THE GREAT BIG CHINA THREAD

[zugzwang]

3 hours ago, Dyson Fury said:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1886757/eu-china-economy-wind-turbine-subsidies

More evidence of China's long-term mercantilist policy.  Flood the West with cheap manufactured goods and technology, produced with coal-fired energy and near-slave labour.  Sold at a loss if necessary.  Until Western industry is forced out of the market.  Then the real face of Chinese industry and trade will be revealed.

 

It's done with industrial robotics not slave labour. It's increasingly produced with green energy not coal. Starting with Thatcher and Reagan western govts hollowed out their own economies for ideological reasons i.e. the free market junk economics of Chicago U. You were told at the time that it wouldn't work, and it hasn't. Those jobs are never coming back.

 

 

[Lord D'arcy Pew]

15 hours ago, Dyson Fury said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/china-flooding-britain-fake-stamps-economic-warfare/

https://archive.ph/TBjzF

 

 

This needs the 11th Commandment, "Thou shalt not get away with it" .

 

Edited April 11 by Lord D'arcy Pew

[Dyson Fury]

12 hours ago, shlomo said:

They could brick all the cars but then if the rest of the world saw this people would stop buying Chinese 

I think China has shut programs in place for UK/US communications but like a good gambler is not going to use them until it feels it is under threat or as part of a coordinated attack like Covid 

Quote

But why would business-minded car makers risk destroying their brands by potentially allowing them to be used for sabotage? No foreign customer would ever trust a Chinese-made product again.

The answer is simple. The Chinese Communist Party enjoys absolute control over its subjects, at home and abroad. If it deems a cyber-attack necessary for geopolitical purposes, then that attack will happen, regardless of any transient commercial cost.

the scenario in the article:

Quote

 China is blockading Taiwan and Britain is poised to join the United States in rallying to the beleaguered island democracy's defence - a move that could presage World War III.

And then comes a brutally blunt message: every one of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese-made electric cars on UK roads stops dead....

...The economic and human cost is colossal. Our decision-makers, and those in other countries, all too readily draw the conclusion that this is no time for a military entanglement in a faraway land.

The bullies of Beijing have just won a decisive early battle in the struggle for global domination.

 

[Saving For a Space Ship]

12 hours ago, zugzwang said:

 

It's done with industrial robotics not slave labour. 

Some of it is robots, A lot would be be reshored to the west if it was all robots. A lot of slave and very low income labour with no safety net still exists.

It is estimated China has polluted 20% + of its farm land & done massive damage to the health of its popualtion with air pollution etc, thee is no free lunch  

1 hour ago, Dyson Fury said:

the scenario in the article:

 

Indeed, if Chinese co's will recruit their own militias, a cyber attack such as bricking China made cars abroad would be very likely imo

Preparing for war, social unrest or a new pandemic? Chinese companies are raising militias like it’s the 1970s https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/21/business/china-corporate-militias-resurgence-int-hnk/index.html 

 

[shlomo]

57 minutes ago, Saving For a Space Ship said:

 

Preparing for war, social unrest or a new pandemic? Chinese companies are raising militias like it’s the 1970s https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/21/business/china-corporate-militias-resurgence-int-hnk/index.html 

 

Ukraine has changed the calculus Hi-tech without actual boots on the ground does not work 

I can see China becoming like the neocons but on speed 

[Dyson Fury]

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/diplomatic-row-fake-stamps-china-denies-wrongdoing/

Quote

Beijing ordered to crack down on factories ‘brazenly’ producing counterfeit postage

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/china-insidious-threat-not-even-stamps-are-safe/

Quote

China is an insidious threat – not even our stamps are safe

Beijing’s challenge to our economy, security and liberty requires a fundamental re-think

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is a malign actor intent on destabilising the West...

[Brendan110_0]

6 hours ago, Saving For a Space Ship said:

Some of it is robots, A lot would be be reshored to the west if it was all robots. A lot of slave and very low income labour with no safety net still exists.

Actually, to stop suicides from overworking people they install netting. 

[shlomo]

35 minutes ago, Dyson Fury said:

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/diplomatic-row-fake-stamps-china-denies-wrongdoing/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/china-insidious-threat-not-even-stamps-are-safe/

China and Russia will unite against most of the rest of the world

[Saving For a Space Ship]

2 hours ago, Brendan110_0 said:

Actually, to stop suicides from overworking people they install netting. 

I meant safety net of unemployment benefit 

 

 YouTubers Paid To Spread Chinese Propaganda (Cyrus Janssen, Barrett, Jason Lightfoot)  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsXzC7mTUXk

Edited April 11 by Saving For a Space Ship

[Dyson Fury]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1888105/uk-warned-dumping-ground-products-slaves

Quote

UK warned it's becoming 'dumping ground' for products made by slaves

EXCLUSIVE: Foreign Affairs committee chairman Alicia Kearns says Britain's transition to green energy must not come 'off the back of slavery and genocide'.

Britain is in danger of becoming a “dumping ground” for products made by modern day “slaves”, the Government will be warned this week.

Foreign Affairs committee chairman Alicia Kearns will demand action to ensure China’s Uyghur population is not exploited in the production of solar panels used in the UK.

She says Britain’s transition to green energy must not come “off the back of slavery and genocide”.

There is international alarm at reports that more than 100,000 members of Muslim minorities are subject to forced labour in China and concern at allegations adults are put work in the production of polysilicon for solar panels.

 

[shlomo]

@zugzwang

A research team in China has created a step-by-step guide that allows anyone with a low-cost artificial intelligence chip to boost the performance of hypersonic weapons.

To accomplish the task, the researchers installed a Nvidia Jetson TX2i GPU computer module – which can be purchased online – into an air-breathing hypersonic aircraft capable of speeds exceeding Mach 7.

Tests have suggested that this particular module can process computational fluid dynamics models with unprecedented efficiency, meaning calculations that previously took seconds to complete could now be done in just 25 milliseconds – four times faster than the blink of an eye.

The module’s response speed made it ideal for “real-time optimisation of the fuel supply system, fault diagnosis, and fault-tolerant control in scramjet engines”, according to a joint project team from Beijing Power Machinery Research Institute and Dalian University of Technology. Their peer-reviewed paper was published on March 13 in the Chinese academic journal Propulsion Technology.

Headquartered in the United States, Nvidia is the world’s largest supplier of AI chips. Nvidia began selling the TX2i for industrial applications about six years ago. The module’s peak single-precision performance is 1.26 TFlops, about one-fiftieth of the capability of the company’s most powerful AI chip, the H100.

 

The H100, however, costs tens of thousands of US dollars and is in short supply. The TX2i, on the other hand, can be obtained for a few hundred dollars, is not subject to US export controls and is widely available online.

When contacted by the South China Morning Post on April 12, Nvidia said it had no comment on the matter.

The project team, led by Professor Sun Ximing, said in their paper that the TX2i module in the scramjet engine control system not only boosted the range and stability of hypersonic vehicles, but also significantly reduced their research and development costs.

 

This was not the first time that Chinese scientists have used US chips in hypersonic weapon research, according to their paper. Previous studies used Intel CPUs and Nvidia’s high-end graphics cards to simulate complex high-speed flow fields.

 

“High-performance graphics cards possess excellent computational capabilities but require supporting equipment such as a hosting platform, power supply and radiator.

“They have disadvantages such as high power consumption, heavy weight and large size, which do not meet the demands of lightweight and small-sized embedded controllers in the aerospace field,” Sun’s team wrote in their paper.

Because of the sequential nature of hypersonic flow field simulations, where one event must occur before another can be calculated, industry experts generally believe that such computational tasks cannot be accomplished using lower-end AI chips adept at performing simple parallel computations.

To solve this problem, Sun’s team introduced a novel CPU plus GPU architecture, which detailed how to tackle sequential parallel computing problems by ensuring the two different chip types worked well together.

The “step-by-step” guide provided in the paper provides detailed formulas and addresses potential engineering challenges, including limiting simulation grid size, memory management, code optimisation, and specific compilation instruction schemes.

 

For better universality, the engine controller’s interface and communication protocol adhere to international standards.

However, the engine is only one component of the entire weapon platform.

“To apply [the AI chip] to hypersonic vehicles, further work is needed in inlet modelling, shock wave correction, and data modelling,” the team said in the paper.

Some important parameters involved in these tasks usually need to be obtained in extensive wind tunnel testing and actual flights.

Still, the likelihood of the TX2i being used for Chinese hypersonic missiles is low. China’s domestic chip manufacturers can provide chips to the country’s military that perform as well as, or better, than the TX2i, with minimal concerns over supply chain reliability and safety.

It remains unclear why the researchers selected the Nvidia chip for their experiment, and the authors could not be reached for comment.

It is possible that the intention was to prove the feasibility of using an inexpensive AI chip for hypersonic weapons, regardless where it is made. However, such weapons can operate with different types of chips.

[zugzwang]

12 hours ago, shlomo said:

@zugzwang

A research team in China has created a step-by-step guide that allows anyone with a low-cost artificial intelligence chip to boost the performance of hypersonic weapons.

To accomplish the task, the researchers installed a Nvidia Jetson TX2i GPU computer module – which can be purchased online – into an air-breathing hypersonic aircraft capable of speeds exceeding Mach 7.

Tests have suggested that this particular module can process computational fluid dynamics models with unprecedented efficiency, meaning calculations that previously took seconds to complete could now be done in just 25 milliseconds – four times faster than the blink of an eye.

The module’s response speed made it ideal for “real-time optimisation of the fuel supply system, fault diagnosis, and fault-tolerant control in scramjet engines”, according to a joint project team from Beijing Power Machinery Research Institute and Dalian University of Technology. Their peer-reviewed paper was published on March 13 in the Chinese academic journal Propulsion Technology.

Headquartered in the United States, Nvidia is the world’s largest supplier of AI chips. Nvidia began selling the TX2i for industrial applications about six years ago. The module’s peak single-precision performance is 1.26 TFlops, about one-fiftieth of the capability of the company’s most powerful AI chip, the H100.

 

The H100, however, costs tens of thousands of US dollars and is in short supply. The TX2i, on the other hand, can be obtained for a few hundred dollars, is not subject to US export controls and is widely available online.

When contacted by the South China Morning Post on April 12, Nvidia said it had no comment on the matter.

The project team, led by Professor Sun Ximing, said in their paper that the TX2i module in the scramjet engine control system not only boosted the range and stability of hypersonic vehicles, but also significantly reduced their research and development costs.

 

This was not the first time that Chinese scientists have used US chips in hypersonic weapon research, according to their paper. Previous studies used Intel CPUs and Nvidia’s high-end graphics cards to simulate complex high-speed flow fields.

 

“High-performance graphics cards possess excellent computational capabilities but require supporting equipment such as a hosting platform, power supply and radiator.

“They have disadvantages such as high power consumption, heavy weight and large size, which do not meet the demands of lightweight and small-sized embedded controllers in the aerospace field,” Sun’s team wrote in their paper.

Because of the sequential nature of hypersonic flow field simulations, where one event must occur before another can be calculated, industry experts generally believe that such computational tasks cannot be accomplished using lower-end AI chips adept at performing simple parallel computations.

To solve this problem, Sun’s team introduced a novel CPU plus GPU architecture, which detailed how to tackle sequential parallel computing problems by ensuring the two different chip types worked well together.

The “step-by-step” guide provided in the paper provides detailed formulas and addresses potential engineering challenges, including limiting simulation grid size, memory management, code optimisation, and specific compilation instruction schemes.

 

For better universality, the engine controller’s interface and communication protocol adhere to international standards.

However, the engine is only one component of the entire weapon platform.

“To apply [the AI chip] to hypersonic vehicles, further work is needed in inlet modelling, shock wave correction, and data modelling,” the team said in the paper.

Some important parameters involved in these tasks usually need to be obtained in extensive wind tunnel testing and actual flights.

Still, the likelihood of the TX2i being used for Chinese hypersonic missiles is low. China’s domestic chip manufacturers can provide chips to the country’s military that perform as well as, or better, than the TX2i, with minimal concerns over supply chain reliability and safety.

It remains unclear why the researchers selected the Nvidia chip for their experiment, and the authors could not be reached for comment.

It is possible that the intention was to prove the feasibility of using an inexpensive AI chip for hypersonic weapons, regardless where it is made. However, such weapons can operate with different types of chips.

Interesting, thanks. 

In related news, having banned Micron from selling its memory chips to China Genocide Joe has now been obliged to compensate the company with more than $6 billion in federal grants. 😁

 

[shlomo]

1 minute ago, zugzwang said:

Interesting, thanks. 

In related news, having banned Micron from selling its memory chips to China Genocide Joe has now been obliged to compensate the company with more than $6 billion in federal grants. 😁

 

I have heard on the grapevine that Huawei is about to start building a silicon chip factory in Saudi 

[frederico]

5 minutes ago, shlomo said:

I have heard on the grapevine that Huawei is about to start building a silicon chip factory in Saudi 

What grapevine is that? The one that the lord sent you.

China survives on cheap labour, no welfare state , hardly any human rights, cheap energy and controlling resources around the world.

China or India or Korea or anywhere else with a cheap labour force and zero welfare state will export to us until we have a cheap labour force and zero welfare state.

 We will probably never have cheap energy because green innit.

Just look back to  the ‘industrial revolution’ to see how that pans out.

[shlomo]

2 hours ago, frederico said:

What grapevine is that? The one that the lord sent you.

China survives on cheap labour, no welfare state , hardly any human rights, cheap energy and controlling resources around the world.

China or India or Korea or anywhere else with a cheap labour force and zero welfare state will export to us until we have a cheap labour force and zero welfare state.

 We will probably never have cheap energy because green innit.

Just look back to  the ‘industrial revolution’ to see how that pans out.

The Huawei grapevine, HR is recruiting 

[zugzwang]

33 minutes ago, shlomo said:

The Huawei grapevine, HR is recruiting 

 

For sure. And at home. The chip centre they're now building in Shanghai is simply off the scale.

 

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/Huawei-building-vast-chip-equipment-R-D-center-in-Shanghai

Huawei building vast chip equipment R&D center in Shanghai

China tech company spending billions, snapping up talent in battle against U.S. crackdown

TAIPEI -- Huawei Technologies is building a massive semiconductor equipment research and development center in Shanghai as the Chinese tech titan continues to beef up its chip supply chain to counter a U.S. crackdown.

The center's mission includes building lithography machines, vital equipment for producing cutting-edge chips. Washington's export controls have sharply reduced Huawei's access to this equipment, whose production is dominated by just three companies: ASML of the Netherlands and Japan's Nikon and Canon. 

To staff the new center, Huawei is offering salary packages worth up to twice as much as local chipmakers, industry executives and sources briefed on the matter told Nikkei Asia. The company has already hired numerous engineers who have worked with top global chip tool builders like Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA and ASML, they said, adding that chip industry veterans with more than 15 years of experience at leading chipmakers like TSMC, Intel and Micron are also among recent and potential hires.

Washington's tighter export controls over the past few years have also impacted the job market in China, including by making it more difficult for Chinese citizens to work for foreign chip companies in the country. This has left more top chip talent available for Huawei and other local companies to choose from.

But while Huawei's compensation package is generous, its working culture can be challenging, according to chip industry managers.

"Working with them is brutal. It's not 996 -- meaning working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. ... It will literally be 007 -- from midnight to midnight, seven days a week. No days off at all," one Chinese chip engineer told Nikkei Asia. "The contract will be for three years, [but] the majority of people can't survive till renewal."

Semiconductor equipment, like chips themselves, have been caught in the crosshairs of U.S. export controls. Washington has lobbied allies Japan and the Netherlands to implement similar restrictions on the export of advanced chip tools to limit China's access to them.

These restrictions have spurred many Chinese chipmakers to seek domestic alternatives wherever possible. Naura, China's leading supplier of semiconductor equipment, has seen its revenue more than quadruple since 2018 and is expected to report another record year in 2023.

Huawei, too, has responded to the U.S. crackdown by aggressively beefing up its domestic capabilities.

Its new R&D center is located in the Qingpu district of west Shanghai, sources briefed on the matter said, on a spacious campus that also houses a major chip development center and the new headquarters of HiSilicon Technologies, Huawei's chip design unit. There are also research centers for wireless technologies and smartphones on the premises.

Total investment for the the entire R&D base will come to about 12 billion yuan ($1.66 billion), according to the Shanghai government, which listed it as one of the city's top projects for 2024.

The campus covers about 224 football fields in area and is almost twice as big as the company's renowned Ox Horn Campus, a European village-style site in the Chinese city of Dongguan. Like Ox Horn, the Shanghai campus will include trains for commuting between buildings in the campus. When completed, it will be able to accommodate more than 35,000 high-tech workers, according to the People's Government of Qingpu District of Shanghai Municipality.

[shlomo]

57 minutes ago, zugzwang said:

 

For sure. And at home. The chip centre they're now building in Shanghai is simply off the scale.

 

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/Huawei-building-vast-chip-equipment-R-D-center-in-Shanghai

Huawei building vast chip equipment R&D center in Shanghai

China tech company spending billions, snapping up talent in battle against U.S. crackdown

TAIPEI -- Huawei Technologies is building a massive semiconductor equipment research and development center in Shanghai as the Chinese tech titan continues to beef up its chip supply chain to counter a U.S. crackdown.

The center's mission includes building lithography machines, vital equipment for producing cutting-edge chips. Washington's export controls have sharply reduced Huawei's access to this equipment, whose production is dominated by just three companies: ASML of the Netherlands and Japan's Nikon and Canon. 

To staff the new center, Huawei is offering salary packages worth up to twice as much as local chipmakers, industry executives and sources briefed on the matter told Nikkei Asia. The company has already hired numerous engineers who have worked with top global chip tool builders like Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA and ASML, they said, adding that chip industry veterans with more than 15 years of experience at leading chipmakers like TSMC, Intel and Micron are also among recent and potential hires.

Washington's tighter export controls over the past few years have also impacted the job market in China, including by making it more difficult for Chinese citizens to work for foreign chip companies in the country. This has left more top chip talent available for Huawei and other local companies to choose from.

But while Huawei's compensation package is generous, its working culture can be challenging, according to chip industry managers.

"Working with them is brutal. It's not 996 -- meaning working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. ... It will literally be 007 -- from midnight to midnight, seven days a week. No days off at all," one Chinese chip engineer told Nikkei Asia. "The contract will be for three years, [but] the majority of people can't survive till renewal."

Semiconductor equipment, like chips themselves, have been caught in the crosshairs of U.S. export controls. Washington has lobbied allies Japan and the Netherlands to implement similar restrictions on the export of advanced chip tools to limit China's access to them.

These restrictions have spurred many Chinese chipmakers to seek domestic alternatives wherever possible. Naura, China's leading supplier of semiconductor equipment, has seen its revenue more than quadruple since 2018 and is expected to report another record year in 2023.

Huawei, too, has responded to the U.S. crackdown by aggressively beefing up its domestic capabilities.

Its new R&D center is located in the Qingpu district of west Shanghai, sources briefed on the matter said, on a spacious campus that also houses a major chip development center and the new headquarters of HiSilicon Technologies, Huawei's chip design unit. There are also research centers for wireless technologies and smartphones on the premises.

Total investment for the the entire R&D base will come to about 12 billion yuan ($1.66 billion), according to the Shanghai government, which listed it as one of the city's top projects for 2024.

The campus covers about 224 football fields in area and is almost twice as big as the company's renowned Ox Horn Campus, a European village-style site in the Chinese city of Dongguan. Like Ox Horn, the Shanghai campus will include trains for commuting between buildings in the campus. When completed, it will be able to accommodate more than 35,000 high-tech workers, according to the People's Government of Qingpu District of Shanghai Municipality.

I did hear that US companies export £75b a year of chips to China, I guess that trade will soon end 

[shlomo]

U.S. semiconductor export sanctions could be backfiring: China's output of legacy semiconductor chips grew by a whopping 40% in the first quarter of 2024, according to a report from SCMP. The massive surge in production suggests China could become the global leader in legacy chip production.

 

A big reason for the surge: There are no trade restrictions on 'mature chips,' or chips that utilize 28nm or older process technology. The U.S. government purposefully left these chips out of its sanctions to ensure supply chain resistance; these older chips are used extensively in a range of important devices, such as cars and basic electronics (e.g. toasters, phones, and medical equipment), and disrupting the supply chain could cause global issues. Also, the U.S. government determined that these chips do not pose a threat to national security (at least, not in the way newer chips do). 

 

As a result, China's national semiconductor output of legacy chips reached an all-time high, with 36.2 billion units produced in March alone. Reports claim that China's output over the past three months is almost three times what it produced in Q1 2019, which was when China started implementing its plan to bring chip production back in-house. 

Thanks to U.S. sanctions, most new Chinese investments have focused on mature semiconductors rather than bleeding-edge semiconductor nodes. Heavy state-wide backing has also assisted and is believed to be the main proponent driving China's huge production gains — to the point where China is overproducing chips.

 

At this rate, China is headed toward global dominance of legacy chip production, according to reports. China's mature-process production capacity is expected to reach 39% of global market share by 2027 — up from 31% last year.

 

This trend could continue beyond 2027 if the U.S. continues to enforce its current regulations. China has had no choice but to produce chips using older process technologies, as it has no mainstream method of competing with companies such as Intel and TSMC on bleeding-edge process nodes. China is desperate to become self-sufficient, but it has no way of obtaining the proper lithography tools needed to build cutting-edge microchip processors.

Ultimately, China still relies heavily on chip imports (of the chips it can still receive, that is). In fact, reports reveal that China's semiconductor imports have grown by 12.7% in Q1 2024, so it's not doing the best job at pursuing self-sufficiency ... yet. 

[zugzwang]

8 hours ago, shlomo said:

U.S. semiconductor export sanctions could be backfiring: China's output of legacy semiconductor chips grew by a whopping 40% in the first quarter of 2024, according to a report from SCMP. The massive surge in production suggests China could become the global leader in legacy chip production.

 

A big reason for the surge: There are no trade restrictions on 'mature chips,' or chips that utilize 28nm or older process technology. The U.S. government purposefully left these chips out of its sanctions to ensure supply chain resistance; these older chips are used extensively in a range of important devices, such as cars and basic electronics (e.g. toasters, phones, and medical equipment), and disrupting the supply chain could cause global issues. Also, the U.S. government determined that these chips do not pose a threat to national security (at least, not in the way newer chips do). 

 

As a result, China's national semiconductor output of legacy chips reached an all-time high, with 36.2 billion units produced in March alone. Reports claim that China's output over the past three months is almost three times what it produced in Q1 2019, which was when China started implementing its plan to bring chip production back in-house. 

Thanks to U.S. sanctions, most new Chinese investments have focused on mature semiconductors rather than bleeding-edge semiconductor nodes. Heavy state-wide backing has also assisted and is believed to be the main proponent driving China's huge production gains — to the point where China is overproducing chips.

 

At this rate, China is headed toward global dominance of legacy chip production, according to reports. China's mature-process production capacity is expected to reach 39% of global market share by 2027 — up from 31% last year.

 

This trend could continue beyond 2027 if the U.S. continues to enforce its current regulations. China has had no choice but to produce chips using older process technologies, as it has no mainstream method of competing with companies such as Intel and TSMC on bleeding-edge process nodes. China is desperate to become self-sufficient, but it has no way of obtaining the proper lithography tools needed to build cutting-edge microchip processors.

Ultimately, China still relies heavily on chip imports (of the chips it can still receive, that is). In fact, reports reveal that China's semiconductor imports have grown by 12.7% in Q1 2024, so it's not doing the best job at pursuing self-sufficiency ... yet. 

 

Cue the AI hype train coming off the rails.

 

Nvidia down another 10% today.

SMCI down 13% today. 40% from peak.

[Will!]

Measuring What Matters: Why GDP Is Not Geopolitical Destiny

A good essay on China's power.

[shlomo]

Brest is a rainy industrial port, pounded by the Atlantic, that is home to the French navy and its submarine nuclear deterrent. It has also witnessed a remarkable number of weddings in recent years between female Chinese students and the seamen who work at its naval bases.

“How should we evaluate such relationships?” a concerned parliamentarian asked the head of France’s nuclear submarine forces at a closed-door hearing at the National Assembly in Paris.

“Honeypots”, where an agent seeks to romantically entangle their target, are a staple of racy spy thrillers. They are also a marker of how China’s espionage operations have expanded in Europe, culminating last week in a spate of highly public arrests.

Three German citizens were detained on suspicion of trying to sell sensitive military technology to China. Police also swooped on a staffer for a German far-right member of the European parliament who was accused of working covertly for China. British prosecutors, meanwhile, charged two men with allegedly spying for Beijing, one of whom was a parliamentary researcher.

While Admiral Morio de l’Isle reportedly warned French lawmakers about the Brest weddings in 2019, current and former intelligence officers said the latest incidents were more typical of China’s espionage efforts in Europe.

In particular, they were examples, as one official put it, of Beijing’s “exquisite seeding” of operations that patiently seek to cultivate political influence and shape European attitudes towards China. This has become increasingly important to Beijing as European policymakers come to see China, and its strategic relationship with Russia, as a security threat, and not simply a source of economic opportunity.

 

“The Chinese are doing more [espionage], and western intelligence are getting better at spotting it,” said Nigel Inkster, a former director of operations at the Secret Intelligence Service, Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, otherwise known as MI6.

“In contrast to the US, China’s intelligence agencies have [so far] been less active in Europe. But as European attitudes have begun to harden [towards China], we can expect to see more . . . influence operations.”

 

China’s foreign ministry last week dismissed the latest round of spying charges — which broke soon after German chancellor Olaf Scholz returned from a three-day trip to China, Germany’s biggest trade partner — as “hype”. With President Xi Jinping due to visit Europe next month, Beijing is more sensitive than usual about espionage allegations.

“The intention . . . is very obvious, which is to discredit and suppress China and undermine the atmosphere of China-EU co-operation,” the ministry’s spokesperson said.

But in a rallying call to the country’s spy agencies, Chen Yixin, minister of state security, on Monday said China must organise a “powerful offensive”. Its agencies must carry out special “counter espionage operations” to “resolutely dig out” and “eliminate traitors”, Chen said in Study Times, the Communist Party school’s official journal.

Western intelligence agencies and security analysts said Chinese spying activities, particularly those led by its civilian espionage body, the Ministry of State Security, were real. More worryingly, there are signs they may intersect with Russian networks that have penetrated Europe’s political extremes.

“China and Russia have common goals that they jointly promote when this serves their interests. Both are seeking to undermine the position of western countries,” Finland’s Security and Intelligence Service warned late last year.

 

The scale of China’s spying operations in Europe is potentially vast. In 2019, the EU’s foreign service reportedly warned about 250 known Chinese spies were in Brussels, compared with 200 Russian agents.

More recently, the British parliament’s intelligence and security committee warned late last year that the size of China’s state intelligence apparatus, “almost certainly the largest in the world, with hundreds of thousands of civil intelligence officers”, had created “a challenge for our agencies to cover”.

“China’s human intelligence collection is prolific,” it said.

By contrast, Britain’s MI6 and its domestic counterpart M15 have a combined staff of about 9,000, according to the most recent data available.

In addition, Beijing runs sprawling cyber operations, which cross international boundaries. Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, in January warned China could deploy hackers that outnumbered his own agency’s cyber-personnel by “at least 50 to one”.

 

Intelligence officials and analysts said one reason for Europe’s increased focus on Chinese espionage was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This had expanded the aperture of agencies, which had shifted focus from state-led threats to counterterrorism since 2001. It has also led to more cross-agency co-operation.

“The shock of the invasion has led to national partners, who don’t always co-operate, actually co-operating,” said one western official. “Combining data creates better data sets and allows more connections to be made.”

China’s economic power and geopolitical weight mean European policies towards Beijing will remain more nuanced than towards Russia.

“There is always a debate about whether China represents a security threat or an economic opportunity,” Lomas said. “That debate will continue so long as China remains an economic powerhouse that plays by the international rules of the game.”

Yet that debate may be shifting. Late last year, Italy formally broke with China’s signature Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. Last week, Brussels raided the offices of Nuctech, a Chinese security equipment supplier, under new anti-foreign subsidy powers.

At the same time, as European intelligence agencies work together more, Chinese and Russian espionage networks may be tacitly doing the same.

Adam Ni, publisher of newsletter China Neican, said Europe’s far-right groups might provide fertile ground. While many European groups would not work for foreign spies, some may willingly co-operate with Moscow and Beijing.

“They want to emulate some aspects of the model of Russia and China,” Ni said. “There is a tendency to . . . agree with them on an increasing range of topics.”

Filip Jirouš, an intelligence analyst at the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation think-tank, agreed and pointed to specific figures such as Ladislav Zemánek, a far-right Czech scholar and politician who is listed as a contributor to the Kremlin-sponsored Valdai Club and is subject to sanctions in Ukraine.

Zemánek writes for the Budapest-based China-CEE Institute, which is run by the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of European Studies. The director of the institute and head of China-CEE is Feng Zhongping, who is a former senior figure at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a think-tank that western scholars believe is an MSS front.

As China and Russia, Jirouš wrote recently, “continue to align, individual co-optees will more likely work for both authoritarian states. And as alt-right movements become more mainstream — and mainstream political parties become more alt-right — the risk of PRC [People’s Republic of China] intelligence influencing European politics through Russia-cultivated networks will continue to rise.”

 

 

[shlomo]

The US has revoked licenses allowing Huawei Technologies Co. to buy semiconductors from Qualcomm Inc. and Intel Corp., according to people familiar with the matter, further tightening export restrictions against the Chinese telecom equipment maker.

Withdrawal of the licenses affects US sales of chips for use in Huawei phones and laptops, according to the people, who discussed the move on condition of anonymity. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul confirmed the administration’s decision in an interview Tuesday. He said the move is key to preventing China from developing advanced AI.

“It’s blocking any chips sold to Huawei,” said McCaul, a Texas Republican who was briefed about the license decisions for Intel and Qualcomm. “Those are two companies we’ve always worried about being a little too close to China.”

The US Commerce Department confirmed the withdrawal of “certain licenses” for exports to Huawei, but declined to offer specifics. “We continuously assess how our controls can best protect our national security and foreign policy interests,” the agency said in a statement Tuesday.

 

Qualcomm shares slipped 0.9% Tuesday to $180.15 following a Financial Times report earlier in the day on the license revocation. Intel’s stock was little changed, at $30.68.

Qualcomm recently said that its business with Huawei is already limited and will soon shrink to nothing. It has been allowed to supply the Chinese company with chips that provide older 4G network connections. It’s prohibited from selling ones that allow 5G access.

Huawei doesn’t rank in Qualcomm’s list of top 10 customers, according to Bloomberg supply chain analysis. It also doesn’t feature in Intel’s list of top customers.

The decision marks the latest US move to curtail China’s access to semiconductor technology. Officials are also considering sanctions against six Chinese firms that they suspect could supply chips to Huawei, which has been on a US trade restrictions list since 2019.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-07/us-revokes-intel-qualcomm-licenses-to-sell-chips-to-huawei

[Huggy]

'Keep your phone on 24 hours a day': Chinese PR boss apologises after backlash

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz4x5nnpe80o

I see the Chinese tech industry, who I believe have said they're free and fair and not related in any way to the CCP, are taking a leaf out of the western playbook. So much so, I thought this could have happily sat in another thread

Quote

"I can make it impossible for you to find a job in this industry with just a short essay,"

[shlomo]

LONDON/NEW YORK -- China's representative in the United Kingdom on Monday slammed the arrest of three individuals, including a staffer at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, on allegations of spying for the Hong Kong intelligence service.

The Chinese Embassy in the U.K. "firmly rejects and strongly condemns" the accusations against the Hong Kong government.

"We urge the U.K. side to immediately correct its wrongdoing, stop spreading the so-call(ed) 'China threat theory,' end all forms of political manipulation against China, and ensure all the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens in the U.K.," the embassy said in a statement on its website.

The embassy warned the move could damage China-U.K. relations. The Hong Kong government echoed the Chinese authority's statement and demanded Britain protect the rights and interests of the office manager of the HKETO, the city's representative body that promotes economic and trade interests.

Earlier on Monday, the three individuals -- Wai Chi Leung, Matthew Trickett and Yuen Chung Biu -- appeared before Westminster Magistrates' Court on charges of assisting a foreign intelligence service and of foreign interference. They are due back in court on May 24.

In a statement on Monday, the Metropolitan Police stated "the foreign intelligence service to which the above charges relate is that of Hong Kong." The main targets are thought to be the local diaspora, according to court documents seen by Nikkei Asia.

Yuen, 63, is a former retired Hong Kong police officer who now is the office manager at London's HKETO and is a dual British and Chinese national.