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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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China Still Has Plenty of Ammunition to Fight Back in Trump’s Trade War

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China still has several tools in its kit to mitigate the negative effects of President Trump’s trade war on its economy. With a top-down economic structure and a huge domestic market, China may be able to absorb some impact of the latest round of tariffs by turning goods destined for export around for internal consumption.

While pushing back on U.S. demands, China continues expanding to new markets. President Xi’s “One Belt and One Road” initiative to build infrastructure projects from Europe to Africa has already provided a big market and consistent demand for Chinese exports, especially those running into overcapacity issues, such as steel and cement. Many countries along the initiative routes are resource-rich. They will provide a steady supply of raw material and energy to support China’s long-term economic growth.

China can also increase its investment in Africa. In early September, Xi announced a $60 billion package of aid, investment, and loan money for Africa. Since Africa is already becoming overloaded with Chinese debt, the majority of this aid package is expected to be investments that will provide an outlet for Chinese goods and services.

Beijing has also started a charm offensive with U.S. businesses. Xi’s top economic advisor recently promised a delegation of U.S. multinationals that U.S. businesses operating in China “won’t be targeted in Beijing’s trade counterattacks.” China’s government-run tabloid, the Global Times, tried to appeal to U.S. businesses by stating, “The Chinese market can help them make money, but the White House can’t.”

Most importantly, Xi became president for life in March of this year. Time is on his side. He doesn’t face much political pressure to reach a trade deal with the United States. As a matter of fact, China’s hardliners may grumble if they perceive any trade deal has sold out China’s interests. So Xi has strong incentives to act like the tough guy who won’t yield to U.S. demands. This probably explains why China already warned the United States that it would back out of the latest round of trade talks if Trump goes ahead with his latest tariff announcement. (Read more from “China Still Has Plenty of Ammunition to Fight Back in Trump’s Trade War” HERE)

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Ties to China Go Way Deeper Than an Alleged Office Spy

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. . .The story involves China and the senior U.S. senator from California, and former chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Democrat Dianne Feinstein. It was buried eight paragraphs into a recent Politico exposé on foreign efforts to infiltrate Silicon Valley, as a passing example of political espionage:

Former intelligence officials…[said] Chinese intelligence once recruited a staff member at a California office of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, and the source reported back to China about local politics. (A spokesperson for Feinstein said the office doesn’t comment on personnel matters or investigations, but noted that no Feinstein staffer in California has ever had a security clearance.)

Later comes additional detail:

According to four former intelligence officials, in the 2000s, a staffer in Senator Dianne Feinstein’s San Francisco field office was reporting back to the MSS [China’s Ministry of State Security, its intelligence and security apparatus]. While this person, who was a liaison to the local Chinese community, was fired, charges were never filed against him. (One former official reasoned this was because the staffer was providing political intelligence and not classified information—making prosecution far more difficult.) The suspected informant was ‘run’ by officials based at China’s San Francisco Consulate, said another former intelligence official. The spy’s handler ‘probably got an award back in China’ for his work, noted this former official, dryly.

This anecdote provides significantly more questions than answers. For starters: Who was the spy? For how long was the spy under surveillance? What information about “local politics” was the spy passing back to China? Just how close was the spy to the senator? Did law enforcement officials sweep vehicles and other areas for listening devices? Was there an investigation into whether others in the senator’s circle may have been coordinating with Beijing? (Read more from “Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Ties to China Go Way Deeper Than an Alleged Office Spy” HERE)

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U.S. Senator’s Personal Driver for 20 Years Was a Chinese Spy

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office was infiltrated by a Chinese spy who worked as her driver and attended official functions on her behalf for 20 years, according to new reports from Politico and The San Francisco Chronicle.

Feinstein reportedly had no idea that her office was being infiltrated by a man who was feeding information to an individual linked to China’s Ministry of State Security. She was “mortified” when the FBI showed up at her Washington DC office five years ago to warn her about the mole.

Feinstein, who was serving as chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, had access to classified intelligence that would be extremely valuable to the Chinese government. She forced her driver to resign shortly thereafter and did not tell her staff about the incident, according to an unnamed source cited in the Chronicle.

In her capacity as a ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Feinstein unilaterally released testimony from Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson to the public earlier this year, violating committee precedent. When she released these records, she failed to disclose that one of her former staffers, Daniel Jones, had hired Fusion GPS and ex-British spy Christopher Steele to dig up dirt on Donald Trump after the 2016 election. (Read more from “U.S. Senator’s Personal Driver for 20 Years Was a Chinese Spy” HERE)

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China’s Serious and Breaking Vaccine Scandal: Are Your Vaccines Made in China?

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Please consider this a “public service announcement,” if you will, because the mainstream, lamestream media probably will not report on the growing Chinese vaccine scandal and huge protests against vaccines made and administered in China.

However, as a personal caveat, I feel I must offer this: I’m leery about anything made in China, especially after doing the research for Chapter 13 The China Trade Debacle: Toxic and “Made in China” for my 2009 book, Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick.

As an illustration of that leeriness, just the other day I purchased a food plastic wrap with the words, no BPA or other toxins. However, when I got it home and read the fine print, I found “Made in China.” Well, I returned it to the store for a refund, as the research indicates much of Chinese-made consumables – whether non-edibles like wallboard or food like farm-raised fish and seafood – are contaminated with toxic chemicals, as I discuss at great length in Chapter 13 of the above book.

However, the above being said explains why I feel I must warn about Chinese-made vaccines. Here’s something that ought to tweak your interests too:

“…China’s Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) announced it has ordered all production stopped at the vaccine maker and launched an investigation.”

“Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology is China’s second largest maker of the rabies vaccine and a subsidiary of a large publicly-traded vaccine maker.”

“The company said in a stock exchange filing Sunday that it had already halted production of another vaccine — for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis — which regulators found last year to be sub-standard and which had also become the focus of public attention.”

The question all administering physicians, healthcare workers who administer vaccines, parents and intended vaccinees should be asking before submitting to receiving a Diphtheria, Tetanus and Pertussis vaccine is: “Was the DTP vaccine made in China, and may I please see the vaccine package insert describing the vaccine?”

Chinese citizens have been protesting the above DTP vaccine while Chinese health officials have been sanitizing the web of any information about the problems with Chinese vaccines.

A Chinese newspaper,

the People’s Daily said on Sunday that local regulators must “rapidly take action, do a complete investigation and announce authoritative information in a timely manner to pacify public anxiety”.

Chinese citizens have taken to protesting the vaccines on their social media “WeChat,” which readers can try to access here.

Chinese parents are more than anxious about China’s ‘safety’ standards, especially since in 2008 some 300,000 children fell ill from drinking melamine-contaminated milk powder. Six children died!

What U.S. healthcare consumers and parents may not surmise is that many vaccines administered in the USA possibly could be made in China. Back in 2016, this was reported:

U.S. and European vaccine makers such as Merck & Co., GlaxoSmithKline plc, and Sanofi Pasteur SA maintain vaccine manufacturing operations in China, that this activity is on the rise, and that Western vaccine makers are also establishing joint venture partnerships with Chinese vaccine companies. [CJF emphasis]

Furthermore, back in 2017, batches of DPT vaccines made by Changchun Changsheng were recalled!

The current vaccine scandal is over rabies vaccines for humans!

Even though the U.S. CDC and others claim no Chinese-made vaccines are administered in the USA, if I were a person inclined to receive a vaccine, I’d still ask that all important question, “Is it made in China?”, because we have found in our research you cannot trust the CDC and FDA when it comes to vaccines and the information both put out about vaccines as ‘safe’. (For more from the author of “China’s Serious and Breaking Vaccine Scandal: Are Your Vaccines Made in China?” please click HERE)

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Trump Threatens Major Escalation in Trade War With China

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Amid continued controversy over his administration’s protectionist trade policies, President Donald Trump this week signaled that he is prepared to significantly expand the existing tariffs on products imported from China.

According to Reuters, he suggested that he is “ready” to impose duty on all of the Chinese goods sold in America.

“We’re down a tremendous amount,” Trump said in a CNBC interview on Friday.

He has frequently cited trade imbalances, particularly with China, as a reason for announcing tariffs.

In his latest remarks, the president said he is “ready to go to 500” with China, an apparent reference to the more than $500 billion in imported goods the U.S. received from that nation last year.

America’s trade deficit with China in 2017 was $376 billion, a trend that has continued into 2018. During the first five months of this year, the U.S. imported more than $200 billion for a trade imbalance of $152 billion.

Though many critics on both sides of the aisle have argued for freer trade policies, Trump has continued to dig in with the position he has endorsed since the campaign.

In addition to creating higher prices for American consumers, many economists have panned the tariffs because of historical evidence that such trade policies have contributed directly to economic catastrophes including the Great Depression.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the tariffs and associated rhetoric against China are not likely to end any time soon.

He said Trump is “not going to let go” of his belief that China is taking advantage of the U.S. through trade.

According to Kudlow, Chinese leader Xi Jinping bears the responsibility for leading America to take these steps.

“The problem here is Xi,” he said. “He doesn’t want to move, and they’ve offered the U.S. absolutely … no options regarding the issue of (intellectual property) theft and forced technology transfer.”

After an initial round of tariffs on $34 billion in imports, China retaliated by imposing dollar-for-dollar tariffs on American exports.

In the recent interview, Trump said he is not concerned about possible repercussions including a drop in the stock market.

“If it does, it does,” the president said. “I’m not doing this for politics, I’m doing this to do the right thing for our country.”

Repeating a longstanding refrain, Trump went on to assert that American has “been ripped off by China for a long time.”

He echoed Kudlow’s assessment that China’s president is responsible for inequitable trade between the two nations.

“I don’t want them to be scared,” he said. “I want them to do well. I really like President Xi a lot, but it was very unfair.” (For more from the author of “Trump Threatens Major Escalation in Trade War With China” please click HERE)

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