China’s mixed and managed economy is designed to match its stage of development and is well managed. The U.S. non-managed economy has no design and does not match its advanced stage of economic development. China uses exports to grow its economy and limit debt. The U.S. runs severe deficits in its trade balance and needs a growing debt to finance the trade deficit and to increase the GDP. The rapidly growing debt portends economic decline, and there is no certified way to escape the predicament. U.S. hegemony and world leadership appears doomed. The sooner the U.S. leaders recognize the dangers and readjust the economy, the less will be the slide. More on this later. Facts and statistics supply the proof that the PRC has successfully met the challenges.

Overly contentious USA

Using sanctions from legislative directives, rather than pursuing cooperative efforts to combat China’s rise to the world’s number one industrial power, the U.S motivates China to become self-sufficient in technological applications, temporarily interrupts China’s advances, and eventually causes havoc to American companies

Citing security concerns, the U.S. Congress, in 2019, passed the National Defense Authorization Act and essentially banned use of telecommunication equipment from 5G network pioneer Huawei and smartphone manufacturer ZTE. In June 2020, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated ZTE a national security threat. The security concerns proceeded from a possibility that the Chinese government could demand the habits of American citizens, similar to the information that Google and a host of advertising firms gather from internet searchers.

Huawei is of more major significance, but ZTE’s shrugging off the sanctions deserves mention. Its steady revenue growth until facing competition from other companies, relates its success.

This telecom company entered the smartphone market in 2010 and now has the 12th spot in the listing of the Largest Smartphone Manufacturers & Brands in the World. ZTE is also the 6th largest supplier in the Global 5G Infrastructure Market.

Huawei, global leader in development of 5G networks and China’s technology powerhouse, reeled from U.S. sanctions and stumbled as a boxer from an unaware punch. Predictions had Huawei barely surviving. Labelled as a company the U.S. could not do with, Huawei is now the company the world cannot do without. Refuting U.S. attempts to restrict its advances, Huawei expanded into new markets, into new industries, and developed unique alternatives to the denied technologies.

After years of “barely surviving,” Huawei is a leading network company on the globe, having constructed approximately 30% of worldwide 5G base stations, and is fourth in global smartphone manufacturing. After losing access to Google’s Android and Oracle’s software, Huawei developed its own operating system, Harmony OS, which has become the second most popular mobile operating system in China and, by 2025, was installed in over 900 million devices.

In 2022, the Commerce Department informed NVidia and AMD to restrict exports of AI-related chips to China, and informed chip equipment makers — Lam Research, Applied Materials and KLA — to restrict sending tools to the PRC for manufacturing advanced chips. China’s tech giant responded by challenging NVidia artificial intelligence dominance with its Ascend 910D AI processor chip, which “reflects China’s strategic push to develop indigenous semiconductor capabilities.” The U.S. did not respond to Huawei’s advance with its own technology advancements and again responded with threats. On May 15, 2025, the Trump administration warned that using Huawei’s AI chips might violate US export laws.

Ignoring U.S. threats, Huawei expanded use of its chips into the automotive industry and set a new standard for smart driving and self-driving technology.

Huawei’s ambitious undertaking includes the introduction of cutting-edge smart vehicles equipped with advanced autonomous driving technologies. The company is leveraging its prowess in artificial intelligence (AI) and big data to enhance vehicle performance and safety features. With a focus on seamless connectivity and user experience, Huawei is positioning itself as a significant player in the highly sought-after smart driving space, previously dominated by traditional automotive giants and tech firms like Tesla.

In August 2023, President Biden issued an Executive Order “Addressing United States Investments in Certain National Security Technologies and Products in Countries of Concern.” The order prohibited U.S. investments in semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and artificial intelligence technologies in China. In November 2024, “The U.S. reportedly ordered TSMC to halt shipments of advanced chips to Chinese customers that are often used in artificial intelligence applications.”

As a result, Xiaomi, a leading smartphone manufacturer, which has expanded into electric SUV car production, developed its 3-nanometre XRing O1 system-on-a-chip (SoC). Following Apple, Qualcomm, and MediaTek, Xiaomi became the fourth tech company in the world to design a 3-nanometer mobile SoC for mass production. A Chinese company can now compete with American companies in selling the unique chips, and Qualcomm, which has been a long-standing supplier of mobile chips to Xiaomi, might have its sales disrupted.

Statistics tell the story

What have all these underhanded means to stifle the Chinese economy accomplished? Statistics in the following table tell the story. The Chinese economy surpassed the U.S. economy in 2022 and is leaving Uncle Sam far behind.

The U.S. has a higher GDP than China. China has a higher GDP/PPP. Unlike nominal GDP, which uses current exchange rates, GDP/PPP adjusts for differences in price levels between countries and provides a more realistic measure of the value of goods and services produced. Another consideration is the value given to components of the GDP. Capital, hard goods, and agriculture supply the most needed wants to a community, and their purchases play a more significant role in the economy. The service economy, a paramount feature of the U.S. economy, exaggerates its GDP. One dollar of purchase in goods production requires time for feedback to the manufacturer before other goods are replenished and additional purchases augment the GDP. Purchases in the service economy quickly pass the same money from one service provider to another and elevate the GDP. Industrial output, whether for domestic or foreign use, more appropriately demonstrates the robustness of an economy. China leads the United States in industrial output and demonstrated robustness by becoming the leading manufacturer and exporter of automobiles.

A comparison between two dynamos of each nation, U.S. Tesla and China BYD, automobile manufacturers and innovators that rose rapidly against established competitors, complete the story. BYD, which started at about the same time as Tesla, has surpassed Tesla in automobile sales.

BYD Revenue

Tesla Revenue

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More than that, BYD has accomplished what was never considered possible; with a fully charged battery and a full tank of gas, unbiased testing of its new hybrid auto technology showed a driving range of 1,305 miles before charge or fill up. Its fully electric models use advanced sodium ion batteries and, in 5 minutes, can be charged to obtain a 250 mile range. A vertically integrated company, which manufactures its parts and is a leading provider of electric car batteries, BYD sells its autos at the lowest prices in China.

Revisions by BYD include paring the price of its Seagull hatchback to 55,800 yuan ($7,780), a 20% reduction to a model that was already the carmaker’s cheapest and one that had garnered global attention for its sub-$10,000 price tag. The Seal dual-motor hybrid sedan (direct competitor to the $37,000 Tesla Model 3) saw the biggest price cut at 34%, or by 53,000 yuan to 102,800 yuan ($14,333). (ED: These may be temporary price cuts.)

Fatal Decline of the Imperial Power

The U.S. cannot compete with or contain China. Using China as a scapegoat for its global economic decline has proved counterproductive. Better for the U.S. to cooperate with the PRC, realistically examine its economy, become aware of its limitations, and take decisive action to prevent a fatal decline.

The hindrances to economic progress is fourfold:

(1) Debt drives the economy and the debt has become unmanageable.
(2) Manufacturers have established offshore facilities to open new markets and to compete more effectively.
(3) Off shore production and having the dollar as an international currency has produced a high trade deficit.
(4) U.S. markets in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America have eroded.

Debt drives the U.S. economy and, the two charts indicate that without increasing the exorbitant debt, the economy will stagnate.

GDP/PPP

All Sectors Debt

Given a money supply to purchase goods and services, how can production and eventual sales of goods and services advance without increases in the money supply? One way is to increase the velocity of money, which occurred with on-time inventory, credit card purchasing, and computer speedup of financial transactions. These phenomena occurred during past decades and exploded the GDP. Another means is by having a positive trade balance; selling goods externally. If these means are not occurring, and they no longer are, increases in the money supply are required to increase production and sell additional goods.

U.S. goods trade deficit increased in 2024 to a record $1.2 trillion, and, although many economists excuse the trade deficit, saying that,

a trade deficit can only arise if foreigners invest more in the US than Americans invest abroad. In other words, a country can only have a trade deficit if it also has an equally sized investment surplus. The US is able to sustain a large trade deficit because so many foreigners are eager to invest here,

is more a rationalization than a reality. The trade deficit arose because American industry found it more profitable to produce overseas and made the dollar the international currency. As an international currency, the dollar is in demand and its exchange rate is high compared to other currencies. The strong dollar raises the prices of U.S. goods, makes its exports expensive and its imports cheap. Yes, the balance of payments must be equalized, and the dollars return as either purchase of government securities ─ one principal reason for rise in government debt ─ or purchase of U.S. assets. The former has become unwieldly, leading to high interest rates and the latter gives foreign interests increased power in the American system. Having a positive balance of trade reduces government debt and foreign influence.

Government debt is not the total problem. A system that exists by debt is the real problem. For a free wheeling and profit first economy that generates huge trade deficits to grow, the money supply must grow. Because money is created by either bank loans (debt) or Federal Reserve borrowings from the Treasury (debt), all money is debt. For the economy to continually grow, debt must continually grow. Soon, financing the debt and its increasing interest rates will be a difficult problem. Credit will freeze, loans will default, and the money supply will shrink. Boom will become bust. The United States has no choice but to have its economy more managed and align government and industry in common goals that correct the trend to a fatal decline.

Tariffs as a government money raiser and incentive to produce locally will be another tax on the American consumer and will not stimulate private investment in internal production to replace foreign imports. So, why not maintain low priced imports and tax the consumer for another goal ─ government investment in competitive industries. Cooperation between government and industry, rather than free-wheeling economics will enable more rational decisions and predictable operations.

The United States pioneered the global economy but globalization is no longer a perfect fit for the economically mature nation. Markets once lost are usually lost for a long time. Preserving present markets and finding niche markets for specialized goods, which the omnipresent U.S. economy has many, will stabilize exports.

History shows that private industry has never been the source of solutions to economic lapses. Changes in life style and a return to the cohesion and social legislation that characterized the Franklin Delano Roosevelt era might solve the economic, social, and political declines predicted for America’s future. The democratic socialization of America is begging to begin.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.

But the claim is misleading. While NVIDIA did mention Huawei in the report for the first time, it was only cited as one of a number of competitors, not its biggest.

On Feb. 24, China’s state-controlled Reference News said: “The U.S. chip giant identified Huawei as the ‘biggest competitor’ in its report submitted this week to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.”

Reference News cited a report by the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, or DW, published to back its claim. 

Keyword searches found the report cited by Reference News published on the website of DW Chinese on Feb. 23. It claimed that Nvidia lists Huawei as the biggest competitor in its annual report.

Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA is a leading technology company known for its powerful graphics processing units, or GPUs, which are used in video gaming, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. 

Shenzhen-based Huawei is a global telecommunications and electronics company known for its smartphones, networking equipment, and leading advancements in 5G technology.

While becoming a top producer of both telecom equipment and electronic devices, Huawei was caught in the crossfire of the U.S.-China trade war, suffering a steep drop profit after being blacklisted by the American government for buying unapproved parts from U.S. suppliers.

The claim about NVIDIA listing Huawei as the biggest competitor has been also shared in China’s state-run Global Times. Other Chinese language media such as Singapore’s Lianhe Zaobao and Taiwan’s United Daily News published similar reports.

NVIDIA’s report

On page 9 of NVIDIA’s annual earnings report, it does mention Huawei in four of the five market areas where the company faces serious competition, including as a supplier of GPU hardware and as a cloud service featuring in house AI. 

However, the relevant section of the report does not describe Huawei as either its “biggest competitor” or as a “major competitor,” and instead lists it as one amongst many multinational tech companies such as U.S. companies like AMD and Intel. 

Other Chinese companies mentioned as competitors in the 2024 report  include Alibaba and Baidu. While this is the first time Huawei has appeared as a noted “competitor” in NVIDIA’s annual report, Baidu appeared in the 2023 report while Alibaba was listed as early as 2022.

Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang and Malcolm Foster.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Rita Cheng for Asia Fact Check Lab.

Asia Fact Check Lab found that the images were digitally altered although it appears at least one of these doctored images was shown on a Time Square billboard. Keyword searches found no such ads featuring Raimondo.

The images were included in a one-minute, 57-second clip shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sept. 10. 

“Advertising screen in Times Square, New York, showing an advertisement featuring US Commerce Secretary Raimondo endorsing Huawei Mate60,” the post reads in part, with a video containing what appears to be ads for the phone with Raimondo.

The same images alongside the same claim were also shared on other Chinese social media platforms such as Douyin and Weibo. They began to circulate after Raimondo’s official visit to China in late August. 

The photos are apparent mockery of Raimondo, who has recently attempted to cultivate a reputation for being tough on China, following the release of the Mate 60 Pro, a mobile phone that runs on a chip designed internally by Huawei in response to strict U.S. sanctions against Chinese telecommunications companies. 

However, these images have been digitally doctored. Here is what AFCL found. 

Raimondo in a blue suit jacket

A reverse image search found the original photo taken by Reuters during an interview at the Department of Commerce headquarters in Washington D.C. in 2021. 

Below is a screenshot comparison. 

While the secretary’s posture and earrings are identical to the original, it appears that the color of Raimondo’s initially dark purple blazer was altered during editing, and a Huawei logo was added to her left chest.

In addition, a forged signature was added in the lower right hand corner of the image. The handwriting differs significantly from a copy of Raimondo’s original signature on a document signed for Gay Pride Month in 2017. 

Raimondo in a black pullover jumper

The image is the secretary’s profile photo from when she was sworn into office in 2021. The Department of Commerce’s official website has updated her photo in the intervening two years, but an archived version of the website from March 2021 shows that the secretary’s earrings and facial angle in the original image exactly match the doctored ad. The same photo can also be seen in an April 2021 post on Raimondo’s official Instagram account. 

Below is a screenshot comparison. 

Raimondo in a pink suit

A search through the online photo gallery Alamy found that this image was taken from a photo of the secretary attending a panel hearing for the House Committee on Appropriations on Feb. 1, 2022. A mask Raimondo originally held in her left hand was removed during editing.

Below is a screenshot comparison.

Keyword searches found no Mate 60 ads featuring Raimondo.

Ads in Times Square

A closer look at two doctored photos featuring Raimondo in a pink and black outfit shows most pedestrians seen in the photos are dressed in thick leather coats, down jackets and wool hats. 

Given New York’s average September temperatures, it is unlikely that large numbers of individuals would be wearing such winter attire at that time. This indicates that these two doctored ads were edited to be included in irrelevant photos of Time Square, which are not current.  

However, a keyword search on Weibo found a user who claimed that a netizen named “Student Xing in the U.S.” had paid for the doctored ad to be displayed and posted a mobile screen recording showing a payment of US$40 being made to TSX Entertainment, a company that allows people to upload their own content onto a billboard in Times Square for a fee. 

AFCL did find a video showing the ad of Raimondo in black being played in the square, followed by a news clip of the secretary disembarking off a plane to China and subtitles saying that “China’s chips are way ahead.”

AFCL was unable to retrieve TSX’s historical broadcast footage of the square to verify the account of the netizen, and the company has not responded to inquiries as of this writing. 

Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang and Malcolm Foster.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) is a branch of RFA established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. Our journalists publish both daily and special reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of public issues.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Dong Zhe for Asia Fact Check Lab.

• Huawei overcomes US sanctions
• Giant hybrid rice yields up to 9,000 kg/h
• War on pollution increases life expectancy by two years
• Chinese study reveals near-extinction of humans one million years ago

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dongsheng News.

The US claims full-spectrum dominance. US politicians make bellicose statements about which country the US will attack next. And when a pretext is required the US will fabricate one. (See AB Abrams’s excellent book Atrocity Fabrications and Its Consequences, 2023. Review)

I asked Wei Ling Chua, the author of 3 books including Democracy: What the west can learn from China and Tiananmen Square’s “Massacre”? The Power of Words vs Silent Evidence, how aggressive US posturing impacts China.

Kim Petersen: It is clear that the US is waging an economic war against China. However, based on the bombast of several American military and political figures, the US is also pining for a military confrontation. US Air Force four-star general Mike Minihan said his gut warns of a war with China in 2025.  The Chinese claim to most of the South China Sea has caused the US to assert the right to freedom of navigation by sailing its warships off the Chinese coast. But when has China ever denied any ships the right to freely traverse the South China Sea? And as for the disputed territoriality in the South China Sea, why does the US arrogate to itself a supposed right to meddle in the affairs of other countries even those thousands of kilometers from the US shoreline? The Brookings Institute informs that of potential threats worldwide, “China gets pride of place as security challenge number one — even though China has not employed large-scale military force against an adversary since its 1979 war [what even Wikipedia calls a “brief conflict”] with Vietnam.” Consider that the media organ of British capitalism, The Economist, complains that “People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fighter jets keep staging recklessly close, high-speed passes to intimidate Western military aircraft in international airspace near China.” The magazine doesn’t blink at the risible scenario it has described: foreign fighter planes near China. Isn’t there sufficient airspace for American military jets in the US? Or sufficient coastline to practice freedom of navigation with its warships in US waters?

The US is so fixated on the economic rise of China that it even scuppered a multibillion-dollar deal its ally France had to sell submarines to Australia and replace it with nuclear submarines to be supplied by itself and the United Kingdom — AUKUS. The obvious target of the nuclear subs: China. China’s foreign minister Qin Gang has called on the US to put the brakes on to avoid confrontation and conflict. What does all the militaristic hoopla directed at China portend?

Nonetheless, SCMP.com reported on 24 March 2023 that China has developed a coating for its submarines — an “active” tile based on giant magnetostrictive material (GMM) technology — that “could turn the US active sonar technology against itself.”

Also, the Chinese navy has many more ships than the US (around 340 Chinese navy ships to the 300 US navy ships) and that gap is widening.

Given that the rise of China is not just economic, but that China has also developed a staunch defensive capability, what do the military experts say about China’s capability of defending itself against an American attack? Such an attack would also be insane because war between two nuclear-armed foes is a scenario in which there are no winners.

Wei Ling Chua: The US is the most warmongering country on the planet with every inch of its territory looted from others. Like former US President Jimmy Carter told Trump in a (2019) phone conversation: “US has only enjoyed 16 years of peace in its 242-year history.”  The US is also the only nuclear power ever to use such a weapon of mass destruction, which it did on 2 populated civilian cities (Hiroshima and Nagasaki). So, any military threat from the US cannot be taken lightly.

In addition, one should also note that the Chinese military grouped itself into 5 defense regions (Western defense region, Northern defense region, Central defense region, Southern defense region, and Eastern defense region), they are all within China and defensive in nature; whereas, the US military grouped itself into 6 command centers covering the entire world [Africa Command (AFRICOM), Southern Command (covering Latin America), European Command (covering Europe, part of the Middle East and Eurasia), Central Command (covering the Middle East), Indo-Pacific Command (covering the entire Asia Pacific Region, and half the Indian Ocean), and Northern Command (covering the US, Alaska, Canada, Mexico, and Bahamas)]. The US military is obviously imperialistic in nature.

However, the good news is that after WW2, the US-led military coalition never won any war in Asia. Their military coalition was badly beaten in the Korean War and Vietnam War (both of which involved China). The latest sudden and messy US withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of brutal occupation demonstrates that the US military is not as powerful as perceived. It appears to be as Mao famously described: “A Paper Tiger.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

Investopedia provides a useful definition of free trade:

A free trade agreement is a pact between two or more nations to reduce barriers to imports and exports among them. Under a free trade policy, goods and services can be bought and sold across international borders with little or no government tariffs, quotas, subsidies, or prohibitions to inhibit their exchange.

The concept of free trade is the opposite of trade protectionism or economic isolationism.

In the eyes of the US, China is threateningly making major headway in 6G, AI, robotics, supercomputing among other technology fields. This has scared the Biden administration, so Biden has sought to cut off Chinese access to semiconductor chips below 14 nanometers. Foreign Policy called it going for China’s jugular after one term of ex-US president Donald Trump inflicting “flesh wounds” to China.

“This is economic coercion and is unacceptable,” said China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning of the US actions. China did not stand idly by; it banned the US memory chip Micron on security grounds.

China, correspondingly, has reduced its import of chips by $129.1 billion since 2022, harming US, Taiwanese, and Korean exporters and giving Shanghai’s SMIC a shot in the arm.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett was so bearish on the world’s largest semiconductor company, TSMC, that he sold all his shares.

The US also told ASML, producer of lithography machines used to make chips, to curb sales to China. Hence, China was forced to develop its own lithography machines to produce chips. ASML also has seen a decline in its profit picture and now is potentially faced with competition from a former customer. Telecommunications giant and leader in 5G technology, Huawei, has found itself faced with trade barriers relentlessly erected by the US. It was forced to develop its own lithography machines. Peter Winnick, president of ASML, complained that China’s development of its own lithography machine “is a ‘destructive behavior” that will cause impact and chaos to the global chip industry chain.” ASML, however, is said to be considering to ignore US directives on such technology sales.

Even US chip makers, whose businesses are adversely affected by government directives, are instead prioritizing their own business with China.

This situation is similar to what transpired when the US rejected Chinese participation in the International Space Station. China went out and built its own space station, the Tiangong, which orbits the planet 340 and 450 km above the surface.

So far protectionism has proven a double-edged sword for the US and its allies, as initially China is negatively affected, but soon enough, China winds up becoming independent for these technologies while also becoming an exporting competitor in the marketplace for such technologies.

I interviewed Wei Ling Chua, the author of 3 books including Democracy: What the west can learn from China and Tiananmen Square’s “Massacre”? The Power of Words vs Silent Evidence, for his perspective.

Kim Petersen: The United States has always trumpeted the benefits of so-called free trade being “A rising tide lifts all boats.” That is fine when you have the biggest boat in global capitalism. But does that tide raise all boats equally? China, which eschews hegemony, now has a big boat, and that boat is portrayed as a threat to the US. The US hegemon prides itself on being exceptional, indispensable, and craving full-spectrum dominance. Yet fear of the China threat caused former US president Barack Obama to exclude China from negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was to comprise the largest free-trade region in history and include forty percent of world trade. Obama’s successor Donald Trump scuttled that deal, but he enacted various sanctions and tariffs against China. Fast forward to Joe Biden and the anti-China rhetoric continues unabated. Biden’s disdain for free trade is revealed by the continuation of sanctions against China, depicting it as a security threat, and never producing any credible evidence to support his assertion. In particular, Biden has sought to squeeze China out from access to chip technology and from the purchase of lithography machines to produce the chips. It has sought to cajole or coerce myriad countries such as Japan, South Korea, Netherlands, and the Chinese province of Taiwan to join in the denial of trade. In doing so, it appears that Biden and the complying countries have shot themselves in the foot. How do you see this denial of trade, imposing tariffs (i.e., protectionism), and sanctioning playing out?

Wei Ling Chua: Western so-called free trade was designed at a time when they had absolute advantages in many areas over the rest of the world. Why wouldn’t they? After centuries of colonialism, wars, slavery, and looting, the West enjoyed absolute advantages in wealth accumulation (they are very rich with plenty of cash to take over the assets of others and attract talents from all over the world) after WW2. The West was also more industrialized after the world war, while much of the rest of the world was war ravaged, poor, and under-developed. So, their so-called free trade is nothing more than demanding the lesser-developed world to allow the West to use money looted from them to take control of their assets, resources, market, and factories, and keep the economies of lesser-developed nations in the primitive stage of cheap labor, cheap resources, and polluting industry.

The WTO, IMF, and the World Bank are just tools that the West uses to control the rest of the world’s opportunities to freely trade with each other and access funding. The West uses these financial tools to manipulate free access to member-state markets by erecting trade barriers against countries who seek to protect local industry and, therefore, refuse to accept western-imposed trading terms.

It took China 15 years of negotiation with the US before the US allowed China to enter the WTO in 2000. During that time, the West was happy to transfer polluted and labor-intensive industries to China: they were happy to allow China to set up factories to assemble iPhones for Apple. Why not? Apple pays the price of a cappuccino to the Chinese factories for each iPhone assembled while selling the iPhones back to Chinese consumers and the rest of the world for hundreds of dollars per unit of iPhone.

There is absolutely no such thing as Western kindness in setting up factories in China or importing in a big way from China. The benefits to both sides are not equal. It is about the West eating the meat and drinking the soup, and the leftover meat on the bone is then shared among millions of Chinese wage slaves. So, in 2017, when China successfully test flies her passenger plane C919, the news heading across China is (translated): “the day China uses 800 million shirts in exchange for one Boeing Plane will become history“.

In recent years, we have witnessed how the US initiated a series of sanctions against Chinese high-tech manufacturers and products of far higher quality than US companies are able to produce. The victims include Huawei 5G, smartphones, chip imports, DJI drones, TikTok, etc. So, the so-called free market never existed in real terms under the western International rule-based order.

It is the Chinese who oblige free trade: The Chinese happily enjoy and buy quality products from all over the world. At the time of unfair US sanctions against Huawei and many other Chinese high-tech firms, China continued to allow Apple to make huge profits in China, and it openly assured the world that China will not resort to protectionism. As long as foreign companies do not violate Chinese law, they are free to conduct their business as usual in China, and they will be treated as equal as the local businesses.

As we can see, the US counters competition with protectionism in the form of sanctions and bullying, whereas China overcomes competition via innovation through investment in education, R&D, and building government infrastructure to facilitate the development of new technology. E.g., China has just overtaken Japan as the world’s top car exporter, and this was made possible by the farsighted investment of the Chinese government in laying down the foundation for EV car manufacturing with market readiness, such as offering incentives for consumers to buy EV cars and building millions of battery charging stations to facilitate the use of EV cars across the country.

As for Internet technology, after decades of paying billions and billions of dollars for intellectual property to US companies for using their 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies, the Chinese company Huawei invested heavily in R&D and produced a far more advanced 5G technology and began to collect intellectual property payments from the world for using its 5G. This is something that the West, particularly the US cannot tolerate. So, by sanctioning Huawei 5G (the world’s most affordable and advanced 5G technology), the US lost its ability to facilitate its tech companies to develop AI technology that required high-speed wifi, while the Chinese state-owned telecommunication companies heavily invested in building millions of Huawei 5G stations across the country to facilitate Chinese companies in developing AI technology. As a result, according to Nicholas Chaillan, the Pentagon’s ex-software chief: “China has won AI battle with the US.” In fact, former British Business and Industry Minister Vince Cable said in an interview in 2022, “The UK government decision to ban Huawei 5G equipment and services had nothing to do with national security, and was because of American pressure.” Cable then, regrettably, made this statement: “If Britain had kept with 5G, we would now be at the forefront of countries using the most advanced technologies, and we are not.”

In fact, in the semiconductor sector, the US-led sanctions on technology exports to China have effectively given away more than $300 billion per year worth of the Chinese chip market (the world’s biggest) exclusively to the Chinese chip industry. As a result, we have already witnessed US chip companies’ revenues being reduced, share prices dropping and a massive staff retrenchment taking place while China experienced a rise in chip production and a drop in imports.

It is not hard to predict what will happen to the US and China under US sanctions:

1) Without the world’s biggest market, many of the US high-tech companies will lose economies of scale, and be eventually unable to compete in the world market.

2) The US’s destructive behavior that violates market regulations only serves to alert the world to the risk of investing, buying, and doing business with the US. The weaponization of the supply chain will only damage the US’s credibility and reliability as a business partner in the mind of the rest of the world.

3) As for China, upholding fair trade and continuing to protect the interests of all foreign investment in China, including Apple, this will enforce the world impression of a reliable and stable Chinese business environment. Hence, China will continue to become a magnet for world investors.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

Investopedia provides a useful definition of free trade:

A free trade agreement is a pact between two or more nations to reduce barriers to imports and exports among them. Under a free trade policy, goods and services can be bought and sold across international borders with little or no government tariffs, quotas, subsidies, or prohibitions to inhibit their exchange.

The concept of free trade is the opposite of trade protectionism or economic isolationism.

In the eyes of the US, China is threateningly making major headway in 6G, AI, robotics, supercomputing among other technology fields. This has scared the Biden administration, so Biden has sought to cut off Chinese access to semiconductor chips below 14 nanometers. Foreign Policy called it going for China’s jugular after one term of ex-US president Donald Trump inflicting “flesh wounds” to China.

“This is economic coercion and is unacceptable,” said China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning of the US actions. China did not stand idly by; it banned the US memory chip Micron on security grounds.

China, correspondingly, has reduced its import of chips by $129.1 billion since 2022, harming US, Taiwanese, and Korean exporters and giving Shanghai’s SMIC a shot in the arm.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett was so bearish on the world’s largest semiconductor company, TSMC, that he sold all his shares.

The US also told ASML, producer of lithography machines used to make chips, to curb sales to China. Hence, China was forced to develop its own lithography machines to produce chips. ASML also has seen a decline in its profit picture and now is potentially faced with competition from a former customer. Telecommunications giant and leader in 5G technology, Huawei, has found itself faced with trade barriers relentlessly erected by the US. It was forced to develop its own lithography machines. Peter Winnick, president of ASML, complained that China’s development of its own lithography machine “is a ‘destructive behavior” that will cause impact and chaos to the global chip industry chain.” ASML, however, is said to be considering to ignore US directives on such technology sales.

Even US chip makers, whose businesses are adversely affected by government directives, are instead prioritizing their own business with China.

This situation is similar to what transpired when the US rejected Chinese participation in the International Space Station. China went out and built its own space station, the Tiangong, which orbits the planet 340 and 450 km above the surface.

So far protectionism has proven a double-edged sword for the US and its allies, as initially China is negatively affected, but soon enough, China winds up becoming independent for these technologies while also becoming an exporting competitor in the marketplace for such technologies.

I interviewed Wei Ling Chua, the author of 3 books including Democracy: What the west can learn from China and Tiananmen Square’s “Massacre”? The Power of Words vs Silent Evidence, for his perspective.

Kim Petersen: The United States has always trumpeted the benefits of so-called free trade being “A rising tide lifts all boats.” That is fine when you have the biggest boat in global capitalism. But does that tide raise all boats equally? China, which eschews hegemony, now has a big boat, and that boat is portrayed as a threat to the US. The US hegemon prides itself on being exceptional, indispensable, and craving full-spectrum dominance. Yet fear of the China threat caused former US president Barack Obama to exclude China from negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was to comprise the largest free-trade region in history and include forty percent of world trade. Obama’s successor Donald Trump scuttled that deal, but he enacted various sanctions and tariffs against China. Fast forward to Joe Biden and the anti-China rhetoric continues unabated. Biden’s disdain for free trade is revealed by the continuation of sanctions against China, depicting it as a security threat, and never producing any credible evidence to support his assertion. In particular, Biden has sought to squeeze China out from access to chip technology and from the purchase of lithography machines to produce the chips. It has sought to cajole or coerce myriad countries such as Japan, South Korea, Netherlands, and the Chinese province of Taiwan to join in the denial of trade. In doing so, it appears that Biden and the complying countries have shot themselves in the foot. How do you see this denial of trade, imposing tariffs (i.e., protectionism), and sanctioning playing out?

Wei Ling Chua: Western so-called free trade was designed at a time when they had absolute advantages in many areas over the rest of the world. Why wouldn’t they? After centuries of colonialism, wars, slavery, and looting, the West enjoyed absolute advantages in wealth accumulation (they are very rich with plenty of cash to take over the assets of others and attract talents from all over the world) after WW2. The West was also more industrialized after the world war, while much of the rest of the world was war ravaged, poor, and under-developed. So, their so-called free trade is nothing more than demanding the lesser-developed world to allow the West to use money looted from them to take control of their assets, resources, market, and factories, and keep the economies of lesser-developed nations in the primitive stage of cheap labor, cheap resources, and polluting industry.

The WTO, IMF, and the World Bank are just tools that the West uses to control the rest of the world’s opportunities to freely trade with each other and access funding. The West uses these financial tools to manipulate free access to member-state markets by erecting trade barriers against countries who seek to protect local industry and, therefore, refuse to accept western-imposed trading terms.

It took China 15 years of negotiation with the US before the US allowed China to enter the WTO in 2000. During that time, the West was happy to transfer polluted and labor-intensive industries to China: they were happy to allow China to set up factories to assemble iPhones for Apple. Why not? Apple pays the price of a cappuccino to the Chinese factories for each iPhone assembled while selling the iPhones back to Chinese consumers and the rest of the world for hundreds of dollars per unit of iPhone.

There is absolutely no such thing as Western kindness in setting up factories in China or importing in a big way from China. The benefits to both sides are not equal. It is about the West eating the meat and drinking the soup, and the leftover meat on the bone is then shared among millions of Chinese wage slaves. So, in 2017, when China successfully test flies her passenger plane C919, the news heading across China is (translated): “the day China uses 800 million shirts in exchange for one Boeing Plane will become history“.

In recent years, we have witnessed how the US initiated a series of sanctions against Chinese high-tech manufacturers and products of far higher quality than US companies are able to produce. The victims include Huawei 5G, smartphones, chip imports, DJI drones, TikTok, etc. So, the so-called free market never existed in real terms under the western International rule-based order.

It is the Chinese who oblige free trade: The Chinese happily enjoy and buy quality products from all over the world. At the time of unfair US sanctions against Huawei and many other Chinese high-tech firms, China continued to allow Apple to make huge profits in China, and it openly assured the world that China will not resort to protectionism. As long as foreign companies do not violate Chinese law, they are free to conduct their business as usual in China, and they will be treated as equal as the local businesses.

As we can see, the US counters competition with protectionism in the form of sanctions and bullying, whereas China overcomes competition via innovation through investment in education, R&D, and building government infrastructure to facilitate the development of new technology. E.g., China has just overtaken Japan as the world’s top car exporter, and this was made possible by the farsighted investment of the Chinese government in laying down the foundation for EV car manufacturing with market readiness, such as offering incentives for consumers to buy EV cars and building millions of battery charging stations to facilitate the use of EV cars across the country.

As for Internet technology, after decades of paying billions and billions of dollars for intellectual property to US companies for using their 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies, the Chinese company Huawei invested heavily in R&D and produced a far more advanced 5G technology and began to collect intellectual property payments from the world for using its 5G. This is something that the West, particularly the US cannot tolerate. So, by sanctioning Huawei 5G (the world’s most affordable and advanced 5G technology), the US lost its ability to facilitate its tech companies to develop AI technology that required high-speed wifi, while the Chinese state-owned telecommunication companies heavily invested in building millions of Huawei 5G stations across the country to facilitate Chinese companies in developing AI technology. As a result, according to Nicholas Chaillan, the Pentagon’s ex-software chief: “China has won AI battle with the US.” In fact, former British Business and Industry Minister Vince Cable said in an interview in 2022, “The UK government decision to ban Huawei 5G equipment and services had nothing to do with national security, and was because of American pressure.” Cable then, regrettably, made this statement: “If Britain had kept with 5G, we would now be at the forefront of countries using the most advanced technologies, and we are not.”

In fact, in the semiconductor sector, the US-led sanctions on technology exports to China have effectively given away more than $300 billion per year worth of the Chinese chip market (the world’s biggest) exclusively to the Chinese chip industry. As a result, we have already witnessed US chip companies’ revenues being reduced, share prices dropping and a massive staff retrenchment taking place while China experienced a rise in chip production and a drop in imports.

It is not hard to predict what will happen to the US and China under US sanctions:

1) Without the world’s biggest market, many of the US high-tech companies will lose economies of scale, and be eventually unable to compete in the world market.

2) The US’s destructive behavior that violates market regulations only serves to alert the world to the risk of investing, buying, and doing business with the US. The weaponization of the supply chain will only damage the US’s credibility and reliability as a business partner in the mind of the rest of the world.

3) As for China, upholding fair trade and continuing to protect the interests of all foreign investment in China, including Apple, this will enforce the world impression of a reliable and stable Chinese business environment. Hence, China will continue to become a magnet for world investors.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

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This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dongsheng News.

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This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dongsheng News.

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This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dongsheng News.

National security director Chen Ming-tung told lawmakers in Taipei that recent social media posts leaking sensitive details of his stay in Bangkok.

A Twitter account using the handle @andreny45652235 tweeted on Sept. 12 photos allegedly taken of Chen at the airport, along with an official customs document and a hotel bill. The same post was also shared on Facebook.

Taiwan's Legislative Council called on Chen to respond.

Chen told the legislature that the social media post was a form of pro-China "cognitive warfare," and pointed to the widespread use of Huawei equipment at the airport.

"This information was sourced from a temporary website, which is very similar to the methods used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the past," he said. "It's clear that this is a form of cognitive warfare."

He said Taiwanese intelligence had been advised that there could be security breaches linked to Huawei equipment at the airport.

"We saw surveillance cameras, and they were basically all made by Huawei," he said, promising to stop further leaks.

"We will work hard to ensure this kind of thing can't happen again," Chen told the Legislative Yuan's foreign affairs committee. "It can't happen again."

Investigations launched

The committee also questioned political warfare chief Yang An regarding a similar leak linked regarding an official visit by his predecessor Chien Shih-wei to Honolulu in September.

"The preparations for the itinerary were also leaked. We have set up a task force to look into our operational procedures ... and investigated who leaked the information and how," Yang said.

"Our investigation found that the itinerary [of Chien's trip] was leaked during an administrative visit to the United States," he told the committee.

"If there have been any illegal activities, these will be punished according to the law."

Responding to recent comments from CIA director Bill Burns, Chen said Taiwan's intelligence services generally regard 2023, 2025 and 2027 as potential years in which China could invade the democratic island.

"We take each of those possibilities seriously," Chen said. "The most important thing is to make it clear to the CCP that it can't win if it tries to take Taiwan by force."

"They will suffer economic boycotts and sanctions and diplomatic isolation that would have an impact on their so-called project, 'the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation'," he said.

"They should be very careful and not start such a war lightly."

Chen said Taiwanese intelligence fully expects CCP leader Xi Jinping to win a third term in office at the 20th National Congress of the CCP, which opens in Beijing on Oct. 16.

"Xi's first two terms were legitimate, and the third is controversial, but he will carry on amid that controversy," Chen said.

Chen's comments came as Alexander Gray, a former White House national security council chief of staff, arrived in Taiwan as a guest of the Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), under the island's ministry of defense.

Gray will be in Taiwan for one month to discuss research topics with academics from the institute and share his research insights, Taiwan's Central News Agency (CNA) reported.

The INDSR’s mission is to "safeguard Taiwan's democracy and prosperity" by directing the government on national security, defense policies, and regional security, it said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Raymond Chung for RFA Mandarin.

The Solomon Islands government has secured a US$66 million (NZ$106 million) loan from China for tech giant Huawei to expand the country’s telecommunications network.

The Solomon Islands National Broadband Infrastructure project is being described as a “historical financial partnership”.

It aims to see up to 161 telecommunication towers constructed around the country over the next three years.

• READ MORE: Other Huawei reports

It is the first major loan the country has received from Beijing since the signing of its security pact with China earlier this year.

The stadium infrastructure for the 2023 Pacific Games being constructed by China in the capital Honiara is purportedly all being paid for by grants from Beijing, a gift to the country after Taiwan cut diplomatic ties with Honiara in 2019.

The work is set to be funded through a 20-year concessional loan from the state-linked Bank of China.

The government hoped local telecom company contracts could be finalised by the end of this year so the project could get underway.

A hoped-for completion ahead of the Pacific Games in November 2023 would allow people who were unable to travel to Honiara to enjoy the games’ coverage via the internet, the government said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

A report published in August found Burundian networks using technology from Chinese company Huawei to block Iwacu and other news sites. The report was funded and published by PrivacyCo, the parent company of privacy research and advice website Top10VPN.com. Co-authors Valentin Weber and Vasilis Ververis, PhD candidates at the University of Oxford and Humboldt University of Berlin respectively, told CPJ in a recent video call about their research tracking Huawei equipment known as middleboxes to internet networks in 72 countries, 18 of which were using the devices to block news or other websites. (Weber has since joined the German Council on Foreign Relations as a cyber research fellow.)

In Cuba, the report found the sole state-controlled internet service provider ETECSA using Huawei technology to block independent news website Cubanet, among others; authorities in Cuba have subjected Cubanet and its journalists to frequent restrictions. Readers can bypass blocks using virtual private networks (VPN), but many news outlets must shift their work to other sites or social media. In Egypt, a number of outlets have gone out of business after being blocked.   

Middlebox devices can examine the packets of data that facilitate browsing and communication using a process called deep packet inspection. DPI has benign, even essential functions, like making connections faster or caching content for future access, but it can also be used to manipulate or filter information, the authors said. In the wrong hands, a middlebox could divert visitors to a rogue website designed to steal passwords or install malware, for example.

Such intrusions are hard to detect, but the 18 countries in the report acknowledge blocking – notifying users via their browsers that the content they are trying to access is restricted – making censorship a starting point for researchers to assess whether countries are using middleboxes to undermine human rights, according to Weber and Ververis.  

Glenn Schloss and Rob Manfredo of Huawei’s U.S. corporate communications team acknowledged CPJ’s request for an interview when the report was initially published, but did not subsequently respond to emailed questions.  

The interview with Weber and Ververis has been edited for length and clarity.

You describe Huawei’s middleboxes performing “online behavior management” – where does that term come from?

Weber: It comes from Huawei marketing material relating to a specific middlebox, the ASG5000 series. We found it in a Chinese language source, so it’s our translation, but I think it matches the capabilities well – it can detect traffic and act on it, managing the behavior of [internet] users in various contexts and venues.

Why are you concerned about the security implications of middleboxes on national networks?

Weber: Important traffic is flowing through these devices but the policies [for the data Huawei receives from them] sometimes weren’t clear – what happens to the data, or whether it can be transferred further. For different continents or territories, we found a database location – in Mexico for Latin America for example – but you wouldn’t know what happens once the data is transferred there. 

Ververis: An analogy for a consumer would be a cleaning robot that sends data to the vendor about the dimensions of your house. Hopefully it’s in good faith, but I would not be surprised if that data was being sold or analyzed [for other purposes].

Should individuals on a network be concerned that a middlebox could access private information, or passwords, for example?

Ververis: Usually you should not be worried when you’re visiting websites, especially websites that use some kind of encryption or secure layer [like HTTPS, which prevents others from reading or intercepting information exchanged between a reader and the websites that they visit]. We all know that you shouldn’t connect to open WiFi, [but instead] use a VPN or Tor [on untrusted networks], and [log in to accounts with] two-factor authentication.

But it’s difficult to protect against a strong adversary. Let’s say you’re a journalist on a network that you don’t trust. The network can gain a lot of information from your connectivity, and middleboxes can [be used to facilitate a cyberattack].

How did you detect that these middleboxes were being used to block websites?

Ververis: We use open data from the Open Observatory of Network Interference, which collects network measurements from volunteers all over the world. When you’re sending and receiving a request from a web server you get back some metadata, and we were able to find the specific Huawei tag added to these responses. That might reveal the device, the model, sometimes the version. The middlebox we found had already been found in 2017 OONI research on Cuba.

It’s only possible to do this research if the data is provided openly, the way OONI does. Other entities like Cloudflare and Google, or the transparency reports from social media companies, don’t help researchers and journalists find out what’s going on.

You found 18 countries blocking content with middleboxes, up from seven in an earlier study you did in 2019. What does that suggest?

Ververis: We have more data from OONI now than before, but censorship has [also] been increasing. It’s actually quite surprising that [so many countries] use the same device, so there may be more to unpack there – whether it’s cheap, or easy to deploy, we don’t know.

Is Huawei providing maintenance on these devices or facilitating how they are used?

Ververis: In general, infrastructure [used by internet service providers] should be maintained by the vendor. You usually pay for a license to keep using it [for a specified period].

Weber: The devices report back to the vendor, sending error notices and other information, so the manufacturer might be incentivized to act on that, for example to provide software updates. We also expect that Huawei is likely to provide keyword lists or broad categories for blocking to the customers.

Your report found websites in the news and media category were among those most subject to blocking – what do you take that to mean?

Ververis: News and political advocacy were among the higher categories, though in some countries we have much more data than in others. There are [also] other [blocking] methodologies. In Cuba, they still use the Huawei middlebox, but they’re also deploying something else. Either it doesn’t have a tag or it’s the same equipment that’s been changed, or, most probably, other devices.

The research is not conclusive, but our goal was to raise awareness. If one vendor and one device can do so much damage, what happens with the other dozens or even hundreds that are also out there?

Weber: We uncovered the tip of the iceberg. If there has been some political censorship in a country, even if it’s just a few websites, we can expect there to be more. 

Would you argue Huawei is more likely to facilitate censorship because of its origins in China, one of the most censored countries in the world?

Weber: Like all other companies, Huawei is profit driven, which means they will sell anywhere they can make money. We’ve seen that Blue Coat Systems, a company based in the U.S., was selling to regimes that were questionable. There are very few international regulations that would inhibit any of these companies [from] selling wherever there is an opportunity.  

[Editor’s note: Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab have reported products sold by Blue Coat Systems being used to censor and surveil internet traffic around the world in the past,  including in Syria in 2011, despite a U.S. trade embargo. The company – which has since been acquired and restructured, according to Forbes – told the Wall Street Journal that the technology had been transferred without its knowledge.]       

What is a company’s responsibility if it supplies a middlebox to a customer that uses it to censor news under local law?

Weber: There are best practices to engage customers abroad and do risk assessments. I haven’t seen much evidence that Huawei does this.

If you’re a manufacturer selling to law enforcement or government entities, you have to assess their human rights record. It’s too easy to say, “We don’t know how it’s going to be used.” We were able to find questionable use of the technology, a multi-million or multi-billion-dollar company should be able to as well.    

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Madeline Earp/CPJ Consultant Technology Editor.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Nathan Rich.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dongsheng News.

The seven-decade old Five Eyes — Canada, Britain, New Zealand, Australia and US — alliance has been central to Washington’s anti-China push. To counter China the component countries recently announced plans to coordinate the production of strategic goods and collectively denounced Beijing’s policy in Hong Kong. More significantly, they’ve sought to weaken the “Crown Jewel of China Inc.” Canada’s December 2018 arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was part of the alliance’s campaign to curtail the rise of the world’s largest 5G network provider. Five months before Meng’s arrest at the Vancouver airport, reported a Wall Street Journal story titled “At Gathering of Spy Chiefs, U.S., Allies Agreed to Contain Huawei,” Five Eyes officials agreed in Ottawa to contain the company’s global growth. Washington claimed that country’s first global technological powerhouse posed a security risk. But, driving the campaign was a bid to halt China’s ascendance in this critical industrial sector.

Of course, the US, Australia, New Zealand, UK and Canada intelligence agencies also worried about a firm less willing to follow their directives. In fact, the Five Eyes sought what they accused Huawei/China of. In September 2018 the intelligence alliance requested communication providers build “back doors” in their systems, allowing the Five Eyes espionage agencies access to communications. The Australian government actually published a statement, which was later removed, stating that “technical, legislative, coercive or other measures” should be considered to implement these “back doors”. The campaign to paint Huawei as a privacy violator was the racist pot calling the kettle black.

The Five Eyes partnership oozes of white supremacy. Settler colonialism and empire unite an alliance that excludes wealthier non-white nations (Japan and South Korea) or those with more English speakers (India and Nigeria). It’s not a coincidence that the only four countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the US) that originally voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2007 are part of the Five Eyes.

While claiming to be anti-racist, the Liberals promoted what John Price called “a race-based spy network”. Their 2017 defence policy Strong, Secure, Engaged noted, “building on our shared values and long history of operational cooperation, the Five-Eyes network of partners, including Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, is central to protecting Canada’s interests and contributes directly to operational success.” In a rare move, the next year prime minister Justin Trudeau revealed a meeting with his Five Eyes counterparts. After the April 2018 meeting in London, Trudeau labelled the 2,000-employee Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada’s main contributor to the Five Eyes arrangement, “an extraordinary institution.” Alongside praise, the government expanded CSE’s powers and funding.

Last week Five Eyes defence ministers held two days of video meetings. Despite unprecedented public opposition to racism and significant attention focused on the hostage conflict with China, there’s been little criticism of the Five Eyes and its actions.

It’s time Canadians debate whether they want to be part of an alliance of settler colonial states’ intelligence agencies promoting conflict with China.

Overcoming structural racism should not be limited to what goes on inside Canada. We must confront racism wherever it is found, including in our international alliances.

This article was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2020 at 7:32pm and is filed under Canada, China, Espionage/”Intelligence”, Imperialism, Racism.