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Schools Use ‘Smart’ Uniforms to Track Students

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By The Blaze. Nearly a dozen schools in southern China have adopted “smart” uniforms to track students’ whereabouts, Agence France-Presse reported.

The move to use chip-powered clothing is reportedly aimed as a way to reduce truancy and boost school attendance, according to state media.

The technology has the ability to monitor students as they enter the building and when they leave. That information is sent automatically to school officials and teachers.

“When students enter the school, the smart uniforms help take a photo or video of them,” Ran Ruxiang, an elementary school principal in Guizhou province, told the AFP.

Ran said his school started using smart uniforms last November and now more than half of the students are wearing them. The school has about 1,400 students enrolled. (Read more from “Schools Use ‘Smart’ Uniforms to Track Students” HERE)

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Chinese Schools Monitor Students Activities, Targeting Truancy With ‘Intelligent Uniforms’

By The Global Times. Schools in China are promoting “intelligent uniforms” to better monitor students’ attendance and whereabouts.

More than 10 schools in Southwest China’s Guizhou Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have adopted the uniforms.

If students wear the uniforms, the school authorities receive recorded accurate timing of their entry and exit and automatically send the data to parents and teachers, said Lin Zongwu, principal of No. 11 School of Renhuai in Guizhou Province. . .

According to Guizhou Guanyu Technology Company that provides the technology behind the “intelligent uniforms,” an automatic voice alarm activates if students wearing intelligent uniforms walk out of school without permission.

Two chips are inserted in the shoulders of uniforms and can endure up to 150 C and 500 washes, Yuan Bichang, the company’s project manager, told the Global Times. (Read more from “Chinese Schools Monitor Students Activities, Targeting Truancy With ‘Intelligent Uniforms'” HERE)

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If China Can Ever Bully the United States Like It Is Canada, We’re in Serious Trouble

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The United States started a trade war with China. The Justice Department requested Canadian authorities to arrest Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of China’s telecom giant Huawei, on allegations that she had violated sanctions against Iran by committing financial fraud.

China hasn’t taken Meng’s arrest very well. It viewed Meng’s arrest as a politically driven “kidnapping” aimed at curbing China’s technological ambition and forcing China to make trade concessions. Beijing feels it has lost face internationally and in front of its domestic, nationalistic audience. Therefore, Beijing has been in revenge mode. However, its main target so far has been not the United States, but Canada.

Since Meng’s arrest, China’s foreign minister has summoned the Canadian ambassador to China, John McCallum, multiple times, to lodge a “strong protest” and tell him Meng’s arrest caused “serious damage to Sino-Canada relations.” Beijing demanded the immediate release of Meng, or Canada would face “grave consequences” for Meng’s arrest. The same Chinese foreign ministry also summoned the U.S. ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, a day after meeting the Canadian ambassador, to protest Meng’s arrest as being “unreasonable.” In diplomatic language, the U.S. ambassador was treated with kid gloves.

The Canadian government has tried very hard to explain to Beijing that Meng’s arrest was not politically driven and its timing, which took place on the same day as the President Trump and Chinese President Xi Xinping’s meeting at the G20 in Argentina, was pure coincidence. The Justice Department launched a criminal probe into Huawei’s dealings in Iran in April 2017. The arrest warrant for Meng was issued in August by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and Meng was charged with “conspiracy to defraud multiple international institutions.” To U.S. authorities, arresting Meng in Canada was a natural choice, because Meng stopped traveling to the United States in 2017, but she does travel to Canada regularly as a legal resident there. . .

Last week, Beijing arrested two Canadians on charges of “endangering national security.” One is Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat and now a senior adviser with the International Crisis Group (ICG). According to ICG’s website, Kovrig “conducts research and provides analysis on foreign affairs and global security issues in North East Asia, particularly on China, Japan and the Korean peninsula.” China declared that ICG is not a legally registered non-governmental organization (NGO) in China. Thus, Kovrig might have also violated China’s notorious foreign NGO law, which gives Beijing the ability to prevent international organizations it doesn’t like, such as human rights organizations, from operating legally in China. (Read more from “If China Can Ever Bully the United States Like It Is Canada, We’re in Serious Trouble” HERE)

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Members of Unofficial Chinese Church Vow to Defy Crackdown and Keep Meeting

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More than 100 Protestant Christians from the Early Rain Covenant Church – one of China’s few openly operating unofficial house churches – were snatched from their homes and streets across Chengdu, Sichuan province, in a crackdown that began on Sunday night. Among those detained were church pastor Wang Yi, his wife Jiang Rong, church leaders, members and seminary students.

The round-up in Chengdu is part a broader crackdown on unofficial or underground churches that Beijing launched early this year, bolstered by amendments to the Religious Affairs Regulation that gave grass-roots officials more power to act against churches and impose tougher penalties for “unauthorised religious gatherings”. . .

[The jailed pastor of the church] also called on church members to keep worshipping and meet outdoors if venues could not be rented, adding that the group would never give up on practising its faith publicly. . .

[The church] has about 500 followers but its weekly gatherings spread across more than a dozen meeting points around Chengdu, attracting more than 800 church-goers each week, according to church leaders. It also has about 100 seminary students and a primary school catering to about 40 children.

Another major house church, the Living Stone Church in Guiyang, Guizhou province, was also banned three years ago. Li Guozhi, one of the church’s two pastors, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for releasing a document outlining an official plan to destroy the church. (Read more from “Members of Unofficial Chinese Church Vow to Defy Crackdown and Keep Meeting” HERE)

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China Detains Activist Pastor and over 100 Christians

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By Townhall. China detained evangelical Pastor Wang Yi as part of raids on his congregation that began Sunday evening. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Early Rain Covenant Church leader and over 100 of the church’s congregants were detained in the latest crackdown by government officials.

“Officials have threatened to close the Early Rain Covenant Church in the central city of Chengdu by the end of the year in keeping with new religious-management regulations,” several of the Church’s congregants told the Journal. . .

Rev. Hong Yujie, another friend of Pastor Wang, told the Journal that he is “the bravest pastor in China today.”

The Journal reports that the pastor wrote a defiant social media post Saturday accusing the Chinese government of attempting to institute “Caesar worship” by elevating president Xi Jinping.

He wrote that the government’s elevation of the Chinese president was “morally incompatible with the Christian faith and with all those who uphold freedom of the mind and thought.” (Read more from “China Detains Activist Pastor and over 100 Christians” HERE)

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100 Church Attendees in Custody, Attacks Ongoing

By China Aid. Around 100 leaders and seminary students from Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, Sichuan have been arrested today.

Among the arrested are Pastor Wang Yi and his wife, Jiang Rong, who were seen being taken away after those who attend their church could not find them. Another two, Guo Hai and his wife, were forced to leave their two children at home unattended when police took them into custody.

Others had their homes raided. One church elder, Qin Defu, was forced to the ground as police inspected his residence.

The situation began at 6:00 p.m. China Standard Time (hereafter referred to as CST) when police seized a Christian at the entrance of the church and a multitude of officers searched his place.

Additionally, authorities shut off power to the home of church members Song Enguang and his wife. The police stationed downstairs also took three Christians, who attempted to visit them during the ordeal. (Read more from “100 Church Attendees in Custody, Attacks Ongoing” HERE)

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The Ceasefire in Our Trade War with China Doesn’t Solve Deeper Problems

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The highly anticipated meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit concluded last Saturday evening with no major breakthrough. Pundits who had hoped for a good trade deal between the U.S. and China are surely disappointed.

President Trump previously threatened to raise tariffs from 10 to 25 percent on about $250 billion worth of Chinese imports on January 1, 2019. Now he has agreed to hold off on the tariff hike while both the Americans and Chinese delegations engage in trade negotiations for the next 90 days.

At present, President Xi has agreed not to impose any tit-for-tat response to current U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports. While stock markets and businesses worldwide can breathe a sigh of relief for now since the trade war will not get worse for another three months, the temporary truce can’t mask the deep divisions between the United States and China. . .

From the U.S. perspective, the rise of China has transitioned from a hope to a disappointment to a threat. When former president Richard Nixon visited Communist China in 1972 and established a diplomatic relationship, 99 percent of Chinese people made less than $2 a day and China’s per capita gross domestic product was less than $200. The Chinese people were poorer than people in Bangladesh, to put it into perspective.

In 2017, China’s GDP per capita was close to $9,000. Global poverty rates have been cut in half since 1981, mainly because of China’s impressive economic growth. This economic growth has a lot to do with the Chinese people’s ingenuity and certain market-friendly policies from their central government. But China often fails to mention that China wouldn’t have had almost four decades of impressive growth without the West, especially the United States, providing markets for Chinese goods, bringing foreign investment to China to build factories, and training millions of talented Chinese students at Western colleges and universities. (Read more from “The Ceasefire in Our Trade War with China Doesn’t Solve Deeper Problems” HERE)

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China Is Rolling out the Most Massive Population Surveillance System in the World

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Imagine the sum of your existence shrunk to a score that is constantly being updated and affects every area of your life –your social and economic status, access to better schools and employment, a nicer apartment, access to newer rental cars, and even friendships. You might laugh it off and point out you have seen this one in that “Black Mirror” episode. . .

Like so many things in China, the Chinese government took a perfectly innocent western idea, modified it to fit China’s needs with Chinese characteristics, and turned it into an Orwellian surveillance tool. Sebastian Heilmann, who coined the term “digital Leninism,” describes China’s social credit system as “a completely new perspective on regulating not just the economy and market, but also society. It’s really comprehensive, big data enabled, for both regulations and surveillance.”

The idea of China’s social credit system was first announced in 2014. Various Chinese cities and provinces have already rolled out their own pilot programs. Every Chinese citizen will be subjected to the mandatory social credit system in 2020, when a nationwide system is operational.

The Chinese government stated that the social credit system “uses encouragement to keep trust and constraints against breaking trust as incentive mechanisms, and its objective is raising the honest mentality and credit levels of the entire society … commend sincerity and punish insincerity.” Based on this, we know that unlike western credit bureaus, which mainly collect financial information, China’s social credit system is intended to mold Chinese citizens collectively into “good” people who follow a “moral” code of conducts sanctioned by China’s communist government. . .

Every behavior you can think of is currently being tracked by more than 200 million surveillance cameras that use facial recognition technology. By 2020, when China rolls out the social credit system nationwide, China is expected to have 626 million surveillance cameras installed. According to South China Morning News, “China is developing a facial recognition system that can match faces to a database of 1.3 billion ID photos in seconds, with a target of achieving 90 per cent accuracy.” (Read more from “China Is Rolling out the Most Massive Population Surveillance System in the World” HERE)

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The Missing, Presumed Dead International Figure You Aren’t Hearing About

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As the media focus on Jamal Khashoggi, Osama bin Laden’s old friend who writes for The Washington Post so that makes him a hero, another international figure has gone missing and may now be dead, according to his own wife.

Earlier this month The Daily Wire reported on the disappearance of then-Interpol President Meng Hongwei. He reportedly went to China to visit family, sent his wife a text with the “knife emoji” and a message saying “Wait for my call,” and then went silent. French police opened an investigation (Interpol headquarters is located in France) and asked the Chinese government for information. A day later, Interpol received a resignation letter from Meng, and China claimed he was being investigated for bribery.

Meng was living with his family in France after he became the first Chinese national to lead Interpol, an international police organization. He was also China’s vice minister of public security.

Meng’s wife, Grace, who first appealed to international media when she believed her husband was missing, now tells the BBC she doesn’t know if he’s still even alive. . .

The Guardian reports that Meng may be held under the new Chinese form of custody, “liuzhi,” which means “retention in custody.” The former custody system, “shuanggui,” used torture. The custody is overseen by the National Supervisory Commission, an agency created this year and charged with investigating government corruption. (Read more from “The Missing, Presumed Dead International Figure You Aren’t Hearing About” HERE)

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Pence Warns China on Election Interference

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Vice President Mike Pence sharply criticized Chinese interference in U.S. politics and increasing military aggression Thursday, leveling up a blistering rhetorical assault at a moment when Washington and Beijing are hardening the battle lines after months tension over tariffs and trade.

The U.S. “will not be intimidated” and “will not stand down,” Mr. Pence told a conservative think tank in Washington, expanding on President Trump’s recent charges of Chinese meddling by insisting that Beijing “is targeting U.S. state and local governments and officials to exploit any divisions between federal and local levels on policy.”

“Beijing has mobilized covert actors, front groups and propaganda outlets to shift Americans’ perceptions of Chinese policies,” said the vice president, citing “a senior career member of our intelligence community.” “What the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing across this country.”

Mr. Trump raised the issue at the U.N. General Assembly in New York a week ago, accusing Beijing of attempting to subvert the U.S. election process to hurt him and fellow Republicans in the upcoming midterms. Chinese officials firmly deny the allegation.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry last week accused the Trump administration of engaging in “slandering” through “unwarranted accusations” of U.S. election meddling. (Read more from “Pence Warns China on Election Interference” HERE)

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China Supposedly Meddling in 2018 Elections

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By AP. Taking center stage at the United Nations, President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused China of trying to interfere in the upcoming U.S. congressional elections because it opposes his tough trade policies. The White House provided scant evidence of anything akin to the level of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

“They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade,” Trump said as he chaired the U.N. Security Council for the first time. He made his accusation against the backdrop of the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the last election to help him and amid concerns that this November’s elections also could be vulnerable.

Asked later what evidence he had, Trump said there was “plenty” but didn’t immediately provide details, suggesting that some of the material was classified. Instead, he zeroed in on China’s propaganda efforts to flood the heartland with ads and statements against Trump’s billions of dollars in punishing tariffs. (Read more from “China Supposedly Meddling in 2018 Elections” HERE)

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Trade Turmoil Between China and the U.S. Spills Into Military Relations

By CNBC. As the world’s two largest economies exchange tit-for-tat tariffs, there are growing suggestions that the trade turmoil has spilled over into military relations.

China has canceled friendly engagements with the U.S. Navy, possibly due to the trade dispute.

In an interview with CNBC’s Morgan Brennan, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, the branch’s top civilian, explained the intricate relationship between the two naval forces.

“When we look at China, it’s a very complex situation to say the least because they are also a great trading power,” Spencer said. “We have a major trading power as a competitor,” he added, noting Beijing’s ambitious military buildup.

Spencer’s comments come on the heels of reports that China’s top naval commander canceled a planned visit this week to meet with his American counterpart and that the U.S. was denied a port visit in Hong Kong for its USS Wasp amphibious ship. (Read more from “Trade Turmoil Between China and the U.S. Spills Into Military Relations” HERE)

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Google Turns Evil in Willingness to Collude With China’s Repression

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By The Federalist. Google, a company with an annual revenue exceeding $100 billion and tens of thousands of employees, has brought about ground-breaking innovations through its horizontal search engine, self-driving vehicles, and electronic messaging systems, improving the lives of millions of individuals and businesses in the process.

However, recent reports of the Silicon Valley behemoth’s cooperation with China paint a picture less of an ethical business giant, and more of an adversary blatantly subverting American interests and basic human rights on the world stage.

In early August, The Intercept reported that Google is planning to implement a censored version of its search engine in China, dubbed “Project Dragonfly,” which will block searches related to free speech, human rights, and democracy, among other content Beijing deems objectionable.

Worse, the search engine will reportedly link any searches entered by a user directly to his or her phone number, allowing Chinese authorities to easily track citizens seeking out blacklisted information, and placing political dissidents at risk of human rights violations such as interrogation or detention. . .

By yielding to Beijing’s assault on freedom in return for access to new markets, Google has succumbed to the darker impulses of human nature, in a stark reversal of previous anti-censorship stances. In 2010, for instance, Google refused to censor search results in China, writing in a blog post, “We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services.” (Read more from “Google Turns Evil in Willingness to Collude With China’s Repression” HERE)

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Google’s Nest Reportedly Went to Great Lengths to Hide Its Health Ambitions When It Acquired a Seattle Start-Up Last Summer

By CNBC. Google-owned Nest went to great lengths to conceal its acquisition of Seattle health monitoring start-up Senosis in order to keep its interest in digital health a secret, new records obtained by GeekWire show.

While GeekWire had previously reported that Google had bought the start-up in the summer of 2017, the records confirm that it was actually Alphabet’s home automation business Nest that wished to integrate Senosis’s technology. However, the company told those involved in the deal that they couldn’t mention Nest or publicize the sale.

“It turns out Nest is much more secretive than the rest of Google or Alphabet,” Senosis co-founder Shwetak Patel wrote to the vice president of University of Washington’s innovation hub in June 2017. “They seem to be particularly sensitive in this situation since they don’t want people to know they are getting into a whole new line of business, digital health, until they are ready to publicly announce.”

Senosis Health spun out of the University of Washington, which enabled GeekWire to make public records requests related to its sale.

Emails also show that Google’s corporate counsel instructed the team to use “Google” instead of “Nest” on outside forms and in internal discussions to prevent speculation around a Nest health product. (Read more from “Google’s Nest Reportedly Went to Great Lengths to Hide Its Health Ambitions When It Acquired a Seattle Start-Up Last Summer” HERE)

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