Category Archives: CCP Interference

UCAnews: China to further clamp down on religions: rights group

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under the leadership of President Xi Jinping is all set to impose more restrictions on religious freedom when the new measures take effect next month, warned a rights group.

The State Administration for Religious Affairs, the top CCP body overseeing religious affairs, announced the new measures on religious affairs on July 31 to be effective from September, ChinaAid reported on Aug. 10.

“The religious freedom of Chinese citizens, including those in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia, will face further restrictions,” said the US-based group run by exiled Chinese Christians.

“All religious activities will be limited to official religious venues, and the display of religious symbols will be restricted indoors,” it added.

The new rules–Measures on the Administration of Religious Activity Venues– severely restrain the establishment and registration procedures for venues. But the measures also set forth management rules and stipulations for managing personnel.

The regulations specify the establishment of supervisors for religious activity sites and impose conditional limitations on internal management within these sites.

Though China’s Constitution allows freedom of religion or belief, the CCP has been accused of violating the rights of religious groups for decades, though it recognizes five organized religions – Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism.

The state runs seven bodies to oversee the affairs of all recognized religions and impose restrictions on groups that are not registered and whose activities are not pre-approved by the state.

Since Xi became China’s president, religious groups have faced constant crackdowns under several repressive policies and regulations including sinicization of religions and the 2018 Regulations on Religious Affairs.

ChinaAid alleged that the CCP seeks to assert more control over religions by “suffocating” members of underground religious groups and placing official groups under more restrictions.

“This amounts to a complete ban on religious activities, whatever remains must align with the leadership and political propaganda of the CCP,” it warned.

Article 3 of the new measures requires religious activity venues should uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China.

Those at the activities must uphold the socialist system and adhere to Sinicization. Managing personnel will be expected to implement Xi Jinping Thoughts on Socialism

Article 16 of the Measures states that places of religious activity shall not be named after churches, sects, or persons.

Article 27 stipulates that members of the management organization of venues should possess the qualities of “loving the motherland and supporting the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the socialist system.”

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Safeguard Defenders: New report: China is threatening Uyghurs in Türkiye to spy on diaspora

The report, Targeted in Türkiye: China’s Transnational Repression Against Uyghurs, used interviews with Uyghurs living in Türkiye to show how Chinese police are using transnational networks involving local Neighbourhood Working Groups in China and mission staff and informants in Türkiye to monitor and manipulate Uyghurs living overseas.

Chinese police leverage intelligence gathered from these networks to coerce Uyghurs into spying for them, keeping quiet about China’s human rights abuses or producing pro-China propaganda. In every case in this study, police used open or veiled threats against family members back home as part of the transnational repression. The findings in this report are consistent with results from other human rights reports focused on Uyghurs living in other countries in addition to Türkiye.

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Noticing Chinese Interfering in US Affairs – Part 3

In continuing with the previous article from Mandiant, we are shown evidence indicating not only news, but in-person protest demonstrations are purported to have also been commissioned by agents of the Chinese Communist Party.

In addition to commissioning campaign support in the dissemination phases of HaiEnergy-attributed operations, we have evidence to suggest the campaign may have also financed at least two staged in-person protests in Washington, D.C. Both protests, which occurred around June and September 2022, were documented via video and subsequently used as source material to support campaign-promoted narratives published by assets and infrastructure leveraged by HaiEnergy.

The first protest we suspect to have been manufactured by the campaign was allegedly in response to the 2022 International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit—an annual event held in Washington, D.C. aimed at bringing awareness to restrictions on religious freedom. The second protest appears to have been manufactured in response to a June 2022 decision by the U.S. Government to ban all goods produced in China’s Xinjiang region—a decision which came under the backdrop of continued allegations of human rights abuses against China’s ethnic-minority Uyghur population. In both videos, two small groups of protesters can be observed demonstrating in Washington, D.C., holding placards and chanting slogans intended to highlight U.S. domestic issues, such as racial discrimination and abortion, as well as criticize U.S. policy impacting the import of solar industry-specific components from Xinjiang—a key supplier of cheap critical components used by the solar panel manufacturing industry. As previously alluded to, HaiEnergy subsequently leveraged these videos to bolster campaign messaging.

The videos of these small protest demonstrations were then redistributed through their media network and made to look as though there was a groundswell of support against the ban on goods manufactured by slave labor in Eastern Turkestan (aka Xinjiang.)

For Freedom

Noticing Chinese Interfering in US Affairs – Part 2

From an article by Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm, we are informed of how a PRC public relations firm, Shanghai Haixun Technology Co, Inc. is exploiting US news outlets and social media to spread Chinese Communist Party propaganda.

In August 2022, Mandiant released a public report detailing an ongoing influence campaign leveraging infrastructure attributed to the Chinese public relations (PR) firm Shanghai Haixun Technology Co., Ltd (上海海讯社科技有限公司) (referred to hereafter as “Haixun”). This campaign, which we dubbed “HaiEnergy,” leveraged a network of at least 72 inauthentic news sites—which presented themselves as independent news outlets based in various regions across the world—and a number of suspected inauthentic social media assets to amplify content strategically aligned with the political interests of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

When we released our initial report, we were unable to determine the extent to which Haixun was involved in, or even aware of this campaign, as our visibility was limited to the campaign’s use of infrastructure linked to the company. In recent months, however, we have identified additional evidence suggesting Haixun is not only aware of the campaign but is actively supporting it through the solicitation of for-hire freelancers via Fiverr to promote campaign content.

Additionally, we have identified new tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) being employed by HaiEnergy, which includes the use of newswire services to distribute pro-PRC content to subdomains of legitimate U.S.-based news outlets. We also note the possibility the campaign is leveraging less conventional TTPs, citing a specific example in which an ad displaying pro-PRC messaging was possibly placed on a billboard in New York City’s Times Square.

The authors provide examples of how pro-CCP propaganda is distributed and indicate how CCP actors redistribute through social media. (These folks may be different from Wu Mao Dang, but maybe they are double-dipping.)

For Freedom

Noticing Chinese Interfering in US Affairs – Part 1

From the article:

“Darren Fraser at the MidValley Times reported earlier this week that the building has been illegally operated since October 2022 by Wang Zhaolin of Prestige Biotech, and the lab was used to produce COVID-19 tests and pregnancy tests.

City of Reedley officials called in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the FBI, the State Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), the State Department of Health, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the Fresno County Department of Public Health (FCDPH).

“Reedley officials and personnel from CDPH and FCDPH executed a warrant on March 16 to inspect the warehouse at 850 I Street,” MidValley Times reported. “According to a declaration from Humero Prado, Assistant Director of Fresno County Public Health, which was filed in superior court, investigators discovered that one room of the warehouse was used to produce COVID-19 and pregnancy tests. In other rooms, investigators found blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples. They also found thousands of vials that contained unlabeled fluids.”

And they found 900 genetically engineered mice, engineered to catch and carry COVID-19, living in “inhumane” conditions. 773 of the mice had to be euthanized, and officials found another 178 mice already dead.”

Since all PRC entities are subservient to the Chinese Communist Party, what are we to make of this no-longer-hidden biolab? Are we to assume it is all aboveboard and no nefarious activity occurred or just expect the truth to be released sometime in the future (like the CCP’s spy balloon)?
Are we also to assume the presence of this biolab is the only one and that the Chinese Communist Party has no more in the US or that if there are others, they will be completely benign?

For Freedom