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It wasn't about Muslims in concentration camps. It wasn't about live prisoners' bodies being carved up for organ donations. It wasn't about intellectual property theft. It wasn't about illegal shipments of fentanyl to our shores. It wasn't about trying to quell free speech in Hong Kong or the United States. It wasn't about the coronavirus, which we only learned about this year.
It was about all of it.
This is not a personal condemnation of everything Chinese. I have met many Chinese people, and I like them. I am happy to have immigrant Chinese friends.
And I do not hold myself out as a foreign policy expert. I expect our country to continue to work with China on various issues. It would be folly not to engage with a nation of 1.4 billion people.
But for me, at least for this moment, too much is enough.
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1. Here is a roundup of the scope of "re-education camps" now detaining Uyghur citizens in Xinjiang province.
2. This is the official release of an international investigation into China's use of prisoners' organs for transplants. More detail can be found here.
3. This 2019 piece describes increasing numbers of U.S. deaths ascribed to fentanyl. This one and this one describe how Chinese fentanyl winds up in the U.S.
A third report, published in California last week, said this:
The number of heroin and fentanyl overdose deaths in San Francisco more than doubled in 2019, according to the city’s medical examiner’s office statistics . . . . Officials said 290 deaths involved fentanyl and heroin last year compared to 134 in 2018. Fentanyl was involved in 234 deaths, up from 90 in 2018.
4. This December document from a federal court describes the case against a Chinese man charged with shipping 40-foot containers of counterfeit "Nike" and "Louis Vuitton" sneakers to ports in New York and New Jersey over a period of six years. This 2018 news story describes a different prosecution involving 27,000 pairs of "Nike Air Jordans" shipped to the same two ports.
But catching two shippers of counterfeit sneakers at two American ports is nothing in the broader scheme.
This story suggests that e-commerce, including goods sold on Amazon, is a growing channel for Chinese counterfeiters.
This post, from a security company, says the scope of counterfeiting runs from fashion to toys to pharmaceuticals and that 88 percent of the fake stuff comes from China.
As a practical matter, not buying Chinese products is getting more difficult, even on Amazon. Last year, Chinese products were shipped to Vietnam, relabeled and then sent to the U.S. to avoid tariffs.
5. China has tried to build its scientific and military credibility on the cheap, with bribes and outright theft. Last week, a prominent Harvard chemist whose lab did work for US defense agencies was arrested for lying for years about his affiliations with a university in Wuhan, apparently for money. This 2017 article describes other examples of stolen technology.
Even the Russians are steamed about Chinese theft of their military research.
6. Huawei, a theoretically private Chinese company, is a particularly troubling outfit.
A story last summer described its rewards program for employees who steal other companies' intellectual property, plus its flat-out theft of a Texas company's product design and subsequent marketing of the same product under the Huawei name.
Also last summer, Huawei was reported to be helping set up citizen-surveillance systems for governments in Uganda and Zambia and possibly other countries on the continent -- rather as the Chinese government keeps track of its own citizens.
(In fact, China is active in Africa. A 2018 story reported African Union leaders' charges that monitors and bugs were incorporated into a new $200 million Chinese-built AU headquarters in Ethiopia.)
At the moment, a senior Huawei official is facing an extradition hearing in Canada. The US wants to prosecute her for fraud -- effectively using sham corporate identities to violate US-Iran trade sanctions, plus stealing US communications technology. The Chinese have denied all the charges and retaliated by detaining two Canadian citizens for more than a year.
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There is much more that could be said, but I believe I have made my point.
My primary objection is based on human rights, and my reasoning is this: If a company in my town discriminated against people of any group, I wouldn't do business there.
My primary objection is based on human rights, and my reasoning is this: If a company in my town discriminated against people of any group, I wouldn't do business there.
Mostly I do not want to feel complicit anymore.
I don't think I'm the only one.
Updates
9/23/19 -- Verified footage of Chinese soldiers averting terrorism by escorting hundreds of handcuffed Uyghur men, heads shaved and blindfolded, through a train station.
2/10/20 -- Four Chinese military members were arrested and charged with a 2017 cyber-theft that netted the personal information of 147 million Americans. You may remember it: The Equifax hack. My credit card was cancelled and a new card sent to another address last month; the bank said the fraudsters used information from that hack.
2/11/20 -- More than half the products sold on Amazon come from third party sellers, and much of that merchandise is counterfeit.
2/13/20 -- The U.S. Department of Justice added three new charges against four additional Huawei subsidiaries to its RICO (Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Operation) prosecution of the Chinese tech giant.
2/13/20 -- A Chinese diplomat floats the idea that the American military brought Covid-19 to Wuhan.
3/15/20 -- The world accepted uncritically the Chinese report of a "donated" double-lung transplant from a brain-dead patient to a Covid-19 patient whose lungs had failed. The European human rights journal Bitter Winter is skeptical.
3/18/20 -- A Wuhan doctor says Chinese officials silenced her coronavirus warnings in December, costing thousands their lives.
3/28/20 -- Observations on the ground suggest the CCP has drastically understated the number of Covid-19 deaths in Wuhan.
4/5/20 -- An Australian newspaper challenges Beijing's statements about Covid-19.
4/7/20 -- The UK ordered millions of antibody tests from China, but has concluded the tests don't work.
4/1/20 -- Short- and long-term historical perspective from a former US National Security Advisor.
4/15/20 -- While the world is distracted by SARS-Cov-2, China has stepped up its activity against Hong Kong and Taiwan and in the South China Sea.
4/23/20 -- Canada refuses to use a million faulty KN 95 masks purchased from China, following a 60,000-flimsy mask purchase by Toronto. Similar complaints from Spain, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Turkey.
5/7/20 -- The US Food and Drug Administration finds only fourteen of the previously approved Chinese mask contractors' products are reliable enough for importation.
5/11/20 -- A university professor in Arkansas was charged with wire fraud, presumably related to shared research from his US-funded High Density Electronics Center; reports say the professor received more than $5 million for his work in China.
5/11/20 -- A medical researcher and former professor in Georgia pled guilty to tax fraud for not declaring $500,00 in income relating to his unrevealed affiliation with two Chinese universities over six years. The professor received NIH funding in the US for large-animal research.
5/20/20 -- An Australian university prosecutes a student for speech that is critical of China.
China.
6/13/20 -- More than 1,300 Chinese medical device companies, in reports to the FDA, report the same false US address, a brick house in Delaware whose tenants and landlord knew nothing about any of the companies.
5/20/20 -- After hand-to-hand battle along the Himalayan border with China leaves 20 Indian soldiers dead, the Times of India finds that 87 percent of Indian citizens want to boycott products made in China.
6/25/20 -- After lifting its one-child restriction on Han Chinese families, China is forcing sterilizations and birth control on its Uyghur population.
6/26/20 -- ASEAN members claim China has ignored a 1982 treaty in actions in the East China Sea,
7/1/20 -- China tightens down on Hong Kong.
7/2/20 -- Foreign Affairs
Hong Kong has been absorbed into Mainland China.
7/2/20 -- US customs officials in New York/New Jersey seize 13 tons of human hair shipped from China's Xinjiang province, where more than 1 million Muslim Uyghurs are held in concentration camps.
7/5/20 -- Wall Street Journal
"HONG KONG—Internationally peer-reviewed journals published more than 100 scientific research papers from China-based authors that appear to have reused identical sets of images, raising questions about the proliferation of problematic science as institutions fast-track research during the coronavirus pandemic.
"The cache of 121 papers, credited to researchers from hospitals and medical universities across roughly 50 cities in China, all shared at least one image with another—a sign that many were likely produced by the same company or “paper mill,” said Elisabeth Bik, a California-based microbiologist and image-analysis expert who identified the trove."
7/8/20 -- The Times of London
Uyghur representatives present evidence of Chinese genocide and crimes against humanity to the International Criminal Court.
7/8/20 -- MIT Technology Review
New laws from Beijing restrict Hong Kongers' internet access and assure greater surveillance, plus punishments for thoughtcrimes.
7/16/20 -- It's not just banks. Techcrunch reports that VPN operators are planning to relocate servers out of Hong Kong.
7/19/20 -- New York Times
China is using Uyghur labor (presumably forced) to produce face masks that are marketed in the United States and other countries.
7/20/20 -- Daily Mail
Description of daily life for Uyghurs in Xinjian concentration camps. (Not advised for the faint of heart.)
7/21/20 -- New York Times
U.S. officials have charged two Chinese researchers of working with Chinese security agencies to hack into American efforts to develop a SARS-Covid-19 vaccine. This follows by a similar charge two weeks ago about Russian efforts to hack similar research.
7/30/20 -- Uyghurs for Sale
This dense but worthwhile report from the Australian Strategic Police Institute, an independent think tank, examines the redistribution of Uyghurs from Xinjiang province to work in factories in other parts of China and, to the extent possible, examines the degree to which forced labor is employed to manufacture products for Western companies.
In one case, "... a factory in eastern China that manufactures shoes for US company Nike is equipped with watchtowers, barbed-wire fences and police guard boxes."
From the report: "In all, ASPI’s research has identified 82 foreign and Chinese companies directly or indirectly benefiting from the use of Uyghur workers outside Xinjiang through potentially abusive labour transfer programs as recently as 2019: Abercrombie & Fitch, Acer, Adidas, Alstom, Amazon, Apple, ASUS, BAIC Motor, BMW, Bombardier, Bosch, BYD, Calvin Klein, Candy, Carter’s, Cerruti 1881, Changan Automobile, Cisco, CRRC, Dell, Electrolux, Fila, Founder Group, GAC Group (automobiles), Gap, Geely Auto, General Motors, Google, Goertek, H&M, Haier, Hart Schaffner Marx, Hisense, Hitachi, HP, HTC, Huawei, iFlyTek, Jack & Jones, Jaguar, Japan Display Inc., L.L.Bean, Lacoste, Land Rover, Lenovo, LG, Li-Ning, Mayor, Meizu, Mercedes-Benz, MG, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Mitsumi, Nike, Nintendo, Nokia, Oculus, Oppo, Panasonic, Polo Ralph Lauren, Puma, Roewe, SAIC Motor, Samsung, SGMW, Sharp, Siemens, Skechers, Sony, TDK, Tommy Hilfiger, Toshiba, Tsinghua Tongfang, Uniqlo, Victoria’s Secret, Vivo, Volkswagen, Xiaomi, Zara, Zegna, ZTE. Some brands are linked with multiple factories."
8/9/20 -- Associated Press
"Hong Kong authorities broadened their enforcement of a new national security law on Monday, arresting media tycoon Jimmy Lai, searching the headquarters of his Next Digital group and carting away boxes of what they said was evidence. . . . Lai, 71, is an outspoken pro-democracy figure who regularly criticizes China’s authoritarian rule and Hong Kong’s government."
8/10/20 -- New York Times
"Why Is China Coming After Americans Like Me in the U.S.?" by Samuel Chu.
8/12/20 -- Wall St. Journal: TikTok Tracked Users' Data with a Tactic Google Banned
"The tactic, which experts in mobile-phone security said was concealed through an unusual added layer of encription, wasn't disclosed to TikTok users."
Tik Tok employs more than 130 members of the CCP, China's ruling party. Most of those CCP members work in management or technical positions.
August 17 -- Radio Free Asia: "Xinjiang Hospitals Aborted, Killed Babies Outside Family Planning Limits: Uyghur Obstetrician:"
"Abdulla told RFA that hospital family-planning units carried out the operations, including for women who were 'eight and nine months pregnant,' adding that in some cases, medical staff would 'even kill the babies after they’d been born.'"
August 27 -- BuzzFeed News
"China has secretly built scores of massive new prison and internment camps in the past three years, dramatically escalating its campaign against Muslim minorities even as it publicly claimed the detainees had all been set free. "
September 1 -- New spy charges: Faculty and researchers at at UCLA, at Texas A&M, at the University of Virginia and at The Ohio State University, at the Cleveland Clinic and NASA/University of Arkansas.
8/22/20 -- Reuters
"More than 500,000 Tibetans have been transferred to Chinese training centers since the beginning of 2020, as an existing mass labor initiative expanded in the region. The figure accounts for roughly 15 percent of Tibet's total population."
8/29/20 -- Washington Post:
"As repression mounts, China under Xi Jinping feels increasingly like North Korea" by reporter who has visited both. Also reflections on Xinjiang province then and now.
8/29/20 -- BBC News:
China's most famous expat artist, Ai Weiwei: "The West should really have worried about China decades ago. Now it's already a bit too late, because the West has built its strong system in China and to simply cut it off, it will hurt deeply. That's why China is very arrogant."
9/6/20 -- Reuters
Frozen raspberries from China were routed through New Zealand to Chile, relabeled as organic Chilean products and then sent to Canada over several years, where they may have caused a norovirus outbreak in Quebec.
12/1/20 -- Business Insider
Nike, Coca-Cola, and Apple reportedly lobbied to weaken a Congressional bill aimed at preventing them from manufacturing products in China using forced Uighur labor.
12/4/20 -- Reuters
Virtually unheard of a decade ago, these Chinese players are ... routing cartel drug profits from the United States to China then on to Mexico with a few clicks of a burner phone and Chinese banking apps – and without the bulky cash ever crossing borders ....
Most contact with the banking system happens in China, a veritable black hole for U.S. and Mexican authorities.
12/4/20 -- Ready to invest in China?
I don't do US politics, but I follow numbers and finance. This Shanghai speech is creepy, and a post from the Assange-supporting journalist puts it into context.
12/22/20 -- Reuters
A Hong Kong family leaves the only home they've known for Scotland, which they never have visited, to provide a better future for their children.
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