Leaked Files Show China And Russia Sharing Tactics On Internet Control, Censorship

Secret handshake?

Years before Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a “no-limits” partnership and the Kremlin launched a wide-ranging censorship campaign following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Beijing and Moscow were sharing methods and tactics for monitoring dissent and controlling the Internet.

That growing cooperation between the two countries is shown in documents and recordings from closed door meetings in 2017 and 2019 between officials from the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), its chief Internet regulator, and Roskomnadzor, the government agency charged with policing Russia’s Internet, that were obtained by RFE/RL’s Russian Investigative Unit (known as Systema) from a source who had access to the materials. DDoSecrets, a group that publishes leaked and hacked documents, provided software to search the files.

Share

China Installs New Bishop in Defiance of Pact With Vatican

This is what happens when you make a deal with the devil.

Media sources report that the Vatican is accusing the Chinese government of unilaterally appointing a new bishop to Shanghai in violation of a “secret pact” that Pope Francis and Chinese officials renewed last October. Shanghai is the largest Roman Catholic diocese in China. Four months ago, the Vatican claimed that China violated the pact by installing a bishop in a diocese that is not recognized by the Holy See. This is what happens when you make a deal with the devil.

Share

China accuses Canadian MPs of foreign interference after report saying Taiwan should decide its own future

The Chinese government is accusing Canada of foreign interference, after a high-profile parliamentary committee released a report that says the Taiwanese people, rather than Beijing, should decide the fate of the self-ruled island.

The report on Taiwan by the House of Commons special committee on the Canada-People’s Republic of China relationship also urges the Canadian government to make efforts to join AUKUS, a United States-Britiain-Australia defence pact that has been condemned by Beijing as an “Asia-Pacific version of NATO.”

I’m sure Justin is conveying his deepest regrets via diplomatic backchannels.

Share

Biden hands the Middle East to China

While the United States has been hypnotized by our domestic battle of Biden versus Trump, China has made a major move in the Middle East.

It has negotiated an alliance of convenience between those thousand-year enemies, the Saudis and Iranians, whose theological feud goes back to the generation after Mohammed.

China has thereby effectively countered the Abraham Accords negotiated by the US, the Arab states (with Saudis in the background) and Israel.

Share

Why Chinese interference is an everyday problem for many Canadians: ‘They brainwash people’

Dan Hao was once a wealthy entrepreneur in China. Now, he’s in self-imposed exile in Vancouver working as a contractor — with an international warrant out for his arrest.

Hao fled to Vancouver in 2019 after, he says, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forcibly took over the securities brokerage firm he was running. In the years since, Hao has become a vocal protester of the CCP and is now the leader of the Vancouver branch of the Democratic Party of China — activities, he says, that have made him and his group the target of harassment campaigns.

Share

Trudeau government continues using Communist Chinese steel in new navy patrol ships

Canadian government doesn’t scale back on Chinese steel in new navy patrol ships

Canada has yet to determine how much Chinese steel and equipment will go into its new naval warships, but it didn’t scale back on such products for its Arctic and offshore patrol vessels even though concerns were raised in 2018.

You have to admit that China and its assets have got very good value for their donations to Trudeau’s foundation and election campaigns.

h/t Mauser

Share

Ottawa bends to U.S. push to purchase strategic hangar in Arctic sought by Chinese buyer

They made Justin cry.

The U.S. military has been prodding Ottawa to buy a privately owned hangar adjacent to a NORAD airbase in the Arctic community of Inuvik, after a Chinese buyer expressed interest in taking over the facility.

For nearly a year, Ottawa resisted American pressure over the property, located near a strategic piece of the continent’s air-defence infrastructure that would make a prime target for foreign surveillance. The Canadian government had previously leased the hangar to shelter military aircraft, but argued it no longer had need of it.

Share

Sincere effort or ‘cover-up?’ Canadians split on interference probe intentions: poll

Canadians are split on whether the federal government’s recently-announced probes into allegations of foreign election interference are a sincere effort to get to the truth or an attempt to cover up what is alleged to have happened, a new poll suggests.

The Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News and released Tuesday found 52 per cent of those surveyed think the probes, and the appointment of a special rapporteur to oversee them, are genuine. Forty-eight per cent, meanwhile, think “the investigation is a cover-up.”

An on-line poll with an oversized sample of Beijing Fifth Columnists conducted  by a Liberal friendly pollster. That’s my story and I’m stickin to it.

Share

The Questions Biden Still Hasn’t Answered about the Chinese Spy Balloon

A new report provides some answers to the nagging questions that linger from early February, but it raises others.

According to the “two current senior U.S. officials and one former senior administration official” with whom NBC News reporters Courtney Kube and Carol Lee spoke, the Chinese spy balloon that traversed the continental United States in February was, in fact, “able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites”:

Share

RCMP ‘will be successful’ in laying more interference charges: interim chief

The interim commissioner of the RCMP says he would support additional laws that allow police to further crack down on foreign interference in Canada, as well as ways to further collaborate with intelligence officials on the issue.

But Mike Duheme adds multiple investigations remain underway that he’s confident will lead to criminal charges, though he did not give specifics.

Share

TikTok: America’s Do-Or-Die Moment with China

Adi Robertson, The Verge’s senior tech and policy editor, makes an impassioned plea to not ban TikTok, China’s popular video-sharing app, on free speech grounds. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), speaking on the floor of the Senate on March 29, also raised First Amendment objections to a proposed TikTok prohibition.

Nonetheless, it is time to either ban TikTok or force the sale of all its shares to American parties. The American owners must also control all the app’s algorithms, in particular, the algorithms curating content. If Beijing does not permit such a sale, the federal government should expropriate TikTok.

Share

“Unprecedented” Chinese Genetic Experiment May Lead To Army Of Radiation-Resistant Super Soldiers

Reports out of China continue to confirm that scientists there are still seeking to push through barriers with Frankenstein-like experimentation on genes with an eye toward the manipulation of human DNA – any and all ethical considerations be damned. What could go wrong?

The Hong-based South China Morning Post has a doozy of a headline out this week based on a breakthrough announcement by a team of scientists linked to the Chinese military, working in Beijing: “Chinese team behind extreme animal gene experiment says it may lead to super soldiers who survive nuclear fallout.”

Share

Interim RCMP commissioner Duheme ‘very concerned’ about foreign interference

As questions continue to swirl around the issue of other countries’ meddling in Canadian affairs, interim RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme says he’s “very, very concerned” about foreign interference, and would like to see the national force be able to use intelligence as evidence in its investigations.

In an interview on CTV’s Question Period with Vassy Kapelos airing on Sunday, Duheme was asked if, given all that has recently been alleged regarding China interfering in federal elections and the years of warnings from various national security agencies, he thinks a public inquiry is warranted.

Share

Han Dong serves Global News with libel notice over foreign interference report

A lawyer for Han Dong has served Global News and its parent company Corus Entertainment with a libel notice after the media outlet published an allegation the Toronto MP spoke to a Chinese diplomat about delaying the release of two Canadians.

Lawyer Mark Polley says he is demanding that Global News make a “full apology and retraction” for publishing what he describes as “false, malicious, irresponsible and defamatory statements” about Dong, now an Independent MP for Don Valley North.

Share

Former CSIS officials say decades of China warnings went unheeded

Former CSIS officials say the intelligence agency has been warning successive governments about foreign election interference for decades but all failed to act — and measures outlined in this week’s budget are not enough to address the problem.

“Thirty-two years in national security work, every time we’ve had a crisis, every time we’ve had an incident, that’s what the government’s done. We’ll throw money at the RCMP, we’ll say you folks have got to sort that out. And I don’t think that’s really an appropriate response,” Dan Stanton, former executive manager at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), told a committee of MPs on Friday.

Share