Important Takeaways:
- China’s ‘CEO Whisperers’: Chinese Communist Party Takes Over Canada
- “When I look… at the subtle but intense influence of China on Canadian institutions — parliaments, provincial governments, local governments, universities, the intellectual community, the policy community — it makes me deadly worried,” said Australian professor Clive Hamilton, author of Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World (co-authored by Mareike Ohlberg), speaking to Canada’s National Post in 2019. “I’ve met some very well-informed Canadians who aren’t sure Canada will be able to extricate itself from this situation.”
- Hamilton, who “blew the whistle on Australia says Canada is in even worse trouble.”
- “I was pretty dismayed at the extent of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence in the federal Parliament. I should probably not say any more to stay on the right side of the libel laws… My response is to ask what are the authorities doing about this…? I think that’s the real measure of China’s influence.”
- Despite leaked intelligence reports about Chinese interference in Canada’s last two federal elections in 2019 and 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has refused to hold a public probe into the matter.
- “The CCP’s basic strategy of overseas influence and interference is to capture elites in politics, business, media, think tanks, universities, and cultural institutions…It deploys a range of techniques including flattery, financial inducement, exploitation of anti-racist and anti-American sentiment, bribery, and honey traps… Key figures in the Liberal Party have long historical ties to the CCP, not least through business connections…” — Clive Hamilton, thehub.ca, June 2, 2023.
- China has reportedly openly been trying to influence [Canadian PM] Justin Trudeau for the past ten years. One unnamed CSIS source said that the CCP had its eyes on Justin Trudeau well before he became prime minister.
- .. is a real threat to Canada’s sovereignty. “Recent Chinese actions and announcements are pointing to Beijing’s determination to have a military capability in the region that will exceed that of Canada.” — Rob Hueber, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary, Globe and Mail, August 25, 2023.
- “What has not received as much attention is a research paper, published in 2021, in which Chinese scientists explain their success in developing Arctic-resilient underwater listening systems. The paper says the listening systems are for peaceful purposes, but the actual ramifications of the HABs, buoys and research systems are inescapable. China is refining its means of monitoring the Canadian North…
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- China deploys over 40 planes to Taiwan Strait, is massing forces at coastal military bases, Taiwan warns
- “This year, the Chinese Communist Party has aggressively expanded its armaments and continued to build various types of fighter jets and drones,” Maj. Gen. Huang Wen-Chi said of the report. “The information we have received is that all important military bases along the coast … are being continuously updated.”
- The Chinese military also sent nearly two dozen warplanes on a sortie near Taiwan’s territory Tuesday morning. The Defense Ministry reported that 22 Chinese warplanes and 20 warships entered the Taiwan Strait and that 13 of the aircraft crossed the median line, which has historically served as a demarcation line for military activity.
- On Monday, China deployed one of its three aircraft carriers, the Shandong, to the Taiwan strait. The carrier group sailed within 70 miles of the island and conducted various drills.
- Displays of military power around Taiwan have become a regular strategy for China, often resorting to the practice when a Taiwanese official has an undesirable meeting with the U.S.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- What Will America Be Like Under Biden’s Digital Dollar? Look At Communist China
- Biden’s executive order gave the game away by stating that a U.S. digital dollar must ensure ‘financial inclusion and equity’ and monitor or mitigate ‘climate change and pollution.’
- President Joe Biden issued a sweeping executive order last year on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), which “places the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a United States CBDC.”
- But experiences in China, a nation that launched a digital currency in 2020, have shown that a CBDC considerably expands government power at the expense of individual freedom.
- According to The Wall Street Journal, the Chinese digital yuan is programable, and “Beijing has tested expiration dates to encourage users to spend it quickly, for times when the economy needs a jump start.”
- Even before the digital yuan’s issuance, those Chinese citizens who received lower social credit scores due to “bad behaviors” struggled to live an everyday life. Many couldn’t travel because they were unable to buy plane or train tickets, some were denied school or employment opportunities, and some pet owners even had their pets confiscated.
- The digital yuan has enabled the Chinese government to reprimand human rights activists, religious practitioners, and government critics in new and terrifying ways: by instantly deducting fines from their bank accounts, confiscating their wealth, or banishing them from China’s digital payment system completely. Knowing they won’t be able to survive for a day in a cashless society is frightening enough to silence most dissenting voices.
- Anyone who assumes the U.S. and other democracies will not abuse CBDCs like China has done is delusional. The Covid-19 pandemic revealed how quickly democratically elected governments in the West expanded their powers and intruded on citizens’ economic and political freedom in the name of public health.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Pope Francis: Vatican’s Relationship with China is ‘Very, Very Respectful’
- Pope Francis said Monday that the Vatican is walking a “friendly path” with China, insisting that “relations are moving forward” on both sides.
- “The relationship with China is very respectful, very respectful. I personally have great admiration for the Chinese people,” the pontiff told reporters aboard the papal plane returning to Rome from Mongolia.
- The pope was asked why he urged Chinese Catholics to be “good citizens” after Beijing denied permission for Chinese bishops to travel to Mongolia for the papal visit.
- Pope Francis has faced widespread criticism for his policy of appeasement with the CCP, demonstrated by his unwillingness to call out China’s egregious human rights violations toward the Uyghur Muslims and other groups.
- “While the Vatican has reached a provisional agreement with China on the issue of episcopal appointments, reports of persecution by the Chinese government persist as underground churches are closed and their priests detained, crosses destroyed, bibles confiscated, and children under 18 forbidden from attending Mass and receiving religious instruction,” the U.S. bishops said in a 2020 communiqué.
Read the original article by clicking here.
The American Heritage Dictionary “plagues”
1. A highly infectious, usually fatal, epidemic disease; a pestilence.
2. A virulent, infectious disease that is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis (syn. Pasteurella pestis) and is transmitted primarily by the bite of fleas from an infected rodent, especially a rat. In humans it occurs in bubonic form, marked by lymph node enlargement, and in pneumonic form, marked by infection of the lungs, and can progress to septicemia.
3. A widespread affliction or calamity seen as divine retribution.
Important Takeaways:
- China reports a five-fold increase in Mpox cases; 96% patients are male
- As per a statement by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 96 per cent of the patients were male and reported sexual activity with another man.
- As per the Chinese CDC, while in June the cases stood at 106, in July, the count reached a high of 491. However, as per a Bloomberg report, there were no severe cases or deaths from the virus, that until recently was known as Monkeypox.
- In late July, the agency, as per the report, asked its local branches to improve access to tests and treatment, mobilize volunteers and social organizations to educate “priority groups” — vulnerable groups including men who have sex with men — about Mpox.
- The largest concentration of cases have been reported from Guangdong province and Beijing. However, last month, other areas have also reported quite a few cases. Shanghai and Western Sichuan province each reported 25 Mpox cases.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Taiwan warns of surge in tensions as Chinese planes cross median line
- Taiwan’s defense ministry warned on Tuesday of a possible “sharp increase” in military tensions after reporting renewed Chinese military activity including fighter jets crossing the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait.
- The ministry said that on Tuesday morning, it spotted 12 Chinese military aircraft in its air defense identification zone, of which seven crossed the median line – six J-10 fighters and a single drone.
- Five Chinese ships also carried out “combat readiness patrols”, the ministry said, without giving a location.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The PLA, in recent months, has disclosed work on ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence systems in military writings, according to a report by a U.S. Air Force think tank highlighting China’s push to make its forces the first in the world to bring AI-powered systems to the battlefield.
- The Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute assessed in the report that the PLA is building AI weapons-related systems in seven main areas, including human-machine ties, rapid decision-making, network warfare, cognitive warfare, wartime logistics, space operations, and military training.
- The report, published under the title “China’s ChatGPT War,” was made public Monday by the institute, part of the Air University located at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.
- The Biden administration recently restricted exports of advanced computer chips to China over concerns that the chips will assist China’s drive for AI-powered weapons.
- Cyberwarfare is another area of focus for China.
- According to the China Aerospace Studies Institute report, PLA authors wrote recently that AI will write code and carry out offensive cyberattacks.
- “Generative AI will be used by hackers to design, write and execute malicious code, build bots and websites to trick users into sharing their information and launch highly targeted social engineering scams and phishing campaigns,” the report said.
- The technology also aims to produce advanced “polymorphic” malware that can rapidly evade network security software, the report said.
- For PLA cognitive warfare, it said, PLA researchers believe “ChatGPT will raise the intensity of cognitive warfare to a whole new level.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Port call: China’s Navy scouting range of sites for future overseas bases
- China has fully militarized at least three islands it built in the disputed South China Sea and is now looking around the world to establish a network of naval bases to bolster its ability to project power and match the global reach of the U.S. Navy.
- Beijing’s first overseas naval base, situated in the small country of Djibouti on the Horn of Africa and operational since 2017, has given it a foothold in the Arabian Sea. National security experts are speculating about the next outpost.
- The most likely possibilities are Sri Lanka, where Beijing has made its largest overseas commercial port investment in the past decade, and Equatorial Guinea, which is strategically located on West Africa’s Atlantic coast and could put Chinese naval assets squarely in America’s backyard.
- John C. Aquilino, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in March 2022
- “I think over the past 20 years we’ve witnessed the largest military buildup since World War II by the PRC,” Adm. Aquilino said at the time, using China’s formal name. “They have advanced all their capabilities, and that buildup of weaponization is destabilizing to the region.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Xi Jinping wants to ‘hollow out Taiwan from within,’ ex-CIA official warns
- China’s ruling Communist Party is preparing for war over Taiwan, but President Xi Jinping would much rather take control of the U.S.-backed Island democracy without a military clash.
- His plan, for now, is to tilt the Taiwanese presidential election in January in Beijing’s favor.
- That’s the assessment of David Sauer, a former U.S. intelligence officer with deep experience in the region. He said China’s strategy is to “hollow out Taiwan from within” and “create chaos” around the election to seat a president who will push the island toward unification with the communist mainland.
- Beijing will expand its operation using “a combination of information warfare, military intimidation, political and economic manipulation,” he said during an appearance this week on “The Washington Brief,” a monthly virtual forum hosted by The Washington Times Foundation.
- Chinese propaganda will also “frame the election as a choice between peace and war.”
- In the wake of the election, China will assess whether to engage in military action or proceed with coercion tactics toward whatever Taiwanese government takes power, he said.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Biblical flooding in Beijing after heaviest rain in 140 years
- Torrents of water gushed through streets in China as moisture from former Typhoon Doksuri triggered catastrophic flooding over the weekend and into the start of August.
- Doksuri made landfall last Friday in the Chinese province of Fujian, located roughly 1,000 miles (1,609 km) south of Beijing, and lost wind intensity over the weekend as it pushed inland. However, the tropical moisture fueled extreme rain across the country for days.
- More than 800,000 people were forced to relocate in and around Beijing after nearly 30 inches of rain triggered some of the worst flooding in the city’s history.
- At least 26 people have died due to the flooding. The death toll may continue to climb as officials assess the damage and as floodwaters gradually recede.
Read the original article by clicking here.
