Politico: "In 2018, Diplomats Warned of Risky Coronavirus Experiments in a Wuhan Lab. No One Listened"

More evidence that the Coronavirus came from a Wuhan lab. From Politico:

 On January 15, in its last days, President Donald Trump’s State Department put out a statement with serious claims about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. The statement said the U.S. intelligence community had evidence that several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory were sick with Covid-like symptoms in autumn 2019—implying the Chinese government had hidden crucial information about the outbreak for months—and that the WIV lab, despite “presenting itself as a civilian institution,” was conducting secret research projects with the Chinese military. The State Department alleged a Chinese government cover-up and asserted that “Beijing continues today to withhold vital information that scientists need to protect the world from this deadly virus, and the next one.”

Wow!: Leaked ‘Five Eyes’ dossier on alleged Chinese coronavirus coverup consistent with US findings

So it looks like Western intelligence is united on the view that China 

“The 15-page document from the intelligence agencies of the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, . . . . aligns with U.S. intelligence that China knew the spread between humans earlier than it said, that it knew it was a novel coronavirus earlier than it said and that it was spread wider than they reported to the international community in the first weeks of the outbreak. But there are some exceptions. In particular, Australia believes the virus originated in a wet market, as the Chinese have claimed. However,  the U.S. intelligence community has not yet determined this and is still leaning away from that theory.”

Looks like this will be the lead item in a lawsuit against China.

"WeChat and the Surveillance State," 1984 in China

BBC reporter discusses his experience when he posts pictures of the protests commemorating Tiananmen Square in Hong Kong on WeChat.

I was in Hong Kong to cover the enormous candlelight vigil marking 30 years since the People's Liberation Army was ordered to open fire on its own people to remove the mostly student protesters who'd been gathering in and around Tiananmen Square for months in June 1989.  

This moment in history has been all but erased from public discourse on mainland China but in Hong Kong, with its special status in the Chinese-speaking world, people turn out every year to remember the bloody crackdown.
This time round the crowd was particularly huge, with estimates ranging up to 180,000. . . .

After he posted the pictures on WeChat and started answering questions from Chinese who had never heard of Tiananmen Square, he was blocked from using WeChat.

It seems posting photos of an actual event taking place, without commentary, amounts to "spreading malicious rumours" in China. 

I was given time to try and log in again the next day after my penalty had been served.
When I did I had to push "agree and unblock" under the stated reason of "spread malicious rumours". 

So this rumour-monger clicked on "agree". 

Then came a stage I was not prepared for. "Faceprint is required for security purposes," it said. 

I was instructed to hold my phone up - to "face front camera straight on" - looking directly at the image of a human head. Then told to "Read numbers aloud in Mandarin Chinese". . . .

On the Michigan Talk Network about the media misreporting Trump's trade and tariff policies

Dr. John Lott talks to Steve Gruber about how the media is greatly exaggerating the impact of Trump's trade policies with China. The cost of products will not be going up anywhere near as much as the media claims.

In China owning “too many books” is viewed as a bad thing by the government

In China owning “too many books” among other things can reduce your social credit score, limiting your ability to travel, to get a good job, to have your kids go to good schools.

MIT Technology Review has a fairly thorough review of how China is using AI and the internet to control its population.

All these data streams are fed into Xinjiang’s public security system, along with other records capturing information on everything from banking history to family planning. “The computer program aggregates all the data from these different sources and flags those who might become ‘a threat’ to authorities,” says Wang. Though the precise algorithm is unknown, it’s believed that it may highlight behaviors such as visiting a particular mosque, owning a lot of books, buying a large quantity of gasoline, or receiving phone calls or email from contacts abroad. People it flags are visited by police, who may take them into custody and put them in prison or in reeducation camps without any formal charges. . . .

"China to Embed Internet Police in Tech Firms," So these are the guys Obama wants to give control of the internet to?

It is good to know that these internet police will be able to stop the "spreading of rumors."  It obviously wound never be abused by the Chinese to stop people from saying true things about the government, right?  From the WSJ:

China’s government plans to embed cybersecurity police units at major Internet companies and websites to help prevent crimes such as fraud and “spreading of rumors,” state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday. 

It is an unusually hands-on approach by Beijing, which typically sets censorship standards and puts the onus on companies to comply. China’s Internet regulator has previously favored tactics such as threatening to shut down services that didn’t meet censorship requirements. . . . 

This is just too funny: Communists don't want to let people vote because popular vote would give poor too much power

From the WSJ:

Speaking in an interview with foreign media, Mr. Leung reiterated that the student demand for direct input from the public on candidates for the city’s top post was impossible. He said using a nominating committee as required by Beijing gives representation to a wide range of groups.
He warned that if candidates were nominated by the public, the population that earns less than the median monthly salary of $1,800 could dominate the process.
“If it’s entirely a numbers game and numeric representation, then obviously you’d be talking to the half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than $1,800 a month,” Mr. Leung said.
Hong Kong has one of the world’s biggest wealth gaps and some of the world’s highest property prices, factors that have increased the frustration of young people. . . .

The economic consequences of China's military threats

On the one hand, China is comparing the Shinzo Abe, Japan's Prime Minister, to Kim Jong Un, North Korea's nutty leader.  On the other, China is playing chicken with military jets in the South China Sea.   China's military threats against Japan are discouraging Japan's investment there.  The probability of something happening may still not be high, but the risk to those investments if war started would be huge.  The Bangkok Post has this:

On top of this, the sheer size and integration of the economies — China and Japan are the world’s second- and third-largest economies, respectively — makes the relationship hard to ignore.  

Japan has 23,000 companies operating in China, with 10 million Chinese workers on their payrolls. But Japanese companies are actively diversifying away from China now, with foreign direct investment waning and Japan shifting to Southeast Asia in particular.  

China-South Korea trade is fast approaching the levels of China-Japan trade as a result of fallout from tensions between Tokyo and Beijing. If the Chinese and Japanese start thinking their economic relationship is deteriorating, the potential for confrontation grows. . . .

US softening its position on Japan's Senkaku Islands with respect to China's air defense zone

The US is appearing to backdown in its confrontation with China over Japan's Senkaku Islands. Note at the very end of the piece:

On the morning of the 5th, in Washington [when Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was] asked by reporters whether China must adhere to withdraw recognition time zone , attitudes began to soften.

How China determines who gets to be the prominent Chinese academic experts in US

Fred Hiatt has this at the Washington Post:

. . . Last month, a cultural attache in the Chinese embassy in Washington invited Perry Link to attend a Forum of Overseas Sinologists in Beijing in December. 

Given that Link is one of America’s eminent China scholars, this might not be surprising — except that he had not received a visa to enter China since 1996 for reasons the Chinese have never explained. 

Link replied that he would be interested in attending, but would he receive a visa? 

Absolutely, he was told. 

You’re sure? Link e-mailed back. 

Of course, the attache replied. Just send your passport, “and I can help you to finish the visa application.” 

Link sent his passport and application, and on Nov. 8 received the following message: “After review, I’d like to inform you that you will not be invited to the forum.” 

The Lucy-and-the-football quality of this exchange is striking, but Link is far from the only foreign scholar to be blacklisted. In 2011, 13 respected academics who had contributed chapters to a book on Xinjiang, a province of western China that is home to a restive Muslim minority, found themselves banned. 

Link, who has forged a distinguished careerat Princeton and the University of California at Riverside can survive a visa ban. But for a young anthropologist seeking tenure, the inability to do field research could be terminal. And because China never explains its refusals or spells out what kind of scholarship is disqualifying, the result is a kind of self-censorship and narrowing of research topics that is damaging even if impossible to quantify. . . .

My own research on using schooling to instill indoctrination is available here.

Mass knife killings in public in China

South China Morning Post, August 26, 2013:

A brutal stabbing incident occurred in Chengdu over the weekend, leaving 11 people injured and four dead. 

The incident occurred on Sunday evening along Chengdu’s Caojia Alley,Sichuan Daily reported. According to surveillance videos and police investigations, the stabber, a 41-year-old man identified only by his last named Li, was on a bus when he suddenly withdrew a knife and began hacking away at fellow passengers. 

The bus driver promptly hit the emergency brake to let passengers exit the vehicle as quickly as possible. Li fled and ran down Caojia Alley, stabbing any bystanders that were in his way. . . .

South China Morning Post, August 22, 2013:

Two Anhui police officers - called in to save a hostage from a knife-wielding man in a Bengbu city supermarket - watched him stab a 17-year-old female cashier to death on Sunday, according to security footage released by the store. 

Families of the victim, identified only by their surname Hu, were infuriated that two police officers, who were standing only three metres away from Hu, did nothing when the girl was being stabbed. 

It was only after Hu fell down to the ground, lifeless, that the officers approached and arrested the suspect who was slashing himself with a knife, according to the People's Daily. 

“She would not have died if the two of them had stepped up and stopped him,” a family member of Hu's said. Hu’s parents were migrant workers. She had been living with her grandmother in Bangbu, the reports said. . . .

South China Morning Post, July 19, 2013 

A knife-wielding man killed two people, including a woman from the United States, in an attack in China’s capital, state media said on Thursday. 

The stabbing happened outside a shopping mall in downtown Beijing on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported, citing local police. 

Police detained a 27-year-old man surnamed Xiao from eastern China following the attack, which was witnessed by hundreds of bystanders, the report said. 

The suspect is unemployed and has claimed he is mentally ill, the report said. It did not give the names of the dead but said the other victim was a Chinese male. . . .

Thanks to Victor Mair for these links.

Only about 10% of Chinese said that hard work is important to become successful, most think having a well connected dad more important

This shows how government control corrupts a country.  If companies let their competitors hire the brightest, hardest working employees, the company will go out of business.  Admittedly this looks like an unscientific survey, but I would guess that the relative sizes of these different effects is at least valid.  From the Wall Street Journal:

. . . a recent online survey show[s] that nearly 84% of respondents believe the young people around them would prefer to play a game of pin die rather than work hard. Meaning something like “powerful daddy,” the phrase refers to competing on the basis of family background. By that, they mean in terms of jobs – more than 80% said they believe many young people have relied on pin die to get ahead at work. 

The survey was conducted by the Social Survey Center of the China Youth Daily, a state-run newspaper, and web portal Sohu.com. 

The report said that among the 3,809 respondents, only about 10% of them said they value hard work in becoming successful. When they were asked what occurred to them first when they ran into problems, about 36% said they regretted that they lacked a “good daddy.” While 35% said they chose to solve problems by themselves, 25% said they would ask their daddy to tackle the problem for them. 

Online reaction to the survey results was divided. “It’s a sure thing, as a daddy provides an opportunity for you,” said one Sina Weibo user. 

“This is horrible,” said another. “An overturning of the value system.” . . .

"TEENAGER KILLS 8 , WOUNDS 5 IN CHINA KNIFE ATTACK"

From the Associated Press:

A teenager killed eight people with a knife and wounded five more in northeast China after falling out with his girlfriend, state media said Thursday.
The teen killed two of her family members and six more people before fleeing, the state-run Legal Daily newspaper said. It reported he was caught but did not describe the circumstances.
The official Xinhua News Agency said the attack took place Wednesday night in Liaoning province. Media said the 17-year-old suspect is from Fushun city and his surname is Li. The attack happened in Yongling town. . . .  There was a string of knife attacks against schoolchildren across the country in early 2010 that killed nearly 20 and wounded more than 50.

Newest Fox News Piece: The China Currency Bill Will Make Americans Poorer, Not Richer

My newest piece starts this way:

We seem determined to repeat the policy mistakes that made the 1930s Great Depression so deep. Already we have seen the massive increases in government spending and regulation. Today's vote on the China currency bill by the Senate adds another mistake. It resembles the infamous 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff law.

True, China is manipulating its currency to lower the value of the Yuan relative to the US dollar. This manipulation makes it cheaper for Americans to buy their exports, be it toys, furniture, or manufactured goods. It also makes it cheaper for us to purchase whole companies or shares in Chinese companies. It also means that the Chinese have to pay “too” much for American bonds and American products.

If passed, the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011 would force China to raise the value of the Yuan. And if they refuse to comply, we will increase the tariffs on what we buy from them, equivalent to putting a special tax on the goods we buy.

China’s currency manipulation is a mistake. Yet, their mistake doesn’t mean we should make one also. If Chinese leaders are stupid enough to subsidize Americans by selling their goods and assets too cheaply, why should we stop them? . . .

The China currency mess

If China wants to subsidize our purchases of their goods, that is fine with me. Where China is getting its wealth is from stealing our intellectual property, not from selling us their products at below cost. The Obama administration isn't doing what is right and oppose the new law being debated this week in the Senate. Unfortunately, the initial vote yesterday only had 16 Republicans and 3 Democrats opposing penalties on China for a low exchange rate. From the Financial Times:

The chairman of the US Federal Reserve has accused China of damaging prospects for a global economic recovery through its deliberate intervention in the currency market to hold down the value of the renminbi.
Speaking just hours after the Chinese government sharply criticised a US congressional bill that would punish Beijing for alleged currency manipulation, Ben Bernanke told a congressional committee that an undervalued renminbi was preventing the rebalancing of global demand towards emerging market economies.
“Right now, our concern is that the Chinese currency policy is blocking what might be a more normal recovery process in the global economy,” he said. “It is to some extent hurting the recovery”.
The US Senate voted overwhelmingly on Monday to open debate on a bill, clearly aimed at China, that would impose tariffs on imports from countries with undervalued currencies. On Tuesday, the Chinese government blasted the bill in three statements released simultaneously by the foreign ministry, the central bank and the ministry of commerce, saying the legislation could spark a “trade war”. . . .

So how well has China's economic planning worked?: Ask the Chinese

The WSJ has this:

. . . One speaker from South Africa breathlessly described the Chinese economic system of state-capitalism as “crisis-proof,” and said it was shifting the debate over economic models on the African continent. A French corporate executive was overheard lauding the merits of China’s Five-Year plans. Not perfect, he conceded, “but better than no plan at all – which is what we have in France.”

It took a Chinese speaker to bring the gathered ranks . . . down to earth at Summer Davos.

At a panel discussion on China’s latest Five-Year plan on Thursday, Zhang Weiying, an economics professor at Peking University, first noted that China routinely misses the important economic targets set out in its Five-Year plans by a wide margin (usually on the upside). Then he took a swing at the bureaucrats at the National Development and Reform Commission who devote vast amounts of time to producing the country’s economic blueprints. They are, he said, “a bunch of smart people doing something really stupid.”

Prof. Zhang went on to dismiss the massive stimulus spending that powered China through the global recession, also coordinated by the NDRC. Stimulus money can’t buy development, he said: that takes a commitment to markets, competition and entrepreneurship, which won’t happen while the NDRC calls the shots in the economy. In short, Prof. Zhang argued, China needs reform.

Prof. Zhang was undaunted by the fact that sitting on his panel was one of China’s top planning mandarin . . . who it’s safe to say is more used to dishing out criticism than taking it.

Zhang Xiaoqiang offered a spirited defense of the most powerful economic agency in China, but the audience seemed to be with Prof. Zhang as he warmed to his theme. Since the NDRC was established, he said, the pace of reform “has seriously slowed down.” . . .

Is China's economy growing so quickly because it is willing to steal intellectual capital from others?

This story from Fox News shows just how far Chinese companies are willing to go. How long do you think that this would be allowed to occur in the US, Canada, Japan, or the EU?

At first, it looks like a sleek Apple store. Sales assistants in blue T-shirts with the company's logo chat to customers. Signs advertising the iPad 2 hang from the white walls. Outside, the famous logo sits next to the words "Apple Store."
And that's the clue it's fake.
China, long known for producing counterfeit consumer gadgets, software and brand name clothing, has reached a new piracy milestone -- fake Apple stores.
An American who lives in Kunming in southern Yunnan province said Thursday that she and her husband stumbled on three shops masquerading as bona fide Apple stores in the city a few days ago. She took photos and posted them on her BirdAbroad blog.
The three stores are not among the authorized resellers listed on Apple Inc.'s website. The maker of the iPhone and other hit gadgets has four company stores in China -- two in Beijing and two in Shanghai -- and various official resellers. Apple's Beijing office declined to comment.
The proliferation of the fake stores underlines the slow progress that China's government is making in countering a culture of a rampant piracy and widespread production of bogus goods that is a major irritant in relations with trading partners.
China's Commerce Minister promised American executives earlier this year that the latest in a string of crackdowns on product piracy would deliver lasting results.
The 27-year-old blogger, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the set-up of the stores was so convincing that the employees themselves seemed to believe they worked for Apple.
"It looked like an Apple store. It had the classic Apple store winding staircase and weird upstairs sitting area. The employees were even wearing those blue T-shirts with the chunky Apple name tags around their necks," she wrote on her blog.
"But some things were just not right: the stairs were poorly made. The walls hadn't been painted properly. Apple never writes 'Apple Store' on its signs -- it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit."
A worker at the fake Apple store on Zhengyi Road in Kunming, which most of the photos of the BirdAbroad blog show, told The Associated Press that they are an "Apple store" before hanging up. . . .

My newest Fox News piece: "Playing Chicken With China, why huge increases in the money supply didn't increase inflation"

My newest Fox News piece starts this way:

The Federal Reserve has already injected hundreds of billions of new dollars into the economy since the recession started. Normally, when the government prints up more money, dollars are worth less and that is what we call inflation. But inflation has been surprisingly low.

One measure of the money supply, M1, which includes currency as well as checking accounts, soared by 26 percent between August 2008 and September this year. The amount of currency more than doubled. But prices barely changed.

As Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke goes forward with plans to print up another $880 billion, someone has to ask why the past increases didn't produce the inflation that everyone thought they would.

So where did all that new money go? Many blame businesses for hoarding cash. Obama recently said: “corporate profits are doing just fine. [But] they're holding onto a whole bunch of cash -- they're kind of sitting on it.” . . .