Hong Kong’s SCMP Newspaper Website Blocked in China
Posted: March 11, 2016 Filed under: Censorship, China, Mediasphere | Tags: Beijing, China, China Media Project, Hong Kong, Joe Tsai, Media of China, Party leader, President of the People's Republic of China, South China Morning Post, Xi Jinping Leave a comment
Beijing (AFP) – The website of the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper being bought by Internet giant Alibaba, has become inaccessible in China during a series of high-level government meetings in Beijing.
Attempts by AFP in China on Friday to open the newspaper’s English and Chinese-language websites returned only error messages saying that the pages could not be displayed.
The scmp.com website was blocked starting on March 3, according to the security website GreatFire.org, which monitors online censorship in China.
China’s Communist Party oversees a vast censorship system — dubbed the Great Firewall — that aggressively blocks sites or snuffs out Internet and TV content and commentary on topics considered sensitive, such as Beijing’s human rights record and criticisms of the government.
South China Morning Post Tai Po Office and Printer in Tai Po Industrial Estate. SCMP/ May Tse
Popular social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter are inaccessible in the country, as is Youtube.
Several Western news organisations have accused China of blocking access to their websites in the past, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Reuters. Read the rest of this entry »
Obama Administration Warns Beijing About Covert Agents Operating in U.S.
Posted: August 16, 2015 Filed under: Asia, China, Global, White House | Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Chinese American, Chinese law, Government of the People's Republic of China, Media of China, Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China, President of the People's Republic of China, September 11 attacks, United States, Xi Jinping Leave a comment
“A fugitive is like a flying kite. Even though he is abroad, the string is held in China.”
WASHINGTON — Mark Mazzetti and Dan Levin write: The Obama administration has delivered a warning to Beijing about the presence of Chinese government agents operating secretly in the United States to pressure prominent expatriates — some wanted in China on charges of corruption — to return home immediately, according to American officials.
“American officials did not disclose the identities or numbers of those being sought by the Chinese in the United States. They are believed to be prominent expatriates, some sought for economic corruption and some for what the Chinese consider political crimes.”
The American officials said that Chinese law enforcement agents covertly in this country are part of Beijing’s global campaign to hunt down and repatriate Chinese fugitives and, in some cases, recover allegedly ill-gotten gains.
The Chinese government has officially named the effort Operation Fox Hunt.
The American warning, which was delivered to Chinese officials in recent weeks and demanded a halt to the activities, reflects escalating anger in Washington about intimidation tactics used by the agents. And it comes at a time of growing tension between Washington and Beijing on a number of issues: from the computer theft of millions of government personnel files that American officials suspect was directed by China, to China’s crackdown on civil liberties, to the devaluation of its currency.
“That reluctance reflects divisions with the Obama administration over how aggressive to publicly confront China on a number of security issues.”
Those tensions are expected to complicate the state visit to Washington next month by Xi Jinping, the Chinese president.
The work of the agents is a departure from the routine practice of secret government intelligence gathering that the United States and China have carried out on each other’s soil for decades. The Central Intelligence Agency has a cadre of spies in China, just as China has long deployed its own intelligence operatives into the United States to steal political, economic, military and industrial secrets.
In this case, said American officials, who discussed details of the operation only on the condition of anonymity because of the tense diplomacy surrounding the issue, the Chinese agents are undercover operatives with the Ministry of Public Security, China’s law enforcement branch charged with carrying out Operation Fox Hunt.
“For instance, the White House has gone out of its way to avoid making any public accusations that the Chinese government ordered the computer attack on the Office of Personnel Management, which led to the theft of millions of classified personnel files of government workers and contractors.”
The campaign, a central element of Mr. Xi’s wider battle against corruption, has proved popular with the Chinese public. Since 2014, according to the Ministry of Public Security, more than 930 suspects have been repatriated, including more than 70 who have returned this year voluntarily, the ministry’s website reported in June. According to Chinese media accounts, teams of agents have been dispatched around the globe.
[Read the full text here, at The New York Times]
American officials said they had solid evidence that the Chinese agents — who are not in the United States on acknowledged government business, and most likely are entering on tourist or trade visas — use various strong-arm tactics to get fugitives to return. The harassment, which has included threats against family members in China, has intensified recently, officials said. Read the rest of this entry »
China’s Aim to Rewrite Rules of Global Internet
Posted: July 28, 2015 Filed under: Asia, Censorship, China, Global | Tags: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Barack Obama, Beijing, Communist Party of China, Government of the People's Republic of China, Great Hall of the People, Human rights, Law firm, Media of China, Pakistan, President of the People's Republic of China, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping Leave a comment
Mission: Control online discourse, reduce U.S. influence
SHANGHAI— James T. Areddy writes: As social media helped topple regimes in the Middle East and northern Africa, a senior colonel in the People’s Liberation Army publicly warned that an Internet dominated by the U.S. threatened to overthrow China’s Communist Party.
Ye Zheng and a Chinese researcher, writing in the state-run China Youth Daily, said the Internet represented a new form of global control, and the U.S. was a “shadow” present during some of those popular uprisings. Beijing had better pay attention.
Four years after they sounded that alarm, China is paying a lot of attention. Its government is pushing to rewrite the rules of the global Internet, aiming to draw the world’s largest group of Internet users away from an interconnected global commons and to increasingly run parts of the Internet on China’s terms.
Flexibility
“Many Western companies are surrendering to Beijing’s rules so they can build a position in China, with an online population nearing 700 million.”
It envisions a future in which governments patrol online discourse like border-control agents, rather than let the U.S., long the world’s digital leader, dictate the rules.
“Ye Zheng and a Chinese researcher, writing in the state-run China Youth Daily, said the Internet represented a new form of global control, and the U.S. was a “shadow” present during some of those popular uprisings.”
President Xi Jinping—with the help of conservatives in government, academia, military and the technology industry—is moving to exert influence over virtually every part of the digital world in China, from semiconductors to social media. In doing so, Mr. Xi is trying to fracture the international system that makes the Internet basically the same everywhere, and is pressuring foreign companies to help.
“Four years after they sounded that alarm, China is paying a lot of attention.”
On July 1, China’s legislature passed a new security law asserting the nation’s sovereignty extends into cyberspace and calling for network technology to be “controllable.” A week later, China released a draft law to tighten controls over the domestic Internet, including codifying the power to cut access during public-security emergencies.
[Read the full story here, at WSJ]
Other draft laws under consideration would encourage Chinese companies to find local replacements for technology equipment purchased abroad and force foreign vendors to give local authorities encryption keys that would let them control the equipment.
Chinese officials referred questions about Internet policy to the Cyberspace Administration of China, a recently formed government body. That agency declined to make an official available to comment for this article. Read the rest of this entry »
Chinese Web Censors Not Happy About Uniqlo’s Changing-Room Sex Viral Video
Posted: July 16, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, China, Japan, Mediasphere | Tags: Beijing, Central bank, Changing room, China, Chinese Internet users, Communist Party of China, Elevator music, Fast fashion, Flagship, Hong Kong, Japan, Media of China, Sanlitun, South China Morning Post, Uniqlo, Xi Jinping Leave a commentUniqlo sex video: Police investigate smartphone footage showing couple doing the ‘secret communist handshake’ in Uniqlo’s Beijing flagship store changing room
Laura Lorenzetti reports: A sex tape filmed in a changing room of Uniqlo’s Beijing flagship store went viral on Chinese social media, sending national authorities into a tizzy.
“Uniqlo, which is owned by Fast Retailing, denies any such association, releasing a statement that customers should ‘abide by social ethics, maintain social justice and correctly and properly use the fitting spaces.’”
The short video, which features a black-clad male having sex with a naked woman, was condemned by Chinese officials as going “severely against socialist core values,” according to the South China Morning Post.
Internet censors scrambled to ban and eliminate the clip after it spread across popular social networks like Weibo and WeChat Tuesday. It has reportedly been removed from the Internet by the Cyberspace Administration of China and an investigation has been launched to find out who made the clip.
Chinese authorities have also ordered social media executives to help uncover the source of the video, while Uniqlo has come under fire for using it as a publicity ploy. Read the rest of this entry »
‘Did We Stand on the Side of Tank Man?’: An Interview with Teng Biao
Posted: June 4, 2015 Filed under: Asia, Censorship, China, History | Tags: Beijing, China, Chinese people, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Communist Party of China, Government of the People's Republic of China, List of Chinese leaders, Media of China, Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China, Overseas Chinese, Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Leave a comment
Mr. Teng rose to prominence more than a decade ago for taking on civil rights, religious freedom and other cases that eventually drew the ire of Chinese authorities.
Felicia Sonmez writes: At a U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China hearing in Washington on the 26th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown this week, prominent 
Chinese human rights lawyer Teng Biao presented his listeners with a choice.
“They arrest the journalists, then the journalists who speak out for the arrested journalists, then the lawyers who defend the arrested journalists, and then the lawyers who defend the lawyers who defend the journalists.”
“History will require us to answer one question: Did we stand on the side of the ‘Tank Man,’ or on the side of the tank?” Mr. Teng said Wednesday, referring to the iconic photo of a lone man blocking a convoy of military vehicles during the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing.
Mr. Teng isn’t from the generation that marched in Beijing and other cities 26 years ago; at the time he was a high school student at a county in northeastern China.
A Chinese protestor blocks a line of tanks heading east on Beijing’s Changan Blvd. June 5, 1989 in front of the Beijing Hotel. The man, calling for an end to the violence and bloodshed against pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square, was pulled away by bystanders, and the tanks continued on their way.
Mr. Teng rose to prominence more than a decade ago for taking on civil rights, religious freedom and other cases that eventually drew the ire of Chinese authorities. His law license was revoked in 2008; authorities have not publicly given a reason. He was harassed and in 2011 was detained for more than 70 days in an unknown location, with officials again declining to publicly address his treatment. He left the mainland in 2012 for Hong Kong.
[See the interview here, at China Real Time Report – WSJ]
A year ago, the normally soft-spoken Mr. Teng delivered a forceful speechin Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, declaring at a vigil commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown: “You can’t kill us all.”
“They arrest the journalists, then the journalists who speak out for the arrested journalists, then the lawyers who defend the arrested journalists, and then the lawyers who defend the lawyers who defend the journalists,” he said at the time, describing a tightening of Beijing’s grip over civil society in China. Read the rest of this entry »
Three Foreign Tourists Arrested for Sexual Molestation in Japan Claim Novel Defense: ‘But We Thought it was Normal Behavior!’
Posted: April 9, 2015 Filed under: Asia, China, Crime & Corruption, Japan | Tags: Japan, Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore), Media of China, Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China, sexual harassment, The Myanmar Times, Tourism Leave a comment
A suspect was caught trying to capture upskirt photos while riding an escalator. In another case a Chinese tourist was reportedly caught grabbing a woman’s ass inside an adult store.
From RocketNews24, Master Blaster reports: Given the size and longevity of the adult entertainment industry, it’s safe to say that such products serve a purpose in societies everywhere. However, one purpose for which adult videos should never be used is as travel guides for visiting other countries.
“Watching Japanese adult videos, I thought the people here were open about sex. I thought molesters were everywhere.”
— Foreign suspect’s confession to police
You might think that would be common sense but apparently we can’t stress the point enough after there has been a recent spate of molestation committed by foreign tourists who claim to have thought it was normal behavior in Japan after watching Japanese adult videos.
Adult actress Miki Mayuzumi
“And then we have the case of a man arrested for lifting the skirt of a woman while riding the train. This last incident appears influenced by a scene from the classic 1993 AV Nurse Monogatari staring Miki Mayuzumi.”
According to Focus Asia there have been three separate incidents of foreign visitors overstepping their bounds.
[Read the full text here, at RocketNews24]
In one instance a suspect was caught trying to capture images up women’s skirts while riding an escalator. Then in another case a Chinese tourist was reportedly caught grabbing a woman’s buttocks inside an adult goods shop.
“You might think that would be common sense but apparently we can’t stress the point enough after there has been a recent spate of molestation committed by foreign tourists who claim to have thought it was normal behavior in Japan after watching Japanese adult videos.”
And then we have the case of a man arrested for lifting the skirt of a woman while riding the train. This last incident appears influenced by a scene from the classic 1993 AV Nurse Monogatari staring Miki Mayuzumi…or maybe something else. I don’t know because I don’t watch the stuff.
Reports claim that one foreign suspect confessed to police, saying, “Watching Japanese adult videos, I thought the people here were open about sex. I thought molesters were everywhere.”
All three men are currently in custody and deliberations with the victims’ lawyers are being held to determine if criminal charges will be pressed, or if they can find some other settlement. Read the rest of this entry »
Cyberspace Administration: China to Force Social Media Users to Declare their Real Names
Posted: January 14, 2015 Filed under: Asia, Censorship, China, Global | Tags: China, Communist Party, Media of China, Shaanxi, Sina Weibo, Social media, South China Morning Post, Xi'an Leave a comment
Mainland regulators say people will be able to have nicknames – they will just have to register them with website administrators first
Li Jing reports: Online real-name registration will be ramped up on the mainland this year to cover instant messaging services, Twitter-like microblogs, online forums and other websites as the Communist Party continues to tighten its grip on cyberspace.
“The authorities need to make it clear to the public what laws and regulations they’re following to implement such a registration system, and answer the question of whether they’re in conflict with the constitution that promises the right to ‘freedom of speech’.”
— Zhan Jiang, a professor of international journalism at Beijing Foreign Studies University
The Cyberspace Administration did not give details on how the plan would be carried out, but administration official Xu Feng said yesterday the agency would “comprehensively” implement the rule and “beef up” oversight to punish violators.
Xu said website users would still be allowed to use a nickname online, but they would have to register their real identities with website administrators.
Real-name registration would also apply to open online forums called tieba, Xu said, without elaborating.
“Some Weibo users complained the move would lead to more self-censorship, while others people were worried about leaks of personal data.”
Authorities have in the past ordered users to register with their real names for some services, but the rules were not always followed.
In Beijing, for example, all users of social media platforms operated in the capital, including the Sina Weibo microblog service, were supposed to register their names and identity numbers in 2011 as part of a push to rein in online rumour-mongering and “cleanse” content.
But a year later it was still possible to use the Sina service without doing so.
Sina admitted publicly it had failed to fully implement the regulation in 2012 because it was time-consuming and eroding its user base.
Zhan Jiang, a professor of international journalism at Beijing Foreign Studies University, said the administration was obviously trying to extend that rule nationwide and with wider targets, as the top leadership had repeatedly stressed “internet governance”. Read the rest of this entry »
Chinese Netizens Love the New Season of ‘House of Cards’ — Even Though it Makes Their Country Look Terrible
Posted: February 18, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Asia, China, Entertainment | Tags: China, Frank Underwood, House of Cards, Internet in China, Kevin Spacey, Media of China, Sino-American relations, Wang Qishan Leave a comment
Fair use/Sina Weibo
David Wertime and Han Chen report: “Everyone in China who works on this level pays who they need to pay.” Mild spoiler alert: These are the words of the fictitious Xander Feng, an influential Chinese billionaire on the Netflix series House of Cards, a show that follows the machinations of U.S. Representative (and later Vice President) Frank Underwood to agglomerate power and crush whoever stands in his way. The phrase is also now viral on the Chinese Internet, which has proven surprisingly hospitable to the show’s second season, which debuted on Feb. 14. Despite having its arguably Sinophobic moments — in addition to Feng-as-villain, the show depicts a Stateside Chinese businessman hiring both male and female sex workers, and a U.S. casino laundering Chinese money to fund a Congressional SuperPAC — the show has Chinese social media users applauding what they believe is a largely accurate depiction of Chinese palace politics.
The attraction of House of Cards’ second season — which has already received over 9 million views in the first weekend compared to over 24 million for the first season, released March 2013 in China — appears two-fold. First and foremost, the show engages Communist Party corruption, elite infighting, and the often-outsized influence of the moneyed class with a directness that few domestic shows dare hazard. The colorul Feng, for example, alludes to scheming with members of the Chinese government to force a more liberal financial policy, not to mention bribing high officials outright. The result is a portrait of Chinese elite skullduggery convincing enough that one user wondered aloud in jest whether the show’s screenwriters had planted an undercover agent in party ranks.
pundit from another planet 