China Tweets #11
Media, censorship and propaganda
In order to prevent IP theft, a Japanese website employs a novel method that triggers PRC internet censors to take down its cloned website in China.
A Japanese art and manga website that was cloned by Chinese pirates has hit back by adding forbidden keywords and hashtags banned by Chinese censors, prompting the authorities to shut the pirated version down. https://t.co/Cf1o9gAJba
— Radio Free Asia (@RadioFreeAsia) September 25, 2022
Cybersecurity news publication The Record has published a report by its threat research division, Insikt Group, on the CCP's evolving approach to targeted propaganda:
🚨 NEW REPORT: My latest exposes the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) evolving approach to targeted propaganda based on gender, values, hobbies, & other individual, community, and country-level factors 1/x
— Devin Thorne (@D_Thorne) September 28, 2022
Download the report here!: https://t.co/hkBpbioJv4 pic.twitter.com/x3VELsFM6S
What's on Weibo celebrates 9 years of sharing all the best bits from Weibo! Even after censors may have taken down certain posts...
Time flies when you're on Weibo - can't believe I've been running @WhatsOnWeibo for 9 years already. So thankful to the readers who keep us going🙏. I'm excited (& bit nervous) to announce some changes to the site. Explaining the whys & hows here. Link: https://t.co/g8L9Dnnqkf pic.twitter.com/gNDzLxNKvb
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) September 28, 2022
On Chinese propaganda...
— Caroline Freund (@CarolineFreund) September 28, 2022
Scripted propaganda can be identified from clusters of newspapers printing nearly identical articles on same day.
Propaganda in front page articles more than doubled from 2012 to 2020@GPS_UCSD @21CenturyChina @mollyeroberts https://t.co/2fcHBo9IN1 pic.twitter.com/DdZm074EBj
State media and the Nordstream explosions:
PRC diplomats and state media messaging around the #Nordstream sabotage is another illustration of the ongoing Sino-Russian convergence in the information space.
— Etienne Soula (@EtienneSoula) September 29, 2022
Covid propaganda phrases:
I wrote about Chinese gov's creation of 100+ Covid propaganda phrases, and how ppl rebelled against the absurd propaganda discourse and the state power behind it. If you've ever heard 静态管理、应转尽转、非必要, you'll love it. (1https://t.co/mv1W5zKdV9
— Zixu Wang (@ZixuWang_News) September 29, 2022
A slight delay in the media about a big technological breakthrough for China:
More than 12 hours since the CAAC granted the C919 certification and there isn't a single mention on any major Chinese news publication or its civil aviation regulator -- in any language. Not. A. Word. https://t.co/NW6RwigWmu
— Jon Ostrower (@jonostrower) September 30, 2022
It was mentioned though:
It's out now. Clearly waiting to connect the good news to the big man: https://t.co/otEG86BYLF
— Mark Dreyer (@DreyerChina) September 30, 2022
Chinese scholars' analysis of Meloni's election success in Italy:
Very little expert commentary in #China on the outcome of the Italian elections.
— Thomas des Garets Geddes (@thomasdggeddes) October 1, 2022
The following is a selection of quotes:
1/17
Podcast in Chinese about what an absence of independent media means to ordinary people and the government in China:
2012年习近平就任中国新一代领导人之后，言论自由和新闻自由是他首先打击的对象之一。
— 不明白播客 (@bumingbaipod) October 2, 2022
本周的20大专题播客，袁莉@LiYuan6 请来媒体人江雪与张洁平，谈一谈中国媒体过去10年的经历，探讨一下没有独立媒体对中国的普通民众以及政府意味着什么。
官网：https://t.co/ukmUC8NTU6 https://t.co/Clj8cotBKW
Robert Bickers on archival access being restricted more and more over time:
Finally reading Robert Bickers “Out of China.”
— Will Glasgow (@wmdglasgow) October 2, 2022
Begins with this sad author’s note about how — back in what’s often called the pre-Trump “engagement era” — Beijing had already closed its archives to enforce “the unquestionable supremacy of a single interpretation of history”. pic.twitter.com/2zj90ru5Sb
PLA/Security/Warfare
Roderick Lee analyses the rank markings of PRC military personnel to figure out their roles and predict who might join the Central Military Commission.
Time for some PLA leadership shifts grounded in reality. The recent seminar on national defense and military reform reveals some pretty substantive changes and may reveal some future CMC members (a thread 1/10): pic.twitter.com/6Z53hIFhHP
— Rod Lee (@roderick_s_lee) September 26, 2022
An analysis of television footage of amphibious assault exercises is used to see what an invasion of Taiwan would look like:
How does the PLA intend to conduct amphibious assaults? Well, the easiest way is to let them show us. A 🧵 pic.twitter.com/iAwOrXYggb
— PLAOps (@PLAOpsOSINT) September 27, 2022
America hacks back?
Beijing reveals NSA has hacked into universities, but slips in the reason they know it was America was cuz
— Damien Ma (@damienics) September 27, 2022
1) hackers always clocked out at 4pm EST
2) never worked weekends
So China is accusing the NSA of quiet quitting. Where's that 996 hacking ethos!
h/t @ZichenWanghere
What military strategists in Beijing can learn from the Ukraine War:
Chinese strategists urgently try to learn the lessons of the Ukraine War for the "Transformation in Land Warfare". Binggong Keji-China, 2022 (13) This article is very candid regarding Russian difficulties, including massive tank losses. pic.twitter.com/RIxl5V8pZ2
— Lyle Goldstein (@lylegoldstein) September 29, 2022
Technology
On how technology will aid food security in China:
Can Syngenta, one of the world's largest agribusinesses, secure China's food future? I dug into that question in this week's edition of @thewirechina – and stumbled upon lots of interesting answers ... https://t.co/D0GIRSKoeU
— Isabella Borshoff (@iborshoff) September 26, 2022
Single-use subway tickets in Beijing now require your name and ID number:
Since I left Beijing in June, one thing has changed: you now need to provide name and ID info to buy single-use subway tickets. This was one of the few things you could still do without there being a record, but now this loophole has been fixed. pic.twitter.com/OhaoEqm73K
— Gabriel Corsetti (@GabrielCorsetti) September 29, 2022
A thread on a digital utopia vs. a digital police state:
One takeaway from the discussion with @lizalinwsj and @joshchin : China’s tech model is a double edged sword, both at home and abroad. And the line between “digital utopia” and “digital police state” is quite often blurred. 🧵
— Kenton Thibaut (@kentonthibaut) September 29, 2022
Economy
2.8 per cent?
The World Bank is now forecasting that China's GDP will grow just 2.8% in 2022. This number isn't out of line with what others are now expecting, but 2.8% is certainly a low number, so low that it was recently considered a purely hypothetical worst-case economic scenario. pic.twitter.com/ZIkVV01vGL
— Andrew Batson (@andrewbatson) September 27, 2022