Day: June 15, 2021

A new law passed this week by China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) will give the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) the power to shut down companies in possession of user data deemed important or critical by officials.

China’s Data Security Law, passed June 14, gives the government a far greater degree of control over user data held by both state organizations and private companies, including foreign companies.

The law, which takes effect from Sept. 1, says user data will be classified into “core state” data — pertaining to government operations and the “public interest” — and “important data.”

But it gave no precise definition for those terms, suggesting that officials and law enforcement agencies will have broad powers to interpret the law’s measures as they see fit.

Companies or organizations that send “important data” overseas will face fines of 100,000 to 10 million yuan, and could have their business licenses revoked.

“Core state” data covers any data collected for “public purposes,” even if it is a private company doing the collecting.

The move will enable Chinese officials to control more closely user data in the hands of private technology companies, which are currently facing a slew of investigations and regulatory measures aimed at reining in their growing power: much of which stems from their vast banks of user data.

The law bars any company operating inside China from providing data stored in China to overseas agencies without government approval, potentially creating a huge barrier for foreign companies with branches in China.

New regulatory moves

Emily de La Bruyere, a senior researcher at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said the law is the latest in a slew of regulatory moves aimed at controlling data.

“What it does, to my mind … is it creates a legal architecture for Chinese state control over data,” La Bruyere said. “[It] creates … a legal basis according to which the Chinese government can claim and claim oversight over private companies’ data.”

“It has a section in it that refers specifically to data localization and export regulations that says that data transfer has to be done in accordance with those,” she said.

“That … gives the framework for Beijing to control what it sees as the critical resource for the next generation.”

In practice, the CCP has regarded information about its energy security, transportation networks, financial intelligence, telecommunications, and other key parts of the economy as “critical information.”

The data security law comes after U.S.-based electric carmaker Tesla announced it would move Chinese user data to a new center in China. The company will expand its network of data centers and store all data generated by the cars it sells in China within the country’s borders, according to Reuters.

Analysts told RFA that the move would normalize demands on foreign investors that they hand over core technology and data to the CCP as the price of doing business in China.

Data localization for foreign companies operating in China was first laid down in the 2017 cybersecurity law as a prerequisite for permission to do business.

U.S. tech giant Apple promised to relocate all of its Chinese customers’ cloud service data to China in the same year. That data is now stored at a data center in China, owned by a state-owned company.

Growth in surveillance

Daniel Gonzales, a senior researcher at the Rand Corporation, says the data security law shows how valuable user data is to the CCP under Xi Jinping, who has presided over an unprecedented growth in technological mass surveillance of Chinese citizens.

“The data that the technology companies have, the Chinese government has realized it’s very valuable for government control purposes, for surveillance purposes,” Gonzales said. “And so … they put in place this new law to provide them access to this information.”

“Unfortunately, it’s a reduction in the privacy of Chinese citizens … it will undoubtedly increase the level of control over … surveillance in China, by the government,” he said.

The Wall Street Journal quoted a government source as saying that the law represents a move away from a tendency to outsource data collection to the private sector in recent years, to encourage innovation.

That approach is now being overridden by fears over the power wielded by big technology companies, the paper said.

Reported by Mia Ping-chieh Chen for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

A jailed Vietnamese blogger serving an 11-year prison term for writing articles criticizing Vietnam’s government has contracted scabies because of poor hygiene and a lack of access to clean water in his detention facility, the man’s wife told RFA on Tuesday.

Nguyen Tuong Thuy, an independent journalist and former RFA blogger, and many other inmates confined in the Bo La detention center in Binh Duong province have contracted the contagious skin infestation caused by burrowing mites that produces an itchy red rash, said Thuy’s wife, Nguyen Thi Lan.

Thuy informed her of his condition on June 4 when authorities at the An Phuoc detention center in Binh Duong province, to which he had been transferred in mid-April, allowed him to all home, Lan said.

“It’s very itchy after taking a shower as the water there isn’t filtered,” said Lan bout her husband.

Chung Hoang Chuong, a fellow inmate of Thuy’s at An Phuoc detention center who was released last week, said Tuesday that Thuy and other prisoners got scabies at Bo La detention center due to poor hygiene there.

“I met many prisoners transferred from Bo La to An Phuoc detention center, and almost all of them had scabies,” Chuong said.

Though the hygienic conditions are better at An Phuoc detention center, inmates like Thuy who already have scabies do not get better because of a lack of medicine, Chuong said.

“Many complain about the health care services at An Phuoc detention center,” he told RFA. “Those who have scabies are only given anti-itch medications, not the ones specifically for treating scabies.”

Prisoners at the An Phuoc facility have been petitioning for better health care and more time spent out of their cells, Chuong said. T

They have submitted at least two requests for more recreation time, but detention center officials have not yet given their approval, he added.

Thuy, 71, showed signs of poor health and mental decline in the An Phuoc detention center a week after he had been transferred, his wife told RFA in an earlier report.

Despite his health problem and strict detention conditions, Thuy has kept his spirits up and is still strong and stable, Chuong said.

Vietnamese authorities arrested Thuy in May 2020 and indicted that November along with two leaders of the Vietnam Association of Independent Journalists for “making, storing, and disseminating documents and materials for anti-state purposes” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.

After he was sentenced to 11 years in prison in January, Thuy refused to appeal his sentence, tearing up a petition form given to him after prison guards told him what to write on it, Thuy’s lawyer told RFA at the time.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Authorities in China have detained the anonymous author of the Program-Think politics blog, who evaded government surveillance for around 12 years, subjecting him to brutal interrogations in a bid to gain a “confession,” RFA has learned.

“Program-Think’s family is asking for help,” a comment posted to his blog dated May 24 said.

“Last week, he went on a business trip to a big city in East China, and lost contact with us the next day,” the comment said. “There were no unusual messages before he lost contact.”

“It has been almost a week now. At first, I was not sure if something happened, or if there was an accident, I didn’t call the police,” the comment said.

“Last night, the police gave us an official response [to our missing persons report], saying that they were processing his case, but … without giving any information on the progress of their investigation,” it said.

Twitter account @GFWfrog cited a source inside the state security police on June 14 as saying that Program-Think was detained by Shanghai police in early May, and that his last post on May 9 had been a scheduled posting.

“He is currently undergoing brutal interrogations to ensure a conviction,” the account tweeted, adding that the case would be “a gift to the CCP on its centenary.”

A person familiar with the matter who gave only his surname, Xu, told RFA that the anonymous blogger was now in police custody.

“Recently, through my own credible sources, I learned that they have detained Program-Think, and are putting him through harsh interrogation,” Xu said.

“I can’t accept the persecution of a person of such conscience and outstanding ability … so I have to make this information public despite the risks,” he said.

Exposing hidden wealth

Xu said Program-Think was likely detained for exposing the hidden wealth of high-ranking members of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and his political theorizing and anti-brainwashing campaigns, conducted via his blog on the overseas-based Blogger.com platform.

Xu said he had himself been transformed from an uncritical supporter of the CCP to a person with doubts, and then to someone who longs for freedom and democracy, after reading Program-Think’s blog.

The blogger had continued an in-depth analysis of CCP leaders’ wealth following the publication of the Panama Papers in 2016, Xu said.

“I think Program-Think had a bigger impact than anyone on the Chinese internet,” Xu said. “Particularly his posts laying out very complete evidence to refute [government] propaganda.”

“He would convert Little Pinks [CCP supporters]. He is a hero, and totally irreplaceable,” Xu said.

A legendary figure

Zhou Fengsuo, of the U.S.-based NGO Humanitarian China, agreed.

“Program-Think is a legendary figure; an anonymous Chinese rebel,” Zhou told RFA. “He had advanced anti-censorship technology.”

“A lot of people learned how to circumvent the Great Firewall [of government censorship] through his blog,” he said. “He posed a huge threat to the CCP’s totalitarian rule.”

“I am very worried about him, as we haven’t heard from him in a very long time, and it is very likely that he has been detained,” Zhou said.

Repeated attempts to contact Program-Think’s family members were unsuccessful.

Program-Think was nominated for best Chinese blog in the 2013 Deutsche Welle International Best of Blogs awards, or BOBs.

The author told the station at the time that he had never set out to write political content to begin with, but just wanted to share his years of experience in programming.

But the blog gradually become popular with people wanting ways to get around government censorship, and later branched out into information security tips and political analysis, the station reported at the time of the blog’s nomination.

Reported by Yitong Wu and Poon Ka Ching for RFA’s Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

North Korea has begun clandestinely importing Chinese COVID-19 vaccines since early May, but sources on both sides of the Sino-Korean border told RFA they were unsure how much vaccine is entering the reclusive country.

The World Health Organization approved the Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use on May 7, allowing the vaccines to be distributed widely in lower income countries, like North Korea, through the COVAX initiative. Shortly after, North Korea began receiving shipments of the vaccine in Sinuiju, North Pyongan province, which lies just across the Yalu River border from China’s Dandong.

“In early May, the COVID-19 vaccine produced in China arrived as an emergency item through the Dandong-Sinuiju Customs Office. I know that the vaccines that came through this time were made by Sinopharm,” a North Pyongan provincial official told RFA’s Korean Service Sunday.

“The vaccines were loaded onto a Chinese refrigerated vehicle and delivered directly to a refrigeration facility in Sinuiju. The authorities kept the whole operation strictly confidential, so it isn’t really clear exactly where they were subsequently transported,” said the source, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

An official from a trade agency in the province confirmed to RFA that shipments of vaccine have been going through the Dandong-Sinuiju entry point since early May.

“No one knows how much vaccine is being sent over because the state keeps it under wraps… I know that our side didn’t pay foreign currency for the vaccines that came from China last month. Instead, China is providing them for free,” the second source said.

“I don’t know the exact details because the authorities are keeping everything a secret.  I don’t know who will get vaccinated and how much vaccine there is to go around. But people say that the high-ranking officials are not the ones who will be vaccinated,” said the second source.

It is common in North Korea for high-ranking government officials to receive preferential treatment, but a North Korean trade worker living in Dandong told RFA Monday that he had heard that the vaccine shipments are not for the ruling class.

“We know that the high-ranking officials aren’t the ones getting vaccinated, because these were not made in the pharmaceutical company’s headquarters in Beijing, but somewhere in another region of China,” the third source said.

The WHO in June approved a second Chinese COVID-19 vaccine produced by Sinovac, adding to the list of vaccines that can be used in the COVAX initiative

COVAX has already allocated to North Korea nearly 2 million doses of the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine, produced in India.

The first batch of AstraZeneca doses was supposed to have been supplied in May, but a spokesperson for the Global Vaccine Alliance (GAVI) told RFA last month that the specific date of delivery could not be determined, and likely would be pushed back to the second half of the year due to North Korea lacking the necessary technology to effectively transport and store the vaccine.

Outbreak of ‘suspected’ cases

Though North Korea maintains to the international community that it is one of the only countries in the world untouched by COVID-19, sources last month told RFA that authorities are internally keeping a tally of “suspected” cases, numbering in the tens of thousands.

“There are patients suffering from suspected coronavirus symptoms all over the country, and the emergency quarantine command in each region is supervising quarantine and disinfection,” an official in the country’s northwestern North Pyongan province told RFA’s Korean Service May 22.

Since the start of the pandemic in January 2020, North Korea has taken extensive measures to stop COVID-19, including the complete shutdown of the Sino-Korean border and the suspension of all trade with China, lockdowns of entire counties and cities, and a ban on travel between provinces.

Observers immediately doubted the claim, citing North Koreas’ crumbling medical infrastructure, the relative ease by which people could cross the Sino-Korean border, and the secrecy with which Pyongyang conducts its relations with the outside world, even with ally China.

Additionally, RFA reported in April 2020 that the government warned the public through health lectures that COVID-19 had at that time been spreading in three areas of the country, including in the capital Pyongyang.

A survey conducted by the Ministry of Health in March, which compiled data of “suspected coronavirus patients” and those who died from “related symptoms,” revealed some 13,000 cases in North Hamgyong province, the most in the country. Since then, each province has been keeping a tally of suspected cases, according to the North Pyongan official.

The North Pyongan official said that by late May, the suspected case total in North Hamgyong increased by about 4,000, with most of the cases in the provincial capital Chongjin, and Rason, a city within a Special Economic Zone near the Chinese and Russian borders.

“In Rason alone, there were 6,355 suspected cases, 20 of whom died. I heard from a quarantine official that these numbers of ‘suspected cases of respiratory pneumonia symptoms’ are the numbers that were reported by the local quarantine authorities to the Central Committee [of the Korean Workers’ Party],” said the fourth source.

Other provinces also had suspected caseloads numbering in the thousands.

“By the end of April there were about 2,400 people who had suspected symptoms, which put authorities here in North Pyongan on alert. About 50 of the patients died… many without being tested for exactly what kind of disease they have,” said the fourth source.

“There were also a lot of patients with suspected coronavirus symptoms in South Pyongan province. In just the city of Pyongsong, there were 400 suspected cases through the end of April and about a dozen of them died,” the fourth source said.

The North Pyongan official said the government is not only striving to limit the spread of the disease, but also the spread of information about the situation.

Authorities threatened to punish those who “cause anxiety” by talking about the virus, saying those with loose lips could be sent to a labor camp for five years, or 10 years if they were the originator of the information, according to the fourth source.

“Actions against the country’s coronavirus quarantine posture are defined as ‘treason that threatens the system’ and because of the stern punishments, residents are wary of each other.”

Another source, from Kangwon province on the east coast, told RFA that through the end of April there were more than 2,000 suspected cases there with an unspecified number of deaths.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in its COVID-19 Weekly Situation Report published May 21 said that a total of 27,446 people were tested for the disease through May 13, with no confirmed cases reported.

Sources told RFA that North Korean authorities are doing everything they can to prevent positive cases from being reported to the WHO.

“Internally, even minor remarks related to the coronavirus are considered very political remarks and are strictly monitored,” the North Pyongan official said.

“When a suspected coronavirus patient appears, the hospital unconditionally must diagnose it as pneumonia without testing for the virus, and they immediately isolate the patient. If a patient dies after showing suspected coronavirus symptoms, they say the cause of death was acute respiratory disease without specifying which disease, and they cremate the body in a hurry.”

W. Courtland Robinson of Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health told RFA in May that there was not enough evidence to conclusively say that North Korea is deliberately hiding positive coronavirus tests from the WHO.

“I know that the government can be deceptive if it chooses to be, whether about COVID or other issues. That said, it is difficult to assess whether the number of suspected cases and deaths as reported by RFA sources is a measure of COVID cases or of other symptoms and illnesses—influenza, respiratory infections, pneumonia, etc.—that may look somewhat like COVID but are not,” he said.

“Whatever the truth is, I do hope that vaccines will be available to the population to provide the protection needed to prevent infection and spread,” Robinson said.

Reported by Hyemin Son and Myungchul Lee for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.