrez enjoyed a few months of celebrity treatment from Chinese authorities, including touring across China, while state media outlets profiled him as a hero. In February, however, historians exposed Detrez as a fraud. The photographs he claimed were unique family heirlooms turned out to be publicly available online in various museums around the world.

[...]

One of the pioneers on Chinese social media is a Russian internet celebrity, Vladislav Kokolevskiy, known in China as Fulafu. He amassed 12.89 million followers on Douyin, where he posts short video clips praising life in China.

In November 2023, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute wrote that in China, Fulafu has “become a household name through his ostentatious displays of affection for China,” identifying him as a Chinese government propagandist.

[...]

Among them is [also] Gerald Kowal, known also as Jerry Guo, an American who has risen to popularity in China after an interview with state-owned CCTV in 2020. At the time, Kowal had been posting series of short videos critical of New York City authorities’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. He also repeated debunked conspiracy theories, claiming, for example, that the U.S. military brought the coronavirus to China. CCTV broadcasted his interview from New York live.

The China Newsweek magazine profiled Kowal in May 2020 as “one of the most influential internet celebrities,” calling him a “war correspondent” for his videos from pandemic-stricken New York.

[...]

The success of a large number of foreign influencers is closely tied to multichannel networks or MCNs, which are third-party organizations that promote the growth of certain content creators, operating behind the scenes.

One of the MCN industry leaders is YChina, founded in 2016 by Israeli businessman Amir Gal-Or and his Chinese partner and former classmate, Fang Yedun, as part of Gal-Or's “Crooked Nuts Research Institute,” which focuses on documenting the lives of foreigners in China.

[...]

Chinese democracy activists in exile have accused YChina of supporting Chinese government propaganda about Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

In July 2024, the China Public Diplomacy Association, which is under the supervision of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, gathered more than 30 foreign influencers from 25 countries to participate in a training camp and visit various cities in China. The bloggers were asked to record their experiences on video and share them online.

[...]

China’s state-controlled media outlets [like Xinhua News Agency] boost such bloggers, presenting them to domestic audiences within the narrative of a prosperous nation under the Communist Party.

[...]

In using these foreign bloggers, the Chinese Communist Party wants to show that life in China is not what rights groups and China’s critics abroad say it is. The government exploits the idea that unless “you come and see, you have no right to judge,” the German Marshall Fund’s Ohlberg said.

The core of this idea is “very hypocritical,” Ohlberg added, because “the Communist Party allows these people to go only where it wants them to go and see only what it wants them to see. And if you're critical, you certainly won't get the opportunity to go on a field trip.”