Thoughts On The Hong Kong Protest

As the student protests at Hong Kong Polytechnic University have come to a close, I want to share a few thoughts on the topic. Firstly, I’d like to use this opportunity to point out that the Chinese government is not a benevolent entity. While this protest was unfolding over the course of ten months (yes, it really was going on that long), it was also revealed that millions of Uyghurs (ethnically Turkish Muslims living in far-Western China) have been kept in prison camps for years on end fifty to a cell, and repeatedly raped, sterilized, and mentally and physically tortured. In light of these revelations, the students were rounded up after being prevented from peacefully disbanding and leaving the campus. They were brought to a freight depot and loaded into cattle cars at gunpoint, and according to sources (mind you, this amounts to hearsay, but considering the circumstances, it’s what we have to go on) they have been transported to prison camps in rural western China. While we have no further detail, when one takes this news in consideration with the news of the Uyghurs, it becomes alarming and yet unsurprising.

Prison camps are not a hallmark of free and open societies, nor are internet shut-offs or cattle cars. As we progress further down the road of globalization (reference “The Lexus and The Olive Tree”, Thomas L. Friedman, Random House Jan. 2000), we need to be very careful of China. Their ‘One Belt, One Road’ foreign policy initiative has been revitalizing parts of the world where economic stagnation, civil wars, and natural disasters have left infrastructure and market viability far behind the first world, but this comes at a price; with the infrastructure, museums, hotels, ports, railway stations, etc come conditions. When one considers that the Bahamian government has whole-heartedly embraced this invitation, and that the island of Bimini is only 50 miles from Ft. Lauderdale, and that millions of American travelers enjoy vacations throughout the Bahamas, it demonstrates the need for some reflection. In addition to the Bahamas, large swaths of the African continent have also embraced China, as have Central and South America.

Among the layers of infrastructure being installed are wireless networks capable of bringing internet service, and with these networks, one must expect there to be data and intelligence mining. If this sounds antithetical to liberty, to have the government mining civil communications for data and intelligence, it certainly should, because it absolutely is. With that in mind, it becomes important to remember that our own government is doing this to the American people every single day of the week, twenty-four hours per day, three hundred sixty-five days per year, year in-year out, and has been since the internet was created via the NSA. China’s internet control grid was, in fact, modeled on the NSA’s infrastructure, and many of the intelligence consultants who work for our government also work for the Chinese government with the full knowledge of our intelligence agencies. Some of the programs used here in the US date back to the 1940’s when data being sent over telephones was brand new….because the first transmissions intercepted were diplomatic cables, and the earliest efforts at electronic cryptography were NSA predecessors tied into AT&T and Bell Telephone’s network interfaces. This is all well documented, and the author will leave it to the reader to dive down the rabbit hole. Suffice it to say that these efforts have been upgraded and increased in scope and frequency over the 80 years that followed.

Secondly, one should also consider the exoteric intent of the Chinese government’s suddenly “benevolent” policy of giving roads, bridges, ports and power stations to third world countries; it isn’t just that an improved global economy raises all ships, but that natural resources which China so desperately needs in order to manufacture affordable electronics for the entire developed world would be readily and efficiently extracted in a more developed third-world. This trend, though, is driven by demand. In 1955, a base model new car cost just $1600. While this sounds like an incredibly low price, it translates to just over $15,000 in today’s money, which is just about the price of a base model new car today. While inflation may not have given to world any discount, technology advancing has added a great deal of value to the cars of today versus a 1955 Ford business coupe. Even base model $15,000 cars of today are packed with features like air conditioning, cruise control, lane keeping assist, back-up cameras, touch screens, airbags, anti-lock brakes, traction control, and fuel efficient power-trains are all now standard features in these affordable little family cruisers.

As wonderful as this is, it does come at a price; a price China and the host countries see as an investment, while the rest of the developed world looks at with skepticism and scrutiny. Almost every part used in the manufacture of modern economy cars is made in China, and is made out of resources extracted from the rest of the world, including recycled metal and plastic reclaimed from American and European consumer waste streams. Along with affordable car infotainment and drive-by-wire technology manufactured in China, there are smartphones, smart TVs, smart thermostats, and smart speakers. While we realize that all of these modern conveniences are always listening to all of our conversations as we move through our days in the bubble of security and freedom we expect here in the US, we should also remember that both our own government and the Chinese government are listening and monitoring what we do, where we go, whom we interact with. This becomes abundantly clear when US-based companies suddenly suspend the accounts of targeted individuals and companies who speak out against China, and coercively influence the messaging of athletes and entertainers who speak out by pressuring their employers’ ability to do business in China. If the Chinese intelligence service didn’t have an influent data stream, they wouldn’t have so much detail about these “infractions”. One must understand that the more followers a person has on social media, the wider the net these intelligence services are casting by simply applying pressure and gleaning intelligence from that one user’s data stream. Think about it!