Additional context to answer some of the questions here: His superior Lai Xiaomin:

• investigated in April 2018
• arrested in Nov 2018
• prosecuted in Feb 2019
• first court trial in Oct 2020
• sentenced to death on Jan 5, 2021
• appeal rejected, verdict maintained on Jan 21, 2021
• executed on Jan 29, 2021
• corruption activities were between 2008 and 2018

As for Bai Tianhui:

• arrested in Jan 2019
• first court trial, sentenced to death, on May 28, 2024
• corruption activities were between 2014 and 2018

So the jig was up when Lai was investigated in 2018, Bai was already doomed from that point on.

If there’s a reprieve it would be explicitly stated, none in this case.

In a single sentence: The Internet is not outside the law. （网络不是法外之地）

Many comrades have mentioned economic or ideological aspects of the GFW, but ultimately everything has to be written in law.

Let’s start with a simple example of online content that would be banned even outside China, something that westerners will agree with: child pornography. In this case it’s very obvious that any platform (I will use this to refer to any website or app) that wants to operate legally will ban child pornography.

Next example that has mixed opinions: pirated music/movies/shows/games/books/etc. Some might be familiar with the USA’s DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notice that caused various pirate sites to close. Some legal Chinese platforms do host pirated movies/shows, probably because the copyright owners haven’t contacted them, but most of the time pirate platforms that look like Chinese platforms are actually based overseas because they are obviously against Chinese copyright laws.

Last example that I think is the most controversial: “free speech”, usually referring to political criticism and discussing “sensitive” incidents. While some terms are filtered/blocked online, this doesn’t mean that people can’t discuss them with substitute terms. The guidelines for what you can post varies from platform to platform, and also depends on the user qualifications.

Users have to be responsible for what they post, platforms have to be responsible for what they host, and regulators have to be responsible in ensuring that platforms are doing their job.

While I haven’t found any official Chinese government sources that directly mention the GFW, there are certainly laws and regulations regarding cyberspace, starting from “Measures on Ensuring Security of Internationally Connected Computer Information Networks” in 1997 (计算机信息网络国际联网安全保护管理办法, https://www.cac.gov.cn/2014-10/08/c_1112737294.htm). You can read more about the development of China’s cyberspace in the white paper “China’s Law-Based Cyberspace Governance in the New Era” here: http://english.scio.gov.cn/whitepapers/2023-03/16/content_85172148.htm, a summary of the legal process regarding cybersecurity is in section 2 of this white paper: http://english.scio.gov.cn/whitepapers/2023-03/16/content_85172148_4.htm.

In this short regulation mentioned above from 1997, Article 5 basically outlines everything that is illegal online, there are many more laws and regulations since then but this is a pretty good summary: (English translation from DeepL)

第五条　任何单位和个人不得利用国际联网制作、复制、查阅和传播下列信息：

（一）煽动抗拒、破坏宪法和法律、行政法规实施的；

（二）煽动颠覆国家政权，推翻社会主义制度的；

（三）煽动分裂国家、破坏国家统一的；

（四）煽动民族仇恨、民族歧视，破坏民族团结的；

（五）捏造或者歪曲事实，散布谣言，扰乱社会秩序的；

（六）宣扬封建迷信、淫秽、色情、赌博、暴力、凶杀、恐怖，教唆犯罪的；

（七）公然侮辱他人或者捏造事实诽谤他人的；

（八）损害国家机关信誉的；

（九）其他违反宪法和法律、行政法规的。

Article 5 Any unit or individual shall not utilize the international network to produce, copy, access and disseminate the following information:

(1) incitement to resist or undermine the implementation of the Constitution and laws and administrative regulations;

(2) incitement to subvert state power and overthrow the socialist system;

(3) inciting to split the country and undermine national unity;

(4) inciting ethnic hatred or ethnic discrimination and undermining national unity;

(5) fabricating or distorting facts, spreading rumors and disturbing social order;

(6) Promoting feudal superstition, obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, murder, terror, and abetting crimes;

(7) openly insulting others or fabricating facts to slander others;

(8) Damaging the credibility of state organs;

(9) Other violations of the Constitution and laws and administrative regulations.

People have different opinions on what should or shouldn’t be allowed online, that’s fine. Currently most non-Chinese platforms are able to host a wider variety of content than Chinese platforms, they definitely have more “freedom” in this regard.

I should also mention that all platforms operating in mainland China are required to have an ICP record (ICP备案), regardless of whether the operator is a person or company, and companies have additional requirements like ICP license (ICP许可证). Now we have to look at how these laws and regulations regarding online content can be enforced.

In the case of local platforms operating within China, regulators can contact the relevant platform to takedown or censor any offending material, just like how normal users can report content for moderators to review, though regulators probably have special communication channels with platforms. Local platforms probably have internal guidelines for what is acceptable content based on their interactions with regulators, and will use them proactively to avoid attracting unnecessary attention from regulators, often to the detriment of user experience (like shadowbanning posts/comments that mention “sensitive” terms).

For foreign platforms operating outside China, I can only guess that the first step is to send an email requesting a takedown. If that fails then maybe the actual GFW will come into the picture. Though major western social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter/X, YouTube, etc.) are blocked by the GFW as expected, some news outlets like CNN, AP aren’t blocked, while others like NYT or WP are blocked. Lemmygrad.ml isn’t blocked but lemmy.ml, hexbear.net and prolewiki.org are. Google search and Duckduckgo are blocked but Yandex and VK aren’t. There is a lack of transparency in this regard as to which platforms are blocked for which reason. (Note that Microsoft’s Bing and other products are operating legally in China, with their ICP license and all that stuff.)

Personally these are some of the reasons why I think a foreign platform is not yet blocked by the GFW:

• nobody reported the platform to regulators
• the platform isn’t popular enough to attract attention
• the platform isn’t popular enough among Chinese netizens
• the platform does not contain illegal content

The GFW is a natural consequence of enforcing cyberspace legislation. The Internet is not outside the law. Though it may seem like the Internet exists somewhere in the clouds, the supporting infrastructure is real and concrete, and thus all platforms are subject to local laws and regulations. Most online platforms have their own methods of moderating content, their own Terms of Service (ToS), and their own share of DMCA-like takedown notices. Since foreign platforms do not have a legal obligation to Chinese takedown requests, the GFW becomes the only remaining option for cyberspace law enforcement.

As the Internet is the most powerful channel for manipulating the flow of information in this day and age, we should not allow capitalists to become the main legislators of the Internet. It is not a question of why any country should have a GFW, but who should be in control of it when it inevitably exists.

I reread Article 68 of the Company Law and figured I misunderstood it with regards to the audit committee (AC below) and board of supervisors (BoS below). If a company has an AC (optional employee representatives) in place of a BoS (minimum one-third employee representatives), and has 300 or more employees, then it is required to have employee representatives on the board of directors (BoD below).

Both the AC and BoS include 3 or more members, here are some of the differences that affect the number of employee representatives (summarized from Article 121 (on corporation AC), 76 (on LLC BoS), 130 (on corporation BoS) of the Company Law):

• AC: Members are from the BoD, and a majority should not hold positions other than being on the BoD. Employee representatives in the BoD may (optional) join the committee.
• BoS: Members should include shareholder representatives and employee representatives, employee representatives must make up at least one-third of members. Members of the BoD and senior executives cannot be on the BoS.

The difference in membership requirements means that at least one-third (x >= 1/3) of the BoS should be employee representatives, and less than half (x < 1/2) the AC can (optional) be employee representatives.

So if I understood all this correctly, for small private companies that have less than 300 employees and meet the criteria for not having a board of supervisors, they don’t need employee representatives at all. This is where the interpretation of Paragraph 2 of Article 17 matters the most, whether or not establishing an Employee’s Congress is mandatory, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough when the revised law goes into effect on July 1st.

About the post title, this is a revision of an existing law, not a new law, I was confused when I saw the title as I am pretty sure the new laws passed two days ago were not about workers’ rights.

TLDR: The revised Company Law makes employee representatives mandatory on the board of directors for LLCs or corporations that have 300 or more employees, employee representatives were already mandatory on board of supervisors (one-third minimum) before. Employee representatives are democratically elected by the Employee’s Congress, Employee’s Assembly or other forms. Audit committees (with optional employee representatives) are now allowed in place of the board of supervisors, which the article fails to mention.

The system of Employee’s Congress (or Employee’s Assembly) and employee representatives on the board of directors is not something new, but was limited in scope or optional. From the Company Law before this revision:

For LLCs (limited liability companies, 有限责任公司) that had a board of directors, employee representatives were not mandatory, unless they had 2 or more investors that are SOEs or state-owned investment entities. Paragraph 2 of Article 44:

两个以上的国有企业或者两个以上的其他国有投资主体投资设立的有限责任公司，其董事会成员中应当有公司职工代表；其他有限责任公司董事会成员中可以有公司职工代表。董事会中的职工代表由公司职工通过职工代表大会、职工大会或者其他形式民主选举产生。

(DeepL translation) A limited liability company invested in by two or more state-owned enterprises or two or more other state-owned investment entities shall have employee representatives on its board of directors; other limited liability companies may have employee representatives on their boards of directors. Employee representatives on the board of directors shall be democratically elected by the employees of the company through the employees’ congress, employees’ meeting or other forms.

For LLCs that had a board of supervisors (as opposed to small LLCs which can just have 1 to 2 supervisors), at least one-third had to be employee representatives. Paragraph 2 of Article 51:

监事会应当包括股东代表和适当比例的公司职工代表，其中职工代表的比例不得低于三分之一，具体比例由公司章程规定。监事会中的职工代表由公司职工通过职工代表大会、职工大会或者其他形式民主选举产生。

(DeepL translation) The Supervisory Board shall include representatives of shareholders and an appropriate proportion of employee representatives of the Company, of which the proportion of employee representatives shall not be less than one-third, with the specific proportion to be stipulated in the Articles of Association of the Company. Employee representatives on the Supervisory Board shall be democratically elected by the employees of the Company through the Employee Representative Assembly, the Employee General Meeting or other forms.

Corporations (or joint stock limited company, 股份有限公司) are required to have both a board of directors and board of supervisors, but employee representatives were also optional on the board of directors. The one-third minimum for employee representatives on the board of supervisors also applies to corporations (Paragraph 2 of Article 117 is exactly the same as Paragraph 2 of Article 51 mentioned above). Paragraph 2 of Article 108:

董事会成员中可以有公司职工代表。董事会中的职工代表由公司职工通过职工代表大会、职工大会或者其他形式民主选举产生。

(DeepL translation) Employees of the Company may be represented on the Board of Directors. Employee representatives on the Board of Directors shall be democratically elected by the employees of the Company through the Employee Congress, the Employee Assembly or other forms.

Now that we got past the old revision, let’s look at the revised Company Law. While the shared article mentions that Paragraph 2 of Article 17 makes the system of Employee’s Congress the basic form of democratic management, it still preserves the wording that allows “other forms” (通过职工代表大会或者其他形式，实行民主管理). So I would say that the crucial difference is in Paragraph 1 of Article 68, that is for LLCs with more than 300 or more employees, employee representatives on the board of directors become mandatory:

有限责任公司董事会成员为三人以上，其成员中可以有公司职工代表。职工人数三百人以上的有限责任公司，除依法设监事会并有公司职工代表的外，其董事会成员中应当有公司职工代表。董事会中的职工代表由公司职工通过职工代表大会、职工大会或者其他形式民主选举产生。

The board of directors of a limited liability company shall consist of three or more members and may include representatives of the company’s employees among its members. For a limited liability company with more than 300 employees, except for a supervisory board established in accordance with the law and with representatives of the company’s employees, its board of directors shall include representatives of the company’s employees. Employee representatives on the Board of Directors shall be democratically elected by the employees of the Company through the Employee Congress, the Employee Assembly or other forms.

Paragraph 2 of Article 108 then makes the above Paragraph 1 of Article 68 also apply to corporations:

本法第六十七条、第六十八条第一款、第七十条、第七十一条的规定，适用于股份有限公司。

(DeepL translation) The provisions of Articles 67, 68(1), 70 and 71 of this Law shall apply to joint stock companies.

But the revised law also allows both LLCs and corporations to establish audit committees (审计委员会) instead of a board of supervisors, employee representatives are optional on audit committees, as opposed to being mandatory on board of supervisors:

For LLCs, Article 69:

有限责任公司可以按照公司章程的规定在董事会中设置由董事组成的审计委员会，行使本法规定的监事会的职权，不设监事会或者监事。公司董事会成员中的职工代表可以成为审计委员会成员。

(DeepL translation) A limited liability company may, in accordance with the provisions of its articles of association, set up in its board of directors an audit committee composed of directors, exercising the powers and functions of the supervisory board as provided for in this Law, without having a supervisory board or supervisors. Employee representatives of the members of the company’s board of directors may become members of the audit committee.

For corporations, Article 121:

股份有限公司可以按照公司章程的规定在董事会中设置由董事组成的审计委员会，行使本法规定的监事会的职权，不设监事会或者监事。

审计委员会成员为三名以上，过半数成员不得在公司担任除董事以外的其他职务，且不得与公司存在任何可能影响其独立客观判断的关系。公司董事会成员中的职工代表可以成为审计委员会成员。

(DeepL translation) A joint stock limited company may, in accordance with the provisions of its articles of association, set up an audit committee consisting of directors in the board of directors to exercise the powers and functions of the supervisory board as provided for in this Law, and shall not have a supervisory board or supervisors.

The audit committee shall consist of three or more members, and a majority of the members shall not hold positions other than director in the company and shall not have any relationship with the company that may affect their independent and objective judgment. Employee representatives of the members of the company’s board of directors may become members of the audit committee.

When something bad happens in China, there’s a tendency for supporters of China to explain it while not shifting the blame onto the system of socialism. This is because critics of China will always find a way to blame socialism for all the bad things in China, always turning what should be an analysis of the specific situation into a debate of capitalism vs socialism.

There’s a Chinese phrase for this sort of bad faith behavior: 上纲上线, that is common during the Cultural Revolution to politicize everything instead of 具体事情具体分析 (analyzing the specific situation). Ironically, this has been happening for decades on the internet when the topic is about China, and is also occurring in the US between the Democrats and Republicans.

China is not a utopia, I’m glad that comrades here are defensive of China, but I suggest that we should avoid falling into the ideological warfare trap when it comes to discussing bad news in China. There’s no shame in admitting deficiencies where they are warranted, and of course feel free to refute baseless claims and misinformation. Now I know this approach seems too non-confrontational for some, but ideological warfare is off-putting to unwitting bystanders who have not committed to a particular ideology, and will just turn away or go with whichever side is more familiar.

Didn’t watch the video, here’s my opinion of standardized testing:

Standardized tests provides two results, individual performance and group ranking. Besides academic tests seen mainly in school, other forms of tests like sports competitions are also standardized tests.

China’s Gaokao is very competitive due to scale (population) and limited resources (spots in universities).

1. Scale

In 2023, there were 12.91 million Gaokao applicants, but the total enrollment number for regular undergraduates was just 4.7816 million in total across 1242 regular undergraduate schools. (Source: http://www.moe.gov.cn/fbh/live/2024/55831/sfcl/202403/t20240301_1117517.html) An enrollment ratio of 1 in 3 applicants seems fine until you realize that most people want to get into a good university, not get into any university.

Looking at the total number of applicants nationwide isn’t enough, because enrollment through Gaokao is by province. The number of applicants by province vary widely across China, from as low as 58 thousand in Beijing, 54 thousand in Shanghai, 33 thousand in Xizang, to as high as 1.3 million in Henan, 800.73 thousand in Sichuan. The number of people who actually took the test is lesser than the number of applicants, but that’s basically the scale we’re looking at.

2. Limited resources

I’m going to look at Fudan University’s 2023 enrollment plan because it is Shanghai’s prestigious university and its enrollment website provides a handy table of figures by province: https://ao.fudan.edu.cn/af/c9/c36332a634825/page.htm, full-scale image: https://ao.fudan.edu.cn/_upload/article/images/57/f3/952bd7fd46a5a8df948d0c31dc97/d1a91020-e1c2-48ba-a27e-7b851495e4c8_d.jpg. As a university based in Shanghai, Fudan enrolled 97 students from Shanghai (54 thousand Gaokao applicants), 139 from Jiangsu (neighboring province with 445 thousand Gaokao applicants), 66 from Henan (province with most Gaokao applicants at 1.3 million). The ratio of Gaokao applicants to enrollment number in each province thus varies a lot, 557 for Shanghai, 3201 for Jiangsu, 19697 for Henan.

Although this is just one simplistic case study, you can see how this selection process can be unfair to students from different provinces.

Gaokao is mainly for students who went to regular high schools, as opposed to students who went to vocational schools, there are about half as many students in secondary vocational education (12.9846 million) as there are students in regular high schools (28.0363 million). Though Gaokao is the most common way to get into university, it is not the only way.

I’ve mentioned that Gaokao can be unfair due to scale and limited resources, it is also unfair to those who do not excel at this type of testing, but now I want to talk about selection in general. A holistic approach to selecting people would be interviewing and investigating each candidate, but this does not scale well, though with AI tools this type of selection is already happening in some workplaces (with questionable reliability).

I think the questions to ask are: What exactly are universities selecting students for? Is it to maximize profit from student tuition? Is it to increase quantity and quality of research output? Is it to provide better candidates for the job market? Is it to nurture talents for strategic national interests? Looking at it from a wider angle, when we talk about developing the productive forces for socialism, what kind of expertise and industries should the state prioritize? If certain areas are prioritized over others, overabundance may be an issue, which is one critic of planned economy, but we also know that market economy is not absent of overabundance.

Going back to the topic of Gaokao, it is highly regarded and stressful to all involved (students, teachers, parents, schools, society), there are definitely problems with the current system. But any reforms to college admission would most likely still require open and transparent standardized testing, as opposed to setting various arbitrary or ambiguous criteria that are more susceptible to underhanded practices.

This exact topic was brought up 2 months ago here: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/3242674

My comment chain: https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/3384450

In Shanghai, you can usually get around using public transportation (bus, subway, ferry), shared bicycles (electric and non-electric), or electric scooters, these are the cheaper options. The more expensive options are using ride-hailing apps, taxi services, or driving your own car.

There are areas outside the main city area of Shanghai that resemble “suburbs” or what we call “城乡结合部”, large patches of residential areas that consist of mostly one to three-story tall houses, some of the areas haven’t been covered by the subway system yet. Here you can still get around using buses, electric scooters, bicycles (if the distance is short or you really want to). There are still office buildings, malls, commercial streets in these “suburbs”.

China’s high-speed rail have train numbers with D/G prefix, but there are still normal-speed trains with T/K/Z prefix (or even no prefix) for intercity travel.

As for traffic jams caused by cars, this is not a problem unique to any political system, it is a city-planning and engineering problem.

My opinion of cars is while they are convenient for family/group travel and carrying baggage, they take up too much space on the road and require lots of dedicated parking space. Maybe they should be designed differently in future.

Thanks, I was deciding between factoid or trivia, now I changed it to facts.

Related news:

Seafood from inland Xinjiang becomes new love for foodies in China https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-10-07/Seafood-from-inland-Xinjiang-becomes-new-love-for-foodies-in-China-1nEDg2FZPSU/index.html

Inland aquaculture swimming in demand https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202310/10/WS6524a5a1a31090682a5e7a63.html

While the video looks fine, I find the lack of text or background info in the description very concerning, and the situation seems to extend to their other videos. Also what’s up with the channel using Wonder Woman’s crest as their logo, I know they’re called “Top Wonder” but that’s just weird, I wonder if anyway is suing them.

Yeah the questions were translated and the original data in Mandarin is not publicly available, from the study:

Data availability statement

A sample of the questionnaire. translated into English, is available in supplementary information at npj: Science of Food’s website. The completed 2063 questionnaires and the resulting database for the statistical analyses are in mandarin are not publicly available but can be made available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

The usage of 爱国者 (patriot) is probably not as common as 爱国 (patriotic), 爱国主义 (patriotism), or even 小粉红 (pinky/pinko, both a derogatory term to refer to Chinese patriots/nationalists, but also normalized by patriots to use to call themselves, kind of like the n-word for African Americans). The Chinese tech brand aigo is literally 爱国者 (patriot) in Chinese. Mentions of US “Patriot” missiles in the news are also instances where you can find 爱国者 (patriot).

As for surveys themselves, I can’t speak for whether it is accurate to paint a representation of any large population with a sample size of less than 0.00015% or 1 in 666,667 of the population, even if it’s claimed to be statistically relevant. In this case this particular question about US bioterrorism was constructed in such a loaded way that the results shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Also the option “Disagree, debate on GM food should base on science” also feeds into Chinese liberals’ talking point that Chinese patriots favor patriotism over science, as if those two are mutually exclusive.

Besides the Chinese person mentioned in the article (彭光谦, Peng Guangqian, Baidu wiki includes the GMO controversy: https://baike.baidu.com/item/彭光谦/8993457) there was also this person called 崔永元 (Cui Yongyuan, Baidu wiki: https://baike.baidu.com/item/崔永元/324929) who was a famous CCTV show host, and he was anti-GMO.

China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs responded to Peng Guangqian’s questions about transgenic technology in this 2013 article (http://www.moa.gov.cn/ztzl/zjyqwgz/sjzx/201310/t20131018_3634054.htm), and created this special page for info related to transgenic technology (http://www.moa.gov.cn/ztzl/zjyqwgz/) that is still updated to this day.

Even though it may be interesting to some, but I think finding out how many people in China believe “the US is carrying out bioterrorism against China via GM food” is not a worthwhile thing to do, compared to the more important question of how to carry out research regarding transgenic technology safely and scientifically. I personally think transgenic tech is inherently a complicated topic so I’m neutral about it.

There are other theories regarding US bioterrorism like whether the US caused covid-19, no matter if it was intentional or by accident, now that theory has more support and is indirectly encouraged by the Chinese government. For example, from this Chinese Foreign Ministry Regular Press Conference transcript on 2021-08-27: http://ipc.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/fyrth/202108/t20210827_9130747.htm

The US side said they need “reasons” to support an investigation in the US. Then, please answer the following questions. First, patients of the EVALI outbreak in July 2019 in Wisconsin in the US had symptoms highly similar to that of COVID-19. Isn’t this a reason? Second, according to the US NIH website, research has shown that evidence of infection in five states appeared back in December 2019. Isn’t this a reason? Third, the US government sealed blood samples collected before January 2, 2020 from further testing on the ground that it interferes with the origins tracing agenda and is detrimental to US national security. Isn’t this a reason? Fourth, Florida Department of Health once removed data from its website that showed 171 patients had coronavirus symptoms or positive test results in January and February, 2020. Isn’t this a reason? Fifth, many comments on social media like Facebook indicate that more than 200 people in the US or countries having close ties with the US said publicly people they know or they themselves had suspected infection of the novel coronavirus as early as in November 2019, with COVID-like symptoms. Isn’t this a reason? Sixth, 12 countries including Costa Rica and Kenya publicly said that their “patient zero” of COVID-19 came from the US. Isn’t this a reason? Seventh, Fort Detrick and the University of North Carolina (UNC) have a dark chapter in history and poor safety records of coronavirus researches. The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, which is based in Fort Detrick, was shut down by the US CDC because of serious safety incidents in the fall of 2019, before the outbreak of COVID-19. Isn’t this a reason?

Given that the US is confident that it has nothing to hide, then it should face up to the questions of the international community by inviting the WHO to do the origins study in Fort Detrick and the UNC, and release the raw data on early cases in the US. Should the US refuse to cooperate, it would only further expose its true intention of politicizing origins study.

Thanks to @[email protected] for the ping. Let’s look at the study linked by the article: Public perception of genetically-modified (GM) food: A Nationwide Chinese Consumer Study https://www.nature.com/articles/s41538-018-0018-4

There has been a general lack of fundamental studies on the public’s scientific perception and policy interpretation of GM food. Moreover, the scope of previous surveys has been limited to a few of the largest cities in developed areas of China, with little or no coverage of rural areas. In all cases, the number of respondents in most of these earlier surveys was less than 1000. This study summarizes the status of GM food in China and provides the results of questionnaires that surveyed consumers from every province on their knowledge level, present attitudes, and future thoughts of GM food in China. A statistically relevant sample size of 2063 questionnaires were satisfactorily completed.

The reasons given by consumers in favor of, or against, the use of GM food, were complex, as seen by the response of 13.8% of respondents who felt GM technology was a form of bioterrorism targeted at China.

I’m not going to question what is “statistically relevant”, but I think it’s insane for Alliance for Science to extrapolate 13.8% of 2063 people to all 1.4 billion people in China (regardless of age or background) to get 190 million.

If we look at the results for the question:

There is an opinion that the transgenic technology from the US maybe the bioterrorism to China. If you are a patriot, you should oppose GM food. What do you think about this?

• 13.8% Agree, patriot should oppose GM food
• 54.4% Disagree, debate on GM food should base on science
• 31.8% I have no idea about that

The option wasn’t “I agree that GM tech is US bioterrorism against China”, it was “The question is presenting an opinion that suggests Chinese patriots should oppose GM food because they are part of US bioterrorism against China, I agree”. What a twisted way to conduct a survey.

In China this is reserved for official government matters, so it would not be appropriate here.

Banner suggestion: Tian’anmen Rostrum, from https://www.bjdch.gov.cn/mldc/bglj/whgj/202008/t20200827_2975729.html

On the left is the slogan “中华人民共和国万岁” (Long live the People’s Republic of China), on the right is the slogan “世界人民大团结万岁” (Long live the great unity of the people of the world), in the middle is a portrait of Mao Zedong.

I recognized the title immediately because I have the following pinned on my Weibo profile in Chinese. From “The Governance of China II”: Let a Healthy Internet Guide and Reflect Public Opinion http://en.npc.gov.cn.cdurl.cn/2021-12/27/c_693855.htm

A society that lacks common ideals, goals, and values and that finds itself in disorder all the time will never achieve success.

Netizens are members of the general public. If members of the public go online, so does public opinion. Our officials need to go wherever the public goes, otherwise how else are they expected to maintain ties with them? Party and government organs and their leaders must learn to stay in touch with the people through the internet. They should go online regularly, observing, chatting, and posting their comments. They need to know what the people think and want, gather good ideas and suggestions, and actively respond to their concerns, answer their queries and remove their doubts.

The majority of netizens are ordinary people who come from different walks of life and have different life experiences. Their views and opinions are sure to vary greatly, and we cannot expect them to always be right about everything and correct in what they say. More tolerance and patience are therefore required. We need to promptly take constructive suggestions, afford assistance to those who need help, tell the truth to those in the dark, offer clarification to those who are confused about certain issues, help pacify those who bear a grudge against something, and guide those with erroneous views and correct their misunderstandings. This way we will ensure that the internet becomes a new platform through which we communicate and interact with the public, a new means through which we understand the people, stay in touch with them, and address their worries and difficulties, and a new channel through which we promote people’s democracy and accept public scrutiny.

A sound atmosphere for the expression of opinion online does not imply that there should be only one voice and one tune. Rather, it means that people are not permitted to conflate right and wrong, circulate rumors, cause trouble, violate the law, or commit crime; it means that people cannot overstep the boundaries of the Constitution and other laws.

The Bloomberg article cited (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-09/china-says-cracked-apple-s-airdrop-to-identify-message-sources or https://archive.is/XnvO8) once again doesn’t mention the relevant institute by name, but here’s the Chinese article from Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice: 2024-01-08 司法鉴定：司法鉴定揭开“隔空投送”匿名传输的神秘面纱 https://sfj.beijing.gov.cn/sfj/sfdt/ywdt82/flfw93/436331732/index.html

This paragraph reveals how they found out the AirDrop sender’s email and phone number:

北京网神洞鉴司法鉴定所的司法鉴定技术专家们通过深度解析iPhone设备日志，明确传输原理，找出了与AirDrop 相关的记录。经检验发现发送者的设备名、邮箱和手机号相关字段，其中手机号与邮箱相关字段是以哈希值的形式记录，且哈希值部分字段被隐藏。为实现快速破解该字段，技术团队制作了一张详尽的手机号与邮箱账号“彩虹表 ”，能够将密文转换成原始文本，快速锁定发送者的手机号与邮箱账号。

Basically the sender’s phone number and email addresses were stored as hash values, but the hashes were just partial values. The judicial appraisal institute “北京网神洞鉴” created rainbow tables (precomputed table for caching the outputs of a cryptographic hash function, usually for cracking password hashes) to bruteforce the information.

As Chinese mobile numbers follow certain formats (11 digits, starts with 1, known list of prefixes etc.) it is probably very easy to generate a rainbow table for this. Though the article doesn’t mention if the phone numbers and email had separate hash values so this is just one way to do it.

From Apple’s “AirDrop security” page we can see that this matches up: https://support.apple.com/guide/security/airdrop-security-sec2261183f4/web

AirDrop uses iCloud services to help users authenticate. When a user signs in to iCloud, a 2048-bit RSA identity is stored on the device, and when the user turns on AirDrop, an AirDrop short identity hash is created based on the email addresses and phone numbers associated with the user’s Apple ID.

When a user chooses AirDrop as the method for sharing an item, the sending device emits an AirDrop signal over BLE that includes the user’s AirDrop short identity hash. Other Apple devices that are awake, in close proximity, and have AirDrop turned on, detect the signal and respond using peer-to-peer Wi-Fi, so that the sending device can discover the identity of any responding devices.

This article is about the AirDrop receiver finding out the sender’s information, but doesn’t mention if the reverse is possible. But if we look at the same AirDrop security page, it is probable that in AirDrop “Everyone mode” an attacker could find out the information of Apple devices around them:

In Contacts Only mode, the received AirDrop short identity hash is compared with hashes of people in the receiving device’s Contacts app. If a match is found, the receiving device responds over peer-to-peer Wi-Fi with its identity information. If there is no match, the device doesn’t respond.

In Everyone mode, the same overall process is used. However, the receiving device responds even if there is no match in the device’s Contacts app.

For people using Apple devices or even other brands, especially in the US, take caution as this is a finding one Chinese local government published, who knows how many vectors of attack the US intelligence agencies is aware of.

The graph is about energy capacity, for energy production numbers (found https://www.irena.org/Publications/2023/Jul/Renewable-energy-statistics-2023), Canada actually has around 12.0 MWh/person, as opposed to China’s 1.7 MWh/person.