Your irregular China round-up

[navkat: navkat of...navkat!]

So, the US is trying to :thunder, lightning: SOW DISCORD?

I wish I were at my lappy and not on this silly phone. I got a sudden image of your face p'shopped onto the body of a caped, viking mage with thunder and lightening going off all around you. Someone WOMP this, please.

[LMNO, PhD (life continues)]

Make sure I have a big package, while you're at it.

[re-jack]

To be fair, a lot of it is still a third-world country.

But then again, any large country is going to have massive variation.  Depending on where you looked, and at what demographic, you could make the case for China, Russia, India, the USA and Brazil all being third world countries, or up and coming regional/global powers.  I mean, Russia does have Krokodil....but on the other hand, it's creating the first fifth-gen fighter outside of the USA.  And so on and so forth.  The Soviets back in the day used to use pictures of inner-city American life and treatment of blacks as proof of US political and social inferiority.

Also, an ally of Bo Xilai has been detained

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9180677/Chinese-billionaire-linked-to-Bo-Xilai-detained.html

This is the only charge leveled, as far as I can find:

Xu Ming, 41, is thought to have paid for Mr Bo's son, Bo Guagua, to study at Harrow, Oxford and now Harvard, according to a report

I must be off my meds, because how is that a crime?

[Cain]

Scholarships given by foundations financed via a business ally to the son of a powerful political leader?  Sounds at the very least unethical to me.

Or a very good way of processing bribes.

[LMNO, PhD (life continues)]

These point you make.  They seem so... prescient.

[Cain]

It is a fairly common way of making a bribe look legit.  I know an Italian journalist used to get people he had material on buy one of his paintings, for a massively above-market value price.  This could be a more subtle version of that.

On the other hand, given the number of fake and plaigarized PhDs involving Chinese businessmen and politicians children nowadays, to think this is only an isolated incident would be extremely naive.

[Cain]

This paragraph, in Wang Jisai's paper, makes sense.

American involvement in the “color revolutions” in Central Asian states and some other former Soviet states, as well as the American attitude toward the Arab Spring in 2011, have further solidified the notion that the United States would sabotage the rule of the CPC if it saw similar developments and opportunities in China.

One of Romney's foreign policy advisors helpfully said, not so long ago...

Stripped of diplomatic niceties, the ultimate aim of the American strategy [toward China] is to hasten a revolution, albeit a peaceful one, that will sweep away China’s one-party authoritarian state and leave a liberal democracy in its place.

So yeah.

[hirley0]

My A2 Lincoln ? NOt very Long

[El Twid]

We need to abolish this one party dictatorship and replace it with a two party dictatorship!

[navkat: navkat of...navkat!]

That'll throw em off the scent for a couple centuries, at least!

[Cain]

http://offbeatchina.com/cultural-revolution-3-0-firmly-support-ccp-central-committee-becomes-new-internet-meme

“Yalin Home Fabrics Flagship Store. We firmly support CCP Central Committee’s decision regarding Bo Xilai. Spend 400 in our store and you can 100 back. To satisfy the people!”

[Cain]

"Anonymous China" quite possibly has some kind of US government sanction

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/ND14Ad01.html

The high-profile intrusion into the e-mail server of China Electronics Import & Export Corporation by "Hardcore Charlie" may mark the coming out party for America's own band of patriotic hackers.

Documents obtained through the hack were posted on file-sharing sites. For the most part, they are a bewildering grab bag of seemingly inconsequential documents. One folder contains regulations concerning the privatization of public universities in Vietnam; another reveals the monthly salary of an English teacher working for Ivanhoe Copper in Myanmar.

Then there are the somewhat more disturbing documents: pages and pages of spreadsheets and US military Acrobat files detailing the recent movements of the quaintly-named "jingle trucks" operated by local companies delivering supplies to the network of US facilities inside Afghanistan. The documents are not marked secret, and the US government has apparently still not taken steps to remove them from the file-sharing services a week after they were posted.

Beyond these apocalyptic economic and military scenarios, we might also descend to the personal and political and point out that Google, a favorite target of Chinese cyber-attacks, is Obama's friend, indispensable ally, brain trust and source of personnel in the high-tech sector.

Connect the dots, and it is clear that the Obama administration, in its usual meticulous way, is escalating the rhetoric and preparing the public and the behind-the-scenes groundwork for major pushback against China in the cyber-arena.

Beyond moves in the legal arena such as the aggressive prosecution of the DuPont industrial espionage case - alleging that China orchestrated a program to steal DuPont's titanium dioxide technology - it is interesting to speculate what other moves the Obama administration might make.

The United States is undoubtedly already doing its best to penetrate China's government, military and scientific networks.

How could the US escalate, especially in the industrial and commercial sphere, where the US mindset is that everything worthwhile the Chinese have was stolen from us, so what's worth stealing back?

Maybe the answer is cyber-harassment, turning a blind eye - or actively egging on - non-government hackers to embarrass, inconvenience, humiliate and perhaps even destabilize the Chinese regime.

Consider this April 4 report by Emil Prodalinski at ZDNet on an explosion in hacking against China since a Twitter account was launched on March 30:

   

The hacktivist group Anonymous now has a Chinese branch. An Anonymous China Twitter account was created late last month ... Boy have they been busy. Hundreds of Chinese government, company, and other general websites have been hacked and defaced in the span of a few days. A couple have also had their administrator accounts, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses posted publicly. On the hacked sites, the group even posted tips for how to circumvent the Great Firewall of China.

    A long Pastebin post lists all the websites that were targeted. It contains 327 websites in total, but an updated list, also on Pastebin, brings that number to 485. Most of these websites are operational once again, but many have been defaced a second time after they were brought back. Not all of them were hacked and defaced; some were treated with more viciousness than others. [8]

Prodalinski subsequently wrote that the attacks had not abated and China, in an interesting case of public relations jiu jitsu, was using the campaign as evidence that it was one of the world's many victims of cyber-misbehavior (and, by implication, not a major perpetrator):

    While Anonymous was not specifically mentioned, it's obvious what China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs was referring to during a briefing on Thursday, given the events during the last week. "First of all, China's Internet is open to all, users enjoy total freedom online. China has gained 500 million netizens and 300 million bloggers in a very short period of time, which shows the attraction and openness of China's Internet," spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement, according to CNN. "Secondly, the Chinese government manages the Internet according to law and regulations. Thirdly, certain reports prove again that China is a victim of Internet hacker attacks." [9]

It will be interesting to see how sympathetic the Obama administration will be if the Chinese government begins squealing to it about this outbreak of anti-PRC hacking.

Further reading of the article will reveal that "Hardcore Charlie" has said he is a friend of the leader of Lulzsec.  You know, the one who turned traitor and ran to the protection of the FBI?

[Cain]

Lots of news coming in that Neil Heywood was killed by cyanide drops....source seems to be an American based, Chinese language news site, so I cannot speak as to how credible they are just yet.

[hirley0]

14:45pdT My coverage of the TV news coverage of Sea of Japan  ?  North China Sea.
in other words how long did it take for Cs to travel from 1
to the other?1 how much was there THERE?2 & WHEN WAS THE 1st TV
documentary of this event broadcast?3 WhiTch Country?idrift frag 
:45 North Korea attempted to orbit a satellite with an Unha (or "Galaxy", identified as "Unha 3") rocket from its new Sohae Satellite Launching Station near Tongchang-ri in the northwest corner of the country on April 12, 2012, REPORT OBE2  Me4 {12:45:00 bT
:08 I DID NOT SEE: Rocket anywhere 11 ?TRUE only ocket Mine page2
yeah? i 4gotNOw i 'member Answer 4 How Long

My A2 Lincoln ? NOt very Long

? i guess this is A ^ READ UP ^ SERIAL

[Cain]

Heywood has been confirmed as not an intelligence agent on a British government payroll.

Those with half a brain will of course note this is not the same as him not being a British covert agent of some kind. 

[M. Nigel Salt]

"Anonymous China" quite possibly has some kind of US government sanction

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/ND14Ad01.html

The high-profile intrusion into the e-mail server of China Electronics Import & Export Corporation by "Hardcore Charlie" may mark the coming out party for America's own band of patriotic hackers.

Documents obtained through the hack were posted on file-sharing sites. For the most part, they are a bewildering grab bag of seemingly inconsequential documents. One folder contains regulations concerning the privatization of public universities in Vietnam; another reveals the monthly salary of an English teacher working for Ivanhoe Copper in Myanmar.

Then there are the somewhat more disturbing documents: pages and pages of spreadsheets and US military Acrobat files detailing the recent movements of the quaintly-named "jingle trucks" operated by local companies delivering supplies to the network of US facilities inside Afghanistan. The documents are not marked secret, and the US government has apparently still not taken steps to remove them from the file-sharing services a week after they were posted.

Beyond these apocalyptic economic and military scenarios, we might also descend to the personal and political and point out that Google, a favorite target of Chinese cyber-attacks, is Obama's friend, indispensable ally, brain trust and source of personnel in the high-tech sector.

Connect the dots, and it is clear that the Obama administration, in its usual meticulous way, is escalating the rhetoric and preparing the public and the behind-the-scenes groundwork for major pushback against China in the cyber-arena.

Beyond moves in the legal arena such as the aggressive prosecution of the DuPont industrial espionage case - alleging that China orchestrated a program to steal DuPont's titanium dioxide technology - it is interesting to speculate what other moves the Obama administration might make.

The United States is undoubtedly already doing its best to penetrate China's government, military and scientific networks.

How could the US escalate, especially in the industrial and commercial sphere, where the US mindset is that everything worthwhile the Chinese have was stolen from us, so what's worth stealing back?

Maybe the answer is cyber-harassment, turning a blind eye - or actively egging on - non-government hackers to embarrass, inconvenience, humiliate and perhaps even destabilize the Chinese regime.

Consider this April 4 report by Emil Prodalinski at ZDNet on an explosion in hacking against China since a Twitter account was launched on March 30:

   

The hacktivist group Anonymous now has a Chinese branch. An Anonymous China Twitter account was created late last month ... Boy have they been busy. Hundreds of Chinese government, company, and other general websites have been hacked and defaced in the span of a few days. A couple have also had their administrator accounts, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses posted publicly. On the hacked sites, the group even posted tips for how to circumvent the Great Firewall of China.

    A long Pastebin post lists all the websites that were targeted. It contains 327 websites in total, but an updated list, also on Pastebin, brings that number to 485. Most of these websites are operational once again, but many have been defaced a second time after they were brought back. Not all of them were hacked and defaced; some were treated with more viciousness than others. [8]

Prodalinski subsequently wrote that the attacks had not abated and China, in an interesting case of public relations jiu jitsu, was using the campaign as evidence that it was one of the world's many victims of cyber-misbehavior (and, by implication, not a major perpetrator):

    While Anonymous was not specifically mentioned, it's obvious what China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs was referring to during a briefing on Thursday, given the events during the last week. "First of all, China's Internet is open to all, users enjoy total freedom online. China has gained 500 million netizens and 300 million bloggers in a very short period of time, which shows the attraction and openness of China's Internet," spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement, according to CNN. "Secondly, the Chinese government manages the Internet according to law and regulations. Thirdly, certain reports prove again that China is a victim of Internet hacker attacks." [9]

It will be interesting to see how sympathetic the Obama administration will be if the Chinese government begins squealing to it about this outbreak of anti-PRC hacking.

Further reading of the article will reveal that "Hardcore Charlie" has said he is a friend of the leader of Lulzsec.  You know, the one who turned traitor and ran to the protection of the FBI?

Whoaaaaa

That is fucked up. Unsurprising, but fucked up.