12-12-2018, 11:54 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-13-2018, 12:32 AM by John J. Xenakis.)
*** 13-Dec-18 World View -- China recklessly arrests a second Canadian without justification
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** China recklessly arrests a second Canadian without justification
****
![[Image: g181212b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g181212b.jpg)
Chinese police arrest activist in Hong Kong (File, Reuters)
As we reported yesterday, China arrested a Canadian journalist and
former diplomat Michael Korvig with no charges or justification.
( "12-Dec-18 World View -- China jails Canadian journalist Michael Kovrig in apparent retaliation for Canada arrest of Meng Wanzhou"
)
On Wednesday, Canada said that a second Canadian, Michael Spavor, has
been arrested. He was initially questioned by Chinese police, and
then contacted the Canadian government. After that, he disappeared.
The international hostility to China has been growing palpably in the
last year. It isn't just the Trump administration that has been
critical of China's theft of intellectual property and violation of
international trade rules. According to analysts I've heard,
politicians in Canada and Europe and Japan are increasingly "fed up"
with trying to deal with China.
The Chinese are also growing angrier at the West, but it goes beyond
that.
At the same time, China increasingly gives the impression of a country
in societal meltdown. The crackdown on Christianity has become more
vitriolic, and the policy of sending a million Uighurs to
"re-education camps" where they can be beaten, tortured, raped or
killed for not reciting the party line is one of the most insane
policies in the history of mankind. The number of "mass incidents" in
China was increasing exponentially for years, until China stopped
reporting the official statistics, and jailed reporters who did so
unofficially. It's believed that an economic recession in China could
trigger widespread protests or a civil war, as happened with Mao's
Communist Revolution (1934-49) or the Taiping Rebellion (1852-64).
Arresting another Canadian for the second day in a row is extremely
reckless, because it's going to cause panic among all Western
diplomats and executives in China. Even worse, it suggests that
China's government no longer cares how bad it looks, and is losing
control of its foreign policy.
As long-time readers know, Generational Dynamics has been predicting
for years that China and the West are headed for World War III in this
generational Crisis era. Things appear to moving quickly now, as
relations deteriorate. China Digital Times and Bloomberg and Guardian (London)
Related Articles:
****
**** US blames China for Marriot data breach in plan to create massive database of American citizens
****
US government investigators blame hackers working for China's spy
agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), for a cyberattack on the
Marriott Hotel chain that collected personal details of roughly 500
million guests between 2014 and 2018.
The stolen data contains names, addresses, telephone numbers, credit
card numbers, passport numbers, birthdates, passport photos, hotel
arrival and departure dates, and information on where people traveled
and with whom.
Other data breaches attributed to China's MSS include a 2017 Equifax
hack that collected detailed credit information on 145 million people,
a 2013 Target breach that exposed payment card and contact information
for 60 million customers, and a 2015 hack of the Office of Personnel
Management (OPM) that collected detailed personal information on more
than 20 million government employees, family members and applicants.
There were other breaches of health-care institutions, including
Anthem and CareFirst, that provided health data.
It's believed that China's MSS has created a large database of
hundreds of millions of Americans, merging data from all these
sources. This data can be used for spying, extortion, identity theft,
and so forth.
Taking this a step further, the Chinese company Huawei Technologies is
the second largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world, behind
Samsung. It's believed that Huawei phones and devices can be accessed
remotely by China's military, as I described in detail last week,
with the result that numerous
Western companies are banning Huawei from supplying equipment for
their networks.
Huawei phones, like all smartphones, keep track of locations and
calling data for its users. This data could be accessed from China
and merged with the master data base described above to accumulate
detailed personal information and activities of tens of millions of
Americans.
China is already doing this for its citizens in China. China's
military collects massive amounts of data on online activities and
uses street cameras and facial recognition algorithms to track the
locations of millions of Chinese citizens in real time. This is
particularly true in Xinjiang province, where Uighurs are constantly
monitored for suspicious activity, and a million Uighurs have been
sent to "re-education camps."
Washington Post and AP (3-Dec)
and New York Times
****
**** Google CEO Sundar Pichai evades questions about helping China's military
****
In a related matter, Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified before the
U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. He was questioned about
the massive amount of data that Google collects about Americans,
though not nearly as much as the Chinese are collecting on the Chinese
-- or on Americans.
Pichai completely evaded answering questions about Project Dragonfly,
the massive project to use search engine technology in China to
collect data about search requests and add it to China's huge database
of tens of millions of its citizens, where it could be used, for
example, to identify "suspicious" activity. Pichai said that the
project was under active development, but that there were "no plans"
to deploy it in China at this time.
However, Pichai was not asked about the state of the art Artificial
Intelligence development center that Google is opening in Shanghai, to
supply advanced AI technology to China's government and military,
while Google refuses to work with the American military for even
defensive purposes. Google apparently plans to help out the Chinese
when China and the US are at war, just as IBM helped out the Nazis at
the beginning of World War II. The Street
Related Articles:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Huawei, Canada,
Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor,
Marriot Hotel, Ministry of State Security, MSS,
Xinjiang province, Uighurs, re-education camps,
Google, Sundar Pichai, Project Dragonfly
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- China recklessly arrests a second Canadian without justification
- US blames China for Marriot data breach in plan to create massive database of American citizens
- Google CEO Sundar Pichai evades questions about helping China's military
****
**** China recklessly arrests a second Canadian without justification
****
Chinese police arrest activist in Hong Kong (File, Reuters)
As we reported yesterday, China arrested a Canadian journalist and
former diplomat Michael Korvig with no charges or justification.
( "12-Dec-18 World View -- China jails Canadian journalist Michael Kovrig in apparent retaliation for Canada arrest of Meng Wanzhou"
)
On Wednesday, Canada said that a second Canadian, Michael Spavor, has
been arrested. He was initially questioned by Chinese police, and
then contacted the Canadian government. After that, he disappeared.
The international hostility to China has been growing palpably in the
last year. It isn't just the Trump administration that has been
critical of China's theft of intellectual property and violation of
international trade rules. According to analysts I've heard,
politicians in Canada and Europe and Japan are increasingly "fed up"
with trying to deal with China.
The Chinese are also growing angrier at the West, but it goes beyond
that.
At the same time, China increasingly gives the impression of a country
in societal meltdown. The crackdown on Christianity has become more
vitriolic, and the policy of sending a million Uighurs to
"re-education camps" where they can be beaten, tortured, raped or
killed for not reciting the party line is one of the most insane
policies in the history of mankind. The number of "mass incidents" in
China was increasing exponentially for years, until China stopped
reporting the official statistics, and jailed reporters who did so
unofficially. It's believed that an economic recession in China could
trigger widespread protests or a civil war, as happened with Mao's
Communist Revolution (1934-49) or the Taiping Rebellion (1852-64).
Arresting another Canadian for the second day in a row is extremely
reckless, because it's going to cause panic among all Western
diplomats and executives in China. Even worse, it suggests that
China's government no longer cares how bad it looks, and is losing
control of its foreign policy.
As long-time readers know, Generational Dynamics has been predicting
for years that China and the West are headed for World War III in this
generational Crisis era. Things appear to moving quickly now, as
relations deteriorate. China Digital Times and Bloomberg and Guardian (London)
Related Articles:
- China jails Canadian journalist Michael Kovrig in apparent retaliation for Canada arrest of Meng Wanzhou (12-Dec-2018)
- Arrest of Meng Wanzhou of China's Huawei has increasingly serious implications (08-Dec-2018)
- Mike Pence's China 'containment' speech signals more contentious US-China relations (26-Oct-2018)
- Xi Jinping invokes the 1840s Opium Wars to justify military action for China's 'rejuvenation' (21-Mar-2018)
****
**** US blames China for Marriot data breach in plan to create massive database of American citizens
****
US government investigators blame hackers working for China's spy
agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), for a cyberattack on the
Marriott Hotel chain that collected personal details of roughly 500
million guests between 2014 and 2018.
The stolen data contains names, addresses, telephone numbers, credit
card numbers, passport numbers, birthdates, passport photos, hotel
arrival and departure dates, and information on where people traveled
and with whom.
Other data breaches attributed to China's MSS include a 2017 Equifax
hack that collected detailed credit information on 145 million people,
a 2013 Target breach that exposed payment card and contact information
for 60 million customers, and a 2015 hack of the Office of Personnel
Management (OPM) that collected detailed personal information on more
than 20 million government employees, family members and applicants.
There were other breaches of health-care institutions, including
Anthem and CareFirst, that provided health data.
It's believed that China's MSS has created a large database of
hundreds of millions of Americans, merging data from all these
sources. This data can be used for spying, extortion, identity theft,
and so forth.
Taking this a step further, the Chinese company Huawei Technologies is
the second largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world, behind
Samsung. It's believed that Huawei phones and devices can be accessed
remotely by China's military, as I described in detail last week,
with the result that numerous
Western companies are banning Huawei from supplying equipment for
their networks.
Huawei phones, like all smartphones, keep track of locations and
calling data for its users. This data could be accessed from China
and merged with the master data base described above to accumulate
detailed personal information and activities of tens of millions of
Americans.
China is already doing this for its citizens in China. China's
military collects massive amounts of data on online activities and
uses street cameras and facial recognition algorithms to track the
locations of millions of Chinese citizens in real time. This is
particularly true in Xinjiang province, where Uighurs are constantly
monitored for suspicious activity, and a million Uighurs have been
sent to "re-education camps."
Washington Post and AP (3-Dec)
and New York Times
****
**** Google CEO Sundar Pichai evades questions about helping China's military
****
In a related matter, Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified before the
U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. He was questioned about
the massive amount of data that Google collects about Americans,
though not nearly as much as the Chinese are collecting on the Chinese
-- or on Americans.
Pichai completely evaded answering questions about Project Dragonfly,
the massive project to use search engine technology in China to
collect data about search requests and add it to China's huge database
of tens of millions of its citizens, where it could be used, for
example, to identify "suspicious" activity. Pichai said that the
project was under active development, but that there were "no plans"
to deploy it in China at this time.
However, Pichai was not asked about the state of the art Artificial
Intelligence development center that Google is opening in Shanghai, to
supply advanced AI technology to China's government and military,
while Google refuses to work with the American military for even
defensive purposes. Google apparently plans to help out the Chinese
when China and the US are at war, just as IBM helped out the Nazis at
the beginning of World War II. The Street
Related Articles:
- Amazon's Jeff Bezos says America must be defended, while Google repudiates its 'Do No Evil' policy (17-Oct-2018)
- Google is repeating the mistakes that IBM made in helping the Nazis (06-Oct-2018)
- Huawei scandal exposes potential 'Cyberwar Pearl Harbor' from China (14-Oct-2012)
- New report reveals massive cyber war attack by China's army (20-Feb-2013)
- Major defense contractor QinetiQ hacked for years by China (06-May-2013)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Huawei, Canada,
Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor,
Marriot Hotel, Ministry of State Security, MSS,
Xinjiang province, Uighurs, re-education camps,
Google, Sundar Pichai, Project Dragonfly
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
