US, Allies very concerned about China

[Satchel 6,938]

Never head off the Five Eyes before watching the segment on 60 Minutes. The threat China poses is so real that our Intel allies agreed to go public with us:

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/five-eyes-china-warning-60-minutes-video-2023-10-22/

[mchookem 16,338]

i saw that. it was quite disturbing. 

[tx 3 putt 77,157]

Tech nerds are easy targets for female Chinese spies 

[David Dennison 18,938]

Shenanigans or military threat?

[chainsaw 9,872]

The only example they gave was some unspecified theft of wind turbine technology, and the loss of some unspecified "competitive advantage."

I looked a bit into the story, which someone summarized here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Superconductor

Quote

In early 2011, a Serbian employee of American Superconductor sold the company's proprietary wind turbine control software to the company's largest customer, China based Sinovel. Sinovel promptly ended its payments to American Superconductor, causing the company to lose 84% of its market cap. The employee was bribed for only $20,500, and later pleaded guilty to bribery charges

So....something that happened way back in Obama's first term, and this is the best example they can come up with?

[mchookem 16,338]

10 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Shenanigans or military threat?

espionage and IP theft shenanigans. 

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20,453]

China has reverse homelessness. Its 1.4 billion people can't fill all of the empty apartments/houses.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/even-chinas-14-bln-population-cant-fill-all-its-vacant-homes-former-official-2023-09-23/

 

[Smax 3,800]

I haven't seen the episode in the op yet but anyone who has been half way paying attention should know the threat they pose. They've stolen top secret information about our reactors, subs and stealth technology. Their Gen 5 fighters basically appeared out of nowhere when most western expects have said it should have taken them 20+ years to develop and all the sudden they have them.

I cant even begin to imagine how much corporate theft china has done to the west

[Macanudo 12,997]

9 hours ago, mchookem said:

espionage and IP theft shenanigans. 

But are their shenanigans cheeky and fun?

[Gengs1 2,583]

7 hours ago, Smax said:

I haven't seen the episode in the op yet but anyone who has been half way paying attention should know the threat they pose. They've stolen top secret information about our reactors, subs and stealth technology. Their Gen 5 fighters basically appeared out of nowhere when most western expects have said it should have taken them 20+ years to develop and all the sudden they have them.

I cant even begin to imagine how much corporate theft china has done to the west

We also forget how much we have freely given them just to export our manufacturing so ppl could get rich. This is more on us, we wanted their slave labor to increase profits and were willing to give them everything to get it.
I know we want to shit on shit on China as we should but let’s not forget all of the outsourcing we did for profits and giving away IPs for free, this is more on us then them.

Our major companies, the first thing they look into is getting someone foreign if they can save on labor costs, the ppl aren’t vetted and we take on risks vs hiring americas

Edited October 23, 2023 by Gengs1

[Incredulity 11,678]

56 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

But are their shenanigans cheeky and fun?

nope, cruel and tragic.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

Neoliberal leopards eating face phenomenon going on here. 

[Gengs1 2,583]

10 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Neoliberal leopards eating face phenomenon going on here. 

In about 10 years, we will see articles like this in regards to our IT systems and India. Blaming them for theft etc when we just shipping those jobs there  

[troph 24,879]

19 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Neoliberal leopards eating face phenomenon going on here. 

Trump and Biden had / have taken significant steps to stop it. IMO we cannot do enough. China should be sidelined with Russia and Iran. CFIUS and other regulatory bodies need to put a hard stop to M&A deals and other business transactions with Chinese companies. Stop acting like China will respect the rule of law, they won't.

Edited October 23, 2023 by troph

[crash_davis 23,114]

Funny that they talked about "professional networking sites", I routinely average 2 to 3 weekly LinkedIn connect requests from "Chinese women". I work in Data Analytics field in a manufacturing company. I had and have no doubt all the "women" are fake accounts. My suspicion was/is the Chinese government. I used to work in Telecom and know about how they stole Cisco IP, among other bullshit. I ignore all of the requests but they continue to reach out. 

So their strategy seems to be pray on dudes who would "friend" attractive women. I'm not sure what happens after the friend connect but I'm not bored enough to find out.

[Brisketexan 105,161]

1 hour ago, Gengs1 said:

We also forget how much we have freely given them just to export our manufacturing so ppl could get rich. This is more on us, we wanted their slave labor to increase profits and were willing to give them everything to get it.
I know we want to shit on shit on China as we should but let’s not forget all of the outsourcing we did for profits and giving away IPs for free, this is more on us then them.

Our major companies, the first thing they look into is getting someone foreign if they can save on labor costs, the ppl aren’t vetted and we take on risks vs hiring americas

 

Many of the people shouting the loudest about what a threat China is have also long supported a legal and trade regime that incentivized sending our manufacturing and IP to China in order to add to political donors' bottom line.  But "we need to solve a problem I happily helped create in exchange for donations" isn't the best campaign slogan, so they spin it other ways.

[crash_davis 23,114]

1 hour ago, Gengs1 said:

We also forget how much we have freely given them just to export our manufacturing so ppl could get rich. This is more on us, we wanted their slave labor to increase profits and were willing to give them everything to get it.
I know we want to shit on shit on China as we should but let’s not forget all of the outsourcing we did for profits and giving away IPs for free, this is more on us then them.

Our major companies, the first thing they look into is getting someone foreign if they can save on labor costs, the ppl aren’t vetted and we take on risks vs hiring americas

Huawei and other Chinese tech companies rise is a direct result of US companies giving away IP to China. The issue is that now the world is moving manufacturing away from China, China's economic survivability depends on what it can do to keep the IP technology coming. As long as there are lonely, greedy dudes, they'll continue to get trade secrets. As long as we continue to educate and hire Chinese nationals, it will be a risk.

[alincoln 2,381]

12 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

China has reverse homelessness. Its 1.4 billion people can't fill all of the empty apartments/houses.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/even-chinas-14-bln-population-cant-fill-all-its-vacant-homes-former-official-2023-09-23/

China's demographic death spiral is well underway.  

[Satchel 6,938]

It appears to be virtually impossible to stop the theft of our IP. If all China has to do is pay American research scientists to travel to China and hack in to their computers, they’ll do that all day long. It’s cheap, easy and effective.

[High Plains Drifter 11,050]

16 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

China has reverse homelessness. Its 1.4 billion people can't fill all of the empty apartments/houses.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/even-chinas-14-bln-population-cant-fill-all-its-vacant-homes-former-official-2023-09-23/

 

 

"How many vacant homes are there now? Each expert gives a very different number, with the most extreme believing the current number of vacant homes are enough for 3 billion people," said He Keng, 81, a former deputy head of the statistics bureau.

 

even if that number is half that, 1.5 billion, why in the hell would they build over twice as many home as are needed? That is not a death spiral, that is idiocy.

 

[chainsaw 9,872]

9 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

"How many vacant homes are there now? Each expert gives a very different number, with the most extreme believing the current number of vacant homes are enough for 3 billion people," said He Keng, 81, a former deputy head of the statistics bureau.

 

even if that number is half that, 1.5 billion, why in the hell would they build over twice as many home as are needed? That is not a death spiral, that is idiocy.

 

I'd rather have too many homes than too few.

[TwiceHorn 31,510]

32 minutes ago, Satchel said:

It appears to be virtually impossible to stop the theft of our IP. If all China has to do is pay American research scientists to travel to China and hack in to their computers, they’ll do that all day long. It’s cheap, easy and effective.

Well, I think a huge factor is sheer ignorance of the problem.  We went over there to make stuff and they swiped all our shit.

They sent students over and we didn't think anything of it and they swiped our shit.

Now that we're aware, I think we can stop some of the more obvious opportunities for them to swipe shit.  

[Pescado_Rojo 19,426]

5 hours ago, crash_davis said:

Funny that they talked about "professional networking sites", I routinely average 2 to 3 weekly LinkedIn connect requests from "Chinese women". I work in Data Analytics field in a manufacturing company. I had and have no doubt all the "women" are fake accounts. My suspicion was/is the Chinese government. I used to work in Telecom and know about how they stole Cisco IP, among other bullshit. I ignore all of the requests but they continue to reach out. 

So their strategy seems to be pray on dudes who would "friend" attractive women. I'm not sure what happens after the friend connect but I'm not bored enough to find out.

I work in tech and it's the same for me. Not only that, but I'm on a global team and we use WhatsApp to text back and forth. I get a bunch of random texts from "women" with attractive Asian avatars. Sometimes they play the wrong number game "Hey John, are we still on for 2:00 Thursday? I have the deliverable we discussed". Hoping you'll respond with a "Hey, I think you have the wrong number" or something so they can get you to engage. Sometimes it's just a "Hey, how are you". It could just be random catfishing, but it's weird that it's always Asian women, and only happens on my work account. 

[Pescado_Rojo 19,426]

34 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

"How many vacant homes are there now? Each expert gives a very different number, with the most extreme believing the current number of vacant homes are enough for 3 billion people," said He Keng, 81, a former deputy head of the statistics bureau.

 

even if that number is half that, 1.5 billion, why in the hell would they build over twice as many home as are needed? That is not a death spiral, that is idiocy.

 

Because if they can put people to work building shit and pay them a living wage, they aren't plotting the overthrow of the government. 

[956 Worldwide 34,730]

36 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

"How many vacant homes are there now? Each expert gives a very different number, with the most extreme believing the current number of vacant homes are enough for 3 billion people," said He Keng, 81, a former deputy head of the statistics bureau.

 

even if that number is half that, 1.5 billion, why in the hell would they build over twice as many home as are needed? That is not a death spiral, that is idiocy.

 

China’s longstanding economic policy has been biased to full employment. They haven’t fully abandoned the socialist mentality and dudes building houses no one needs are not making trouble elsewhere. 

[956 Worldwide 34,730]

5 hours ago, crash_davis said:

Huawei and other Chinese tech companies rise is a direct result of US companies giving away IP to China. The issue is that now the world is moving manufacturing away from China, China's economic survivability depends on what it can do to keep the IP technology coming. As long as there are lonely, greedy dudes, they'll continue to get trade secrets. As long as we continue to educate and hire Chinese nationals, it will be a risk.

The education piece is huge. There’s a lot of penetration in ways we don’t realize and it’s not just the crude “grad student in a lab” method. There are layers of PRC institutions and worldwide and in the United States, we have a big vulnerability in academia in not knowing who we sign agreements with and who is empowered to do so. Often it’s not even about stealing or hacking, a professor or lab head in “eat what you kill” mode will get grant funding to send research straight to a PRC MoD funded institute, never realizing it’s dual-use or true purpose.

PRC also actively works to shape the debate within academia about China and Taiwan itself. If you’re a Sinologist, and you get too public with criticism or support for the wrong thing— your career and ability to research in the PRC is over.  It’s sort of similar to what we see in Hollywood, we self-censor in ways that aren’t even visible. 

[Ghost of LL 15,539]

7 hours ago, Incredulity said:

nope, cruel and tragic.

So not really shenanigans at all?

[chainsaw 9,872]

1 hour ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

I work in tech and it's the same for me. Not only that, but I'm on a global team and we use WhatsApp to text back and forth. I get a bunch of random texts from "women" with attractive Asian avatars. Sometimes they play the wrong number game "Hey John, are we still on for 2:00 Thursday? I have the deliverable we discussed". Hoping you'll respond with a "Hey, I think you have the wrong number" or something so they can get you to engage. Sometimes it's just a "Hey, how are you". It could just be random catfishing, but it's weird that it's always Asian women, and only happens on my work account. 

that or they eventually try to talk about crypto

[Incredulity 11,678]

1 hour ago, Ghost of LL said:

So not really shenanigans at all?

Evil shenanigans.

[crash_davis 23,114]

16 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Evil shenanigans.

[ConferenceRoom 6,144]

2 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

So not really shenanigans at all?

I swear to God I’ll pistol whip the next guy who says shenanigans. 

[Brisketexan 105,161]

1 hour ago, chainsaw said:

that or they eventually try to talk about crypto

It always comes back to crypto, doesn't it?  The f'n snake oil of our time.

[pacman 7,359]

20 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

Tech nerds are easy targets for female Chinese spies 

No anal, no trade secrets!

[berlinerbaer 678]

20 hours ago, Smax said:

I haven't seen the episode in the op yet but anyone who has been half way paying attention should know the threat they pose. They've stolen top secret information about our reactors, subs and stealth technology. Their Gen 5 fighters basically appeared out of nowhere when most western expects have said it should have taken them 20+ years to develop and all the sudden they have them.

I cant even begin to imagine how much corporate theft china has done to the west

FWIW their gen 5 fighter more closely resembles the Russian Su-57 than any of our stuff.

 

6 hours ago, chainsaw said:

I'd rather have too many homes than too few.

Those homes aren't actually built to handle any long term occupancy. They exist because the construction and real estate industries are 30% of the Chinese economy and the people don't have any other options for stashing away their money. Whole 5 year-old subdivisions are falling apart.

[bolverk 29,694]

Speculators in Turkey kind of did that too.

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/burj-al-babas

 

 

[BamaATL 16,593]

1 hour ago, berlinerbaer said:

Those homes aren't actually built to handle any long term occupancy. They exist because the construction and real estate industries are 30% of the Chinese economy and the people don't have any other options for stashing away their money. Whole 5 year-old subdivisions are falling apart.

This is accurate, and it's sort of stranger than even that.  They started trading unfinished projects sort of like commodities, as if they are to be consumed rather than utilized.  So you have projects that even while under development or incomplete have been traded by private owners multiple times, with each owner pocketing a layer of inflated growth.  The problem is, of course, nothing inflates for forever, and with everyone doing it snow balled.  Additionally, many of these projects are never finished, and at the end of the day, someone is left holding the bag.  In this instance, because of massive over supply, its made all the worse because not only are these not real in terms of profits and finance, they have absolutely no prospect of ever being financial sound.  Which brings us back to the fact that it's crap to begin with, a la the 5 year old subdivisions; since everyone sort of knew all of the above, every thing built was crap because the developers knew the people the originally did the deal with were going to be long gone.

Which of course brings us back to the biggest danger, at least to me.  They are sitting on a time bomb, it's either already going off or will be shortly.  You have an authoritarian as the face of the country, and what happens when he gets desperate?  If suddenly he has 1.4 billion furious with him, he's going to go looking for distractions, and wherever that may lead us, I can promise you this, it ain't good.    

[tx 3 putt 77,157]

2 hours ago, berlinerbaer said:

FWIW their gen 5 fighter more closely resembles the Russian Su-57 than any of our stuff.

 

 

isn't the bulk of their military technology direct from russia ?  all that russia tech isn't showing much in ukraine

also, do the russian and chinese af's fly at night ?

[UpperWestside 6,171]

15 hours ago, troph said:

Trump and Biden had / have taken significant steps to stop it. IMO we cannot do enough. China should be sidelined with Russia and Iran. CFIUS and other regulatory bodies need to put a hard stop to M&A deals and other business transactions with Chinese companies. Stop acting like China will respect the rule of law, they won't.

They won’t and it is in large part because they know they can push past boundaries and nothing happens. Their ruling party has this grand idea that they are a nation of destiny that will one day be the preeminent superpower in the world. You cannot and should not put trust in anyone that thinks like that.

[UpperWestside 6,171]

6 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

It always comes back to crypto, doesn't it?  The f'n snake oil of our time.

I got some good laughs out of you calling out our crypto salesman in that thread. When GR wasn’t busy parroting Russian talking points he was trying to bill people on this website out of their actual money by getting them to purchase money that did not exist.

[ohchaucer 1,443]

Is any of this what’s going on with the Shen Yun weirdos all over NYC? Those folks are definitely engaged in shenani….

[chainsaw 9,872]

1 hour ago, ohchaucer said:

Is any of this what’s going on with the Shen Yun weirdos all over NYC? Those folks are definitely engaged in shenani….

Shen Yun is basically a recruiting tactic for a weird cult based in upstate NY (no, not Nexium) and their whole thing is about how China was awesome (and totally not impoverished) before Communism because Communism Bad.

[berlinerbaer 678]

Shen Yun is bankrolled by the Falun Gong, that pseudo-cult that took the mainland by storm back in the 90's, prompting a nasty crackdown by the CCP. Odd, because they learned all the same authoritarian tactics. They are not the good guys.

FG also finances the Epoch Times, one of the more fucked up and Trump-ball-gargling of right-wing rags.

[bolverk 29,694]

46 minutes ago, berlinerbaer said:

Shen Yun is bankrolled by the Falun Gong, that pseudo-cult that took the mainland by storm back in the 90's, prompting a nasty crackdown by the CCP. Odd, because they learned all the same authoritarian tactics. They are not the good guys.

FG also finances the Epoch Times, one of the more fucked up and Trump-ball-gargling of right-wing rags.

I suggest an auto-neg for anyone who quotes them on this board, which unfortunately happens on occasion, and it should put into question whether that poster is acting in good faith (but crazy or indoctrinated) or just plain stupid. Unfortunately, they have influence amongst both.

Funded through aggressive online and real-world marketing campaigns and big-money conservative donors, The Epoch Times now boasts to be the country’s fourth-largest newspaper by subscriber count. (Unlike most major newspapers, The Epoch Times isn't audited by the two major independent collectors of circulation data.) The nonprofit has amassed a fortune, growing its revenue by a staggering 685% in two years, to $122 million in 2021, according to the group’s most recent tax records.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/epoch-times-falun-gong-growth-rcna111373

 

 

[chainsaw 9,872]

21 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I suggest an auto-neg for anyone who quotes them on this board, which unfortunately happens on occasion, and it should put into question whether that poster is acting in good faith (but crazy or indoctrinated) or just plain stupid. Unfortunately, they have influence amongst both.

Funded through aggressive online and real-world marketing campaigns and big-money conservative donors, The Epoch Times now boasts to be the country’s fourth-largest newspaper by subscriber count. (Unlike most major newspapers, The Epoch Times isn't audited by the two major independent collectors of circulation data.) The nonprofit has amassed a fortune, growing its revenue by a staggering 685% in two years, to $122 million in 2021, according to the group’s most recent tax records.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/epoch-times-falun-gong-growth-rcna111373

 

 

That reminds me of annoying dork from all their youtube ads

[elfenix 34,329]

Quote

China's leadership has formally dismissed the country's defense minister, Li Shangfu, about two months after he disappeared from the public eye, Chinese state media reported on Tuesday.

also sacked, the foreign minister (mia since June). 

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/24/1208187978/china-removes-defense-minister-li-shangfu

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by elfenix

[956 Worldwide 34,730]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/30/chinas-age-of-malaise 

Quote

For years, economists have urged the government to stop relying on real-estate investment and bloated state-run companies, and to increase health and retirement benefits so that ordinary households consume more, spurring the private sector. But Xi, a Marxist-Leninist at his core, said last fall that state-owned enterprises would “get stronger, do better, and grow bigger.” Foreign investors are alarmed. In the second quarter of 2023, according to JPMorgan, direct investment from overseas fell to its lowest level in twenty-six years. Local governments, short of cash, have adopted a subtle extortion method that lawyers call “taxation by investigation.” A factory owner in Shanghai told me that Party officials used bank records to identify residents with liquid assets of at least thirty million yuan—about four million dollars—and then offered them a choice: hand over twenty per cent or “risk a full tax audit.”

Recently, the Party has signalled that the purge of the private sector is over, but many have grown wary. A former telecom executive cited an ancient expression—“shi, nong, gong, shang”—which describes a hierarchy of social classes: scholar-officials, farmers, craftsmen, and merchants. “For two thousand years, the merchants were the lowest,” he said. “What Xi is doing is just a reversion to the imperial Chinese mean.” The big winners, in the current era, are officials with deep personal ties to Xi; he has stocked the Politburo with trusted aides, and has cultivated the military by boosting investment and replacing top leaders with loyalists. The People’s Liberation Army, in the words of Deng Yuwen, a former Party editor who now lives in America, has become “Xi’s personal army.”

Among the unintended effects of Xi’s campaign against the private sector has been an awakening of political consciousness. For years, many of China’s entrepreneurs expressed ambivalence about the Party’s abuses of authority. China is flawed, the thinking went, but it was moving in the right direction. That mind-set of compromise is rarer now. “This reversal has already been going on for many years,” an investor who now lives abroad told me. “Of course, I miss China. But China has changed so much that it’s no longer the same country.”