What is Zoom doing with your data?

And Chinese military aggression ramps up

That and more on this week's China news headlines

Welcome to China Uncensored, I'm  Chris Chappell. YouTube has been  

secretly unsubscribing people again, so make  sure you're subscribed, smash that like button,  

and check back often. Because YouTube probably  isn't telling you when we have new episodes. 

Merry Christmas. China is America's mortal enemy.

At least, according to White  House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro.

This is a strategic rival, but it is also  

increasingly a mortal enemy. They're coming  at us Pete. In so many different ways. 

I think he means that they  were already a mortal enemy,  

like Scorpion. But now they're an  even scarier mortal enemy, like Goro.

But what kind of different ways is China  coming at the US? Well, let's have a look.

You might have heard of an app called Zoom.  You've most likely used it to replace normal  

human interaction, thanks to the coronavirus  pandemic, that the Chinese Communist Party  

is responsible for. And it turns out, Zoom  has been working very closely with Beijing.

Federal prosecutors are accusing a Zoom  executive of working with Chinese government  

to surveil users and suppress video calls.

Zoom says they deliver happiness.

That motto is a lie. Whenever we use  Zoom, all of us are deeply unhappy.

Especially if you worked with this guy.

But you know who is happy? Zoom CEO Eric  Yuan, who's now worth 3 billion dollars.

But when prosecutors accuse a Zoom executive  of working with the Chinese government,  

they don't mention CEO Eric Yuan.

Instead, they allege a China-based  executive with Zoom named Xinjiang Jin,  

“worked with the Chinese government  to terminate Americans' accounts and  

disrupt video calls about the 1989 massacre of  pro-democracy activists in Tiananmen Square”.

You might remember this because  it was a big scandal back in June.  

We interviewed Tiananmen activist Zhou  Fengsuo, whose Zoom meeting was shut down. 

Zoom at the time said it was just following  local laws. But that's not all that Jin did. 

The Zoom executive “monitored Zoom's video  system for discussions of political and  

religious topics deemed unacceptable by China's  ruling Communist Party, the complaint states,  

and he gave government officials  the names, email addresses  

and other sensitive information of  users, even those outside China.”

That's right, he sent user data from outside  China to the Chinese Communist Party.  

This is something that Zoom  publicly said it did not do. 

But it gets worse. On top of that lie, Jin also  worked with Chinese police and state security  

to create fake evidence to  get these users banned. 

What kind of fake evidence? Oh you know,  things like they were involved in terrorism,  

inciting violence, and of  course, child pornography.

And the Chinese Communist Party also used the  data that Zoom gave them to detain at least  

one dissident and threaten the  family of another dissident. 

I'm guessing those people don't feel  like Zoom really delivered happiness.  

More like delivered a crackdown  from an authoritarian regime. 

So what is Zoom doing now? Well, it's clear from  the criminal complaint that Jin was working with  

other Zoom employees in the US to ban  users and meetings. So Zoom fired Jin  

and put other employees on leave, and they say  they've launched an internal investigation. 

Zoom has pledged to do better, but at the  same time the company is still minimizing what  

happened. For example, Zoom says that they did not  provide the Chinese government with the user data  

of non-China users…”with the exception of user  data for fewer than ten individual users.”

Yeah we totally didn't give the Chinese  Communist Party user data except for when  

we did. But let's not focus on that part.  Did we mention that we deliver happiness?

So you can see why Trade Advisor Peter  Navarro says China is coming after us in  

so many different ways. More came out  this week than just the Zoom fiasco.

The Chinese regime has been engaging in mass  surveillance of Americans' mobile phones.  

That's according to a new report by Exigent  Media, a Washington based cyber security firm.

They found state-owned  telecom operator China Unicom,  

was the leading source of attacks against U.S.  mobile users over 3G and 4G networks in 2018.

So clearly, the only solution is—Huawei 5G.

But if this is mortal Kombat  

the US is fighting back. Hey, Mortal  Kombat prepared us for the coronavirus!

Last week, the US added more than 60 Chinese  military linked companies to a blacklist. 

The Commerce Department points to  “China's military-civil fusion”.

That's basically a new policy in China that  means any so-called private company in China  

has to turn over the goods to  the Communist Party's military.

Meaning, there's no such thing  as a private company in China.

And for more on how the Chinese Communist  Party controls everything in China,  

stay tuned after this short break.

Welcome back.

The Chinese Communist Party controls  all aspects of Chinese society.  

And the Party is more than  happy to have the people  

make some sacrifices on the Party's behalf.  I'm sure it's what the people would want.

Millions are having their electricity rationed.

Entire cities have gone dark.  

“Officials in at least three provinces—where a  total of more than 150 million people live—have  

issued orders limiting energy use,  warning of potential coal shortages.”

Wow, that's rough. Maybe the Party shouldn't  have banned coal imports from Australia?

Power shortages will obviously  make a lot of Chinese people angry.  

But the Communist Party knows how to take  care of that. By distracting them with war!

Chinese jets joined Russia in entering  South Korea's air defense zone.

This isn't entirely new. “In July last year,  

South Korean warplanes fired hundreds  of warning shots toward Russian military  

aircraft on a joint air patrol with China,  when they entered South Korean airspace.”

China has denied any wrongdoing. Because invading  other countries' airspace feels so right.

And why have one battle  front when you can have two?  

Taiwan had to scramble ships and aircraft  as a Chinese carrier passed by the island.

“Taiwan's ministry said  that six warships and eight  

air force aircraft were sent to 'stand guard'  and monitor the Chinese ships' movements.”

Alright, this game isn't fun anymore.

Considering how openly hostile the  Chinese Communist Party is becoming, it's  

not that surprising to hear that Japan  has approved a record military budget,  

with new stealth jets and long range missiles.

And this is also interesting because it  shows that current Japanese Prime Minster  

Yoshihide Suga is continuing the hard line  approach of his predecessor Shinzo Abe.

Japanese military expansion is controversial  in Asia because...remember Japanese aggression  

ahead of World War II? But the possibility of  Chinese Communist aggression in World War III  

might be a little more pressing  to countries in the region now.

Now over to Canada. Earlier this year,  

a Chinese company made an attempt to buy a gold  mine in Nunavut, Canada's northernmost province.

Weird, because the current price  of gold makes that goldmine  

unprofitable. But..the mine just happens to  be close to a useful arctic shipping port.  

And also just a few hundred  miles from a NORAD base.

But good news: This week the Canadian government  

blocked the takeover of the Nunavut  gold mine on national security grounds.

I guess they were having “none of it.”

This high quality humor is why  you watch China Uncensored.  

And if you want to learn more about  what's happening with Canada and China,  

watch our next China Uncensored episode.  I'll be “Poutin” it on this channel Monday.

Admit it. You love me.

Things aren't looking good  for Chinese tech giants.  

You may remember last month when China  blocked the IPO of Ant Financial.

That was after Ant Financial founder Jack Ma  

mouthed off about his displeasure  toward Chinese regulators.

Which is why Xi Jinping saw it personally  that Ant Financial's IPO would be blocked.

That led to concerns the Communist Party would  start a major crackdown on tech companies.  

And... it's happening. 

That includes Alibaba and Tencent. This  is on top of anti-monopoly guidelines  

the Party made last month targeting  some of these major tech companies. 

And now, Jack Ma is singing  a slightly different tune. 

Because, say it with me—there  is no private business in China.

And now I'll answer a question from one of you,  

a fan who supports China Uncensored  on the crowd funding website Patreon.

Logan asks, “Any luck finding a merchandise  store yet? I want a Xi the Pooh shirt.”

Oh, you mean you want a t-shirt with this on  it? I'm hoping a lot of you watching would  

like a t-shirt like this. We were selling this  shirt earlier in the year on Teespring, but  

they permanently shut us down. Imagine that. 

But many of you suggested we reach out  to Bunker Branding for merchandise.  

And I'm happy to say that is moving forward!  Sadly we missed the Christmas rush, but  

very soon, we will finally be  offering merchandise. So stay tuned!

And as always a big shout out to everyone who  supports China Uncensored on Patreon. With  

YouTube demonetizing us and randomly unsubscribing  people, we would have had to shut the show down if  

it weren't for your support. If you'd like to join  what I call the China Uncensored 50 cent army,  

head over to Patreon.com/ChinaUnensored  to learn how you can support the show.

And in case you think we missed something big in  this episode, we actually recorded it two days  

ago so Seamus didn't have to video edit over  Christmas. The Chinese Communist Party often  

does horrible things right around Christmas  so that the Western media don't cover it.  

If that happened this year, you'll just have  to wait till next week to hear about it.

Once again I'm Chris Chappell. Merry  Christmas to all, and to all, a good night.