Konflikti Kiinan merellä

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A group of 67 MPs and Lords have called on the government to ban the sale and use of Hikvision and Dahua surveillance equipment in the UK.

Supporters range across the parties and include Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey and four ex-Conservative ministers.

Reports have linked the two companies with human rights violations in China.

The BBC asked both firms for comment. Hikvision accused anti-CCTV "fringe groups" of "demonising" the company.

Recent research by campaign group Big Brother Watch suggests that many public bodies across the UK use CCTV cameras made by the firms.

This includes 73% of UK councils, 57% of secondary schools in England, and six out of 10 NHS trusts, as well as UK universities and police forces.

A number of government departments, including the Home Office and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, have Hikvision cameras visibly in use on the front of their buildings, according to the civil liberties campaign group.

These figures are based on replies received from Freedom of Information requests sent out by the group. It submitted more than 4,500, but fewer than three in 10 public bodies responded.

MPs call for UK ban on two Chinese CCTV firms

Sixty-seven MPs and Lords have said Hikvision and Dahua surveillance equipment should be banned.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

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At around 7:44 am on Monday (2244 GMT Sunday), a Chinese navy frigate "was observed entering Japan's contiguous waters" southwest of one of the Tokyo-controlled islands, a statement from the Japanese defence ministry said.

Contiguous waters are a 12-nautical-mile band that extends beyond territorial waters.

"We expressed grave concerns and lodged our protest to the Chinese side through a diplomatic route, and urged them to prevent a repeat" of similar incidents, deputy chief cabinet secretary Seiji Kihara told reporters.

The islets "are Japanese territory from the viewpoints of both history and international law," he said.

But Zhao Lijian, China's foreign ministry spokesman, said in response that the Chinese vessels' activities are "legitimate and legal" as the islands are "China's inherent territory."

Separately, a Russian naval ship was also spotted in the contiguous waters of the disputed islands on Monday morning, NHK, Jiji Press and other Japanese media reported, citing anonymous defence ministry sources.

The ministry could not immediately confirm the reports to AFP.

Japan protests Chinese navy sailing near disputed islands

METATEXT

www.spacewar.com

 

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Hong Kong’s new chief executive, John Lee, received almost HK$11.3m (US$1.4m) in donations during his election campaign earlier this year, according to official filings released on Monday. Lee had run for the city’s top job in May via a small-circle election in which he was the only candidate.

Lee spent around HK$9m (US$1.1m) of the donations on his campaign, the majority of which were split between advertisements, gatherings, office rent and transportation. The majority of advertising costs, around HK$2m, went to social media advertising, while HK$710,000 of funds allotted for office rent and transportation was spent on security. The unused funds were donated to local charity the Community Chest of Hong Kong, the filing said.

Lee’s social media campaign in the lead-up to his election included Facebook and Instagram posts promoting his candidature for office. Posts included cartoon images featuring quotes and detailing his proposed policies with the tagline “Brother Chiu can help you”, in reference to Lee’s Chinese name Lee Ka-Chiu.

New Hong Kong leader John Lee spent $1.1m on election campaign in which he was sole candidate

Donations flooded in to office of security hardliner despite lack of any rivals to beat for job of chief executive

www.theguardian.com

korruptio esimerkki

 

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A threat actor has taken to a forum for news and discussion of data breaches with an offer to sell what they assert is a database containing records of over a billion Chinese civilians – allegedly stolen from the Shanghai Police.

Over the weekend, reports started to surface of a post to a forum at Breached.to. The post makes the following claim:

In 2022, the Shanghai National Police (SHGA) database was leaked. This database contains many TB of data and information on Billions of Chinese citizens.

HackerDan offered to sell the lot for 10 Bitcoin – about $200,000. We've saved HackerDan's post as a PDF in case it vanishes.

HackerDan released sample datasets: one containing delivery addresses and often instructions for drivers; another with police records; and the last with personal identification information like name, national ID number address, height, and gender.

China has a national police force, and that presumably has a Shanghai office. But an entity called the "Shanghai National Police" is hard to find.

Media outlets were nonetheless able to verify that the contents of the sample - whatever the source - describe actual people.

Database stolen from Shanghai Police for sale on the darkweb

Appears to have leaked from a cloud thanks to sloppy coding

www.theregister.com

Whatever the source of the leak, it will mightily annoy China. The nation's government has recently prioritized personal data protection and critical infrastructure security. If the People's Police have mucked up on both counts, that will not go down well.

 

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The US government is reportedly stepping up efforts to hamper China's ability to grow its semiconductor manufacturing capabilities by pressing for a wider ban on key chipmaking gear.

Uncle Sam hopes to convince officials in the Netherlands to block Dutch-native semiconductor equipment maker ASML from selling its older deep ultraviolet lithography (DUV) systems to China, according to a Tuesday report from Bloomberg that cited unnamed sources. US and Dutch officials declined to comment on the report, as did ASML.

DUV systems use a less advanced lithography process than ASML's extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) machines that chipmakers are increasingly turning to for leading-edge components coming to the market, such as Apple's homegrown M2 silicon for Macs or Nvidia's H100 datacenter GPU.

DUV systems are, meanwhile, still used to make many of today's chips, which power everything from phones and computers to cars and robots. And with ASML dominating the market for DUV systems, US officials are keen on cutting off China from the company's past-gen systems, namely the most advanced versions, which are called immersion lithography machines.

US officials are also trying to convince the Japanese government to halt sales of DUV systems from Japan-based Nikon, Bloomberg said.

China has been trying to amass DUV kit because the country hasn't been able to get its hands on ASML's EUV machines, according to a December report. This is problematic since ASML is the only company making such equipment.

US wants to ban China from buying ASML DUV chipmaking kit

Beijing can't get next-gen lithography gear, America now trying to block sales of older machines

www.theregister.com

 

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A group of politicians and lawmakers in the UK have backed a campaign to ban the sale of CCTV systems made by companies alleged to introduce potential security issues as well as being linked to human rights abuses in China.

Organized by campaign group Big Brother Watch, the letter said that partly Chinese state-owned CCTV manufacturers Hikvision and Dahua should be banned from sale or use in the UK.

Both manufacturers are banned from trading in the US, owing both to security concerns and alleged evidence of their use in so-called "re-education" camps in Xinjiang, where China is accused of detaining an estimated 1 million Uyghurs and subjecting them to abuse, torture, and forced sterilization, the campaigners said.

UK politicians intent on signing the letter include Conservative Members of Parliament David Davis, Steve Baker, Damian Green, and the Tory peer Lord Bethell. The list includes leading Labour human rights figures Baronesses Chakrabarti and Kennedy, and Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey. The Scottish National Party is represented by foreign affairs spokesperson Alyn Smith. Green MP Caroline Lucas also backed the call.

In total 67 parliamentarians said they "condemn [Hikvision and Dahua's] involvement" in what they called "technology-enabled human rights abuses in China" and called for a ban on the tech being sold or used in the UK. They also called for "an independent national review of the scale, capabilities, ethics and rights impact of modern CCTV in the UK."

For its part, Hikvision last year denied any wrongdoing in an exchange with the UK's Surveillance Camera Commissioner, stating:

You asked if we could from the outset explain whether we accept that crimes are being committed against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. As a global enterprise and manufacturer, we believe Hikvision is not a competent arbiter to decide on this matter. Moreover, it is beyond our capability to make a judgement on this matter, particularly against a backdrop where the debate surrounding the Xinjiang issue comes with clashing geopolitical views.

More UK calls for ban of CCTV makers Hikvision, Dahua

UK wants to follow US move to stop sales from equipment manufacturers

www.theregister.com

 

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More red flags about the semiconductor market are being raised with the news that a key supplier to chipmakers such as TSMC is planning to hike prices, which will likely have a knock-on effect on chip prices.

Japan-based chemicals company Showa Denko has warned it expects to raise prices and may have to cut back some of its unprofitable product lines. The company is a major supplier of chemicals and gases that are used in the semiconductor manufacturing industry for the creation of silicon wafers and in the etching process to create chips.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Showa Denko chief financial officer Hideki Somemiya said the company had already raised prices at least a dozen times this year, citing issues such as COVID-19 lockdowns, increasing energy costs and other factors. However, he confirmed "the current market moves require us to ask twice the amount we had previously calculated."

Because the chemicals and gases supplied by Showa Denko and others are vital for the manufacturing processes used for semiconductors, any significant rise in their costs is liable to be passed on to customers of TSMC and other chip fabrication plants.

This will likely lead to further troubles for the semiconductor market, which now appears to be facing a downturn following a year of bumper revenues in 2021 as demand outstripped supply.

Chip market to be hit by cost of supplies to chipmakers

Chemicals supplier warns it expects to raise prices, may cut some product lines

www.theregister.com

 

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The heads of UK and US security services have made an unprecedented joint appearance to warn of the threat from China.
FBI director Christopher Wray said China was the "biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security" and had interfered in politics, including recent elections.
MI5 head Ken McCallum said his service had more than doubled its work against Chinese activity in the last three years and would be doubling it again.
MI5 is now running seven times as many investigations related to activities of the Chinese Communist Party compared to 2018, he added.
The FBI's Wray warned that if China was to forcibly take Taiwan it would "represent one of the most horrific business disruptions the world has ever seen".
The first ever joint public appearance by the two directors came at MI5 headquarters in Thames House, London.

McCallum also said the challenge posed by the Chinese Communist Party was "game-changing", while Wray called it "immense" and "breath-taking".
Wray warned the audience - which included chief executives of businesses and senior figures from universities - that the Chinese government was "set on stealing your technology" using a range of tools.
He said it posed "an even more serious threat to western businesses than even many sophisticated businesspeople realised". He cited cases in which people linked to Chinese companies out in rural America had been digging up genetically modified seeds which would have cost them billions of dollars and nearly a decade to develop themselves.
He also said China deployed cyber espionage to "cheat and steal on a massive scale", with a hacking programme larger than that of every other major country combined.
The MI5 head said intelligence about cyber threats had been shared with 37 countries and that in May a sophisticated threat against aerospace had been disrupted.

McCallum also pointed to a series of examples linked to China. These included a British aviation expert who had received an approach online and had been offered an attractive employment opportunity. He travelled to China twice to be "wined and dined" before being asked for technical information on military aircraft by a company which was actually a front for Chinese intelligence officers.

"That's where we stepped in," said McCallum. He also said one engineering firm had been approached by a Chinese company which led to its technology being taken before the deal was then called off, forcing the company, Smith's Harlow, to go into administration in 2020.

And he pointed to the interference alert issued by Parliament in January about the activities of Christine Lee. He said these types of operations aimed to amplify pro-Chinese communist party voices and silence those that questioned its authority. "It needs to be challenged," the MI5 head said.

In the US, the FBI director said the Chinese government had directly interfered in a congressional election in New York this spring because they did not want a candidate who was a critic and former protester at Tiananmen Square to be elected.

They had done so, he said, by hiring a private investigator to dig up derogatory information. When they could not find anything, he said there had been an effort to manufacture a controversy using a sex worker before even suggesting staging a car accident.

Wray said China was drawing "all sorts of lessons" from the conflict in Ukraine. This included trying to insulate themselves from any future sanctions of the type that have hit Russia. If China did invade Taiwan, the economic disruption would be much greater than that seen this year, he said, with western investments in China becoming "hostages" and supply chains disrupted.

"I don't have any reason to think their interest in Taiwan has abated in any fashion," the FBI director told journalists after the speech.

The MI5 head said new legislation would help to deal with the threat but the UK also needed to become a "harder target" by ensuring that all parts of society were more aware of the risks. He said that reform of the visa system had seen over 50 students linked to the Chinese military leaving the UK.

"China has for far too long counted on being everybody's second-highest priority," Wray said, adding: "They are not flying under the radar anymore."

China: MI5 and FBI heads warn of ‘immense’ threat

The UK and US security service heads make an unprecedented joint appearance to warn about China.

www.bbc.com

Alettaisiinkohan tähän nyt reagoimaan vihdoin kunnolla?

 

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Mi5 ja FBI?

 

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Mi5 ja FBI?

Mielenkiintoista, kieltämättä. Kummallakin lienee aika hyvät näkymät kiinalaisten toimintaan oman maan sisällä, mutta tällainen kannanotto periaatteessa oman toimialueen ulkopuolelle on hieman erikoinen, mut ehkä he haluavat herätellä yrityksiä oikeasti ymmärtämään Kiinan uhat.

 

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Five suspects were indicted in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York on Wednesday for alleged crimes related to a campaign to silence dissidents in the US who opposed the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC).

Three of the individuals – Fan "Frank" Liu, Matthew Ziburis, and Qiang "Jason" Sun – were charged, along with two others, in March with stalking, harassing, and spying on Chinese dissidents in the US who spoke out against the Chinese government.

The two new defendants in the alleged scheme are current or former US government employees: Craig Miller, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employee based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Derrick Taylor, a retired DHS agent who currently works as a private investigator in Irvine, California.

The two men are charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly destroying evidence after agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) inquired about their handling and distribution of confidential data from a federal law enforcement database containing details of Chinese dissidents. The information obtained – passport information, travel records, and immigration records – is said to have been used to further the scheme to harass Chinese government critics in the US.

"As alleged, this case involves a multifaceted campaign to silence, harass, discredit and spy on US residents for exercising their freedom of speech – aided by a current federal law enforcement officer and a private investigator who provided confidential information about US residents from a restricted law enforcement database, and when confronted about their improper conduct, lied and destroyed evidence," stated Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a statement.

"This Office will always work closely with our law enforcement partners to root out corrupt officials in all levels of government and will prosecute those who act on behalf of a hostile foreign state to target the free speech of US residents on American soil."

Five accused of trying to silence China critics in US

Alleged campaign involved stalking via GPS and hidden cameras, fake interviews, confidential government data

www.theregister.com

 

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Vai että WarThunderissa leakattiin

 

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Esimerkkejä Kiinalaisten laajennuksista.

Sataman laajennusta

Tutkia

Aurinkopaneleita

Salaisuuksia, mitkä löytyy melkein joka saaresta.

More Island Upgrades Across the South China Sea | Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative

Vietnam’s recent dredging efforts have garnered attention from both AMTI and the international press. But other occupants in the South China Sea have also continued to modestly upgrade their facilities in recent years. As part of a comprehensive update to our Island Tracker, AMTI has surveyed...

amti.csis.org

 

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Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes a (paywalled) article from Bloomberg: There has been a sense in financial circles that the fever among American executives to shorten supply lines and bring production back home would prove short-lived. As soon as the pandemic started to fade, so too would the fad, the thinking went.

And yet, two years in, not only is the trend still alive, it appears to be rapidly accelerating.

"This is just economics," says one executive who made the move
National Review shared some telling excerpts from the article: The construction of new manufacturing facilities in the US has soared 116% over the past year... There are massive chip factories going up in Phoenix: Intel is building two just outside the city; Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is constructing one in it. And aluminum and steel plants that are being erected all across the south... Scores of smaller companies are making similar moves, according to Richard Branch, the chief economist at Dodge.

Not all are examples of reshoring. Some are designed to expand capacity. But they all point to the same thing — a major re-assessment of supply chains in the wake of port bottlenecks, parts shortages and skyrocketing shipping costs that have wreaked havoc on corporate budgets in the US and across the globe....

In January, a UBS survey of C-suite executives revealed the magnitude of this shift. More than 90% of those surveyed said they either were in the process of moving production out of China or had plans to do so. And about 80% said they were considering bringing some of it back to the US. (Mexico has also become a popular choice.)

American Factories Are Making Stuff Again As CEOs Take Production Out of China - Slashdot

Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes a (paywalled) article from Bloomberg: There has been a sense in financial circles that the fever among American executives to shorten supply lines and bring production back home would prove short-lived. As soon as the pandemic started to fade, so too...

news.slashdot.org

 

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Kiribati’s decision to withdraw from the Pacific Islands Forum on the eve of the event was an extreme move driven by pressure from China, the Micronesian nation’s opposition leader says.

Tessie Lambourne, a former top diplomat who was elected to Kiribati’s parliament in 2020, said she was “shocked and extremely disappointed” by the government’s move to withdraw from the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).

She said the reasons offered by Kiribati’s president, Taneti Maamau, for leaving the forum, contained in a leaked letter to the PIF secretary general, were just “excuses”.

Lambourne, who for more than a decade led Kiribati’s diplomatic corps as secretary for foreign affairs and secretary to cabinet, said she was embarrassed by the contents of the letter.

China influenced Kiribati exit from Pacific Islands Forum, MP claims

Opposition leader calls withdrawal from PIF an ‘extreme move’ and claims the reasons offered by Kiribati’s president were just excuses

www.theguardian.com

 

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Two Chinese defence attaches have been kicked out by Fijian police from a Pacific Islands Forum meeting at which the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, was giving a virtual address.

The men were sitting in on a session of the forum’s fisheries agency at which Harris announced the step-up of US engagement in the region, believed to be in response to China’s growing influence.

They were sitting with the media contingent, but one was identified as a Chinese embassy official by Lice Movono, a Fijian journalist who is covering the forum for the Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ati-exit-from-pacific-islands-forum-mp-claims
Movono said she “recognised him because I’ve interacted with him at least three times already”, including during the visit of the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, to Suva last month, at which journalists were removed from events and blocked from asking questions.

“He was one of the people that was removing us from places and directing other people to remove us,” she said. “So I went over to him and asked: ‘are you here as a Chinese embassy official or for Xinhua [Chinese news agency], because this is the media space. And he shook his head as if to indicate that he didn’t speak English.”

Movono alerted Fijian protocol officers, who told her to inform Fijian police, who then escorted the two men from the room. They did not answer questions from media.

Diplomatic sources later confirmed that the men were a defence attache and a deputy defence attache from China, and part of the embassy in Fiji.

The incident comes after an intensification of Chinese involvement in the region in the last few months, which is simmering as an undercurrent to the year’s Pacific Islands Forum.

Police remove two Chinese defence attaches from Pacific Islands Forum meeting

Fijian police escort the men from media space where US vice-president Kamala Harris was making virtual address

www.theguardian.com

 

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Hong Kong has jailed a 66-year-old activist known affectionately as Grandma Wong in relation to the pro-democracy protests that rocked the city three years ago.

A city magistrate jailed Alexandra Wong for eight months on Wednesday over two counts of unlawful assembly during a protest on 11 August 2019. Wong was a familiar presence at the protests, and was widely recognised for flying the British union jack.

Hong Kong activist ‘Grandma Wong’ jailed for eight months over pro-democracy protests

Wong, a familiar presence at the rallies, used her court appearance to label Hong Kong’s government an ‘authoritarian regime’

www.theguardian.com

Wong is no stranger to the courts, and has continued to stage one-woman protests outside the city’s court buildings in support of other pro-democracy activists during their hearings, despite Hong Kong’s punitive national security law.

The activist has previously been convicted of a series of other protest-related charges, including a four-day sentence in January for refusing to show her ID card during another protest, and a one-month sentence for assault in July 2021 for pushing a court security guard.

Wednesday’s sentencing followed the sentencing of another elderly dissident just one day prior. Another city magistrate sentenced Koo Sze-yiu, who is 75 years old and terminally ill with late stage colon cancer, to nine months in jail on Tuesday for “attempted sedition” for planning to protest against the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The sentence came in the same week the US congressional commission monitoring the development of human rights and the rule of law in China published a report saying the city’s department of justice is increasingly pursuing politically motivated cases.

The report by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China published on Monday found the city’s prosecution has played a “key role in carrying out political persecution in the city”, citing an “increasingly apparent political motivation behind the department’s actions.”

“The Hong Kong government’s hardline approach to dissent and pro-democracy views, and the growing number of political prisoners, raises serious concerns about the erosion of the rule of law in the city,” the report summary read.

More than 10,500 people have been arrested in relation to the protests three years ago, over 2,900 of whom have been prosecuted.

 

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The prime minister of Solomon Islands has guaranteed there will never be a Chinese military base in his country, saying that any such deal with Beijing would undermine regional security, make Solomon Islands an “enemy” and “put our country and our people as targets for potential military strikes”.

He has also said that Australia remains the “security partner of choice” for Solomon Islands and he would only call on China to send security personnel to the country if there was a “gap” that Australia could not meet.

Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, RNZ and SIBC in his first media interview since signing the controversial security deal with China earlier this year, Manasseh Sogavare said it was time for the world to “trust us”.

“Let me assure you all again, there is no military base, nor any other military facility, or institutions in the agreement. And I think that’s a very important point that we continue to reiterate to the family in the region,” he said.

Solomon Islands PM rules out China military base and says Australia is ‘security partner of choice’

Exclusive: In his first interview since the security deal with Beijing, Manasseh Sogavare says he would only call on China if there was a ‘gap’ that Australia could not fill

www.theguardian.com