Tag: Elections

The Sunday Read: ‘The Daring Ruse That Exposed China’s Campaign to Steal American Secrets’

Chin@Strategy

In March 2017, an engineer at G.E. Aviation in Cincinnati received a request on LinkedIn. The engineer, Hua, is in his 40s, tall and athletic, with a boyish face that makes him look a decade younger. He moved to the United States from China in 2003 for graduate studies in structural engineering. The LinkedIn request came from Chen Feng, a school official at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, in eastern China. Days later, Chen sent him an email inviting him to the university to give a research presentation.…

Claims of Chinese Election Meddling Put Trudeau on Defensive

Chin@Strategy

OTTAWA — The leaked intelligence reports have set off a political firestorm. They describe plans by the government of China and its diplomats in Canada to ensure that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party took power in the last two elections, raising troubling questions about the integrity of Canada’s democracy. But as two prominent Canadian news organizations have published a series of leaks over the past month, Mr. Trudeau has refused calls to launch a public inquiry into the matter, angering political opponents and leading to accusations that he is…

Foreign Efforts to Subvert Canada’s Last 2 Elections Failed, Report Says

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OTTAWA — Foreign governments tried to interfere with the last two federal elections in Canada, but they did not succeed in “impacting” the voting results, according to an independent review released on Tuesday. That conclusion comes as opposition politicians and others are pressing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to open a separate, public inquiry into allegations of election interference by Chinese diplomats based in Canada, as well as by informal agents of the Chinese government — a move that Mr. Trudeau has rejected. The report released on Tuesday was a review…

In Hong Kong, 47 Democracy Leaders on Trial for Security Charges

Chin@Strategy

The political candidates represented the vanguard of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. Numbering in the dozens, they had planned to run for the city’s legislature in 2020, after months of turbulent protests calling for greater freedom from China. By the time the election was held, more than a year later, none of the candidates could run. Most were in jail, where many still languish today, charged with subversion in the largest case yet involving the national security law Beijing imposed on the city in 2020. Their arrests laid bare the lengths…

China Returns to Davos With Clear Message: We’re Open for Business

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DAVOS, Switzerland — China ventured back on to the global stage Tuesday, sending a delegation to the World Economic Forum to assure foreign investors that after three years in which the pandemic cut off their country from the world, life was back to normal. But the Chinese faced a wary audience at the annual event, attesting to both the dramatically changed geopolitical landscape after Russia’s war on Ukraine, as well as two data points that highlighted a worrisome shift in China’s own fortunes. Hours before a senior Chinese official, Liu…

In Fiji’s Closely Observed Election, a Former Coup Leader Is Ahead

Chin@Strategy

It was a clash between two former coup leaders, set against the backdrop of a remote and palm-fringed vacation destination that has, of late, taken on outsized importance in a battle for primacy in the Pacific between the United States and China. And with the military constitutionally permitted to intervene if it saw fit, that contest was one with the potential to become extremely volatile. So, as voters went to the polls for the general election on Wednesday, focus turned to Fiji, an island nation known regionally for its stormy…

Your Monday Briefing: The World Cup Semifinals Loom

Chin@Strategy

Get ready for the semifinals Four countries will compete in the World Cup semifinals this week, after a weekend of surprises sent two favorites and two underdogs to the next round. Argentina will play Croatia tomorrow, and France will play Morocco on Wednesday. Argentina is driven by the belief that winning this World Cup is Lionel Messi’s undeniable destiny. But Croatia has its own undeniable sense of purpose after beating Brazil, a top contender. France knocked England out to advance. Morocco upset Portugal to become the first country in Africa…

Justice Dept. Charges 2 Chinese Citizens With Spying for Huawei

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WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced on Monday that it had indicted two Chinese intelligence officials who are believed to have unsuccessfully tried to obtain inside information about a federal investigation into a Chinese telecommunications company accused of stealing trade secrets, which people familiar with the situation later identified as Huawei Technologies. The Chinese intelligence officials, Guochun He and Zheng Wang, paid bribes to an official with access to sensitive details of the investigation into Huawei by the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York, according to charging…

Your Monday Briefing: Indonesia’s Stadium Tragedy

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An Indonesian stadium tragedy At least 125 people died when soccer fans rushed the field after a professional soccer match in Malang, Indonesia, on Saturday. Many were trampled. The police fired tear gas into the tightly packed crowds, leading to a stampede. Survivors said that the gas was fired indiscriminately into the stands, forcing the overcapacity crowd to rush for the exits. Many are angry at the police response, which observers said had made the situation worse. “If there wasn’t any tear gas shot into the stands, there would have…

Meta Removes Chinese Effort to Influence U.S. Elections

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Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said on Tuesday that it had discovered and taken down what it described as the first targeted Chinese campaign to interfere in U.S. politics ahead of the midterm elections in November. Unlike the Russian efforts over the last two presidential elections, however, the Chinese campaign appeared limited in scope — and clumsy at times. The fake posts began appearing on Facebook and Instagram, as well as on Twitter, in November 2021, using profile pictures of men in formal attire but the names…