Some internal documents from the government of Anshan City, Liaoning Province, were recently obtained, showing that the Communist Party authorities had instructed local Internet information offices to investigate “military-civilian integration” new media in 2018.
Screenshot of an official letter from the General Office of the Anshan Municipal Government of the Communist Party of China, responding to the Municipal Party Committee’s Internet Information Office on June 20, 2018 (Epoch Times)
The General Office of Anshan City Government disclosed in the “Information Note” dated June 20, 2018, in its reply to the Municipal Party Committee’s Internet Information Office, that the Anshan City Government received the “Notice on Exhausting “Military-Civilian Integration” New Media” issued by the Internet Information Office, and the General Office of the City Government carefully examined the information on the “China Anshan” website under its supervision in accordance with the requirements of the document, and deleted a total of 30 pieces of information involving military-civilian integration.
However, the official letter sent by other party and government agencies in Anshan City to the NetInfo Office leaked the specific requirements of the notification, such as the target and strength of the search.
The feedback letter from Anshan Meteorological Bureau of the Communist Party of China to the Internet Information Office to check the new media of “military-civilian integration”
For example, the feedback letter from Anshan Meteorological Bureau to the Office of Internet Information disclosed that the bureau complied with the requirements of the notice of the Municipal Office of Internet Information, and comprehensively checked and verified “our website, microblogs, and public WeChat numbers, etc.”.
The investigation report sent by the Anshan City History Office to the Municipal Party Committee’s Internet Information Office
According to the report sent by the Anshan City History Office to the Municipal Party Committee’s Internet Information Office, the Office’s requirements for the military-civilian integration are to “eliminate any information related to ‘military-civilian integration'”.
“Civil-military integration” is not new to the CCP; many industries in China, from automobiles to computers, started with the CCP’s development of military industry.
However, after Xi Jinping came to power, he announced at the Communist Party’s two sessions in March 2015 that civil-military integration would be elevated to a national strategy. Since then, “civil-military integration” has become an important industrial and technological strategy used by the CCP to expand its communist hegemony.
In March 2016, Xi Jinping promulgated the Opinions on the Integrated Development of Economic Construction and National Defense Construction, the first central-level civil-military integration policy document issued by the CCP’s Military Commission, and on January 22, 2017, Xi established the Central Committee for Civil-Military Integration and Development, of which he is the director.
On March 2, 2018, Xi presided over a meeting of the Central Military-Civilian Integration Development Committee and adopted a number of top-level policy documents on military-civilian integration, including the “Outline of Military-Civilian Integration Development Strategy”.
Current affairs commentator Li Linyi analyzed that not long after Xi had built up momentum for civil-military integration, the CCP itself slapped him in the face by pulling down and censoring any information involving civil-military integration from the Internet. He believes that the move may be related to the U.S.-China trade war that broke out that year.
On March 22, 2018, the U.S. Trump (Trump) administration announced a trade war against the CCP by imposing tariffs on Chinese goods. The U.S. has been accusing the CCP of stealing U.S. technology and trade secrets through the “Thousand Talents Program,” “Made in China 2025” and “military-civilian integration.
Li Linyi believes that the Internet Information Office’s move to ban information on civil-military integration in June 2018 should have been spooked by the Trump administration’s trade war.
Analysis: CCP uses civil-military integration to steal U.S. technology to arm itself
In fact, the U.S. accusations and sanctions against the Chinese Communist Party for “civil-military integration” are not empty.
Take, for example, the seven Chinese supercomputer entities sanctioned on April 8. According to a WaPo report (link), chips developed by sanctioned firm Tianjin Phytium were used in a supercomputer at China’s largest aerodynamics research center (CARDC), which was working on supersonic weapons for the Chinese Communist Party.
Tianjin Phytium is advertised by the Chinese Communist Party as a “self-developed” chip supplier, although it designs its chips with software from the United States and relies on a Taiwan chip factory based on U.S. technology to produce its high-end chips.
Shareholding structure of state-owned enterprise “Tianjin Feiteng” (Source: AIC)
In addition, according to the enterprise credit platform data, Tianjin Feiteng is a state-owned enterprise established by a joint venture of China Great Wall Technology, a subsidiary of CLP Group, Tianjin Binhai New Area Science and Technology Financial Investment Group, a subsidiary of Tianjin Municipal Government, and Tianjin Advanced Technology Research Institute.
Tianjin Feiteng has strong ties to the National University of Defense Science and Technology and the Tianjin National Supercomputing Center, the latter two entities having been placed on the U.S. sanctions list in 2015 due to their affiliation with the Chinese Communist Party’s military.
The U.S. government has accused the seven Chinese entities of being involved in building supercomputers used by the Communist Party’s military and helping the Communist Party develop weapons of mass destruction.
But the Chinese Communist Party responded on April 9 that the U.S. sanctions are intended to maintain its own technological monopoly and hegemony and to contain China’s development. Chinese authorities have denied U.S. allegations of “civil-military integration.
Commentator Li Linyi analyzed the situation, saying that the Chinese Communist Party, faced with the U.S. sanctions, can only use lies to deceive the domestic public, which is under information blockade.
He explained that although the United States and other democratic countries also encourage the business community to participate in military technology research and development, there is a fundamental difference with the CCP’s “civil-military integration. The former is based on universal values and international rules of respect for human rights, while the CCP’s civil-military integration sustains tyranny, exports communist hegemony, is used to violate human rights, and often ignores international rules and steals advanced foreign technology by any means necessary.
According to a March 13, 2020 report by Voice of America, U.S. officials gave examples of how the CCP uses civil-military integration; the CCP military, coveting small nuclear reactor technology, has given the project to the China Guangnuclear Corporation to develop, and the latter is working to find international partners to advance the project.
Chinese Communist Party Sweeps Civilian Military Self-Media Comments: Fear of U.S. Sanctions
Several Chinese military forums have been shut down for self-publishing. (Web Photo)
Since last month, several Chinese military forums and self-published media have been shut down by the authorities, with the only remaining forum, the “Super Military Forum,” suddenly announcing the closure of its military equipment discussion section on March 22. Then a number of military WeChat public numbers, such as “Sina Military” and “Junwu Sub-dimension”, were shut down for “violations”, and Tencent’s military channel WeChat public number “The Tencent-owned military channel WeChat was also not spared.
Beijing-based Dovetail News said in an April 8 post that the shutdown of military self-media accounts most likely came from high-level directives, and Dovetail reported that the military self-media may have leaked secrets.
The Internet Information Office, which is responsible for network and information censorship, issued a new version of the Internet News and Information Service Management Regulations and Internet News and Information Service License Management Implementation Rules back in 2017, targeting new media in the political, economic, military, diplomatic and other public affairs as well as current affairs news categories for purge.
On January 29 this year, Zhuang Rongwen, director of the Internet Information Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC), proposed to focus on rectifying the problem of “disrupting the order of network communication” by self-media. Subsequently, WeChat Public, Sohu, Baijia and other self-media platforms have issued notices requiring self-media to obtain so-called “qualifications”.
Mainland netizens commented that this is the CCP’s public opinion guidance of “not talking about national affairs, but only about the wind and the moon”.
Li Linyi believes that the current shutdown of military self-publishing is a continuation of the CCP’s ban on “civil-military integration” new media. He believes that the CCP is not so much concerned about leaks from civilian military media as it is concerned about civilian revelations becoming evidence for U.S. sanctions.
Li Linyi explained that the so-called civilian military media leaks do not exist, because even the CCP-backed Dovetail.com reported on April 8 that in the past, civilian media were “leaked by official orders” with the official connivance of the CCP.
On January 1, 2018, Yang Wei, the chief designer of J-20, gave positive comments to military fans and other military new media in a CCTV program. (CCTV video screenshot)
For example, in a January 1, 2018 program on CCTV, Yang Wei, chief designer of J-20, gave positive comments to military fans and other military new media, saying that “only military fans with a passion for this kind of tracking” can let the outside world know that J-20 has made its maiden flight.
Li Linyi said that the Chinese Communist Party’s sweep of civilian military media is probably the same as the ban on military-civilian integration new media three years ago, fearing that the U.S. will find new clues to sanction the Chinese Communist Party from these self-published media.
The U.S. Continues to Follow the Trail to Crack Down on the CCP
The CCP may have a reason for this fear. After the CCP censored the new media on civil-military integration in 2018, the U.S. government still learned a lot of information about the CCP’s use of private enterprises to secretly develop military technology from mainland media and online sources, and implemented targeted sanctions accordingly, such as Xiaomi Group (Xiaomi), which was blackballed by the U.S. Department of Commerce on Jan. 14 this year.
Xiaomi President Lei Jun and 100 other private company owners honored by the CCP in 2019 (screenshot from Weibo)
According to a March 5 report in The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) document shows that the DoD placed Xiaomi on its Jan. 14 “military-related blacklist” in part because Xiaomi President Lei Jun was honored by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2019.
In August 2019, the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other agencies named Xiaomi President Lei Jun and 100 other private company owners as “Outstanding Builders of the Socialist Cause with Chinese Characteristics.
In January 2020, Lei Jun announced that he would invest at least 50 billion in artificial intelligence and Internet of Things (5G). (Screenshot of Xiaomi’s official microblog public number)
On January 2, 2020, Lei Jun, Chairman of Xiaomi Group, issued a New Year letter to all Xiaomi employees on Weibo, announcing that he would invest at least 50 billion RMB in artificial intelligence and Internet of Things (5G) in the next five years. in March 2017, Lei Jun, as a representative of the Chinese Communist Party’s National People’s Congress, proposed a motion to “accelerate the implementation of a national strategy for artificial intelligence “.
The U.S. Department of Defense considers these areas targeted by Xiaomi to be a priority for the CCP military and a “focus of the military-civilian integration strategy” and therefore blacklisted Xiaomi.
Similar to Xiaomi, the four image (face) recognition companies, Shangtang, Kuangwei, Itu and Yunzong Technology, which were blacklisted by the U.S. in October 2019 and May 2020, have been touted by the mainland media for years as the CCP’s “Four Little Dragons of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Artificial intelligence has been designated by Xi Jinping as “an important strategic grasp to win the initiative in global science and technology competition”, and Xi has not only led the Central Political Bureau to collectively study artificial intelligence several times, but also listed artificial intelligence (AI) as the first priority in the newly launched 14th Five-Year Plan. In the latest “14th Five-Year Plan”, he also listed artificial intelligence (AI) as the first priority target in the field of frontier science and technology.
Screenshot from the Chinese Communist Party military’s PLA Daily, July 25, 2019
A July 25, 2019 article (newspaper PDF) in the Chinese Communist Party military’s PLA Daily declares the need to “seize the high ground in the development of artificial intelligence technology.
Li Linyi said that no matter how much the CCP covers up and removes information on civil-military integration, it is difficult to stop the U.S. from following the vine and carrying out precise strikes. The Chinese Communist Party’s past achievements were largely based on “2025”, “Thousand Talents Program”, “civil-military integration” and other means to steal advanced technology from the United States. Therefore, by targeting those Chinese high-tech companies that support the CCP, the U.S. will hit the CCP’s military ambitions hard.
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