China app Developer Expected to Lose HKD 7.8M Investment Money in India and Stated that the Chinese government Could Not Help

The Indian government banned 43 mobile device programs for the national security reason last week, including various apps under China Alibaba. Until now, it has already suspended a total of 267 apps developed in China. Li Jialun, the boss of China Technology Company Club Factory, indicated that he has already accepted the destiny of being ruled out in the Indian market. And he expected that there are heavy investment losses, and has adjusted the development focus to Europe and the United States.

Club Factory is selling low-cost fashion and household products. According to the report from England Financial Times, Li raised US$100 million (HKD 780 million) from the investors to enter the Indian market last year. At that time, Club Factory was at the top of India download ranking and expected to be profitable. He indicated that he could see more opportunities in India than in the crowded market in China.

Li does not know when the Club Factory can resume operations, but he will certainly lose most of the investment. He indicated that the uncertain prospects for several months had frustrated business. “If consumers cannot see you in a long period, they will never come back.” Li also said that the Chinese government could not help at all.

Source from: Apple Daily #Nov29

https://hk.appledaily.com/international/20201129/UDVVXBAW4BE5DA3TBNTS5BA22Y/

#India #China #Alibaba #Europe #UnitedStates #FinancialTimes #ClubFactory

Chinese Authorities Target Jack Ma's #Alibaba and #AntGroup in Anti-monopoly Probe

Source: Stand News; RTHK #Dec27

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Chinese Authorities Target Jack Ma's #Alibaba and #AntGroup in Anti-monopoly Probe

The Chinese authorities is currently placing Alibaba, a conglomerate owned by Chinese entrepreneur Jack Ma, under "anti-monopoly investigation". It was reported that Ma would also be summoned.

Just right before Christmas, China's state-owned media including Xinhua Agency and Economic Daily published articles and commentaries, demanding Ant Group to "serve the people's needs and economic development".

Ant Group then released a statement earlier, claiming that it would "diligently study and strictly comply with regulatory departments' requests". Alibaba shares dropped by 7 percent when the news was heard by thr market.

On Dec 26, 2020, four state regulators in China, namely People's Bank of China (#PBOC), China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission and State Administration of Foreign Exchange, has conducted "supervisory and guidance" talks with Ant Group, a subsidiary of Alibaba offering financial services, with one of the goals to "realize the spirit of the Party leadership and the State Council".

According to People's Bank of China vice chairman Pan Gongsheng after the "talks" on Dec 26, Ant Group issues included "poor corporate governance, ignorance of regulatory demands, illegal regulatory arbitrary, the use of its market advantage to take oit competitors", and so on.

Source: Stand News; RTHK #Dec27
#CCPControl #JackMa #Economy

#MassSurveillance
Facial Recognition System for Uyghurs Identification, Alibaba: Ethnic Marking Function Has Been Removed

One of the leading technology companies in China Alibaba developed a facial recognition system, which was revealed a few days ago that it can identify Uyghurs in Xinjiang, arousing doubts from outsides. Alibaba announced in a statement today (18th December) that they will no longer allow its products to target and identify specific ethnic group again. They also feel "dismayed" that the facial recognition system includes ethnic recognition function, and the ethnic recognition function has already been deleted in all products.

Although AI technology has brought lots of life benefits, there are also opportunities to be abused and even violate human rights. IP Video Market (IPVM) discovered on the website of Alibaba that it demonstrates the function of the facial recognition system for Uyghurs or other minorities, with detail instructions for use. The website introduced that the user can easily upload the pictures or videos, and the system then can determine whether people in the photos or videos are Uyghurs. However, after IPVM inquired, that related information has already been deleted by Alibaba.

Source: Stand News #Dec18

https://bit.ly/34GCBfh

#China #Alibaba #Uyghurs #minority #Freedom #humanrights #IPVM #Facialrecognition

WeChat Becomes a Powerful Surveillance Tool Everywhere in China

WeChat has become one of the most powerful tools in Beijing’s arsenal for monitoring the public, censoring speech and punishing people who voice discontent with the government. Its dominance in Chinese society has become more entrenched in 2020 due to remote working and learning during the coronavirus pandemic.

Tencent and Alibaba developed health-rating systems for government as one of the main contact-tracing tools to contain the spread of the coronavirus. The health codes embedded within WeChat and Alipay have become essential passes in China for entering residences, office buildings and accessing public transportation.

WeChat uses client-to-server encryption, which grants Tencent full access to data between senders and recipients, as opposed to end-to-end encryption, said Fergus Ryan, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank created by the Australian government.

China’s internet firewall has long blocked foreign sites and messaging apps, including Google, WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook, but these can be accessed via virtual private networks (VPN).

“Some of my friends and clients switch to Signal or FaceTime for sensitive conversations. Still, for the majority of people, they don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to get over the firewall for daily communications,” said Zhang Qingfang, a Beijing-based human-rights lawyer.

Source: WSJ #Dec22

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wechat-becomes-a-powerful-surveillance-tool-everywhere-in-china-11608633003

#HealthCode #WeChat #Tencent #Alibaba #Censorship

As China Tracked Muslims, Alibaba Showed Customers How They Could, Too

The website of Alibaba, one of the world’s most valuable internet companies, taught its corporate customers how they could detect members of a minority group with its facial recognition software. The feature was built into Alibaba software that helps web platforms monitor digital content for material related to terrorism, pornography and other red-flag categories, the website said.

After The Times asked Alibaba about the tool, the company edited its website to remove the references to Uighur and minority faces and declined to explained why information of this feature had been included official documentation of its software.

Source: New York Times #Dec16

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/technology/alibaba-china-facial-recognition-uighurs.html?referringSource=articleShare

#Alibaba #China #FacialRecognition #Muslim

China targets Alibaba with anti-monopoly investigation

Chinese regulators have launched an anti-monopoly investigation into Alibaba and the state market supervision administration on December 24 2020 said it had filed an investigation into Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd over “suspected monopolistic practices”.

The People’s Bank of China, China Banking Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission and State Administration of Foreign Exchange said they would also meet Ant Group founded by Jack Ma for “supervisory and guidance” talks.

Shares in e-commerce company plummet, with financial spinoff Ant Group also called in for ‘supervisory’ talks with authorities

Beijing curbs increasing power of tech giants, Alibaba and TenCent.

In November 2020, Ant Group’s world largest IPO was halted by Chinese authorities 48 hours before trading would have begun in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Source: The Guardian #Dec24

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/dec/24/china-targets-alibaba-with-anti-monopoly-investigation

#JackMa #Alibaba #TenCent #China

As China Tracked Muslims, Alibaba Showed Customers How They Could, Too

As the Chinese government tracked and persecuted members of predominantly Muslim minority groups, the technology giant Alibaba taught its corporate customers how they could play a part.

Alibaba’s website for its cloud computing business showed how clients could use its software to detect the faces of Uighurs and other ethnic minorities within images and videos. The feature was built into Alibaba software that helps web platforms monitor digital content for material related to terrorism, pornography and other red-flag categories, the website said.

It could not be determined whether or how Alibaba’s clients had used the minority detection tool. But the potential for troubling use is high.

Source: NYT #Dec16

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/technology/alibaba-china-facial-recognition-uighurs.html

#Alibaba #China #Uyghur #Xinjiang #Surveillance

BBC: Xinjiang Police test emotion-detecting AI on Uyghurs

It was revealed earlier that Alibaba’s facial recognition technology can be used to identify Uyghurs. Afterwards, Alibaba announced that they have eliminated any ethnic tag in their products. However, a Chinese software engineer showed to BBC's “Panorama” programme that, Xinjiang police are testing emotion-detecting AI. Some human rights activists described the incident as shocking.

AI to analyses facial expression and skin pores of the tied suspect

The software engineer who did not disclose his company showed 5 photographs to BBC, saying that China is testing emotional recognition system. He claims that his job is to install such systems in police stations in Xinjiang. “The Chinese government use Uyghurs as test subjects for various experiments just like rats are used in laboratories”, he said, “We placed the emotion detection camera 3m from the subject. It is similar to a lie detector but far more advanced technology."

Source : Stand News #May27

https://bit.ly/3zgHfyi

#Alibaba #EmotionRecognition #Xinjiang #Uyghurs #Software #BBC #HumanRights #Panorama #China

#Economy #CCP
#GeorgeSoros: Xi’s crackdown on private enterprise shows he does not understand the market economy

The following is an article written by George Soros, the chair and founder of #SorosFundManagement and the #OpenSocietyFoundations and was published in Financial Times.

//Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has collided with economic reality. His crackdown on private enterprise has been a significant drag on the economy.

The most vulnerable sector is real estate, particularly housing. China has enjoyed an extended property boom over the past two decades, but that is now coming to an end.

Evergrande, the largest real estate company, is over-indebted and in danger of default. This could cause a crash. 

The crackdown by the Chinese government is real. Unnoticed by the financial markets, the Chinese government quietly took a stake and a board seat in TikTok owner ByteDance in April. The move gives Beijing one seat on a three-person board of directors and first-hand access to the inner workings of a company that has one of the world’s largest troves of personal data. The market is more aware that the Chinese government is taking influential stakes in Alibaba and its subsidiaries. 

Xi does not understand how markets operate. As a consequence, the sell-off was allowed to go too far. It began to hurt China’s objectives in the world. Recognising this, Chinese financial authorities have gone out of their way to reassure foreign investors and markets have responded with a powerful rally. But that is a deception.

Xi regards all Chinese companies as instruments of a one-party state. Investors buying into the rally are facing a rude awakening. That includes not only those investors who are conscious of what they are doing, but also a much larger number of people who have exposure via pension funds and other retirement savings...//

Read the full article:
https://www.ft.com/content/ecf7de34-e595-4814-9cbd-4a5119187330

Source: Financial Times #Aug30

#Crackdown #PropertyMarket #CommunistChina #Birthrate #Tiktok #Alibaba #Evergrande

#Economy
No Chinese Stock Left Among Global Top 10 as #Tencent Slides

//Tencent Holdings Ltd. has lost its place among the world’s 10 largest companies by market value, leaving no Chinese company in the list as Bejing’s regulatory crackdown continues to wreak havoc on the stock market.

Hong Kong-listed shares of the gaming and social media company fell 0.5% Thursday, valuing it at $556 billion. That’s just below U.S. chipmaker Nvidia Corp., data compiled by Bloomberg shows.

This is the first time that a Chinese company isn’t among the world’s ten largest since 2017, the data show. Tencent’s unseating follows that of #Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. earlier this year, as China’s tech behemoths face tougher rules on everything from monopolistic practices to data security and kids’ gaming hours.//

Source: Bloomberg #Sept16

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-16/tencent-s-slide-leaves-china-with-no-stocks-in-global-top-10

#CCP #HengSengIndex #ChinaMarket #StockMarket

Cyberspace Administration of China: Already Held 30 Large IT Companies' Algorithm Technologies

Cyber Administration of China (#CAC) indicated on #Aug12 that 30 top IT companies have submitted part of their algorithm details, such as how to collect personal data and how to set up individual recommendation content. 

Companies includes #Tencent, #TikTok under #ByteDance, #MeiTuen, #iFeng, #Weibo, #Youku, #Kuaishou, #Baidu, #Sina, #Xiaomi, #WeChat, and #Tmall and #Taobao under #Alibaba.

#Bloomberg report stated that China can have full grasp of every move done by the citizens on the internet, and even all purchase detail and personal information can be seen clearly via the relevant enterprises and applications.

The CAC passed the regulations on algorithm recommendation in March this year, requiring all enterprises to reveal the algorithm used in every application.

Nominally, they can solve the issue of data misuse and enhance cyber security. But once when the authority obtained algorithm technology, they can take further control over web activity and carry out political propaganda.

They even can take "National Security" as an excuse, to obtain citizens' and companies' information.

Source: PC Market #Aug17
https://www.pcmarket.com.hk/china-netcom-algorithm-technology-of-30-technology-giants-has-been-mastered/?fbclid=IwAR3nrfecOdr8bYlAdIkaE3S783sF8pEprBrq_7Jg46s3lLXzzi1Pv8aSX0k

#CyberAdministrationofChina #surveillance #NationalSecurity #Webtracking #AlgorithmTechnology