10-25-2019, 10:04 PM
*** 26-Oct-19 World View -- Mike Pence harshly criticizes China as US bans Chinese surveillance equipment
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** Growing Western hostility and suspicion towards China
****
![[Image: g191025b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g191025b.jpg)
Nike ad in 2018, part of its laughable 'Social Justice Leadership' program, showing Colin Kaepernick saying, 'Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything. Just do it.'
US vice president Mike Pence on Thursday delivered a speech harshly
criticizing the entire list of CCP activities that the West considers
to be criminal -- jailing Uighurs, jailing priests, destroying
churches, IP theft, forced technology transfer, cyber-theft, South
China Sea crimes, and dozens more. Pence also criticized the
hypocrisy of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Nike.
Pence's speech comes shortly after the US banned Chinese surveillance
companies. The speech triggered harsh replies from the NBA and China.
Once upon a time not so long ago, everybody loved China. America
saved China in both world wars. Americans considered China to be a
strange and wonderful place after World War II, despite the brutal
violence of the Communist dictator Mao Zedong. The Tiananmen Square
massacre was considered an aberration, and trade disputes were rarely
understood by the public.
So China was invited to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) in
2001, based on commitments that it would open up its economy to
outsiders, and would follow all the WTO rules and international law.
Western leaders believed that membership in the WTO would change China
for the better, encourage it to become a valued member of the
international community, and abandoning the hostile policies of the
past. None of that happened. Instead, China used the WTO as a tool
to make suckers out of Western nations, ignoring WTO rules and playing
victim, but angrily insisting that Western nations obey all WTO rules.
China always made it clear that WTO rules and international law apply
to everyone else but not to China, and signed agreements apply to the
other parties but not to China.
Things seriously began to change with the rise of Xi Jinping in 2011.
In 2013, the CCP issued "Document Number 9" which listed evil
"anti-China forces," including the following. Some of these "evil"
forces named in the document include democracy, human rights, civil
society, neoliberalism, and a free press. The reason the CCP gives
why all of these Western values are considered "evil" is because they
are interpreted to be weapons undermining the authority of the CCP.
These "evils" permeated every aspect of CCP policy under Xi. Specific
hostile acts were all performed under this doctrine, including illegal
activities in the South China Sea, violent crackdowns on Christians,
Buddhists and Muslims, the arrest and enslavement of millions of
Uighurs and Kazakhs, and crackdowns on free press and democracy
movements in Hong Kong.
This doctrine and these acts have steadily eroded the goodwill that
people in the West have had for China. Increasing, Westerners view
China with hostility and suspicion.
One of the most dramatic signs of the growing hostility to China is
that George Soros, who for decades has been an enormous admirer and
supporter of the CCP, has now turned against it, because the Social
Credit Score system is turning China into the worst police state in
world history.
****
**** Mike Pence harshly criticizes China as US bans Chinese surveillance equipment
****
Pence's speech on Thursday focused on several of China's illegal
practices:
<QUOTE>"The Communist Party in China has arrested Christian
pastors, banned the sale of Bibles, demolished churches, and
imprisoned more than one million Muslim Uighurs. ...
Last July, the director of the FBI told Congress that of his
agency’s 1,000 active investigations into intellectual property
theft, the majority involve China. American enterprises continue
to lose hundreds of billions of dollars each year in intellectual
property theft. ...
And today, China’s Communist Party is building a surveillance
state unlike anything the world has ever seen. Hundreds of
millions of surveillance cameras stare down from every vantage
point. Ethnic minorities must navigate arbitrary checkpoints
where police demand blood samples, fingerprints, voice recordings,
and multiple angle head shots, and even iris scans.
And China is now exporting to countries in Africa, Latin America,
and the Middle East the very same technological tools that it uses
in its authoritarian regime: tools that it’s deployed in places
like Xinjiang; tools that it’s deployed often with the help of
American companies.
And Beijing has also smashed the barriers between civilian and
military technological domains — a doctrine that China calls
“military-civilian fusion.” By law and presidential fiat,
companies in China — whether private, state-owned, or foreign —
must share their technologies with the Chinese
military."<END QUOTE>
China's massive buildout of surveillance equipment is reaching into
every country of the world, as China collects information on billions
of people, inside and outside China, which it puts into its huge big
data database.
There's a backlash growing against Chinese-made surveillance products
on multiple levels.
Surveillance cameras have been around for years, and few people were
concerned, as long as the cameras were used in places like banks and
busy intersections, and as long as nobody ever reviewed the video
except a human being.
Public alarm over the general surveillance issue has been increasing
as the public has become aware that not humans but computers are
increasing reviewing the video, using artificial artificial (AI)
technology that provides facial recognition capabilities, matching
faces up to records in databases, allowing the software to track any
individual in real time.
****
**** Backlash grows against Chinese surveillance and AI equipment
****
This comes amid increasing global awareness that the China's military
is using these same devices for surveillance in cities and countries
around the world.
This awareness was boosted by a shocking demonstration in August when
a researcher was able to prove that millions of surveillance devices
marketed by Dahua Technology, and installed around the world, contain
a secret backdoor that can easily be hacked, and used for
eavesdropping. That means that if you have one of these devices in
your war room, board room, or bedroom, even when the audio is
disabled, someone knowing the IP address of the device can access the
device remotely and secretly listen in to conversations and sounds in
that room. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZTza1BiahQ
A Duhua spokesman was quoted as saying that the company "conducted an
emergency investigation, and the preliminary results are that this
vulnerability does not exist after refactoring—some end-of-life
products may have security risks. We have a plan to repair the related
products." Wow! That's nice!
****
**** US bans doing business with Chinese surveillance and AI firms
****
The Dept. of Commerce announcement blocked eight Chinese companies,
and they can be divided roughly into two groups -- surveillance
cameras that capture video and audio and transmit it to the central
server over the internet, and artificial intelligence (AI) products
that interpret the video and audio being captured, particularly with
facial recognition and identification. The eight Chinese companies
are as follows:
It's believed that the America and the West have been most successful
in developing advanced AI algorithms for surveillance and recognition,
but Chinese companies have a big advantage because of their huge data
base to use for training and testing purposes.
Ironically, China desperately needs surveillance data from around the
world for a completely different reason: testing its facial
recognition software. All the Han Chinese ("yellow race, black hair,
brown eyes, yellow skin") have similar facial characteristics, and the
Chinese need millions of faces of people from all countries and races
to test its facial recognition software.
****
**** China's growing global surveillance tentacles
****
It's frightening how successful China has been at using these
surveillance and AI technologies not only to imprison and enslave
millions of Muslim Uighters and Kazakhs, but also to continually
identify and track all activities of every Chinese citizen, as well as
millions of people outside of China.
Furthermore, a number of incidents have been reported that are
increasingly alarming people about the use of surveillance equipment,
including equipment made by other manufacturers.
During the last four years in Ecuador, China has installed a vast
surveillance system, known as the ECU-911 system, that can be used to
spy on all Ecuadorian citizens.
The China-made surveillance equipment contains as many as 4,200
cameras, monitored by 16 centers and around 3,000 employees. The
system lets the government track phones, and may soon be upgraded with
facial-recognition capabilities. The equipment was manufactured by
two Chinese firms, Huawei Technologies and China National Import &
Export Corp (CEIEC).
As with all Chinese-made network products, we have to assume that the
Chinese military is able to access the surveillance and data, and
correlate it with the data in their own databases.
In London, the developer of the prestigious King's Cross 67-acre
50-building Estate was forced to abandon plans to deploy facial
recognition technology throughout the site. It had already been used
at a busy intersection for two years, but attempts to extend it to the
entire site met with sharp opposition and a debate about the ethics of
facial recognition.
Surveillance technology in London goes much deeper than King's Cross.
Hikvision is generating millions of dollars in annual revenue by
supplying its surveillance cameras for use on the British
parliamentary estate, as well as to police, hospitals, schools, and
universities throughout the country. According to Adm. Lord Alan
West, "It’s rather like being able to get a Mata Hari into each
office."
The same kind of thing is true in Australia, which may be more exposed
to continual surveillance and spying by China's military than any
other country in the world. Australia has hundreds of thousands of
surveillance cameras, mostly made by Hikvision and Dahua, have been
installed in local council offices, at schools and universities, on
buses, in shopping centers and thousands of other public spaces across
Australia. The surveillence equipment is at use at every level of
government, from some of the most sensitive federal government
agencies, all the way down to suburban councils.
Australian officials have already been raising alarms about the
infiltration of Chinese people in the organs of Australia's
government, at a time when tensions are growing sharply because of
China's illegal activities in the South China Sea.
According to Fergus Hanson of Australia's Strategic Policy Institute:
<QUOTE>"It's a real dereliction of duty to have them in
military bases.
But even on the street you've got the potential to inadvertently
contribute towards Chinese espionage activity by providing real
time information about the situation on the ground, all over the
world, and in collective terms, quite an important data feed to
China."<END QUOTE>
There was even a backlash in Beijing, of all places. Parents and
students at Tsinghua High School were furious when it was discovered
that the school had installed surveillance cameras in all the male
toilets. Officials were forced to remove the cameras.
****
**** The National Basketball Association (NBA) controversy
****
In the last month, public hostility in America to China took another
huge leap forward, because of an event that's almost impossible to
believe. The event involved the National Basketball Association
(NBA), which is hugely popular in China, with millions of Chinese
following the games and purchasing related products, including Nike
sneakers. Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey posted a tweet
supporting the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. The CCP has
blocked Twitter in China, so the tweet would never be seen by Chinese,
and would be quickly forgotten. But the CCP lashed out at the tweet,
considering it an insult to the Chinese people, and canceled several
NBA games and public events in China.
These events have substantially heightened the public's hostility to
the CCP, and awareness of the CCP's dictatorial policies. Many
commentators pointed out that the CCP uses violence to control public
opinion in China, and is now trying to use economic weapons to extend
its control of public opinion to everyone in the world.
The hostility to China has increased even further when basketball star
LeBron James made comments supporting the CCP, and condemning Daryl
Morey as being "uninformed." This has caused an enormous reaction in
the American public. People who previously didn't know how to spell
Hong Kong or who thought it was a kind of chop suey suddenly became
"informed" about what's going on in Hong Kong.
LeBron's support for the CCP is particularly ironic because of his
extremely vocal and vitriolic criticisms of Donald Trump in the past,
including this January 18, 2018, tweet, quoting Martin Luther King:
"-Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere- Our Lives
Begin To End The Day We Become Silent About Things That Matter-
#ThankYouMLK50"
These events are important for three reasons.
First, these quickly moving events show how quickly simple events can
escalate. This is literally how world wars have begun.
Second, these events particularly affect public attitudes towards
Hikvision and other companies that are being banned. The trend has
been a growing public anxiety towards surveillance equipment in
general. But the massive use by China's military of AI-enhanced
surveillance equipment to violate human rights in all of China,
particularly in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, has focused public hostile
attitudes toward surveillance equipment to hostility to surveillance
equipment from China in ways we haven't seen before.
Third, these events show how easy it is for Americans to turn
against each other when money is involved. Generational Dynamics
predicts that once a "regeneracy event" occurs, such as a missile
attack on American soil, then political differences will be dropped,
and the country will unite behind the president.
****
**** Mike Pence's criticism of the NBA and Nike
****
Mike Pence's speech on Thursday heightened the controversy over the
NBA and Nike. Pence called out the NBA and Nike for kowtowing to
China:
<QUOTE>"And far too many American multinational corporations
have kowtowed to the lure of China’s money and markets by muzzling
not only criticism of the Chinese Communist Party, but even
affirmative expressions of American values.
Nike promotes itself as a so called “social justice champion,” but
when it comes to Hong Kong, it prefers checking its social
conscience at the door. Nike stores in China actually removed
their Houston Rockets merchandise from their shelves to join the
Chinese government in protest against the Rockets general
manager’s seven-word tweet, which read: “Fight for Freedom. Stand
with Hong Kong.”
And some of the NBA’s biggest players and owners, who routinely
exercise their freedom to criticize this country, lose their
voices when it comes to the freedom and rights of the people of
China. In siding with the Chinese Communist Party and silencing
free speech, the NBA is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of
the authoritarian regime."<END QUOTE>
Pence's criticism of the NBA for hypocrisy and kowtowing to China
infuriated former NBA star Charles Barkley, who has substantial money
at stake. He responded as follows:
<QUOTE>"Vice President Pence needs to shut the hell up,
number one. All American companies are doing business in China. I
thought the criticism of commissioner Silver and LeBron James was
unfair. Daryl Morey — who I like — he can say whatever he wants
to. But there are consequences.
I don’t understand why these holier-than-thou politicians — if
they’re so worried about China, why don’t they stop all
transactions with China? President Trump has been talking about
and arguing with tariffs for China for the last two years. I think
it’s unfair for them to do all their business in China and just
because this thing happens try to make the NBA and our players
look bad. All American companies do business in
China. Period."<END QUOTE>
Several commentators have noted the hyprocrisy that Barkley feels free
to criticize Pence (and Trump) in the most hostile terms with
impunity, but is demanding that no one be permitted to criticize
China.
China's Foreign Ministry responded to Pence's speech as follows:
<QUOTE>"The most important criteria on China's human rights
situation is whether the Chinese people are satisfied. As the
country advances in leaps and bounds, the Chinese people have an
increasingly stronger sense of happiness and fulfillment. Our
government attaches high importance to protecting and advancing
human rights. During the past over four decades of reform and
opening-up, China's human rights cause has seen tremendous
progress that has been recognized by the world. The Chinese
people now enjoy unprecedented rights and freedoms. This is a fact
that no one can deny except for those obsessed with
prejudice. Nearly 200 million Chinese practice various religions,
of which more than 20 million are Muslim. Chinese people of all
ethnic groups enjoy full religious freedom in accordance with
law. ...
China's foreign policy is aboveboard as always. China pursues an
independent foreign policy of peace, a path of peaceful
development, a new type of international relations and a community
with a shared future for mankind. China never advances its own
interests at the expense of others, and its development will never
pose a threat to any country. China never seeks hegemony or
expansion. That's exactly why we have so many friends all over the
world. Some people's attempts to wantonly label China or drive a
wedge between China and other countries will never succeed. Such
attempts will bring nothing but shame on those people themselves.
While arbitrarily accusing and lecturing other countries,
Mr. Pence and his like have turned a blind eye to serious domestic
problems in the US and tried to cover their own political
malpractice by smearing other countries to divert public attention
in the US. From the PRISM program to frequent, severe shootings,
from extensive racial discrimination to obvious wealth gap, from
arbitrary sanctions and use of force on other countries to wanton
withdrawals from international agreements and treaties, there are
so many cases in point proving that the US has become notorious
for lack of moral principles and credibility. We advise some
people in the US to carefully examine themselves in the mirror,
get fully aware of their own problems and mind their own
business. They should cease talking utter nonsense and stop
playing mutually detrimental tricks as soon as
possible."<END QUOTE>
It's always exasperating to read the CCP's comments on anything, which
rarely have anything to do with the truth.
She says, "China never seeks hegemony or expansion." But China in
recent decades has annexed Tibet and East Turkistan, and slaughtered,
tortured, beat, raped and imprisoned millions of Buddhists and
Muslims. Today, China has illegally annexed the South China Sea, in
violation of internation law, and repeatedly lied about. The CCP
consider the Chinese to be the Master Race, immune from international
law.
And she says that racial discrimination in America is as bad as
China's human rights record, even though we are not beating,
torturing, locking up and jailing millions of Mexicans and blacks.
In heard one analyst at MSNBC wonder why China would ever sign a trade
deal with the US after that speech by Trump. The answer is that China
is desperate to end the sanctions, which have disrupted China's
relentless path to war.
John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan:
Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book
2), June 2019, Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references,
$13.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732738637/
Sources:
Related Articles:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Hong Kong,
National Basketball Association, NBA, Nike,
Mike Pence, Mao Zedong, World Trade Organization, WTO,
Document Number 9, Chinese Communist Party, CCP,
East Turkistan, Xinjiang, Uighurs, Kazakhs,
Dahua Technology, Hikvision Digital Technology Co Ltd,
iFlytek, SenseTime,
Ecuador, ECU-911, Huawei Technologies,
China National Import & Export Corp, CEIEC,
King's Cross, London,
Australia, Fergus Hanson, Strategic Policy Institute,
Tsinghua High School, Beijing,
Daryl Morey, Charles Barkley
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This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Growing Western hostility and suspicion towards China
- Mike Pence harshly criticizes China as US bans Chinese surveillance equipment
- Backlash grows against Chinese surveillance and AI equipment
- US bans doing business with Chinese surveillance and AI firms
- China's growing global surveillance tentacles
- The National Basketball Association (NBA) controversy
- Mike Pence's criticism of the NBA and Nike
****
**** Growing Western hostility and suspicion towards China
****
Nike ad in 2018, part of its laughable 'Social Justice Leadership' program, showing Colin Kaepernick saying, 'Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything. Just do it.'
US vice president Mike Pence on Thursday delivered a speech harshly
criticizing the entire list of CCP activities that the West considers
to be criminal -- jailing Uighurs, jailing priests, destroying
churches, IP theft, forced technology transfer, cyber-theft, South
China Sea crimes, and dozens more. Pence also criticized the
hypocrisy of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Nike.
Pence's speech comes shortly after the US banned Chinese surveillance
companies. The speech triggered harsh replies from the NBA and China.
Once upon a time not so long ago, everybody loved China. America
saved China in both world wars. Americans considered China to be a
strange and wonderful place after World War II, despite the brutal
violence of the Communist dictator Mao Zedong. The Tiananmen Square
massacre was considered an aberration, and trade disputes were rarely
understood by the public.
So China was invited to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) in
2001, based on commitments that it would open up its economy to
outsiders, and would follow all the WTO rules and international law.
Western leaders believed that membership in the WTO would change China
for the better, encourage it to become a valued member of the
international community, and abandoning the hostile policies of the
past. None of that happened. Instead, China used the WTO as a tool
to make suckers out of Western nations, ignoring WTO rules and playing
victim, but angrily insisting that Western nations obey all WTO rules.
China always made it clear that WTO rules and international law apply
to everyone else but not to China, and signed agreements apply to the
other parties but not to China.
Things seriously began to change with the rise of Xi Jinping in 2011.
In 2013, the CCP issued "Document Number 9" which listed evil
"anti-China forces," including the following. Some of these "evil"
forces named in the document include democracy, human rights, civil
society, neoliberalism, and a free press. The reason the CCP gives
why all of these Western values are considered "evil" is because they
are interpreted to be weapons undermining the authority of the CCP.
These "evils" permeated every aspect of CCP policy under Xi. Specific
hostile acts were all performed under this doctrine, including illegal
activities in the South China Sea, violent crackdowns on Christians,
Buddhists and Muslims, the arrest and enslavement of millions of
Uighurs and Kazakhs, and crackdowns on free press and democracy
movements in Hong Kong.
This doctrine and these acts have steadily eroded the goodwill that
people in the West have had for China. Increasing, Westerners view
China with hostility and suspicion.
One of the most dramatic signs of the growing hostility to China is
that George Soros, who for decades has been an enormous admirer and
supporter of the CCP, has now turned against it, because the Social
Credit Score system is turning China into the worst police state in
world history.
****
**** Mike Pence harshly criticizes China as US bans Chinese surveillance equipment
****
Pence's speech on Thursday focused on several of China's illegal
practices:
<QUOTE>"The Communist Party in China has arrested Christian
pastors, banned the sale of Bibles, demolished churches, and
imprisoned more than one million Muslim Uighurs. ...
Last July, the director of the FBI told Congress that of his
agency’s 1,000 active investigations into intellectual property
theft, the majority involve China. American enterprises continue
to lose hundreds of billions of dollars each year in intellectual
property theft. ...
And today, China’s Communist Party is building a surveillance
state unlike anything the world has ever seen. Hundreds of
millions of surveillance cameras stare down from every vantage
point. Ethnic minorities must navigate arbitrary checkpoints
where police demand blood samples, fingerprints, voice recordings,
and multiple angle head shots, and even iris scans.
And China is now exporting to countries in Africa, Latin America,
and the Middle East the very same technological tools that it uses
in its authoritarian regime: tools that it’s deployed in places
like Xinjiang; tools that it’s deployed often with the help of
American companies.
And Beijing has also smashed the barriers between civilian and
military technological domains — a doctrine that China calls
“military-civilian fusion.” By law and presidential fiat,
companies in China — whether private, state-owned, or foreign —
must share their technologies with the Chinese
military."<END QUOTE>
China's massive buildout of surveillance equipment is reaching into
every country of the world, as China collects information on billions
of people, inside and outside China, which it puts into its huge big
data database.
There's a backlash growing against Chinese-made surveillance products
on multiple levels.
Surveillance cameras have been around for years, and few people were
concerned, as long as the cameras were used in places like banks and
busy intersections, and as long as nobody ever reviewed the video
except a human being.
Public alarm over the general surveillance issue has been increasing
as the public has become aware that not humans but computers are
increasing reviewing the video, using artificial artificial (AI)
technology that provides facial recognition capabilities, matching
faces up to records in databases, allowing the software to track any
individual in real time.
****
**** Backlash grows against Chinese surveillance and AI equipment
****
This comes amid increasing global awareness that the China's military
is using these same devices for surveillance in cities and countries
around the world.
This awareness was boosted by a shocking demonstration in August when
a researcher was able to prove that millions of surveillance devices
marketed by Dahua Technology, and installed around the world, contain
a secret backdoor that can easily be hacked, and used for
eavesdropping. That means that if you have one of these devices in
your war room, board room, or bedroom, even when the audio is
disabled, someone knowing the IP address of the device can access the
device remotely and secretly listen in to conversations and sounds in
that room. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZTza1BiahQ
A Duhua spokesman was quoted as saying that the company "conducted an
emergency investigation, and the preliminary results are that this
vulnerability does not exist after refactoring—some end-of-life
products may have security risks. We have a plan to repair the related
products." Wow! That's nice!
****
**** US bans doing business with Chinese surveillance and AI firms
****
The Dept. of Commerce announcement blocked eight Chinese companies,
and they can be divided roughly into two groups -- surveillance
cameras that capture video and audio and transmit it to the central
server over the internet, and artificial intelligence (AI) products
that interpret the video and audio being captured, particularly with
facial recognition and identification. The eight Chinese companies
are as follows:
- Hangzhou-based Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd. claims
to be the world's largest manufacturer and supplier of video
surveillance products. Hikvision (pron HEYE-K-vizh-un) products
are used in countries around the world, and Hikvision receives nearly
30% of its 50 billion yuan ($7 billion) in revenue from
overseas. Hikvision grew out of China's military surveillance wing and
the Government retains a 42 per cent stake in the company.
- Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co., Ltd. is the second-largest provider
of video surveillance products and services, behind Hikvision.
- iFlytek creates speech recognition software converts audio
conversations into text, and natural language processing software,
which "understands" the words and takes appropriate action.
- Beijing-based Megvii produces AI software products for image
recognition and deep learning, which "recognize" the video images
collected by the surveillance cameras and "understand" what's
happening, in order to take appropriate action.
- SenseTime is an AI software company with products for face, image,
object and text recognition, video analysis, and autonomous driving
systems. The company has 700 clients and partners worldwide.
- Fujian-based Xiamen Meiya Pico Information Co. Ltd produces
forensic software that's being used by police in Hong Kong to spy on
citizens' smartphones, providing access to images and audio files,
location data, call logs, messages and the phone’s calendar and
contacts.
- Shanghai-based YITU Technology provides a facial recognition
platform that can quickly identify a face from China's vast database
containing two billion people. Reports indicate that China's Social
Credit Score system database, contains scans of almost every one of
China's 1.4 billion people citizen, plus scans of hundreds of millions
more people from countries around the world, obtained from hacking
into surveillance equipment sold by Hikvision and Dahua.
- Shanghai-based Yixin Technology provides services for data
gathering and analysis, including big-data analysis for China's Social
Credit Score system database.
It's believed that the America and the West have been most successful
in developing advanced AI algorithms for surveillance and recognition,
but Chinese companies have a big advantage because of their huge data
base to use for training and testing purposes.
Ironically, China desperately needs surveillance data from around the
world for a completely different reason: testing its facial
recognition software. All the Han Chinese ("yellow race, black hair,
brown eyes, yellow skin") have similar facial characteristics, and the
Chinese need millions of faces of people from all countries and races
to test its facial recognition software.
****
**** China's growing global surveillance tentacles
****
It's frightening how successful China has been at using these
surveillance and AI technologies not only to imprison and enslave
millions of Muslim Uighters and Kazakhs, but also to continually
identify and track all activities of every Chinese citizen, as well as
millions of people outside of China.
Furthermore, a number of incidents have been reported that are
increasingly alarming people about the use of surveillance equipment,
including equipment made by other manufacturers.
During the last four years in Ecuador, China has installed a vast
surveillance system, known as the ECU-911 system, that can be used to
spy on all Ecuadorian citizens.
The China-made surveillance equipment contains as many as 4,200
cameras, monitored by 16 centers and around 3,000 employees. The
system lets the government track phones, and may soon be upgraded with
facial-recognition capabilities. The equipment was manufactured by
two Chinese firms, Huawei Technologies and China National Import &
Export Corp (CEIEC).
As with all Chinese-made network products, we have to assume that the
Chinese military is able to access the surveillance and data, and
correlate it with the data in their own databases.
In London, the developer of the prestigious King's Cross 67-acre
50-building Estate was forced to abandon plans to deploy facial
recognition technology throughout the site. It had already been used
at a busy intersection for two years, but attempts to extend it to the
entire site met with sharp opposition and a debate about the ethics of
facial recognition.
Surveillance technology in London goes much deeper than King's Cross.
Hikvision is generating millions of dollars in annual revenue by
supplying its surveillance cameras for use on the British
parliamentary estate, as well as to police, hospitals, schools, and
universities throughout the country. According to Adm. Lord Alan
West, "It’s rather like being able to get a Mata Hari into each
office."
The same kind of thing is true in Australia, which may be more exposed
to continual surveillance and spying by China's military than any
other country in the world. Australia has hundreds of thousands of
surveillance cameras, mostly made by Hikvision and Dahua, have been
installed in local council offices, at schools and universities, on
buses, in shopping centers and thousands of other public spaces across
Australia. The surveillence equipment is at use at every level of
government, from some of the most sensitive federal government
agencies, all the way down to suburban councils.
Australian officials have already been raising alarms about the
infiltration of Chinese people in the organs of Australia's
government, at a time when tensions are growing sharply because of
China's illegal activities in the South China Sea.
According to Fergus Hanson of Australia's Strategic Policy Institute:
<QUOTE>"It's a real dereliction of duty to have them in
military bases.
But even on the street you've got the potential to inadvertently
contribute towards Chinese espionage activity by providing real
time information about the situation on the ground, all over the
world, and in collective terms, quite an important data feed to
China."<END QUOTE>
There was even a backlash in Beijing, of all places. Parents and
students at Tsinghua High School were furious when it was discovered
that the school had installed surveillance cameras in all the male
toilets. Officials were forced to remove the cameras.
****
**** The National Basketball Association (NBA) controversy
****
In the last month, public hostility in America to China took another
huge leap forward, because of an event that's almost impossible to
believe. The event involved the National Basketball Association
(NBA), which is hugely popular in China, with millions of Chinese
following the games and purchasing related products, including Nike
sneakers. Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey posted a tweet
supporting the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. The CCP has
blocked Twitter in China, so the tweet would never be seen by Chinese,
and would be quickly forgotten. But the CCP lashed out at the tweet,
considering it an insult to the Chinese people, and canceled several
NBA games and public events in China.
These events have substantially heightened the public's hostility to
the CCP, and awareness of the CCP's dictatorial policies. Many
commentators pointed out that the CCP uses violence to control public
opinion in China, and is now trying to use economic weapons to extend
its control of public opinion to everyone in the world.
The hostility to China has increased even further when basketball star
LeBron James made comments supporting the CCP, and condemning Daryl
Morey as being "uninformed." This has caused an enormous reaction in
the American public. People who previously didn't know how to spell
Hong Kong or who thought it was a kind of chop suey suddenly became
"informed" about what's going on in Hong Kong.
LeBron's support for the CCP is particularly ironic because of his
extremely vocal and vitriolic criticisms of Donald Trump in the past,
including this January 18, 2018, tweet, quoting Martin Luther King:
"-Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere- Our Lives
Begin To End The Day We Become Silent About Things That Matter-
#ThankYouMLK50"
These events are important for three reasons.
First, these quickly moving events show how quickly simple events can
escalate. This is literally how world wars have begun.
Second, these events particularly affect public attitudes towards
Hikvision and other companies that are being banned. The trend has
been a growing public anxiety towards surveillance equipment in
general. But the massive use by China's military of AI-enhanced
surveillance equipment to violate human rights in all of China,
particularly in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, has focused public hostile
attitudes toward surveillance equipment to hostility to surveillance
equipment from China in ways we haven't seen before.
Third, these events show how easy it is for Americans to turn
against each other when money is involved. Generational Dynamics
predicts that once a "regeneracy event" occurs, such as a missile
attack on American soil, then political differences will be dropped,
and the country will unite behind the president.
****
**** Mike Pence's criticism of the NBA and Nike
****
Mike Pence's speech on Thursday heightened the controversy over the
NBA and Nike. Pence called out the NBA and Nike for kowtowing to
China:
<QUOTE>"And far too many American multinational corporations
have kowtowed to the lure of China’s money and markets by muzzling
not only criticism of the Chinese Communist Party, but even
affirmative expressions of American values.
Nike promotes itself as a so called “social justice champion,” but
when it comes to Hong Kong, it prefers checking its social
conscience at the door. Nike stores in China actually removed
their Houston Rockets merchandise from their shelves to join the
Chinese government in protest against the Rockets general
manager’s seven-word tweet, which read: “Fight for Freedom. Stand
with Hong Kong.”
And some of the NBA’s biggest players and owners, who routinely
exercise their freedom to criticize this country, lose their
voices when it comes to the freedom and rights of the people of
China. In siding with the Chinese Communist Party and silencing
free speech, the NBA is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of
the authoritarian regime."<END QUOTE>
Pence's criticism of the NBA for hypocrisy and kowtowing to China
infuriated former NBA star Charles Barkley, who has substantial money
at stake. He responded as follows:
<QUOTE>"Vice President Pence needs to shut the hell up,
number one. All American companies are doing business in China. I
thought the criticism of commissioner Silver and LeBron James was
unfair. Daryl Morey — who I like — he can say whatever he wants
to. But there are consequences.
I don’t understand why these holier-than-thou politicians — if
they’re so worried about China, why don’t they stop all
transactions with China? President Trump has been talking about
and arguing with tariffs for China for the last two years. I think
it’s unfair for them to do all their business in China and just
because this thing happens try to make the NBA and our players
look bad. All American companies do business in
China. Period."<END QUOTE>
Several commentators have noted the hyprocrisy that Barkley feels free
to criticize Pence (and Trump) in the most hostile terms with
impunity, but is demanding that no one be permitted to criticize
China.
China's Foreign Ministry responded to Pence's speech as follows:
<QUOTE>"The most important criteria on China's human rights
situation is whether the Chinese people are satisfied. As the
country advances in leaps and bounds, the Chinese people have an
increasingly stronger sense of happiness and fulfillment. Our
government attaches high importance to protecting and advancing
human rights. During the past over four decades of reform and
opening-up, China's human rights cause has seen tremendous
progress that has been recognized by the world. The Chinese
people now enjoy unprecedented rights and freedoms. This is a fact
that no one can deny except for those obsessed with
prejudice. Nearly 200 million Chinese practice various religions,
of which more than 20 million are Muslim. Chinese people of all
ethnic groups enjoy full religious freedom in accordance with
law. ...
China's foreign policy is aboveboard as always. China pursues an
independent foreign policy of peace, a path of peaceful
development, a new type of international relations and a community
with a shared future for mankind. China never advances its own
interests at the expense of others, and its development will never
pose a threat to any country. China never seeks hegemony or
expansion. That's exactly why we have so many friends all over the
world. Some people's attempts to wantonly label China or drive a
wedge between China and other countries will never succeed. Such
attempts will bring nothing but shame on those people themselves.
While arbitrarily accusing and lecturing other countries,
Mr. Pence and his like have turned a blind eye to serious domestic
problems in the US and tried to cover their own political
malpractice by smearing other countries to divert public attention
in the US. From the PRISM program to frequent, severe shootings,
from extensive racial discrimination to obvious wealth gap, from
arbitrary sanctions and use of force on other countries to wanton
withdrawals from international agreements and treaties, there are
so many cases in point proving that the US has become notorious
for lack of moral principles and credibility. We advise some
people in the US to carefully examine themselves in the mirror,
get fully aware of their own problems and mind their own
business. They should cease talking utter nonsense and stop
playing mutually detrimental tricks as soon as
possible."<END QUOTE>
It's always exasperating to read the CCP's comments on anything, which
rarely have anything to do with the truth.
She says, "China never seeks hegemony or expansion." But China in
recent decades has annexed Tibet and East Turkistan, and slaughtered,
tortured, beat, raped and imprisoned millions of Buddhists and
Muslims. Today, China has illegally annexed the South China Sea, in
violation of internation law, and repeatedly lied about. The CCP
consider the Chinese to be the Master Race, immune from international
law.
And she says that racial discrimination in America is as bad as
China's human rights record, even though we are not beating,
torturing, locking up and jailing millions of Mexicans and blacks.
In heard one analyst at MSNBC wonder why China would ever sign a trade
deal with the US after that speech by Trump. The answer is that China
is desperate to end the sanctions, which have disrupted China's
relentless path to war.
John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan:
Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book
2), June 2019, Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references,
$13.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732738637/
Sources:
- China speech transcript / Remarks by Vice President Pence at the Frederic V. Malek Memorial Lecture (WhiteHouse, 24-Oct-2019)
- 5 Takeaways From Mike Pence’s Hawkish China Speech (ForeignPolicy, 24-Oct-2019)
- In China’s Far West, Companies Cash in on Surveillance Program That Targets Muslims ::xwla-03/21/2019 (Foreign Policy, 13-Jun-2018)
- China's tech ambition is 'unstoppable' — with or without the trade war, analyst says (CNBC, 29-Sep-2019)
- U.S. puts Hikvision, Chinese security bureaus on economic blacklist (Reuters, 7-Oct-2019)
- U.S. Blacklists Eight Chinese Tech Companies on Rights Violations (Bloomberg, 7-Oct-2019)
- Hikvision / Dahua / Addition of Certain Entities to the Entity List (Dept Of Commerce / Federal Register, 9-Oct-2019)
- Meet The World's Most Valuable AI Startup: China's SenseTime (Forbes, 17-Jun-2019)
- What you need to know about Meiya Pico, China’s low-profile forensics champion named in data privacy scandal (SCMP, 9-Jul-2019)
- This Chinese facial recognition start-up can identify a person in seconds (CNBC, 16-May-2019)
- China's Hikvision sees only limited impact from U.S. blacklisting (Reuters, 9-Oct-2019)
- China's Hikvision says blacklist could impact performance (Al-Jazeera, 9-Oct-2019)
- Security industry reels from blacklisting of Hikvision, Dahua (Security Info Watch, 8-Oct-2019)
- Hikvision launched 'de-Americanization' plan before blacklist (Nikkei, 9-Oct-2019)
- Ambarella Plunges on Blacklisting of China's Hangzhou Hikvision (The Street, 8-Oct-2019)
- Global CCTV Cameras Market 2020 : Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, Dahua Technology and Bosch Security Systems (Motorexpo, 13-Oct-2019)
- Ambarella / South Korea's Hanwha likely to win from surveillance rivals' blacklisting: industry experts (Reuters, 7-Oct-2019)
- Chinese video surveillance network used by the Australian Government (Australian Broadcasting, 12-Sep-2018)
- Thousands Of Banned Chinese Surveillance Cameras Are Watching Over America (Forbes, 21-Aug-2019)
- Warning As Millions Of Chinese-Made Cameras Can Be Hacked To Spy On Users: Report (Forbes, 3-Aug-2019)
- Amcrest IP Camera Unauthenticated Audio Streaming (Youtube, 29-Jul-2019)
- Are Chinese tech companies spying on Australia? (TOTT, Australia, 16-Apr-2019)
- Banned Chinese Security Cameras Are Almost Impossible to Remove (Bloomberg, 10-Jul-2019)
- Internet of Things Security Often Overlooked in Cyber Defence (CSO Australia / IDG, 26-Jul-2019)
- US to reportedly blacklist Chinese surveillance camera giant Hikvision (Zdnet, 22-May-2019)
- US agencies to replace thousands of Chinese cameras and devices (Nikkei, 9-Aug-2019)
- US fight dethrones Huawei as top mobile equipment provider (Nikkei, 30-Mar-2019)
- Confusion builds over U.S. ban on Chinese surveillance technology (Reuters, 19-Jul-2019)
- This is how you kick facial recognition out of your town (Technology Review, 4-Oct-2019)
- How do airlines score on privacy? (Airline Privacy, 14-Oct-2019)
- The backlash against face recognition has begun – but who will win? (New Scientist, 23-May-2019)
- Detroit’s facial recognition surveillance technology provokes backlash, proposed bans (Detroit Metro Times, 31-Jul-2019)
- Surveillance cameras removed from Beijing high school male toilets after backlash (SCMP, 23-Jun-2017)
- Chinese official media warns of rampant hacking of home surveillance cameras (SCMP, 18-Jun-2017)
- Palestinian teens find IDF surveillance camera, Microsoft faces backlash (Jerusalem Post, 9-Oct-2019)
- Amazon Ring Will Survive the Anti-surveillance Backlash (Atlantic, 24-Jun-2019)
- China's surveillance tech is spreading globally, raising concerns about Beijing's influence (CNBC, 8-Oct-2019)
- Facial recognition technology scrapped at King's Cross site (Guardian, London, 2-Sep-2019)
- Cameras Linked to Chinese Government Stir Alarm in U.K. Parliament (The Intercept, 9-Apr-2019)
- Facial Recognition Technology Is Facing A Huge Backlash In The US. But Some Of The World’s Biggest Tech Companies Are Trying To Sell It In The Gulf. (BuzzFeedNews, 29-May-2019)
- ChinAI #59: Is Winter Coming for Hikvision? (ChinAI, 29-Jul-2019)
- Has Hikvision's Cold Winter Come, I found the Answer in its Semi-Annual Report (ChinAI, 29-Jul-2019)
- Hikvision Admits USA Sales Falling (IPVM, 22-Apr-2019)
- Survey Finds Insider Threats Pose Security Concern (Hikvision, 14-Oct-2019)
- Critiquing Carnegie's AI Surveillance Paper (IPVM, 25-Sep-2019)
- U.S. Blacklisting Threatens to Derail $1 Billion Chinese Tech IPO (Bloomberg, 8-Oct-2019)
- WATCH: Ted Cruz goes off on LeBron James for 'apologizing for murderers' (Washington Examiner, 16-Oct-2019)
- 1 old LeBron tweet is going viral again after his China comments (Usa Today, 15-Oct-2019)
- China Foreign Ministry Regular Press Conference (FMPRC-cn, 25-Oct-2019)
- Charles Barkley: Mike Pence 'needs to shut the hell up' on NBA, China (YahooSports, 24-Oct-2019)
Related Articles:
- Ecuador's president Moreno imposes curfew after 10 days of violent protests (13-Oct-2019)
- US-China trade war seriously disrupts world trade (16-Aug-2019)
- Book Announcement: World View: War between China and Japan - by John J. Xenakis (28-Jun-2019)
- George Soros speech at Davos marks significant global shift against China (27-Jan-2019)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Hong Kong,
National Basketball Association, NBA, Nike,
Mike Pence, Mao Zedong, World Trade Organization, WTO,
Document Number 9, Chinese Communist Party, CCP,
East Turkistan, Xinjiang, Uighurs, Kazakhs,
Dahua Technology, Hikvision Digital Technology Co Ltd,
iFlytek, SenseTime,
Ecuador, ECU-911, Huawei Technologies,
China National Import & Export Corp, CEIEC,
King's Cross, London,
Australia, Fergus Hanson, Strategic Policy Institute,
Tsinghua High School, Beijing,
Daryl Morey, Charles Barkley
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