📡Guardians of Hong Kong
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We provide translation of news in English from local media and other sources, for academic use.
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#Art
#Brescia Exhibits #Badiucao's Artwork that Mocks Beijing’s #Propaganda

Defying the calls of the Chinese government to cancel an exhibition in a northern Italian city, #Brescia is hosting the first international solo exhibition by the 35-year-old artist, #Badiucao, an exile from China who now lives in Australia.

Displaying a torture instrument such as a rocking chair, dissident artist Badiucao mocks the propaganda of Beijing in this exhibition named “China is (not) near”.

The show denounces political repression in China and the country’s censorship of the origin of #Covid19.

Beijing responded to the exhibition in anger, accusing Badiucao’s works of being “full of anti-Chinese lies” that “jeopardise the friendly relations between China and Italy”. The PRC's embassy in Rome sent a letter to Brescia’s town hall.

Deputy Mayor #LauraCastelletti responded, “None of us in Brescia, neither in the city council nor among the citizens, had the slightest doubt about this exhibition going ahead.”

"Brescia, known for its Roman ruins, has a long tradition of welcoming dissidents, painters and writers, in defence of artistic freedom”, she added.

In an interview, Badiucao, who is nicknamed the Chinese #Banksy said he is “very happy and proud” that the city “had the courage to say ‘no’ to China to defend fundamental rights.”

Source: Radio Free Asia; #Nov13
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/11-11132021172450.html/ampRFA

#ProtestArt #WolfWarrior #FreedomofExpression #Creativity #Italy #NoToChina #Culture #Exhibition
#Propaganda
China Ordered #Amazon to Delete Reviews of #XiJinping’s Book

Source: Bloomberg; Reuters #Dec17

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#Propaganda
China Ordered #Amazon to Delete Reviews of #XiJinping’s Book

//Amazon.com Inc.’s efforts to curry favor with the Chinese government included quieting criticism of President Xi Jinping’s book on its Chinese outlet, according to a Reuters report.

The Amazon.cn entry for Xi’s “The Governance of China” had its ratings, comments and reviews scrubbed and disabled roughly two years ago in response to an edict from Beijing, the report said. Triggering the request were reviews rating the work at less than the maximum five stars, according to one of the unidentified people familiar with the incident...

The experience recounted in the report mirrors that of Apple Inc., which has grown increasingly compliant with Beijing in recent years. Apple complied with 97% of requests from the Chinese government for user device information in 2019, up significantly from 65% in 2014.

Reviews for Xi’s book of speeches and writings are blocked only on Amazon’s Chinese website. One Amazon.com entry has received 74% five-star reviews.

Other U.S. firms, such as Yahoo! and Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn, have, by contrast, exited the Chinese market this year, citing an increasingly challenging business and legal environment in the country.//

Read Reuters' report:
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/amazon-partnered-with-china-propaganda-arm-win-beijings-favor-document-shows-2021-12-17/

Source: Bloomberg; Reuters #Dec17

#CCP #Censorship #Kowtow
#BrainWashing #Propaganda
"Don't Lie Flat": New Values Education Framework Promotes "Dilligence", Drops "Critical Thinking" and "Human Rights"

Source: Stand News #Nov30

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https://t.me/guardiansofhongkong/31847
#BrainWashing #Propaganda
"Don't Lie Flat": New Values Education Framework Promotes "Dilligence", Drops "Critical Thinking" and "Human Rights"

Hong Kong's Education Bureau (#EDB) issued the "Values Education Curriculum Framework (Pilot Version)" on November 30, 2021, as reference material for the city's primary and secondary schools.

The new framework adds "diligence" as a "priority value and attitude" on top of the nine existing values. It also emphasizes "[nurturing] a sense of belonging towards the country from an early age", so as to help students "understand their responsibility, as a Chinese, to protect their family and the country".

The announcement came days after an online article by Secretary for Education #KevinYeung, in which he stressed the importance of #ValuesEducation, while criticizing a trend to "lie flat" among young people.

[Editor's note: The term "lie flat" (躺平) is popularized by young Mainland Chinese netizens who felt disillusioned by long working hours and high social expectations.

In response, they opt for a lifestyle and work ethic of minimalistic survival, and refuse to spend extra effort or money to move up the social ladder, which they saw as being already out of their reach.]

In Hong Kong, the new framework is based on the EDB's 2008 Moral and Civic Education Framework.

The learning objectives in the older framework included "respecting human rights" and learning about the Motherland "through critical thinking". These wordings are no longer found in the new document; instead, a new objective is added: "love the country, love Hong Kong".

Source: Stand News #Nov30
https://thestandnews.page.link/avyAVFN42EnSoV8Y6

#LieFlat #TangPing #Education #ValuesEducation #CCPRules
#Propaganda #CCP
Buying Influence: How China Manipulates #Facebook and #Twitter

Source: New York Times #Dec20

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#Propaganda #CCP
Buying Influence: How China Manipulates
#Facebook and #Twitter

//...a new set of documents reviewed by The New York Times reveals in stark detail how Chinese officials tap private businesses to generate content on demand, draw followers, track critics and provide other services for information campaigns. That operation increasingly plays out on international platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which the Chinese government blocks at home.

The documents, which were part of a request for bids from contractors, offer a rare glimpse into how China’s vast bureaucracy works to spread propaganda and to sculpt opinion on global social media. They were taken offline after The Times contacted the Chinese government about them...

A separate document reviewed by The Times shows that the same local branch of Shanghai police purchased video-making services from a different company in November. The police asked the supplier to provide at least 20 videos a month and to distribute those on domestic and overseas social media. The document referred to the task as original video production that would be used to fight the “battle of public opinion.”

Earlier this year, a New York Times and ProPublica analysis showed howthousands of videos portraying members of the Uyghur ethnic minority living happy and free lives were a key part of an information campaign that Twitter ultimately attributed to the Chinese Communist Party...

Work like what Shanghai Cloud Link pitched is likely just the tip of the iceberg. Local governments and police across China have put out similar requests for services to influence overseas social media, but often in vague terms. Occasionally, specifics are revealed.

In 2017, for instance, the police in Inner Mongolia purchased software that allowed government trolls to post directly to multiple social media sites, inside and outside of China, according to documents reviewed by The Times.

In another case, a contractor had downloaded hundreds of access credentials for Facebook’s public feed, allowing it to collect data about who commented on which posts and when.//

Read the full article:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/20/technology/china-facebook-twitter-influence-manipulation.htmlb

Source: New York Times #Dec20

#Manipulation #PublicOpinionManagement #SocialMedia #Meta #Disinformation #MadeinChina #CCPRules
French study warns of the massive scale of Chinese influence around the world

The 650-page report, entitled "Chinese influence operations - a Machiavelli moment" digs through the layers of secret and not-so-secret institutions, actions and designs used by Beijing to manipulate western opinion.

Written by Paul Cheron, an intelligence expert and Chinese specialist with credentials from Harvard and China's most prestigeous university Qinghua, in partnership with political scientist Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer, a security specialist, the report is probably the most extensive analysis of China's propaganda machine ever published in French. 

The report argues that for a long time China wanted  more to be loved than feared, she wanted to seduce, projecting a positive image of herself in the world and so arousing admiration. Recently China has increasingly shown another side.

Source: RFI #Sep22

https://bit.ly/3JPxPix

#French #China #PaulCheron #Propaganda
#Brainwashing #Education
Universities in Hong Kong to Implement Courses on Modern China and National Security


Under the #NationalSecurityLaw (#NSL), educationsl institutions in Hong Kong were requested to implement national security education.

Universities like the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (#PolyU), the Hong Kong Baptist University (#HKBU), the Hong Kong Education University (#EdUHK) and the Hong Kong Lingnan University (#HKLU) have followed the government order.

Recently, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (#CUHK) has reportedly amended their core curriculum for the next academic year.

CUHK will open online courses on "Understanding China Today", and "National Security" starting from the next academic year. Each of them takes account to 1 credit.

CUHK confirms InMedia's enquiry and claimed that the new courses aimed to "strengthen students' knowledge [...] to understand national security". The courses were authorised by the University's academic council; however, no curriculum details have been revealed.

According to the documents InMedia received, the course titled "Understanding China Today" touched upon the modernization of China and technological development, in addition to Chinese culture and history. In addition to national security education, other online courses cover positive psychology and modern language. Each of the course takes account to 1 credit.

The University called it "Service Learning" and requires students to take at least one of thrse 1-credit courses.

CUHK replies to InMedia that the university would launcb national security education in accordance with Article 10 of the NSL. The university also said that they have already rolled out a number of policies and activities to "increase students' national belonging". Orientation activities include theme talks about national security and media literacy; courses contain a talk regarding "international circumstances and China's diplomacy"; graduates career workshops consist of #BasicLaw.

Source: Inmedia #Jan18
https://bit.ly/3nwAVhB

#Propaganda #Regime #University
China State Media Demonizes its Netizens' #StandWithUkraine Effort

Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, Chinese-language comments supporting the aggression and deriding Ukrainian women were made by #LittlePink and opinion leaders on various social media platforms in China. Other Chinese-speaking netizens, who were appalled at these comments and behaviors, began translating them into other languages and posting them online for the world to see.

Calling themselves "The Great Translation Movement", the volunteer translators soon caught the attention of international media - as well as China's own propaganda machine.

Global Times, a tabloid owned by the Chinese Communist Party, condemned these volunteer translation efforts for painting China in a negative light. In a Weibo post on March 17, 2022, The Party mouthpiece called the translations an "evil force", inciting Anti-China hate on the Internet and endangering China as a whole. It also accused the participants to be supported by "foreign, anti-China forces", suggesting that they lacked "normal morals" and could not bear to see China's successful development - and its "temporary problems".

See also: Chinese in Ukraine Are Trying to Pass for Japanese as Anger Grows over Pro-Invasion Comments by ‘Little Pink’
https://t.me/BeWaterHK/312

Source: Global Times Weibo, The Great Translation Movement Twitter #Mar17
https://twitter.com/TGTM_Official/status/1504448184763904001?t=WLgra5Yo_4hpAR0H37dD3Q&s=19

#Regime #GlobalTimes #Propaganda #TheGreatTranslationMovement
TikTok Pushed Chinese Propaganda Ads To Millions Across Europe

Source: Forbes #Jul27

#Tiktok #EuropeanUnion #DigitalServicesAct #CCP #Propaganda #Xinjiang

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TikTok Pushed Chinese Propaganda Ads To Millions Across Europe

TikTok has served up a flood of ads from Chinese state propaganda outlets to millions of Europeans in recent months, according to a new ad library published by the company on July 20. The promotions range in topic from defenses of Chinese Covid-19 lockdowns to adorable cats playing on the Great Wall of China to efforts to recast the country's Xinjiang region — where it has persecuted and detained more than one million mostly Muslim Uyghurs — as a spectacular tourist destination.

An analysis of the ad library conducted by Forbes showed that as of Wednesday, July 26, more than 1,000 ads from Chinese state media outlets like People’s Daily and CGTN have run on the platform since October 2022. They have been served to millions of users across Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom. The ad library does not yet display data on ads presented to users in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries outside of Europe.

Much of the content advertised by China state media on TikTok focused on frequent talking points from its TV, radio and print outlets that tout China’s economy, technology and cultural heritage. References to Xinjiang, where the U.S. government have branded the Chinese government’s campaign of mass repression, imprisonment and “reeducation” as a genocide, appeared in 92 of the 124 adverts promoted by one state media account.

Full article from Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2023/07/26/tiktok-chinese-propaganda-ads-europe/

#Jul27 #Tiktok #EuropeanUnion #DigitalServicesAct #CCP #Propaganda #Xinjiang