RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/chinaconnected_tencents_tentacles_extend_to_nasa_too_.html

President Trump has been leading the U.S. against the Chinese theft of  American data and intellectual property.  The administration has ramped up its pressure campaign by threatening Gen Z social media platforms like TikTok, which observers fear could funnel data to China, and closing the Chinese consulate in Houston for being a source of espionage and intellectual property theft.

Now Trump has taken the unprecedented step of shutting down WeChat, which is owned by the Chinese company Tencent.  As suggested by the president’s executive order, Tencent, like many other regime-connected firms, is a threat because of its apps’ reported collection of large swaths of personal data.  It isn’t in the best interest of the nation’s security to allow the Chinese government easy access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information, which often occurs more than they realize.  

To protect national security, Trump is taking a harder stance than past administrations in the hope that it quells the growing Chinese threat.  Now Congress is doubling down to help him eliminate further threats that this adversary poses to American security.   Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) has introduced two new amendments to the latest NASA Authorization Act, which would require background checks of NASA’s private contractors to ensure that there aren’t any significant connections to China.  These amendments are needed now more than ever — especially when considering Tencent’s proximity to NASA. 

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2020/08/18/the-jihad-terrorist-in-new-york-city-you-heard-nothing-about-n806283

While the New York Police Department zealously guards Mayor de Blasio’s infamous “Black Lives Matter” street graffiti in front of Trump Tower, other, more serious endeavors continue that, if the city had a rational mayor, might actually have a better claim on the NYPD’s time and resources. Those include Islamic jihad terrorism.

Last Tuesday, a New York-based convert to Islam with the emphatically Christian name of Jesus Encarnacion got 15 years in prison for attempting to aid a jihad terror group.

The Justice Department’s account of his activities makes for hair-raising reading, and reminds us yet again that Bill de Blasio, like other Leftist mayors and governors, is chasing phantom problems (Russiagate, the USPS “scandal,” and many, many more) while there are real and pressing troubles that warrant his attention.

Jesus Wilfredo Encarnacion, heedless of the fact that many, if not most, Americans, at least those on the Left, take jihad terrorism to be yesterday’s news and no longer a threat to the United States (if it ever was), was a fearless keyboard warrior who called himself “Jihadistsoldgier,” “Jihadinhear,” “Jihadinheart,” “Lionofthegood.”

Ercarnacion, however, was not content to wage jihad only on his computer screen. He got his prison sentence for plotting to join a Pakistani jihad terrorist organization, Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), which has carried out numerous jihad massacres, including the infamous Mumbai attack of November 2008, in which jihadis murdered 172 people. The State Department considers LeT to be a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/08/18/former-cia-officer-accused-of-spying-for-china-in-tale-worthy-of-a-spy-thriller-n805213

A CIA officer who retired in 1989 has been indicted on espionage charges by the Justice Department. Alexander Yuk Ching Ma is being accused of spying for China since 2001 and may have given Chinese intelligence ways to hack CIA communications as well as the names of human assets spying against China.

The way that the FBI finally trapped Ma is worthy of being included in the next blockbuster spy film. They sent an operative to impersonate a Chinese intelligence official who was “investigating” the way Ma had been treated over the years, including how much he had been compensated. Needless to say, the traitor hung himself in no time.

NBCNews:

A video recording showed Ma counting $2,000 in cash provided by the undercover operative, who said it was to acknowledge his work on behalf of China. Investigators said Ma, who was born in Hong Kong, explained that he “wanted ‘the motherland’ to succeed” and admitted that he provided classified information to the Ministry of State Security and continued to work with some of its same representatives who were at the 2001 meeting.

Ma’s treachery began with a series of meetings in a Hong Kong hotel room where he spent three days with Chinese intelligence, giving up secrets. The Justice Department press release mentions one meeting that was videotaped where Ma was seen counting out $50,000.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16352/wall-street-china-fraud

Why do Chinese companies pillage American investors? Because American rules — more precisely, exceptions to them — essentially invite them to do so.

Unfortunately, China is rapidly moving in the wrong direction. In March, it took a big step backward by amending its securities law to further impede the sharing of audit information with overseas regulators.

Roger Robinson, former chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, told Gatestone that he is also concerned about whether the new rules will be enforced. “Although historic progress is being made vis-à-vis China’s abuse of the U.S. capital markets, there is still a fervent effort underway by Treasury and Wall Street to minimize any disruption to the status quo.”

The issue, as Stevenson-Yang notes, is whether American regulators have the “guts” to maintain regulated markets. Chinese companies, many of them with fake books, are betting they do not.

China’s issuers, however, are still coming in droves to America. To steal.

Investors dumped the shares of Nasdaq-listed iQiyi late last week after the Chinese company announced that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had initiated an investigation into it for fraud.

In April, short-seller Wolfpack Research accused iQiyi of inflating revenue and user numbers by double-digit margins. The “fraud,” as Wolfpack termed it, dated back before iQiyi’s initial public offering in March 2018.

iQiyi, known as the “Netflix of China,” is no fly-by-night operation. It is owned by blue-chip Baidu, “China’s Google.”

The iQiyi scandal follows a series of Chinese frauds, most notably Luckin Coffee, which admitted fabricating sales and was delisted from Nasdaq at the end of June.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/trump-confronts-chinese-regimes-technological-joseph-klein/

The Chinese communist empire has weaponized social media, telecommunications and cloud computing to expand the reach of its infiltration and surveillance capabilities way beyond its borders. Americans’ personal data and intellectual property are prime targets for the regime’s malign activities, which have gone on for decades without any blowbacks of consequence. In fact, globalists have encouraged the integration of China into the world economy, falling prey to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu’s stratagem that “All warfare is based on deception.”  But the time has finally arrived for China to pay the piper, thanks to President Trump.   

The Trump administration is seeking to quarantine Chinese-owned apps and China’s digital infrastructure under its “Clean Network” program, announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on August 5th.

“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),” Secretary Pompeo said in his press statement. This represents a sharp ramp-up of the technology cold war between the United States and the communist regime.

The Clean Networks program includes the removal of “untrusted” Chinese-owned apps from U.S. mobile app stores like those run by Apple and Google. The Trump administration has previously targeted China’s ByteDance-owned TikTok’s United States operations, which the administration wants to either eliminate or require their complete sale (including the transfer of all relevant software code) to a U.S. company such as Microsoft.

tps://mailchi.mp/a569a5374206/tune-in-ill-be-speaking-on-american-ingrate-tuesday-night-2463557?e=a0fa704ef6

President Donald Trump recently issued an executive order aimed at aligning federal contracting and hiring with the interests of American workers. Just days after its issuance, we are now learning of disturbing news demonstrating how urgently needed the order was. Bombshell revelations emerging from the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) show that President Trump’s predecessor not only undermined the interests of American workers, but in so doing imperiled our national security—raising questions about the hiring practices and security procedures of other federal agencies, when it comes to non-Americans.

As detailed previously, USAGM is a little-known agency, yet one of great importance. It is the federal government’s broadcasting arm for global audiences, tasked with overseeing several networks charged with “inform[ing], engag[ing] and connect[ing] people around the world in support of freedom and democracy,” and doing so “consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States.” To achieve its mission, it directs entities such as Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and, perhaps most notably, its flagship Voice of America (VOA), to represent America in broadcasting authoritative, uncensored news to peoples across the world. Among its most noble efforts are those USAGM undertakes to evade the firewalls of tyrannical regimes, providing those laboring under them with the free and open flow of information and ideas their leaders loathe.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/trump-administration-measures-against-chinese-communist-party-affiliated-technology-welcome/

The Chinese Communist Party has been exporting its virtual panopticon to liberal democracies via WeChat, TikTok, and other online platforms. in its pursuit of more global influence. As part of a broader push against Chinese influence, the Trump administration in recent weeks has rolled out a number of measures to deal with the threat of Chinese technology. 

The White House forced TikTok into acquisition talks with Microsoft, following a U.S. government panel’s decision to force divestment from the app’s parent company ByteDance. Negotiators have until September 15 to reach a deal. After that, President Trump says he will ban the app. 

Building on this, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week announced the “Clean Network” program, a State Department initiative to certify trusted partners who have worked to rid their products and networks of malign foreign influence.  

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16293/china-seeds-biological-attack

Some think the packages [of seeds marked as “jewelry”] could be part of a “brushing scam” — an effort to create fake customer reviews on online retail platforms — but that appears unlikely. For one thing, there is no indication these seeds — there are several varieties of them — are either branded or are offered for sale.

“DO NOT plant them,” officials in every state have warned.

There is also an infamous statement attributed to General Chi Haotian. In a secret speech to senior Communist Party officials sometime around 2002, Chi, then the Chinese defense minister, stated there was a need for “new living space” because of the exhaustion of existing Chinese territory. Chi suggested the “mass colonization” of the land occupied by United States as the best option.

“We are not as foolish as to want to perish together with America by using nuclear weapons,” he said. The way to “clean up” the U.S., Chi argued, would be through biological attacks.

“For forty years, the Chinese have used unconventional tactics to further their ambitious goal of defeating the United States,” said Brandon Weichert of the Weichert Report to this publication. “They employed economic warfare, lawfare, information warfare, and cyber warfare. Beijing looks like it attempted biowarfare with the novel coronavirus from Wuhan. Now, they may be trying their hand at ecological warfare.”

Residents in all 50 states have received packages of seeds, sent unsolicited from China. Many of the packages, mailed through the Chinese state-run postal system, were mislabeled as “jewelry” for U.S. Customs purposes.

“DO NOT plant them,” officials in every state have warned.

“They could be invasive, meaning they may have the potential to introduce diseases to local plants, or could be harmful to livestock,” the Montana Department of Agriculture noted in a statement on Monday, referring to the Chinese seeds. “Treat them like they are radioactive, like they are Kryptonite,” said Texas Agriculture

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/intrigue-democrats-china-friendly-california-lloyd-billingsley/

On Friday U.S. authorities arrested Juan Tang, who had sought refuge in the Chinese consulate in San Francisco after being charged with visa fraud last month. Tang had been a visiting cancer researcher at UC Davis, the Davis Enterprise reports, funded by the Chinese Scholarship Council, affiliated with the China’s Ministry of Education and Xijing Hospital in China.

According to the report, the FBI found a 2016 photo of Tang wearing a People’s Liberation Army uniform and an application for government benefits in which Tang revealed she was member of the Chinese Communist Party. After questioning at her Davis apartment, Tang fled to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco. Justice Department officials did not reveal how Tang was apprehended or whether the consulate had turned over the fugitive.

Chen Song, a visiting researcher at Stanford is also charged with visa fraud for lying about affiliations with the Chinese military. These are hardly the first cases of Chinese espionage in California. For some 20 years, in fact, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, San Francisco Democrat, employed a Chinese spy on her staff.