HRIC Weekly Brief
July 31, 2024
Top News 头条
China’s revised state secrets law would bar any official with access to confidential information from going abroad without approval, while also giving police broader powers to conduct investigations into breaches and requiring private companies to take steps to protect state secrets. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, an op-ed on Article 23 by Johannes Chan, former dean of the University of Hong Kong’s law faculty, was condemned by the Hong Kong corrections department in a statement. Chu had analyzed a clause which would raise the threshold for the early release of national security convict wherein prisoners can typically trim a third off their sentence for good behavior.
In other news, the Olympics has begun and Chinese dissidents in exile have staged sporadic Olympic rights protests in Paris. Despite China's efforts to control media coverage at the Games, the activists managed to stage protests calling out the Chinese ambassador to France, Liu Shaye, for describing Taiwan's government as a "rebel regime." Overseas dissidents and activists still face the real possibility of surveillance and harassment, even on foreign soil.
Law & Policy 法律与政策
Management Measures for the National Online Identification Authentication Public Service (Draft for Comments): The measures will establish a national network identity authentication public service platform, issuing unified "Network IDs" and "Network Certificates" to facilitate public identity registration and verification in internet services. While this reduces the need for internet platforms to collect personal information, authorities would have discretion to collect and store such information.
China encourages some firms to tap foreign debt to boost real economy: China is encouraging “high-quality” companies to borrow mid- and long-term foreign debt in order to bolster the real economy.
Cyber Security & Digital Rights 网络安全与数字权利
US claims TikTok collected user views on issues like abortion, gun control: In response to TikTok’s ongoing appeal, the U.S. Justice Department filed a brief alleging that TikTok employees had used an internal web-suite system to send sensitive data on U.S. users, including information of users’ views on religion, abortion, and gun control, to Chinese servers that are accessible to ByteDance employees in China.
From Hero to Zero: Fake-Fueled Patriotic Marketing on Chinese Social Media Platforms: Sales of Chinese company Xiang Piao Piao increased dramatically due its anti-Japanese sentiment social media campaigns, only for netizens to realize that the post may have been faked to take advantage of consumers’ nationalism.
Oxfam Hong Kong investigates potential data breach following cyberattack: According to Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, an almost 50 per cent increase in data breach notifications had been recorded in 2023 compared to the previous year, following a string of breaches at schools, hospitals, and government departments, the latest hitting Oxfam and BMW.
New CCTV cameras in Hong Kong to be equipped with facial recognition technology, security chief says: The Hong Kong Secretary for Security announced that the region aims to install 2,000 CCTV cameras with AI technology by the end of next year, and then up to 2,500 more in each of the following years.
Diaspora Community & Transnational Repression 海外社群和跨国镇压
Exporting Repression: Attacks on Protesters During Xi Jinping’s Visit to San Francisco in November 2023: A joint report by Hong Kong Democracy Council and Students for a Free Tibet documents the acts of transnational repression carried out by CCP supporters against protesters during the visit to San Francisco in November 2023 of Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China.
Hong Kongers in UK 'lonely,' but most plan to stay for good: According to an integration survey by the campaign group Hongkongers in Britain, Hong Kongers recently settled in the U.K. under the British National Overseas visa scheme overall did not seem to be well-integrated into British society, while students and the unemployed reported the highest loneliness scores. Despite that, most surveyed do not intend to return to Hong Kong.
Related: Calls Intensify for UK to Broaden Visa Program for Hong Kong Citizens: Hong Kong Watch, a London-based rights group, is urging the British government to expand the British National Overseas (BNO) visa program for Hong Kongers fleeing political repression to include those born between 1979 and 1997, who are currently ineligible, and to lower university tuition fees for Hong Kong students.
Hong Konger with Canadian Permanent Residency successfully withdraws MPF savings from Manulife: Hong Kongers with or without BNO passports have reported being unable to access their Mandatory Provident Funds: freezing Hong Kongers’ savings is an act of transnational repression, intended to punish all those who have fled from the Hong Kong regime.
Human Rights Defenders & Civil Society 人权捍卫者与公民社会
Rampant Abuse, unexplained deaths fuel calls to abolish RSDL detention: Many suspicious deaths of people held in residential surveillance at a designated location pending trial recently, including that of a Beijing tech company manager in Inner Mongolia, has revived public debate about abolishing the system.
Tortured Chinese activist Cheng Yuan released from prison: Cheng Yuan, founder of Changsha Funeng, an NGO that campaigns for the rights of people living with HIV and other disabilities, remains under surveillance restrictions and is still separated from his family, despite his release from prison.
Rights advocates cite uptick in Uyghur refugee detentions in Turkey: More Uyghurs have been detained in recent weeks, according to detainees, lawyers and rights advocates, for reasons that extend beyond accusations related to terrorism.
Authorities in Xinjiang rearrest son of prominent Uyghur businessman: Abuzer Abdughapar had been re-arrested two days after he was released from “re-education” in March and days before his wedding, with no reasons given and his family had not been informed about his whereabouts. Chinese authorities have been rearresting Uyghur detainees who already served time in “re-education” camps or prisons under various pretexts, to eliminate who they deem as “threats to national security.”
Trial delay sparks calls for release of Hong Kong's Jimmy Lai: Sebastien Lai, the son of jailed pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai, has urged the British government to intervene after his father's national security trial faced another four-month delay, over growing concerns about Lai’s health in solitary confinement.
Related: Hong Kong court dismisses tycoon Jimmy Lai's bid to end trial. A panel of three national security judges dismissed a bid by Lai’s legal team to end his national security trial, on the basis that prosecutors appeared to have sufficient evidence to support all three charges against him.
Detained Hong Kong activist Owen Chow convicted over removing prison complaint form without approval: Pro-democracy activist Owen Chow has been found guilty of removing an unauthorized complaint form about corrections officers from prison. Chow’s defense counsel had argued that there was no legal basis for alleging Chow and his then-lawyer Phyllis Woo had flouted internal guidelines.
Hong Kong Christian Institute to disband, citing ‘social environment’: The Christian group, which supported the Umbrella Movement in 2014 and the anti-extradition unrest in 2019, wrote in its post that it was “constrained by the current social environment” and was hence “unable to operate in a way where it can freely carry out its mission.”
2 men jailed for 5 years over rioting at protest sparked by PolyU campus clashes in 2019: Poon Hiu-tung and Pun Dhan Bahadur’s sentences are the latest in PolyU-related campus clash cases still going through the courts after almost five years.
China’s Reach & Internal Control 中国: 内控与外扩
Xi’s Ten-Year Bid to Remake China’s Media: China Media Project explains Xi Jinping’s 10-year plan on revamping China’s media and consolidate control over communication, focusing on “media convergence,” that is merging traditional and digital media, in addition to going global to push propaganda and utilizing generative AI.
Lawmakers from 6 countries say Beijing is pressuring them not to attend conference in Taiwan: Politicians in Bolivia, Colombia, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and one Asian country that declined to be named said they were receiving texts, calls and urgent requests for meetings from Chinese diplomats that would prevent them from travelling to Taipei to attend a China-focused conference.
How to Push China’s Narrative Abroad: In line with China’s concerted efforts to downplay Western media in Global South countries, alluding to the unfair bias of Western media outlets, Guayanese media have signed formal agreements to cooperate with a propaganda office-run international communication center in Shandong.
King’s College London donor linked to Communist Party of China: King’s College London’s Lau China Institute, the largest China research facility in the UK, has declined Freedom of Information requests about its funds related to China, resulting in calls for transparency and giving rise to concerns about Beijing’s influence on academic institutions.
Leaked plan reveals bid to get Chinese officials to have more kids: A leaked internal draft document from Quanzhou’s municipal health authority proposing measures to encourage Chinese officials and government employees to have three children to address declining birth rates have raised concerns that the Chinese authorities are coercing people into having more children.
Xinjiang authorities intensify reporting requirements for Uyghur visitors: In at least two areas of Xinjiang, the requirement that Uyghurs report guests in their homes to police within ten minutes to two hours of their arrival has been ramped up in recent months to increase surveillance of Uyghurs.
Buddhist Monastery destroyed to make way for Chinese hydropower project: A 19th-century Tibetan monastery was completely razed to the ground, an example of Chinese authorities’ disregard for Tibetan culture, religion and environment, especially when it comes to prioritizing Chinese government infrastructure projects.
Singapore media regime whack-a-mole with Chinese misinformation (Part I): In a bid to win over overseas Chinese communities, Beijing has been leveraging select Singapore government media outlets to cultivate a better image of China abroad, while the Singaporean government steps up its vigilance against Chinese propaganda and misinformation simultaneously.
International Responses 国际反应
Wong announces new digital cable centre to limit China’s influence in Indo-Pacific: Australia is establishing a new “cable connectivity and resilience centre” designed to boost connectivity for Pacific nations, following a renewed push by the country and the U.S. to strategically freeze China, which had been eyeing projects in the region, out of the Pacific.