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  • China’s Economic Power Mutes Responses to Australia, Apple Hacks

  • Translation: Deleted Ad Reveals Death-defying Health Plan for Officials

  • Solomon Islands Switch Diplomatic Allegiance from Taiwan

 


Photo: Muslim Quarter of Xi’an, by mzagerp

Muslim Quarter of Xi’an, by mzagerp (CC BY-ND 2.0)


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China’s Economic Power Mutes Responses to Australia, Apple Hacks

On Sunday, Reuters’ Colin Packham reported on an Australian intelligence report blaming China’s Ministry of State Security for cyberattacks on the country’s parliament and three biggest political parties ahead of a general election in May. This conclusion was reportedly kept quiet for fear of antagonizing the country’s largest trading partner:

The report, which also included input from the Department of Foreign Affairs, recommended keeping the findings secret in order to avoid disrupting trade relations with Beijing, two of the people said. The Australian government has not disclosed who it believes was behind the attack or any details of the report.

[…] Australian authorities felt there was a “very real prospect of damaging the economy” if it were to publicly accuse China over the attack, one of the people said.

[…] The timing of the attack, three months ahead of Australia’s election, and coming after the cyber-attack on the U.S. Democratic Party ahead of the 2016 U.S. election, had raised concerns of election interference, but there was no indication that information gathered by the hackers was used in any way, one of the sources said.

[…] On a visit to Sydney last month, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered thinly veiled criticism of Australia’s approach after Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Canberra would make decisions toward China in based on “our national interest”.

[…] “You can sell your soul for a pile of soybeans, or you can protect your people,” he told reporters at a joint appearance with Payne in Sydney. [Source]

China’s economic clout also appeared to complicate the response to hacking revealed by a recent report on security vulnerabilities in rival Apple’s iPhones. According to Google’s "Project Zero" research arm, "a small collection of hacked websites […] were being used in indiscriminate watering hole attacks against their visitors, using iPhone 0-day. There was no target discrimination; simply visiting the hacked site was enough for the exploit server to attack your device, and if it was successful, install a monitoring implant. We estimate that these sites receive thousands of visitors per week." The attackers were able "to steal private data like iMessages, photos and GPS location in real-time" from compromised devices. Project Zero’s Ian Beer warned that "this was a failure case for the attacker: for this one campaign that we’ve seen, there are almost certainly others that are yet to be seen."

Project Zero did not identify either the targets, attackers, or websites involved, but TechCrunch’s Zack Whittaker later cited "sources familiar with the matter" who "said the websites were part of a state-backed attack — likely China — designed to target the Uyghur community." Forbes’ Thomas Brewster independently confirmed this, adding that Google’s own Android and Microsoft’s Windows OSes had also been affected. A subsequent report from security firm Volexity provided broader details on "Large-Scale Surveillance and Exploitation of Uyghurs," including intrusions into Gmail accounts, and examined possible ties between the Project Zero attacks and its own previous findings.

Apple’s eventual response to the Google report confirmed that the campaign had targeted Uyghurs, but did not mention China:

First, the sophisticated attack was narrowly focused, not a broad-based exploit of iPhones “en masse” as described. The attack affected fewer than a dozen websites that focus on content related to the Uighur community. Regardless of the scale of the attack, we take the safety and security of all users extremely seriously.

Google’s post, issued six months after iOS patches were released, creates the false impression of “mass exploitation” to “monitor the private activities of entire populations in real time,” stoking fear among all iPhone users that their devices had been compromised. This was never the case.

Second, all evidence indicates that these website attacks were only operational for a brief period, roughly two months, not “two years” as Google implies. We fixed the vulnerabilities in question in February — working extremely quickly to resolve the issue just 10 days after we learned about it. When Google approached us, we were already in the process of fixing the exploited bugs. [Source]

The company’s statement was widely criticized for focusing more on protecting the iPhone’s recently dented reputation for world-leading security than on reckoning with the impact of this particular breach, which took place amid an ongoing mass detention campaign against Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The company has faced long-running criticism for its timidity toward Chinese authorities.

Apple has also faced criticism over illegal labor practices ahead of its new iPhone launch this week.

Overseas Uyghurs were also the target of separate attacks reported by Reuters earlier this month on telecom networks in Turkey, Kazakhstan, India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of Central and Southeast Asia "frequently used as transit routes by Uighurs to travel between Xinjiang and Turkey in what human rights activists say is an attempt to escape state persecution."

Elsewhere, the Hong Kong-based online forum LIHKG, which has been a key organizing tool for ongoing protests, suffered a Great Cannon-style attack late last month. According to Global Voices’ Oiwan Lam, "what happened to LIHKG is not a single incident, a majority of independent media outlets and citizen forums in Hong Kong are subjected to state-level DDoS attacks from mainland China."

Meanwhile, espionage charges have been filed against a senior intelligence official in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada’s not invariably mounted federal police force. Cameron Ortis allegedly stole "terabytes" of sensitive data in order to sell it to "a foreign entity" with "potentially devastating" effects on Canada’s national interests. China has not been publicly identified as Ortis’ customer, but his academic and work experience and reported Mandarin proficiency have fueled suspicion in that direction.


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Translation: Deleted Ad Reveals Death-defying Health Plan for Officials

On Twitter, Radio Free Asia Chinese has posted an ad shared by the 301 Hospital, a Beijing institution catering to PLA officers and top officials, for a project aimed at maintaining the health and and extending the longevity of Party leaders. In the tweet, RFA explains that the ad for medical services for top leaders was circulating on WeChat, and that the text at the end of the ad mentions that the “981 Health Project for Leaders” was launched in 2005, with the goal of extending leaders’ lifespans to 150 years. The ad was blocked on WeChat on Monday. CDT has translated the ad in full:

From the founding of the country to this day, healthcare for the country’s leaders has made great progress. 

Through more than 60 years of discovery and implementation, an integrated system has been created encompassing medicine, healthcare, and rehabilitation.

Key areas of focus include the prevention of cancer, cardio-cerebral vascular diseases, aging, chronic disease management, organ regeneration, and healthy lifestyles.

It is a unique system that merges the essence of Chinese health regimen and advanced Western medical technology with significant practical results as shown by data.

The average life expectancy of Chinese leaders is far higher than the average life expectancy of leaders in the developed nations of the West. According to statistics from 2008, the average life expectancy of Chinese leaders reached 88 years of age.

China’s healthcare system for the country’s leaders is the world’s top healthcare system. It is highly effective and validated through practice.

[981 Project; 150 Years of Longevity to Resist Dying] [Chinese]

The healthcare enjoyed by China’s leaders, as advertised in the deleted ad, stands in stark contrast to the system available to regular citizens: earlier this year, a blood plasma-derived medical product was revealed to be tainted with HIV antibodies, and news emerged (and was the subject of censorship directives) that dozens of children had been given expired polio vaccines–just the latest vaccine scandal to hit China in recent years.

Translation by Cindy.


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Solomon Islands Switch Diplomatic Allegiance from Taiwan

The Solomon Islands is the latest country to switch their diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China, leaving Taiwan with only 16 countries that officially recognize it as an independent nation after El Salvador, Burkina Faso, and the Dominican Republic, among others, made a similar move in recent years. From Chris Horton at The New York Times:

Joseph Wu, the Taiwanese foreign minister, said at a news conference on Monday that Taiwan had learned that the Solomons, an archipelago east of Australia, had chosen to end 36 years of recognition of Taiwan’s government, leaving only 16 countries that maintain official relations with Taipei. These countries are the most likely to speak up for Taiwan in international bodies such as the United Nations General Assembly, where Taipei is not a member.

[…] In a statement, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused China of bribing Solomons politicians to abandon Taipei in the run-up to the 70th anniversary on Oct. 1 of the founding of the People’s Republic of China under the Communist Party.

“The government of China has once again resorted to dollar diplomacy and false promises of large amounts of foreign assistance to buy off a small number of politicians, so as to ensure that the government of Solomon Islands adopted a resolution to terminate relations with Taiwan before China’s National Day,” the statement said. “Beijing’s purpose is to diminish Taiwan’s international presence, hurt the Taiwanese people, and gradually suppress and eliminate Taiwan’s sovereignty.”

Washington broke official ties with Taipei in 1979 in order to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing as a Cold War counterweight against the Soviet Union. But Taiwan has remained an important, if unofficial, American ally in East Asia. [Source]

Taiwanese officials accused the Chinese government of pressuring the Solomon Islands as a way to exert pressure on Taiwan ahead of presidential and legislative elections next January. At Reuters, Lee Yimou reports:

Speaking to reporters in Taipei, Tsai said Taiwan would not bow to Chinese pressure, describing the Solomon Islands’ decision as new evidence that Beijing is trying to meddle in the January elections.

“Over the past few years, China has continually used financial and political pressure to suppress Taiwan’s international space,” Tsai said, calling the Chinese move “a brazen challenge and detriment to the international order.”

“I want to emphasize that Taiwan will not engage in dollar diplomacy with China in order to satisfy unreasonable demands,” she said.

China’s foreign ministry said in a statement it “highly commends” the decision to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan and uphold the “One China” principle, adding it was part of an “irresistible trend”. [Source]

President Tsai Ing-wen, who is campaigning for reelection, responded on Twitter:

Ahead of the decision, Taipei sent a delegation to Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, to discuss the matter. While Beijing is reported to have offered the Solomon Islands financial incentives to make the switch, some in the Solomons believe siding with China carries financial risks. Gerry Shih at the Washington Post further examines the campaign waged by Beijing to woo more diplomatic allegiances away from Taiwan:

The island nation’s defection whittled the number of countries that recognize Taiwan down to just 16 after Beijing flipped key allies, including the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, in recent years, over objections from Washington.

The development intensifies pressure on Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who has struggled to counter a mounting Chinese economic and diplomatic blockade designed to force Taiwan, a democracy of 23 million people, to the table for unification talks.

[…] Since Tsai’s victory, China has pressured international corporations to recognize Taiwan as a part of China and successfully persuaded a half-dozen countries to swap allegiances, using generous aid packages to escalate pressure on Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party. Tsai was beaten soundly in local elections last year and faces reelection in 2020.

A task force formed by the Solomon Islands’ Parliament recommended this month that the government switch ties and set up a diplomatic mission in Beijing. Taiwan shot back with a warning last week that the country would fall into “economic slavery” if it aligned with China. [Source]

In recent years, China has raised the pressure on foreign governments, celebrities, and corporations to publicly acknowledge Taiwan as part of China. It has also exerted pressure on Taiwan by limiting the ability of mainland tourists to travel to the island, barring Chinese filmmakers and actors from attending the prestigious Golden Horse Awards in Taipei, and attempting to influence the local Taiwanese media. Usually tense cross-strait relations have deteriorated further since Tsai’s 2016 election, especially as the U.S. has shown greater support for Taiwan. Some U.S. legislators expressed support for Taiwan in the wake of the Solomon Islands’ announcement, despite the fact that the U.S. itself broke off diplomatic relations with Taipei in favor of Beijing in 1979:


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