Hidden Harmonies China Blog

Donald Trump was elected with a mandate to make deals and “drain the swamp.”  I had my doubts he could make a difference in the geopolitical realm.  But even on economic matters, he has not had a lot of success. His Tiktok saga reveals just how far he has left people down.

[This article is cross posted at the Saker; a short, abridged version of this article was initially published on the South China Morning Post.]

Trump’s demand for a fire sale of Tiktok hit a legal wall two weekends ago when a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction.  Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, questioned whether a President had the legal authority to so broadly ban and restrict a “personal communication” and “informational” service such as Tiktok on “national security” grounds. 

But even without the injunction, Trump’s vaunted deal-making skills were fast morphing into a freak show.  From the beginning, Trump made unsubstantiated accusation that Tiktok was being used as a platform for Chinese espionage even when the CIA found no evidence of Chinese espionage.  The EFF – which traditionally has been critical of China’s Internet companies – has also concluded that there is no evidence that TikTok is less secure than other social media apps. 

[This post is cross-posted at thesaker blog]

Recently, I wrote a short comment in the piece India’s border policies line with Thalassa noting that “India is on the wrong side of history.”  It was too “conclusory” a comment that deserves to be better explained.  So I’d like to take a brief time why I think India is on the wrong side of history in siding with America against China today.

I’d first like to take a larger view of history.

Without much adieu, please take a good look at this short documentary from CGTN linked above. It’s about China’s take on its “War on Terror” in XinJiang. Compare China’s approach to the West’s own “internally” and “externally” (over US $6 trillion and over 1.3 million lives)

Go ahead – take the first steps to taking the red pills to escape from the MSM and US government propaganda about China … and much of the world…

[This piece was originally published in the Asia Times]

The media are once again ablaze with misinformation against China, this time on its supposed attempts to eradicate the Mongolian language from Inner Mongolia. A recent piece by Antonio Graceffo, an American economist and author based in Ulaanbaatar, in the Diplomat is an excellent introduction:

In August, the government announced that when the school year began in September, classes in Mongolian would be sharply curtailed. Under the new regulations, literature, politics and history will all now be taught in Mandarin….

Many parents in Inner Mongolia responded to the announcement by saying that they would prefer to keep their children home than have them forced to accept Mandarin-language instruction. As schools opened in the first week of September, strikes by parents were widespread.

In Naiman county, for example, where there were normally 1,000 Mongolian students, just 40 registered for this term and only 10 actually showed up on the first day of class. Across the region, more than 300,000 students have gone on strike….

Videos have surfaced online showing ethnic Mongolian parents trying to remove their children from school grounds and police preventing them from doing so. According to a report by the BBC, hundreds of riot police were deployed the prevent one strike, but after a standoff lasting several hours, parents finally managed to break through the police barricades and collect their children.

Other videos have appeared on social media showing masses of Mongolian children chanting “Our mother language is Mongolian!” and “We are Mongolian until death!’ One showed Inner Mongolian men, dressed in traditional clothes, raising the khar suld (or black banner), the battlefield standard of the Mongol army, which represents the power of the “eternal blue sky” (monke khukh tenger).

Traditionally, the khar suld was meant to concentrate and mobilize the spirit and power of all Mongols to defeat their enemies. According to legend, it is the repository of the soul of Genghis Khan. To many ethnic Mongolians, the raising of the suld is the equivalent of a declaration of war. As one Mongolian commented, “It’s a big sign that they will not give up. [The protesters] will go until [the] end.”

The article goes on to accuse China of diluting Mongolian language and identity.

So is Beijing really up to its evil ways again?

[An edited version of this article first appeared at the South China Morning Post.]

With much pomp and circumstances, the U.S. has proposed to the world a brand new beginning, a shiny new age: a Clean Global Internet. The new enemy is China, which must be purged from the new rebuilt Internet.

According to Secretary of State Pompeo, “The Clean Network addresses the long-term threat to data privacy, security, human rights and principled collaboration posed to the free world from authoritarian malign actors.” “The Clean Network program is the Trump Administration’s comprehensive approach to guarding our citizens’ privacy and our companies’ most sensitive information from aggressive intrusions by malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”

I copied a video from Tiktok showing a video from the Epoch Times. The video showed amazing recent footage of lightning in Chinese cities such as Shanghai and Chengdu.

But … instead of leaving it just as that … the video goes on to gives a narrative these natural occurrences may not be completely natural … that perhaps God is mad at China. Why else would lightning arise near where so many people live or directly hit buildings?

There are many reasons for Donald Trump to threaten to shut down Tiktok. One is personal. He is still infuriated about his team being tricked into his Tulsa rally disaster earlier in June.

Another is political. Donald is down in the polls. He is not down and out, but he is down across the board in so many areas, across demographics, and in electorally critical states. He needs a win, soon, and he ain’t going to get it against the Coronavirus. So he wants to manufacture a win against China.

But there may be a third…

Perhaps Donald really wants to shut down many of the younger generation who absolutely hate his guts – his racist, revisionist, some say fascist vision of America. He wants to shut them down. Immobilize them against mobilizing against him this coming election.

On a lighter note… if the following video is anything to go by, I think this may be an important but less discussed reason for Trump’s tirades against Tiktok. Tiktok is becoming an important platform of discourse and expression for teens around the world. Trump definitely sees them as a threat. He wants to silence a generation.

Please pass along this message…

As calls for “defunding” the Police in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death mounts across America – land of the free, it is interesting to compare how police treats its citizens in the U.S. vs China – often depicted as a “police state” in the West.

Police brutality is nothing new in the U.S. or the West (for example, see this, or this, or this, or this). What about China?

Many people in the West – apparently led on by the U.S. government – believe that the Chinese had covered up information regarding initial extent of the epidemic in China. Some had asserted that the death toll in China was actually magnitudes higher. When that could not be proven, some are taken to the notion that China kept data regarding human-to-human transmission from the world. The supposed evidence? An email Taiwanese authorities sent to the WHO on December 31.

This email has often been presented to constitute evidence that Taiwan had learned of and warned the WHO of human-to-human transmission in Wuhan, but that the WHO ignored. Turns out, the email did not make any such assertion. No one has been able to present an email from Taiwan to the WHO reporting any information about human-to-human transmission.

[This article was first published on Asia Times]

Despite his Administration’s many failures in responding to the Covid-19 crisis, Trump is rebranding himself as the tough, indispensable leader America needs.  At the center of Trump’s new pitch: his “travel ban” against China back in February.  According to Trump, but for his “early” and “decisive” actions, “thousands and thousands of lives” would have been lost.

“Everybody was against it.  Almost everybody, I would say, was just absolutely against it. … I made a decision to close off to China that was weeks early. … And I must say, doctors — nobody wanted to make that decision at the time.” 

Trump’s “travel ban” however was more taking a swipe at China than keeping America safe. 

Recently I have been reading so much junk and misinformation about China that’s it’s unbeleivable. Of course, there will always be bottom feeders such as this from a David Cole on TakiMag. But there are some more reputable ones too, such as those from Niall Ferguson about China deliberately spreading the virus to the world…

Anyways, recent allegations from Ferguson were sufficiently disturbing that Prof. Daniel Bell took the time to look at the evidence provided. Shockingly he found that even the allegations from Ferguson are based on either misunderstanding or deliberate misinformation. Rather than put word into the Professor’s mouth, I’ll copy his response (copied from his website) below.

Following is a recent piece from George Koo about the Sad State of American Anti-China Fever – from a Chinese American’s Perspective. It was published on Asia Times.

I completely empathize and echo George’s sentiment. America in my opinion has degenerated to a shadow of its former self – much in the last 20 years. It’s not the economy or gdp per se. America is still doing well there. It’s its psyche. It has conjured falsehood out of thin area against invisible enemies. It has fought pointless wars after pointless wars. The election of President Trump and the degeneration of President Trump from Candidate to President are all emblematic of America’s decline. It is a nation that no longer cares about truth … From the President down to the senators to many in the press, stories are presented in biased, unbalanced ways. There is little goodwill toward each other … or the world. It’s all about winning and success … devoid of humanity.

Without much adieu, please read George’s article.

[Important Editor Note: I have since communicated with the authors of the article and other experts in the field and now retract this post in the sense that there are major problems with the methodology of this study. First the bat virus chosen to anchor the tree is too far away to serve as an anchor. You can get whatever tree you want! Second, there are major issues associated with forcing a most parsimonious tree in a set of data with a lot of missing data – perhaps systematically biased missing data. The data set is mostly from China, and even there only a subset. Whatever tree built is a best tree for the data, and may be completely off from reality. The study is still interesting in that it is not assuming a place of origin; it is trying to figure out a place of origin. But the study – at least in its current form – has failed. If I get time, I will write a follow-up post on this study explaining in more detail. Thanks.]

I have been reading this article in the PNAS titled Phylogenetic network analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genomes by Peter Forster, Lucy Forster, Colin Renfrew, and Michael Forster. The study involves a study of the genomes of 160 covid-19 patients from the around the world. As readers may know, viruses are RNA-based entities that periodically and regularly undergo mutations. One can study these mutations and almost like clockwork trace their evolution – i.e. their lineage and migration pattern.

The authors specifically employed a methodology known as “character-based phylogenetic networks”. The technique has been used as the “method of choice” to reconstruct prehistoric human population movements, language evolution, various ecological studies, and some 10,000 phylogenetic studies of diverse organisms – and now virology.

I have posted references that explain the U.S. attempt to smear China in light of its own catastrophic handling of the coronavirus crisis. Turns out Taiwan is an integral part of that. Interesting article I read first on Guancha. I will translate a part … and refer to the CNBC report that it refers to as well … and conclude with some brief thoughts.

Despite Trump having said he will stop using the term “Chinese virus” or “Wuhan virus” a few days ago, ¹ the U.S. is still actively pushing the world to buy the idea that China covered up its coronavirus outbreak, a cover up which directly lead the world to suffer a pandemic.

The G7 just failed to issue a joint statement because the U.S. kept pushing for a statement about a “Wuhan virus” that the others felt was unnecessarily antagonistic.

Recently, I found an article that goes over the U.S.’s full spectrum efforts to smear China in the face of its cataclysmic failures at home. Please refer to the following for a good overview how the US wants to pin China for covering up the Coronavirus Crisis:

[This article is cross-posted on TheSaker and GlobalResearch]

Despite strong rebukes from the WHO, President Trump and his Administration officials in recent days have made an emphatic point of calling the COVID-19 virus the “Chinese Virus” or “China Virus.”  When pushed on the racist overtone of his rhetoric, Trump retorted, “Cause [the virus] comes from China. It’s not racist at all, no, not at all. It comes from China, that’s why. I want to be accurate.”

Sadly, most Americans, even if uncomfortable, appear to agree on the facts, if not the tenor, of Trump’s choice of words. ¹

Here are some facts about the COVID-19 virus that will helpfully set the American public straight. 

[This article was originally published on Globalresearch.ca.]

Japan, China and Taiwan Reports on the Origin of the Virus

The Western media quickly took the stage and laid out the official narrative for the outbreak of the new coronavirus which appeared to have begun in China, claiming it to have originated with animals at a wet market in Wuhan.

In fact the origin was for a long time unknown but it appears likely now, according to Chinese and Japanese reports, that the virus originated elsewhere, from multiple locations, but began to spread widely only after being introduced to the market.

More to the point, it appears that the virus did not originate in China and, according to reports in Japanese and other media, may have originated in the US.

Nathan Rich has been putting out many incredible commentaries on China on Youtube for the last few years. And this most recent one on Dr. Li’s death certainly ranks among the best commentaries I have seen in English (or Chinese even) on Dr. Li’s death in Wuhan.

Dr. Li was one of the earliest doctors to notice a SARs like virus going around in Wuhan and had “tweeted” about it on his Weibo account. Local government officials would sanction him about it – asking him to sign some papers admitting what he did was wrong and not to do it again. Later when a concurrent government investigation revealed that a new virus was truly going around, the government retracted his sanctions. Dr. Li would go on to work on the front lines … but later – just a few days ago – die from the virus.

Some people have gone anti-government over this. In the Youtube commentary, Nathan Rich noted that he can understand how people thought Dr. Li was a “hero” and that the government has erred, however he also noted that the most critical thing now is to save lives and go forward, and not distract from the government’s valiant efforts. He posited for those who are angry: even had people listen to Dr. Li’s original (then unsubstantiated) claims, would we really be better off?

Yes, more people might have more masks in the initial days and more might have been more diligent about washing hands, etc. But almost certainly, judging by people’s behavior since the Wuhan quarantine, people would have fled Wuhan and tried to cover up the fact that they might be virus carriers. So, while, on a personal level, leaving town would have been the “human” thing to do, it most certainly would been the worst thing to do in terms of saving lives and reducing the spread of the virus.

Would we be better off today had people listened to Dr. Li (and others’) initial warnings … or much worse off?

[A redacted and edited version of this article was published in the China Daily]

Nowhere is man freer than on the field of battle, where it is a matter of life and death, wrote Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace. One way of determining people’s morality is by observing their reactions during a crisis.

Western audiences have offered three types of reactions to the recent virus outbreak in China: Sympathy, Sinophobia, and Schadenfreude. Sane westerners, one hopes, empathized with the victims, wishing the outbreak ends soon. Racists took advantage of it to indulge in stereotypes and memes. The third category, the western media, was delighted with the opportunity to insult the Chinese government.

When Trump ran for the Presidency, I openly supported him. I did not support him because of politics per se. I actually disagreed with most of his policies. However, I did agree with him that the U.S. needs to put Americans first, start dismantling the U.S. Empire, and do what is best for the American people.

I knew that Trump might end up doing many foolhardy things. I am dismayed but actually not surprised about Trump’s trade and subsequent technology war on China. But I still firmly believed that in the end, Trump will do the right thing. An America that puts “America First” will ultimately be good for America … and the world alike.

However, I will not lie, through the last few years, I have been steadily disappointed. I’ve been disappointed with Trump’s lack of resolve on his core promises, and lack of foresight and leadership when it comes to major policies such as engaging China.

Financial Times recently published an article on how the Chinese government is trying to plan its economy to better adjust to an aging population that is expected to peak in 2050 with around 35% of population over 60. According to the article, this is a culmination of a series of policies actually started at the same time as when the one-child policy was enacted.

Compared to other Western articles that tend to demonize China’s one-child policy, the FT article offers an interesting read of China’s policy of population control. According to Chinese government estimates, today’s population would be 250-300 million larger were it not for its one-child policy.

I usually cringe when I hear people categorically attacking China’s population control policies. While the one-child policy is well known throughout the world, China actually has had enacted other policies in its history, including its “late, long, few” initiative which promoted people to have children later in life and to lengthen the times between pregnancies.

Since the mid 1960’s, China’s birthrate has consistently dropped. Is it a coincidence that since the mid 1960’s, China’s economic growth has also consistently grown?

Before the “Fake News” became “popular,” we were here. This blog was started to counter anti-China fake news created and spread by Western establishments in the lead up to the 2008 Olympics. We were created during the days of ANTI-CNN – now defunct …. and part of April Media according to Wikipedia.

In light of the previous posts by Charles Liu and Rolf, I thought I would revisit our roots again … by republishing a 2017 article by a Chinese journalist who had worked for a Dutch newspaper … and quit. The article described firsthand how ugly “fake news” was made.

It is saddening and enraging to read this article because we know things haven’t changed since 2017. If anything, things have gotten even worse. Also, we know that Fake News matter. It had lead to death and riots in Lhasa in 2008, and has led to more death and riots in Hong Kong in 2019.

Without much adieu, below is the article by Zhang Chaoqun.

Note: This is an update of a previous post, which can be found here.

Over this past Summer and Fall, I watched with heightened interest (and much dismay and sadness) the violence that has besieged Hong Kong. Instead of arguing and shouting (there is too much of that already on the streets), I aim to bring you some facts and context about the situation … as reported by news organizations around the world. There is way much disinformation about the Hong Kong riots. I hope the links below will provide you some insights and sanity.

The Sydney Morning Herald published an Editorial Titled “Rare bipartisan consensus on right to privacy” today. It reads in part:

Wrote this piece for the SCMP. Some minor differences between version below and at SCMP because of space imitation and other minor editorial issues…

On China’s Indignant Response to Morey’s Tweet and Apple’s release of HKmap.live.

Over the last week or so, there has been a strong reaction in China against Apple for releasing an App called HKmap.live as well as NBA’s apparent official support for the “protesters.” From SCMP:

Chinese state media on Tuesday accused Apple Inc of protecting “rioters” in Hong Kong and enabling illegal behaviour, after the US-based technology giant listed on its app store an application that tracks police activity in the city.

Apple had previously rejected the app, called HKmap.live, but reversed its decision on Friday and made the programme available for download from the iOS App Store on Saturday, according to the program’s developer.

…

The app relies on crowdsourced information to track the location of police presence in the city, alerting users to police vehicles, armed officers and incidents in which people have been injured. The app — a website version is also active — displays hotspots on a map of the city that is continuously updated as users report incidents.

“By allowing its platform to clear the way for an app that incites illegal behaviour, [does Apple] not worry about damaging its reputation and hurting the feelings of consumers?” said a bellicose commentary published on the app of People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece.

…

Such outcry echoed the recent vitriol against the NBA and, in particular, the Houston Rockets. Daryl Morey, general manager of the Rockets, tweeted an image that read “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong” – a slogan frequently used by the protesters – on Saturday before quickly deleting it.

The post drew outrage from the Chinese public, government officials and Chinese business partners of the league, and prompted the Chinese Basketball Association to suspend ties with the Rockets.

As the NBA scrambled to distance itself from Morey’s post, the league came under fire at home, with scores of US lawmakers accusing the association of sacrificing principle for profit. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has since sought to assuage such concerns, saying at a Tuesday news conference in Tokyo that the league supported Morey’s right to freedom of speech.

So here we go again, Americans waiving the flag of “freedom” to dismiss Chinese national (security, social cohesion, and otherwise) concerns.

Would Apple or Google release apps or other platforms that are used to evade police and to conspire violence? Would Apple or Google release an App to help violent rioters such as certain “white supremacists” or “antifa” people commit crimes against fellow citizens and police?

We know Twitter, Facebook, Google and everyone else remove posts and apps that “violate” their terms of policy, including platforms that promote “hate speech,” “untrustworthy” information, “promotion” or “incitement” of “violence,” etc. Would they ever openly justify aiding and abetting violence in the U.S. or its allies? No way! But I guess when it comes to China, social and national concerns can have no legitimate place, only shrill calls for “freedom”…

I have read in in so many places how putting Huawei on the Entity List on “national security grounds” makes no sense. I ran into this article on Asia Times by David Goldman – a U.S. patriot / stooge – that finally and honestly explains the real reason.

For those with a head: the danger posed by Huawei 5G has never been of China snooping others, but of the king of snoop – the U.S. and the five eyes – loosing its ability to snoop around the world. Yet the U.S. has the gall to declare to the world: please stop buying Huawei 5G because you don’t want to be snooped. Buy our stuffs … err.. when they are ready … so you are safe from being snooped…

So its nice to see a U.S. patriot admit the true in splendid detail – while also acknowledging that Chinese have – finally(!) – invented something new…

The central theme of Trump’s president is “America First.” Most Americans understand that to mean putting American interests, American prosperity, American well being first above all else.

As an American, I personally have no quarrel with this. In fact, as a world citizen, I think if every nation can look primarily after itself and not after other nations (which in basically every case have proven to be a false flag for carrying out illicit interventions because “there is never free lunch” as they say), the world will be a much, much better place.

But over the last few years, it is turning out that this talk about “America First” is nothing else than another false flag. America is as involved in war and warmongering throughout the world as ever, and with the current irrational trade war, it looks like the Trump administration is also about putting its special interests constituencies first … screw all others … just like all the other previous administrations.

It is an open secret that historically America has been an oligarchy, not a democracy. That means it is not a government of the people for the people … but rather a government of special interests for the special interests … no different than many other governments around the world and throughout time.

But things are about to change. At least that was the promise.

In his inauguration speech, with outgoing president Obama visibly grimacing, Trump portrayed himself as a messiah coming to America’s rescue: