• multitotal@lemmygrad.ml
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    24 days ago

    and Chinese civilians

    Holy shit this part made me physically uneasy. They’re basically telling you to fear Chinese people cause they can be “spies”. Red scare and Cold War propaganda vibes.

    • TonoManza@lemmygrad.ml
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      22 days ago

      “Yellow peril” is back on the menu! Hate to see it.

      People can’t tell if someone is Chinese or Japanese/Korean at a glance and if “appropriately” fearful, they won’t get to know them enough to differentiate.

      • Burningmeatstick@lemmygrad.ml
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        22 days ago

        The Atlanta spa shooting killed mostly Vietnamese Americans cause white people wont bother trying to differentiate. A lot of people from SEA can pass as “Chinese” to them of course

  • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
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    24 days ago

    Beijing is conducting espionage activities on what Western governments say is an unprecedented scale, mobilizing security agencies, private companies and Chinese civilians in its quest to undermine rival states and bolster the country’s economy.

    Reads like pure projection. Like if you change the wording to:

    Washington is conducting espionage activities on what anti-imperialist governments say is an unprecedented scale, mobilizing security agencies, private companies and American civilians in its quest to undermine rival states and bolster the country’s economy.

    It’s basically just what the US has been doing for decades.

    I’m sure China is doing some covert offensive things. It’d be a bit odd if they weren’t considering they can’t have any lasting peace while the western empire is still going. In that sense, it’s more like defensive offense, most likely, in the same general meaning as Palestine trying to survive a genocide when they take out an occupier tank. Some of it’s probably real, some probably fabricated to manufacture consent for cold war, but either way, the characterization of it reads like very clear projection.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      24 days ago

      There’s nothing really controversial here given the size of the population in China. It’s a big country with a very good education system, so it’s not difficult for China to put together an espionage network that’s on a bigger scale than what the west is capable of.

    • davel [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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      24 days ago

      We mostly don’t know. But we do know they’ll take any & every opportunity to smear China, and they aren’t above just making random shit up, and the harder it is to call them on their bullshit the better.

      China doesn’t play by the old-school spy rulebooks, intelligence officials say. It doesn’t seem to care if it is caught red-handed and, unlike Russia, it rarely makes efforts to swap its spies when they are arrested.

      This sounds like made-up bullshit, and I doubt they feel the need to back up the claims, because who’s gonna call them on it? And who has the time & resources to disprove them? Even assuming every one of these hacks is real, I suspect many have no connection to the Chinese state. They’re just hackers hacking for fun or unsavory profit. But I can’t prove my hunch.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      24 days ago

      I’m sure scaremongering is the point of the article. That said, I have no doubt that China is able to put together a better intelligence network than the US.

  • Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml
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    22 days ago

    Even if all of this spying activity was real (there is a 0% chance that more than 10% of it is), the American government certainly deserves to be spied upon. Hell, even the article claims

    China also purged a whole cadre of officials working as U.S. spies a decade ago.

    Further fueling paranoia were allegations by former U.S. intelligence contractor. Edward Snowden that the U.S. had extensively hacked Chinese infrastructure including mobile phone networks.

    You spy on a country the country spies back at you. Seems fair, no?