[Epoch Times December 07, 2021](Epoch Times reporter Lin Yan comprehensive report) The Communist Party of China has been strictly controlling information for a long time. Even if the so-called one-hundred-year party building ends, this kind of information control has not weakened, but has become more serious.
In the past year, the CCP has become less and less confident. From Beijing’s restrictions on the release of coal use information, the Supreme People’s Court of the Communist Party of China ruled that the database cleared the sentence records of political dissidents, and the number of passengers entering and exiting China decreased by 50 times during the same period this year. Collaborative projects of universities.
The latest development is that with the implementation of the new data security law promulgated by the Chinese Communist Party, foreign companies and investors have found it more difficult to obtain information in China, including general supply and financial statement information in the past, and even some supplies that provide the location of ships in Chinese waters. Businesses also stopped sharing information with foreign customers.
“China has always been a big black box and now it’s getting darker”
Stephen Nagy, a senior associate professor at the Institute of Politics and International Studies, International Christian University, told the Wall Street Journal: “China has always been a big black box.”
He said that the disappearing channels of information will make it more difficult for foreigners to understand what is happening in China, “this black box has become even darker.”
“Hua Ri” reported that business people and political analysts believe that China’s increasing secrecy behavior is not the result of a single policy, but a combination of various factors: response to the pandemic, increasing attention to data security, And the political environment of the CCP that is skeptical of the world.
Strict border controls related to the Chinese Communist virus (COVID-19), including the cancellation of flights and weeks of quarantine of passengers, have caused a sharp decline in face-to-face communication between Chinese citizens and the world, and intensified their decoupling from the outside world.
According to data from the Civil Aviation Administration of the Communist Party of China, airlines transported approximately 1 million people in and out of China in the first eight months of 2021, while nearly 50 million were transported in the same period in 2019.
“Hua Ri” reported that some Chinese who wanted to travel abroad said that the authorities refused to renew their passports, or they were pulled aside by border officials at the airport, trying to discourage them from going abroad, saying that the government had instructed them to minimize travel.
The official definition of sensitive information is vague and everyone is at risk
A new data security law that came into effect on September 1, stipulates that almost all data-related activities must be supervised by the Chinese government, including collection, storage, use, and transmission.
The report quoted Jonathan Crompton, a Hong Kong lawyer at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain LLP, as saying that since the passage of the law, mainland companies have become increasingly reluctant to cooperate with multinational companies-covering finance, healthcare, public transportation, and infrastructure. Strategic areas such as facilities-sharing information.
The key is that the authorities are vague about the definition of sensitive information, which makes Chinese companies “everyone at risk.” They don’t know what they can share with foreign partners and what they cannot share.
An executive of a large American technology company confirmed that Chinese suppliers of metals such as cobalt and lithium used in electronic products are increasingly reluctant to share information with overseas customers, even how much metal inventory the factory has, or what percentage of the supply will be. Details such as being recycled are no longer provided, which makes it difficult for foreign companies to plan production and ensure compliance with environmental regulations.
Commercial databases are no longer open to overseas IP
One of China’s most widely watched investment and financing databases, Zero2ipo Holdings Inc., has stopped selling its data to overseas customers and is only open to Chinese users and internal use.
Steve Dickinson, an attorney at the Harris Bricken Law Firm in the United States, said that one of his American clients asked a Chinese company to provide audited financial statements to determine whether it had credibility, but was rejected by the Chinese company. , The reason is that Beijing’s policy stipulates that they do not allow them to disclose financial statements to foreigners. In the end, American customers had to continue to promote cooperation with China without financial information.
Dickinson said that the lack of data has increased the risk of being deceived and deceived by foreign companies hoping to do business in China.
He confirmed from his own experience that if others were in foreign offices, they would encounter similar troubles when accessing Chinese trademark and corporate databases and other Chinese websites. As a result, he could only hire a local team in China to be responsible for due diligence and intellectual property work.
International academic exchanges in the ivory tower have shrunk severely
The change in academia is even more incredible, because academia was once regarded as a beacon of contact between China and the West.
In addition to continuously shutting down Western scholars’ access to Chinese research databases, Chinese universities have increasingly restricted academic contacts and exchanges with the outside world.
According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Education in August, it terminated 286 cooperative projects with foreign universities in 2018 and 2019 on the grounds that some of them did not meet the teaching and guidance standards of the Ministry of Education.
According to the archived version of the official website in September, the countries that cut the most projects are the United Kingdom, Russia, and the United States. Computer science, biotechnology, international economics and trade are the most affected courses.
Recently, Chinese universities have implemented stricter approval procedures for scholars in the fields of international relations and Chinese history studies. When they wish to travel overseas or participate in academic conferences with foreign scholars, they must first obtain approval from the authorities.
Former Dean of the School of International Relations at Peking University, Jia Qingguo, said at the National People’s Congress in March that some government departments have strengthened academic control out of “various considerations”; some universities only allow researchers to communicate with foreigners when at least one colleague is present. comminicate.
Relaxing visa restrictions for journalists
The Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has not visited abroad since the outbreak began in January 2020. In an online video conference with US President Biden in mid-November, he agreed to relax visa restrictions on journalists.
A survey released by the Beijing-based China Foreign Correspondents Club found that nearly 40% of foreign journalists in China said that in 2020, sources were harassed, questioned, or detained after talking to reporters. This percentage is higher than in 2019. (25%) Even higher.
In the past two years, more than a dozen American journalists have been expelled from China by the Chinese Communist Party for visas and other reasons. The Trump administration has also reciprocally restricted the scale of Chinese journalists’ news business in the United States.
The official ruling database deletes a large number of sentence records of dissidents
Before the CCP celebrated its centennial party celebration, it had begun to systematically delete or hide records of dissident sentences. Foreign governments and news organizations often check these databases to verify the CCP’s alleged human rights violations.
According to the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation, which defends political and religious detainees in China, at about the same time, the official ruling database managed by the Supreme People’s Court of the Communist Party of China-China Judgment Documents Network-cleared thousands of political documents. Court documents for sensitive cases involving what the government calls “endangering national security”, “religious X-related crimes” and judicial review of the death penalty.
John Kamm, founder and chairman of the China-U.S. Dialogue Foundation, told Huari that the Chinese Communist Party’s refusal of public access to these documents may be to prevent foreign officials and activists from obtaining them to press the Chinese government to release political prisoners. Information.
He said: “The disclosure rate of sensitive political cases is now zero.”
“Without the legitimacy of governance, there is no confidence in the system”
In terms of future economic development, Huang Qifan, the former mayor of Chongqing, delivered a speech at the International Financial Forum (IFF) held in Nansha, Guangzhou on December 4, saying that China’s economy will be more dependent on the domestic market, and China will begin a new development pattern based on internal circulation. . He emphasized that the internal circulation is not “involved” or “lying flat.”
There have been multiple signs that as China’s economy matures, the path of promotion for the lower-level people has almost stalled. More opportunities to rise to the top are obtained by the children of wealthy and politically connected elites; children from poor or rural families have more difficulty getting ahead.
Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council of the Communist Party of China admitted publicly that more than 600 million people in China have an average monthly income of less than US$140 (1,000 yuan), and they account for about 40% of the country’s population; this month’s income is higher than the average monthly expenditure of living in rural China in 2020. It’s also 40 dollars lower.
New York current affairs commentator Tang Qing said that “laying flat” and “involving” have become a non-violent and uncooperative mentality of the Chinese people, and the party’s centuries of spirit is exhausted.
“The CCP does not have the legitimacy of its ruling power. Now it is relying on maintaining its stability. There is no self-confidence in the system,” he said. “Without self-confidence, it is impossible to open to the outside world.”
Editor in charge: Li Yuan#
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