📜 A really gentle and diplomatic (re-)introduction to CCP's United Front Work Department (UFWD) by the BBC. Still, better than nothing.

Media coverage of UFWD and its work esp. in foreign countries can be seen as a useful barometer of media's appeasement level wrt. PRC China / CCP; the treatment of Tibet (even mentioning its very name which the CCP is trying to eradicate) is another.

To understand all this, one first needs to understand something about human nature. Trusting people and societies tend to, by default, consider other people and societies having some level of trustworthiness as well.

Likewise societies were people can't generally trust one another adopt that modus operandi themselves and don't easily believe anyone to be trustworthy. Global corruption indices act as a rough guideline here.

Now, the CCP is an extremely and inherently #paranoid organization that sees enemies everywhere. They are particularly paranoid about existential threats and after seizing power in China in 1949 they psyched and propagandized themselves as the only and irreplaceable organization (read: dictatorship) that can not only keep the old imperial state forcefully together but also to restore the "Middle Kingdom" to its rightful historical (mythical) position as the greatest power under heaven.

When the Chinese communists realized that actual communism (under dictatorship) was fucking useless after Mao Zedong's decades of nominal communist "internationalism" (where the empire's "ethnic peoples" had nominal rights or even nominal "autonomy"! Repression, massacres and famines were simply written out of history), the CCP was in desperate need for a "raison d'etre" or a reason to justify its very existence.

Enter national-socialism, a form of ethno-centric nationalism under dictatorship. Party cadres who could access foreign books learnt how a relatively small Nazi-Germany managed to mobilize the entire state to defeat the gigantic and communist Soviet Union with relative ease...!

(Of course what really happened was that after December 1941 (Pearl Harbour) when the USA was pulled into WWII it was only America's absolutely mindblowing amount of "Lend-Lease" military aid to Soviets (look it up!) that turned the tide against the nazis... but the points about "effectiveness" of nazism vs communism couldn't be ignored.)

CCP cadres also learned how the German nazis had used "legalism" devised by Carl Schmitt to justify *everything* the State would do as "legal". Absolutely everything. What's not to love! Ethnic supremacism? Check!

After 1989 (Tiananmen) and then the 1991 crumbling of the Soviet-russia empire the new war front that emerged was based on acquitition of technology and money as essential ingredients. No longer a hermetically sealed dictatorship, the CCP would pull in foreign industrialists and financiers to engage and entangle in "win-win" projects while starting to send its loyalty-checked subjects overseas by the million to study and bring about technological revolution in the PRC.

This is where the UFWD begins to emerge as *the* key department for the CCP. Its tentacles would not only keep the expatriate Chinese students (and increasingly businessmen; and they are invariably men) in line politically, but the UFWD would facilitate and focus their tasking and the transfer of data where they really wanted it. With increased foreign exposure came opportunities to influence and corrupt any and all useful foreign idiots in politics, science, business, finance...

With the newly re-adopted ethno-centrism ("Han chauvinism") another key target for UFWD was the large diaspora of ethnic Chinese emigre settlers in foreign countries. There are particularly large Chinese "communities" in most South-East Asian countries where, ironically, they are sometimes viewed similarly as the Jews ahd been at the other end of the continent; a society within society, depending on murky ancestral networks and controlling business and finance well beyond their numbers...

(NB. After playing friend and extracting all technology and science it could from Israel, CCP easily threw them under the Arab islamic bus because the latter are, for now, far more useful allies in CCP's wider war against democracy worldwide, an existential threat...)

The UFWD would effectively take over these old ethnic networks and harness them to serve business and industry of their "motherland" turned CCP Party-State.

This is just the mere rough outline of United Front's responsibilities, but it's not hard to see why CCP really considered it a "magic weapon".

⚠️ The best published research on this massive organization with global reach is done by #ASPI and #Merics.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c878evdp758o

#CCP #china #PRC #UnitedFront #UFWD #carlschmitt #nazism #BBC

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Um im Wettbewerb mit 🇨🇳 zu bestehen & erfolgreich kooperieren zu können, brauchen wir mehr #China-Kompetenz. Wir fördern das Projekt #ChinaTechObservatory von #MERICS, damit wir über 🇨🇳 Fortschritte in kritischen Technologien & die Folgen informiert sind.

https://merics.org/en/china-tech-observatory

☝️ 🤯 So essentially in the #EU, "we see the 🇨🇳☭ CCP assets manipulating public opinion in the European Union.... but have no mandate to do anything about it..." 😬

"Countries are *individually* unwilling to call out Chinese propaganda and disinformation campaigns..." 👀 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#CCP #china #winwin #propaganda #disinformation #ForeignForces #russia #MERICS #EuropeanUnion #democracy #natsec #foreignpolicy
@merics

Another news story by Tom's Hardware: ☭🇨🇳 Chinese hackers steal chip designs from major Dutch semiconductor company — perps lurked for over two years to steal NXP's chipmaking IP

Related: A leading European research group @merics focusing on the "PRC" — which recently had its staff *sanctioned* by the Chinese Communist Party 🤷🏻‍♂️ (i.e. really the PRC) — wrote a great report on CCP's cyberwarfare which unsurprisingly is on a massive scale.

https://infosec.exchange/@demi7en/111461981613415755

#NXP #MERICS #China #CCP #PLA #chimera #cybersecurity #infosec #espionage #natsec #Netherlands

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/chinese-hackers-steal-chip-designs-from-major-dutch-semiconductor-company

@Frederik_Borgesius

⬆️ Great @merics report: 📜 “Here to stay” – Chinese state-affiliated hacking for strategic goals

"🇨🇳 China is the most important source of cyber attacks in the world, 2000-2023"

「Key findings

☭ Chinese hacking poses a risk to Europe’s long-term prosperity. It is becoming more sophisticated and follows strategic goals of China’s government.

☭ China is a major source of cyberattacks against Europe. While not all Chinese threat actors have clear ties to China’s government, there is considerable evidence of links to it for many of them, suggesting some degree of state affiliation and sponsorship.

☭ China rearranged its hacking capabilities to make attribution more difficult and to increase the combat-readiness of the People’s Liberation Army. Institutional changes have created a more flexible and sophisticated state-affiliated hacking scene.

☭ Chinese threat actors typically attack for long-term access. As opposed to the disruptive ones carried out by Russian actors or the moneymaking ones carried out by North Korean actors, Chinese attacks are more strategic.

☭ Chinese threat actors focus on a smaller number of high-value targets and reuse the same exploits for different target types. It is more difficult to spot them as they use edge devices like routers and techniques designed to avoid detection.

☭ China has not engaged in disruptive attacks so far, but it is building up capabilities that it could later use for disruption. Its use of cyber ranges and its targeting of critical infrastructure for long-term access suggests that China is setting up for future disruptive activity, posing a risk for Europe.」

「1.1 China’s cyberattacks are increasing and becoming more sophisticated

With more economic activity moving online, cyberattacks are gaining relevance. Globally, the European Commission estimates cyberattacks to cost EUR 5.5 trillion.1 Cyberattacks are estimated to have cost German companies EUR 223 billion, or 6 percent of Germany’s GDP, in 2021.2 That same year, 86 percent of German companies suffered a cyberattack that led to some damage, according to one survey. 」

https://merics.org/en/report/here-stay-chinese-state-affiliated-hacking-strategic-goals

#MERICS #China #CCP #PLA #cybersecurity #infosec #espionage #natsec

Good research by #MERICS on CCP's use of sanctions against its #democratic enemies.

The real fun bit comes at the very end: "Unofficial measures".

What this means of course is that because the CCP is a *#dictatorship*, they can really do whatever they want!

CCP's "law" is just a #legalistic facade, just like it was in #Nazi #ThirdReich where the Chinese "communists" in fact copied #legalism from. 🤔

"How China imposes sanctions — A guide to the evolution of Beijing’s new policy tool"
https://merics.org/en/report/how-china-imposes-sanctions

「China has to date adopted unilateral sanctions that:

☭ came in response to perceived violations of its red lines and national interests,
☭ did not show any signs of any signs of adopting secondary sanctions,
☭ often came as a mix of official and unofficial measures (i.e., measures that are not officially announced and/or adopted by the central government).

The last point makes China’s sanctions policy challenging to respond to. Not only is litigation complicated when non-official measures are adopted, they can also bolster official sanctions, while remaining plausibly deniable. China wants to create the perception that its punitive measures are difficult to predict, in order to discourage other countries’ from sanctioning.」

Unavoidably the paper uses the usual euphemisms wrt. the #neverelected CCP dictatorship. For instance "national interests" of the CCP regime are often diametrically opposed to the interests of its silenced and manipulated subjects, a.k.a "the people". CCP ≠ China

"...and you may ask yourself: 'How did we get here!?' "

#PRC #CCP #beijing #china #unitedfront #AxisOfDespots #appeasement #nixon #kissinger #MFN #WTO

#introduction: Looking to connect with economists/ political scientists/ journalists interested in Asia/China/EU-China. Affiliated through work, fellowship or governance with #HKUST, #Bruegel #EAI at #NUS #MERICS #RIELCANO #IE #EMI at #CORNELL #NATIXIS,