Dragon & Phoenix Arch

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The Chinese government has intensified its crackdown on religion as President Xi Jinping seeks to instil party loyalty above all else. The forced closure of Beijing’s Zion church earlier this month represents a heightened assault on independent “house” churches and a further escalation of repression that was previously seen in mass church demolitions, cross removals, and the detention of Christian activists. Online Bible sales are now prohibited after new regulations closed loopholes allowing online retailers to carry the scriptures. These moves coincide with government efforts to “Sinicize” religion and further limit the religious freedom of China’s ethnic minorities. As many as one million Muslim Uyghurs are currently held in mass detention centres and re-education camps in Xinjiang where they are forced to renounce their religious identity and undergo mandatory political indoctrination.

The Washington Post’s Anna Fifield looks at the motive behind Xi’s crackdown on religion:

Xi appears to be waging a campaign against religion because he was concerned about ideological rivalry, said Karrie Koesel, a University of Notre Dame expert on religion in China.

The Communist Party is outnumbered 4 to 1 by followers of various religions. There are about 90 million members of the Chinese Communist Party, but 70 million Christians alone, according to the Pew Research Center.

Christians make up about 5 percent of the population and Muslims less than 2 percent, while about 18 percent identify as Buddhist, according to Pew.

“Some of these groups are growing very quickly, and that makes the government very nervous,” Koesel said. “It’s not because they’re challenging the state, but the state sees religion as an existential threat. That’s why they’re increasing political education.”

The Chinese government has denied embarking on any crackdown against religion. The foreign ministry has repeatedly said that the government wants to ensure “the harmonious coexistence” of different ethnic groups and religions in China. [Source]

New guidelines have been drafted to regulate the “chaotic” promotion of religion online. Religious content sent through messaging apps and other online channels are expected to be affected. David Stanway at Reuters reports:

All organizations engaged in the dissemination of religious information online will be obliged to apply for licenses from provincial religious affairs departments, the paper said, citing a policy document issued on Monday.

While the license will enable them to “preach and offer religious training”, they will not be allowed to live-stream or broadcast religious activities. The dissemination of religious information anywhere other than their own internet platforms is also forbidden.

The guidelines also specifically prohibit online religious services from inciting subversion, opposing the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and promoting extremism and separatism. [Source]

Meanwhile, China and the Vatican are set to sign a landmark deal at the end of this month that would end a prolonged stalemate on the contentious issue of the appointment of bishops in the country. The proposed agreement would involve official Chinese acknowledgment of the pope as head of the Catholic Church in China in turn for Vatican recognition of seven formerly excommunicated Chinese bishops, who were appointed by the Chinese government without Vatican approval. The pending agreement has sparked criticism as Hong Kong’s former archbishop urged against the deal. This latest round of Sino-Vatican negotiations bears out speculations made earlier this year when Vatican sources expressed optimism over a likely deal with Beijing that would allow the Chinese government to have greater say in clerical appointments. It came after the Vatican agreed at the end of January to replace two of its bishops by those approved by the Chinese Communist Party.  From Francis X. Rocca and Eva Dou at The Wall Street Journal:

At the last meeting of the negotiating teams, in Rome in June, the Vatican assured the Chinese representatives that Pope Francis would sign the necessary document to lift the excommunications of the seven government-appointed bishops and recognize them as the bishops of their dioceses about a week before the deal is signed, said one of the people familiar with the matter.

That recognition would require two bishops who have shunned government control, in the dioceses of Shantou and Mindong, to step aside in favor of government-appointed bishops. They would be the first so-called underground bishops to be asked to do so by the Vatican.

[…] Also as part of the deal, the government is expected to recognize the “underground” bishop of Qiqihar, near the Russian border, one of the people said. Qiqihar Bishop Wei Jingyi couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.

The agreement is explicitly provisional, meaning that it allows for the possibility of revisions after one or two years if either party sees the need. Both parties have agreed that the text of the agreement won’t be published even after it is signed, one of the people said.

Critics of the prospective deal have cast it as a capitulation by the Vatican. [Source]

Warming relations between China and the Vatican have raised concern for the Taiwanese government, who fear the potential risks that the imminent deal poses to Taiwan-Vatican relations as Beijing seeks to isolate Taiwan diplomatically. From the AFP:

Taiwan’s foreign ministry spokesman Andrew Lee said the government would “not take lightly” any agreement between the two sides.

But asked whether the Vatican had given Taiwan any assurances that it would not sever official ties, Lee said he believed the deal would not touch on diplomatic recognition.

“I think the religious affairs agreement concerns issues of religious cooperation and exchanges, and will not involve issues of diplomatic ties,” he said at a briefing.

“We hope our ties with the Vatican will last a very long time even if the agreement were signed,” he added. [Source]

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The ability to persistently link people’s identities and activities is a core them of China’s raft of developing surveillance and population management schemes. It has arisen in the nascent social credit system, in DNA collection, in facial and voice recognition systems, in real name registration requirements for online accounts and other services, and in a proliferation of ID checks for services such as sending packages and taking long-distance transportation. This week brought news of major steps—one actual, one prospective—by U.S. tech giants Apple and Google to better facilitate this capability.

On Wednesday, Apple announced a trio of new iPhones whose features include long-awaited support for dual SIM cards. In most countries, the new iPhones will accommodate one physical SIM card, and one virtual “eSIM.” Phones sold in China, though, will take two physical SIM cards, an exceptionally unusual bifurcation of the company’s flagship hardware line. The Wall Street Journal’s Yoko Kubota and Tripp Mickle report that identity tracking appears to have been a decisive factor, as physical SIM cards are subject to real name registration requirements that eSIMs might circumvent.

An acronym for subscriber identity module, SIMs are microchips that allow smartphone users to access a wireless network. With dual SIM, users can use two phone numbers on one device.

Outside of China, the new iPhones feature a technology that blends a physical SIM with an eSIM technology, a digital embedded SIM that lets wireless subscribers store a second phone number on the device without a second physical SIM card.

But in China, that is a challenge because of regulations that require carriers and regulators to be able to track the device user’s identity. That would be difficult to do with eSIM, which would be embedded by Apple and not the carriers.

Therefore, Apple has added trays for those physical SIM cards in China alone, further complicating a difficult supply chain by requiring additional components and different production processes. [Source]

The WSJ reported last year that cellular connectivity for Apple Watches had been “abruptly cut off for new subscribers, without explanation,” citing similar suspicion that “the suspension likely stemmed from Chinese government security concerns related to tracking users of the device.” An analyst told the paper that “the eSIM [system] isn’t mature enough yet in China,” and “the government still needs to figure out how they can control the eSIM.” Apple now lists Apple Watch LTE connectivity as available in only seven cities, excluding Beijing, on China Unicom, and as “Coming 2018” on China Mobile and China Telecom. Its website warns that service availability “could be delayed or suspended” by the carriers.

Some analysts have pointed to the lack of eSIM support agreements with Chinese carriers to explain the hardware fork. This situation is far from unique, however: Apple lists only ten countries where eSIM support will initially be available, even there only from selected carriers. Carrier agreements do not therefore seem sufficient explanation for the unique arrangements Apple has made for China.

On Friday, meanwhile, The Intercept’s Ryan Gallagher reported new details of Google’s “Project Dragonfly,” a search engine it had been developing that could accommodate requirements from Chinese authorities and enable the company’s return to the Chinese market. The company’s apparent willingness to comply with censorship, as well as its refusal to clarify its intentions, have sparked widespread concern in the weeks since Gallagher first revealed them. The latest revelations highlight surveillance concerns, with news that Google planned to link search queries to users’ phone numbers, making them more easily traceable and personally identifiable. Searching for politically sensitive terms might therefore be not only fruitless, but actively dangerous.

Leading human rights groups have criticized Dragonfly, saying that it could result in the company “directly contributing to, or [becoming] complicit in, human rights violations.” A central concern expressed by the groups is that, beyond the censorship, user data stored by Google on the Chinese mainland could be accessible to Chinese authorities, who routinely target political activists and journalists.

Sources familiar with the project said that prototypes of the search engine linked the search app on a user’s Android smartphone with their phone number. This means individual people’s searches could be easily tracked – and any user seeking out information banned by the government could potentially be at risk of interrogation or detention if security agencies were to obtain the search records from Google.

“This is very problematic from a privacy point of view, because it would allow far more detailed tracking and profiling of people’s behavior,” said Cynthia Wong, senior internet researcher with Human Rights Watch. “Linking searches to a phone number would make it much harder for people to avoid the kind of overreaching government surveillance that is pervasive in China.”

The search engine would be operated as part of a “joint venture” partnership with a company based in mainland China, according to sources familiar with the project. People working for the joint venture would have the capability to update the search term blacklists, the sources said, raising new questions about whether Google executives in the U.S. would be able to maintain effective control and oversight over the censorship. [Source]

The news indicates that Google would re-enter China without one of the core principles to which it adhered last time around: what company biographer Steven Levy described in his book “In The Plex” as “a firm policy against storing personal data inside China—to avoid the problems of having the government demand that Google turn over the data” as Yahoo! had infamously been compelled to do for the prosecution of journalist Shi Tao. Many such precautions would now be illegal in any case under new rules like those in the 2017 Cybersecurity Law, which compelled Apple and others to move Chinese users’ cloud data to Chinese data centers earlier this year.

Before these latest revelations, Suzanne Nossel of the Pen American Center highlighted risks to Chinese users in an extensive article at Foreign Policy warning of the implications of Google’s acquiescence. The article draws on “Forbidden Feeds,” the organization’s March report on social media control in China. Though its focus is on social media platforms, its warnings are also relevant to traceable searches like those planned under Dragonfly.

For media companies, there is no wiggling free from government dictates. “China’s legal system conscripts domestic social media companies to be active participants in the monitoring and censorship of their own users. Chinese companies have no choice but to operate in accordance with the government’s demands. … Within the existing censorship framework, there is simply no way for foreign social media companies to operate in China without becoming active partners in the government’s efforts to silence dissent through censorship, mass surveillance, and the use of criminal charges,” the report adds.

[…] For ordinary users who take advantage of Google’s services, the government’s right to access personal data—such as search histories—housed on corporate servers would be absolute. An appendix to the PEN America report documents the cases of 80 Chinese citizens who have been targeted, detained, or prosecuted for online postings. The list includes people such as the writer Wu Yangwei, who was detained and strip-searched after broadcasting a press freedom protest online; the women’s rights activist Su Changlan, who was convicted of “subversion” for posting articles and comments supportive of Hong Kong’s Umbrella protests; and the blogger Duan Xiaowen, who has been imprisoned and tortured for blogging about government corruption. Another prominent example of an online dissident was 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who died of liver cancer last year while serving an 11-year prison sentence in part for his role in drafting the online “Charter 08” petition on freedom and democracy. The prospect of Google helping to build cases against such courageous advocates is dire. [Source]

Earlier this week, Gallagher reported on one of several Google engineers who have resigned in protest at Project Dragonfly. In a letter to his employers, machine intelligence developer Jack Poulson wrote that “I view our intent to capitulate to censorship and surveillance demands in exchange for access to the Chinese market as a forfeiture of our values and governmental negotiating position across the globe.” Poulson later told Buzzfeed that “I’m offended that no weight has been given to the human rights community having a consensus. If you have coalition letter from 14 human rights organizations, and that can’t even make it into the discussions on the ethics behind a decision, I’d rather stand with the human rights organizations in this dispute.” Half a dozen other staff have reportedly left the company, while 1,700 have signed a letter demanding that ethical concerns be addressed.

The China controversy comes with Google under broader political and legal pressure at home in the U.S., and facing demands for global content takedowns from various other countries. Regarding the former, tech journalist Kara Swisher wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Thursday that “Washington politicians should take all their sanctimony and direct it at the China issue, which actually deserves some scrutiny.” Some have already done so: a cross-party group of 16 senators and representatives wrote to Google on Thursday, asking for clarity about its plans in China.

Apple’s Wednesday announcement, meanwhile, touched another political nerve. A slide used in the presentation listed the “markets”—not “countries”—where new products would be available at launch, and included Hong Kong and Taiwan separately from China. This prompted complaints echoing those aimed at several other foreign companies this year. On Weibo, the Communist Youth League posted a demand for explanation from Apple:

Official trolling is coming, thoughts and prayers for Apple. pic.twitter.com/6TbgpIJfUb

— Shawn Zhang (@shawnwzhang) September 13, 2018

The added highlighting suggests an argument stated outright in a Global Times editorial: that if Apple uses the term “U.S. Virgin Islands,” it should also use language like “China’s Hong Kong” or “China’s Taiwan.” “U.S.” is an integral part of the territory’s formal name, however, necessary to distinguish it from the British Virgin Islands or those under Puerto Rican jurisdiction. Puerto Rico itself appeared on the Apple slide without explicit statement of its status as another U.S. territory, further undermining the claim of a double standard.

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Post tags: Apple, censorship, Google, iPhones, mobile phones, mobile technology, real name registration, search engines, surveillance, Taiwan status
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Famous Chinese actress and singer Fan Bingbing has been given a score of zero in a ranking of celebrities’ social responsibility jointly conducted by academics at the Beijing Normal University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The low rating fuelled speculation that Fan may have run into trouble with the authorities after being placed under investigation over tax evasion allegations involving the use of “yin-yang contracts,” a practice widespread in the entertainment industry whereby stars under report their earnings by submitting a copy of their contract with a reduced salary figure to tax authorities. A directive from propaganda authorities following the allegations against Fan ordered websites to “hold back” on publishing content on the practice. Fan was last seen during a public appearance at a children’s hospital on July 1st. Gerry Shih at The Washington Post reports:

Fan Bingbing is one of China’s biggest celebrities, a ubiquitous actress, model and singer who earned more in 2016 than Hollywood A-listers such as Amy Adams and Charlize Theron, according to Forbes.

But in July, the “X-Men” actress suddenly vanished. And in the weeks since, the mystery surrounding her disappearance from public view has only deepened amid speculation that she ran afoul of Chinese authorities.

The latest clue emerged Tuesday after a state-affiliated think tank and Beijing university ranked Fan dead last in their annual “Social Responsibility Report” — she earned a 0 out of 100 — citing her “negative social impact,” among other things.

The report, which was widely covered by state media, didn’t shed any more light on Fan’s predicament, but it does add to the sense that China’s Communist Party is sending a message to the country’s burgeoning entertainment industry.

In June, days before Fan disappeared from all public events and stopped posting on social media, the party’s propaganda department, which plays a key role in media regulation and censorship, issued a notice chastising the film industry for “distorting social values,” “fostering money worship tendencies” and encouraging Chinese youths to “blindly chase celebrities.” [Source]

BBC’s Kerry Allen has more on the nature of the scoring system:

The 2017-2018 China Film and Television Star Social Responsibility Report, carried widely by state media outlets, ranks Chinese celebrities according to three criteria: professional work, charitable actions and personal integrity.

It praises celebrities who have become “relatively strong role models”, but also highlights cases where it says they have had a “negative” social impact.

[…] The authors said they studied the behaviour of 100 Chinese singers, actors, and public figures – based in China and abroad – to assess the extent of their social responsibility.

They did not specify exactly how they arrived at the results in the test, but said that their findings were based on “research and web-scraping”.

[…] Only nine celebrities were deemed to be socially responsible enough, however, with a pass requiring a score of more than 60%.The report stressed that celebrities had to do more to promote “positive energy” and hinted that they needed to be more aware of behaviour and actions that might have a “negative social impact”. [Source]

Only a handful of celebrities scored a passing grade, with those coming first awarded for the positive social impact of their philanthropy work and their public image as “relatively strong role models.”

In recent years, the Chinese government has introduced a series of regulations targeting television and video content in an effort to curb the “negative” influence of celebrity displays of fame and wealth. In 2016, regulatory officials prohibited children from participating in reality television shows and limited programs showing overly materialistic content. Bloomberg’s Jing Yang De Morel writes that the social responsibility report comes amid a wider crackdown on the entertainment industry to rein in excessive compensation for celebrities. The move will likely force studios to make productions focusing more on quality rather than the number of A-list stars.

While authorities may not directly undermine bankable stars, industry trends show stellar casts are no longer sure bets.

Just before “Dying to Survive,” a low-budget Chinese comedy-drama without big stars became the summer smash hit, “Asura,” the big-budget, star-studded epic on mythology bombed at the box office and was withdrawn immediately after its opening weekend. Trade magazine Variety called it “the most expensive flop in Chinese history.”

Television streaming is also drawing fans to dramas without big stars.

“Story of Yanxi Palace,” a 70-episode drama co-produced by and streamed on iQiyi, China’s Netflix, emerged as a surprising summer hit with a mostly young, lesser-known cast. A Qing dynasty tale of scheming concubines, the drama has been streamed more than 15 billion times, according to iQiyi.

The success of the drama “brings a new turning point and new opportunities to the industry that has been pressured by excessive compensation for celebrities,” iQiyi CEO Gong Yu said in Beijing Aug. 26 at an event to celebrate the drama’s conclusion. “The industry should stop overcompensating celebrities in low-quality productions just because they have huge fan bases.” [Source]

While Fan has not been charged with any crime, rumours have surfaced that she may be facing an acting ban. From Patrick Frater at Variety:

A Hong Kong news outlet is reporting that Fan Bingbing, China’s highest-paid actress, has been banned from acting for three years amid allegations of tax evasion, but there has been no independent verification as yet of such a move.

[…] According to another report, Fan’s name has been stripped from publicity for Chinese war film “Unbreakable Spirit” (previously titled “The Bombing”), starring Bruce Willis and Adrien Brody, which was to be released in China this month. The movie now looks set to hit theaters in October.

The reports do not say whether Fan is forbidden from acting only in China or also abroad. She has been cast in “355,” an all-female action movie produced by Jessica Chastain, which was the hottest-selling film this year at Cannes. CAA was involved in the sale of China rights to Huayi Bros. for an estimated $20 million.

[…] China has banned prominent performers and directors in the past, including actor-director Jiang Wen and director Zhang Yimou, usually because their films are deemed politically unacceptable by China’s censors. Officials rarely announce or publicly confirm such bans, except when the courts are involved, as was the case of Jackie Chan’s son Jaycee, who was convicted of supplying drugs. [Source]

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Post tags: entertainment industry, film, social responsibility
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