HRIC Weekly Brief
December 5, 2023
Top News 头条
Last Wednesday, HRIC Executive Director Zhou Fengsuo spoke on the steps of the U.S. Capitol at a demonstration to commemorate the White Paper Movement. “It’s an honor to stay on this narrow path,” Zhou said. “I believe, with our efforts, China will be free.” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, also gave his remarks: “Chinese people want, and deserve, freedom.”
On Thursday, a U.S. Congressional hearing discussed China’s “discourse power,” and the ways in which Beijing is leveraging its market to control the behavior of companies outside China. Freedom House’s Yaqiu Wang pointed to mainstream Hollywood, which is careful to avoid including China-critical content in its movies, as an example.
Meanwhile, in a statement, the United States’ Congressional-Executive Commission on China strongly condemned the violence against China human rights advocates by pro-CCP counter-protesters during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in San Francisco, and called on the San Francisco Police Department to take the reports seriously. According to AP News: “The Congressional-Executive Commission said the group Human Rights in China alleged that counter-protesters may have ties to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco. An email seeking comment from the consulate was not immediately answered Wednesday.”
Law & Policy 法律与政策
NPC Calendar: December 2023: The National People’s Congress Standing Committee calendar for December includes reviewing an amendment to the Criminal Law that focuses on bribery.
All Apps and Mini Programs to be Registered by End of March 2024: This article breaks down the steps that companies are required to take to register their apps in China by the March deadline. The new law is another method of censoring apps that the government finds problematic.
Hong Kong 47: Landmark national security trial comes to a close, with ‘no guarantees’ of when verdict is expected: Most defendants in Hong Kong’s largest trial under the National Security Law have been detained since March 2021, but while their trial is now over, their imprisonment drags on with no date for a verdict announced yet.
Cyber Security & Digital Rights 网络安全与数字权利
Meta takes down 4,792 Chinese accounts posing as journalists and lawyers to manipulate public debate: Meta says it has closed nearly 4,800 accounts that were created by someone in China to increase partisanship in the lead up to the U.S. election. The fake accounts posed as lawyers, journalists, and American citizens to appear authentic and reliable, but posted polarizing or propagandistic content.
Related: US Lawmakers Say Chinese Disinformation Operations a Growing Threat.
Hackers spent 2+ years looting secrets of chipmaker NXP before being detected: In 2017, a China-linked hacker organization accessed the computer network of Netherlands-based chipmaker NXP and maintained the intrusion for over two years before detection. NXP provides security elements that underpin tech such as Apple Pay.
The Great Google Account Purge starts tomorrow for inactive users: Beginning December 1, Google plans to start deleting accounts that have been inactive for more than two years. This may have a negative impact on activists behind the Great Firewall, who may have infrequent access to their Google accounts.
Diaspora Community & Transnational Repression 海外社群和跨国镇压
China lures hundreds of Taiwan politicians with cheap trips before election: New investigations show that Beijing has sponsored trips to China for as many as 400 Taiwanese politicians over the last few months in the leadup to Taiwan’s election, mostly local leaders and village heads. Taiwan officials call the trips electoral interference.
China influencing leading British universities, documentary claims: A new Channel 4 documentary asserts that China is influencing UK universities, including a claim that the University of Nottingham closed its School of Contemporary Chinese Studies, due to pressure from China.
HRIC Attends Frontlines of Freedom Conference at Johns Hopkins: HRIC attended the 2023 Frontlines of Freedom Conference, hosted by the Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI) at Johns Hopkins University. This year's conference centered on addressing and combating transnational repression targeting communities and organizers from China and other authoritarian countries.
Human Rights Defenders & Civil Society 人权捍卫者与公民社会
Former Hong Kong activist Agnes Chow flees territory for Canada: Hong Kong activist and former Demosisto leader Agnes Chow has fled to Canada, and says she will never be able to return to Hong Kong. The authorities gave her passport back to her only in exchange for writing a “letter of repentance” and going on a propaganda tour of the Mainland, escorted by national security officers.
Related: HRIC Executive Director Zhou Fengsuo described Agnes Chow’s experience being forced to write a repentance letter and tour the Mainland as typical of the CCP’s methods for psychological control. "The CCP uses all kinds of hard and soft tactics, coercion and inducement, to get people to cooperate with them.”
Former 'white paper' protester describes torture in police custody: Huang Guoan, a software programmer from Guangzhou who participated in last year’s White Paper protests, says he was tortured by Chinese police and forced to confess to writing an article that criticized the Chinese government. Huang has fled to New Zealand, where he is seeking asylum.
亚夏尔：第二次消失的成都“白纸青年” [Yashire: Chengdu’s “white paper youth” disappears for the second time]: Yashire, a young Uyghur musician and rap artist, was detained for a second time after the White Paper Protests on August 9, 2023. His friends fear he will be harshly punished by the authorities, for the crime of being a Uyghur who expresses himself in his native tongue. Recently, Yashire’s lawyer was able to visit him in detention in Xinjiang, and had told his friends that he was in poor condition.
South China Morning Post says ‘missing’ reporter is safe after press group raises alarm; threatens legal action: Minnie Chan, award-winning Hong Kong journalist for the South China Morning Post, went no-contact in Beijing while reporting on the Xiangshan Forum, causing international alarm. Her employer, the South China Morning Post, claims Chan is safe and has been resolving a personal matter, and threatened the Hong Kong Free Press with legal action over their investigation of her disappearance. Chan’s friends, however, say they fear she may be detained by the Chinese authorities.
Related: Al Jazeera says Chan is actually the second SCMP reporter to disappear in Mainland China in the last year.
Hong Kong national security police charge man over wearing alleged ‘seditious’ shirt at airport: A man was arrested at Hong Kong International Airport and charged with sedition for wearing a shirt with pro-Hong Kong slogans such as “Hong Kong independence is the only way out.” He appeared in court last week and was denied bail.
Members of Hong Kong pro-democracy party League of Social Democrats face 26 charges over fundraising, banners: In Hong Kong, ten members of the League of Social Democrats (LSD) have been charged with 26 counts of fundraising and displaying banners without a permit, for doing so on three occasions in spring 2023. LSD is one of Hong Kong’s last standing democratic groups.
China’s Reach & Internal Control 中国: 内控与外扩
Chinese prisoner’s ID card apparently found in lining of Regatta coat: An ID card that appeared to belong to a Chinese prisoner has been found by a UK woman in the lining of her new Regatta coat. Experts say that the individual who put it there likely sought to raise awareness of the fact that the coat was made by forced prison labor, which is ubiquitous under the Chinese legal code. The company, however, claims the ID was from a paid employee.
Leta Hong Fincher on Advances and Setbacks in Women's Rights Over the Past Decade: The author of “Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China” (2014) says that while young people in China are more likely to push back against propaganda around gender roles than they were in the past, the official lines haven’t changed, and pressure from the government to get married and have children young has only increased.
International Responses 国际反应
‘We cannot let China get these chips’: Commerce Secretary Raimondo says more funding needed for AI export controls: Speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said that she planned to crack down on American companies that tried to get around rules on exporting chips to China, and mentioned chipmaker Nvidia by name. “Protecting our national security matters more than short-term revenue.”
Singing from the CCP’s songsheet: The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has published an investigative report revealing how the CCP cultivates "foreign internet celebrities" to become part of the Chinese government's strategy to strengthen internal and external propaganda.