An American is jailed in Hong Kong

And how China is collecting the world's DNA

That and more on this week's China news headlines.

Welcome to China Uncensored, I'm Chris Chappell.

This episode is sponsored by Surfshark.

You should be using a VPN like Surfshark to protect yourself whenever you go online.

This week's China news headlines.

China continues to ramp up the pressure on Taiwan.

But this week, Japan's deputy prime minister Taro Aso

said Japan must defend Taiwan if China invades.

If China were to conquer Taiwan, the Chinese Communist Party would be inside what's called

the first island chain.

That would give the Communist Party tremendous control over not just international trade,

but military activity in the Pacific.

That would not be good for Japan.

So you can see why Aso would say Japan needs to defend Taiwan.

Specifically, he said, “If a major problem took place in Taiwan, it would not be too

much to say that it could relate to a survival-threatening situation [for Japan].”

Calling it a survival-threatening situation is important.

After World War II, Japan was banned from having a military.

It is allowed to have a self-defense force.

But there are limits on how Japan can use it.

However, the Japanese constitution says the Japanese self-defense force can act if it's

a “survival-threatening situation”.

In other words, Aso is basically saying Japan would go to war to defend Taiwan.

And they would do it with the United States.

The Chinese Communist Party does not like the idea of fighting Japan.

In response, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Aso's comments “harmed

the political foundation of China-Japan relations” and China “resolutely opposed” them.

Hu Xijin the editor-in-chief of my favorite Chinese state-run media the Global Times,

went a bit further.

He said China will 'destroy' Japanese forces in a Taiwan conflict.

Which is all a part of China's new wave of wolf warrior diplomacy.

I've talked before about how wolf warrior diplomacy is more like Troll Face diplomacy,

because these diplomats are just trying to get a rise out of people on the internet.

But the language that the Chinese Communist Party uses has always been pretty bloody.

During last week's 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, Chinese leader

Xi Jinping said China will never allow foreign forces to bully, oppress or enslave them.

And anyone who hopes to do that, “will crack their heads and spill blood on the Great Wall

of steel built from the flesh and blood of 1.4 billion Chinese people.”

Of course, since no one is actually trying to enslave China, I have a feeling he's

just talking about anyone who challenges the CCP.

But I got to say, compared to some other examples, that is subtle.

Here's a now-deleted tweet from China's ambassador to Pakistan.

How China will treat its friends versus enemies.

That specifically says “To the enemy, we are 'wolf warriors.'”

And here's a recent cartoon from state-run China Daily.

The US had slavery in the past.

So how dare they criticize China for turning Uyghurs into slaves now.

I mean, not that the Uyghurs are slaves.

There's no slavery happening in China!

Or this one from state-run Xinhua criticizing gun violence in the US.

Yes, why can't we just ban guns to be more like China, a country where people in some

regions need a permit to buy kitchen knives because so many people die in mass stabbings?

You might think that these examples of Party propaganda are pretty ham-fisted.

I mean, who would even believe them, right?

Unfortunately, the answer is: American mainstream media.

MSNBC host Chris Hayes decided it would be a good idea to amplify Xinhua's anti-American

propaganda, and retweeted it.

Xinhua, by the way, isn't just Chinese state-run media.

It's the official press agency of the Communist Party.

Unfortunately, this isn't the only example of US media amplifying Chinese Communist Party

propaganda.

It's just more obvious than usual.

I also like how those cartoons were posted on Instagram and Twitter.

Which are both banned in China.

But it seems that when it comes to Hong Kong, American social media might actually be standing

up to the Chinese Communist Party.

I'll tell you more after the break.

Welcome back.

It seems like for a change, American social media might actually be standing up to the

CCP.

Facebook, Twitter, and Google are threatening to quit Hong Kong over proposed data laws.

Basically Hong Kong authorities are gradually putting up the Great Firewall in Hong Kong.

That's China's massive internet censorship apparatus.

New laws are targeting protesters who dox public officials—that is, put their private

details online.

And tech companies are concerned because the new rules are so vague that their staff in

Hong Kong could be “at risk of criminal investigations or prosecution.”

The companies also stated that the proposed laws are also so vague they could stop free

expression and “criminalize even 'innocent acts of sharing information online.'”

Which is, of course, what Chinese laws are designed to do.

Communist laws are vague on purpose, so the authorities can use them for whatever they

want.

And you never know where the line is.

Meanwhile, the regime that is literally committing genocide is allowed to have multiple state-run

Twitter accounts, but Twitter restricted the account of a New Zealand professor who mocked

Xi Jinping.

This was the post in question.

Clearly a hateful post that must bring retribution.

After lots of public backlash, her account was restored.

So good news!

Twitter won't censor you on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party...as long as several

media outlets write stories about it that embarrass Twitter.

But another sign we should all be very worried about Hong Kong: An American lawyer has been

sentenced to prison there.

Basically what happened was in 2019, the lawyer, Samuel Bickett saw someone beating up a teenager.

So he fought the guy off.

Now at the time, the guy doing the beating was caught on camera repeatedly saying he

wasn't a police officer.

Well, turns out, he was a police officer.

And now Bickett is going to prison for assaulting a police officer.

Also in Hong Kong, on July 1 a man stabbed a random police officer, and then committed

suicide.

The officer suffered a punctured lung, but is recovering.

The attacker, a 50 year old man, stabbed himself in the heart immediately after the attack,

and died shortly afterwards.

“Sources said officers found a suicide note in a USB flash drive found on him, which explained

his actions.”

“The note was critical of the police and contained views on how the national security

law had undermined people's freedom.”

Hong Kong officials are calling it an act of domestic terrorism.

That's right.

One guy randomly stabbing a police officer but not targeting civilians was a terrorist.

This can only mean one thing: Crackdowns are going to get worse in Hong Kong—and they'll

use the excuse of “fighting terrorism.”

And the Chinese regime is really good at that, because it's the exact same thing they did

in Xinjiang to the Uyghurs.

Now is a good time to leave Hong Kong, while you still can.

But in some good US-China news, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with survivors

of Uyghur concentration camps.

This is a tradition carried on from similar meetings under former Secretary of State Mike

Pompeo.

Let's keep that tradition going.

And here's another sign of just how much the Chinese Communist Party controls “the

science.”

Ian Lipkin is an expert on viruses and has worked with Chinese scientists for almost

twenty years, since the SARS outbreak in 2003.

He's also a professor at Columbia University.

Last May, Lipkin forwarded an email to Dr. Anthony Fauci that he received from Chen Zhu,

the vice-chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

That email is...completely redacted.

Chen was responding to an email from Lipkin asking some questions about how the coronavirus

got from bats to humans.

But most of that email is...also redacted.

Lipkin and Chen had previously worked together during the 2003 SARS outbreak.

When he forwarded the email from Chen to Fauci, Lipkin said, “We deeply appreciate your

efforts in steering and messaging.”

It's not clear what messaging Lipkin is referring to because that part of the email

was...also redacted.

However, Lipkin and Chen were discussing how the coronavirus got from bats to humans.

And the day before this email, Fauci had done an interview with National Geographic where

he dismissed the idea the coronavirus was made in a Chinese lab.

So Lipkin could have been thanking Fauci for saying the coronavirus came from nature and

not a lab.

Again, we don't know for sure because the emails have been redacted.

Lipkin went to China at the start of the coronavirus outbreak last year.

But when he came back, he became one of the most outspoken critics of the lab-leak hypothesis.

And he went on Chinese state-run media to call that hypothesis a conspiracy theory.

He told China Central Television, “All the evidence that we've seen thus far indicates

that this virus came from wildlife.

And there is no evidence that there was any conspiracy or sloppiness or anything that

led to anything coming out of the Institute for Virology in Wuhan.”

Lipkin and other scientists also published this opinion piece in Nature Medicine in March

2020 saying the coronavirus definitely didn't leak from a lab.

Which was repeatedly used by the media to “debunk” the lab-leak hypothesis.

FYI, Nature Medicine's parent company gets funding from the Chinese Communist Party.

And guess who else has close ties with the CCP?

Lipkin.

“Several Chinese biomedicine institutions were established with contributions from Lipkin.”

Lipkin is also the director of Columbia University's Center for Infection and Immunity.

Which teamed up with the Chinese CDC to create a joint pathogen research laboratory in China.

Lipkin said the lab would help them “work side-by-side developing solutions for pandemic

threats to global health”.

In 2015, he lectured at an event at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

While he was there, he was given an award by Dr. Shi Zhengli, the scientist who was

conducting bat coronavirus research at the institute.

In 2016, Lipkin also received China's highest honor for foreign scientists, the International

Science and Technology Cooperation Award.

Xi Jinping himself oversaw the ceremony.

And in early January 2020, when China was still trying to cover up the outbreak, the

Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee gave Lipkin this beautiful award.

Oh, let's get a close up of that.

He must be so proud.

And after the break, how a company linked to the Chinese military is harvesting DNA

data from women around the world.

Welcome back.

In the next Chinese scientific experiment that could go horribly wrong, China is harvesting

genetic data from millions of women.

Now you might be thinking, wow, the Chinese Communist Party is doing really evil things

to Uyghur women, haha, this isn't about Uyghur women.

It's about you.

“A Chinese gene company selling prenatal tests around the world developed them in collaboration

with the country's military and is using them to collect genetic data from millions

of women for sweeping research on the traits of populations.”

The company is called BGI Group.

It makes a prenatal DNA test for genetic abnormalities in the fetus.

Things like Down's syndrome.

This test is sold in 52 countries around the world.

It also records DNA from the mother.

And BGI Group is also working “with the Chinese military to improve 'population

quality.'”

“Improve population quality”?

Sounds like eugenics—with Chinese characteristics.

US government advisors have warned the technology that could be developed from this genetic

information, “could propel China to dominate global pharmaceuticals, and also potentially

lead to genetically enhanced soldiers, or engineered pathogens to target the U.S. population

or food supply.”

Good, because we're not dealing with enough pathogens from China already.

Fun fact: BGI Group also tried to build coronavirus testing labs in the US at the start of the

pandemic.

The US federal government warned states not to build the labs.

And not to use Chinese Covid tests that were also made by BGI.

But BGI Group did build testing labs in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

Hey, since we have a global pandemic anyway, why not use it to also collect DNA from millions

of people around the world?

Now sure that sounds incredibly dark.

But it's important to remember—China has pandas!

Everyone loves pandas!

And now China has a glass bottomed panda train!

It actually has nothing to do with pandas, but it kind of looks like one.

You love the CCP now, right?