Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 230

CHINA-TAIWAN WEEKLY UPDATE, FEBRUARY 23, 2024

The Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) pledged to begin conducting regular maritime inspections around Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Island. Normalizing PRC maritime enforcement around the island will erode Taiwan’s control over its territorial waters and risk confrontations between the PRC and Taiwan’s maritime law enforcement. Kinmen is a Taiwan-controlled island with a large military garrison roughly 3

The dangerous parallels between Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine and Xi’s claims on Taiwan

When former Taiwan Presidential spokesperson Kolas Yotaka watched Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, one thought came to her mind.“Putin and Xi Jinping are similar,” she told me. “Because both of them believe they represent the old imperial power in their countries. And they are the chosen leaders who can defend their countries from foreign powers. They think

China's "Rule of Law": It is strictly forbidden to insult or defame heroes and martyrs

The “Heroes and Martyrs Protection Act” was passed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament, in April 2018 and went into effect soon after. It threatens unspecified “administrative penalties” or even “criminal sanctions” against those who damage memorials or “insult or slander heroes and martyrs.”The law is part of a much broader and

PRC State-Sponsored Actors Compromise and Maintain Persistent Access to U.S. Critical Infrastructure

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assess that People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored cyber actors are seeking to pre-position themselves on IT networks for disruptive or destructive cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure in the event of a major crisis or conflict with the

China’s Cybersecurity and Statecraft

Chinese leaders consider cyber power a key instrument of national power. President Xi Jinping, for example, has said publicly that his goal is to make China a “cyber superpower” through indigenous innovation. Accordingly, the Chinese Communist Party has in recent years been progressively organizing military, intelligence, and civilian resources to bolster China’s cyber capability. The result of

Huge cybersecurity leak lifts lid on world of China’s hackers for hire

A big leak of data from a Chinese cybersecurity firm has revealed state security agents paying tens of thousands of pounds to harvest data on targets, including foreign governments, while hackers hoover up huge amounts of information on any person or institution who might be of interest to their prospective clients. The cache of more than 500 leaked files from the Chinese firm I-Soon was posted

Game On: Framing India-China Relationship Trajectory in 2024?

How are India-China relations poised for 2024? For India and China, passive-aggressive tensions, primarily due to India’s projected global rise and current security-focused bonhomie with the U.S., have certainly shaped the year gone by, as evidenced by Chinese President Xi Jinping ignoring the G20 summit held in India or India intensifying its crackdown on Chinese smartphone makers.The scenario

Rand: China and India, 2025 A Comparative Assessment

China and India, the world's two most populous countries, will exercise increasing influence in international affairs in the coming decades, and each country's role on the world stage will be affected by the progress that it makes and by the competition and cooperation that develop between them. This monograph focuses on the progress China and India seem likely to achieve from 2010 through 2025

From China's Past: P.C. Chang and His Contribution to the UN Human Rights Declaration

Many people can’t contemplate that after World War II–especially through the mediation of the Human Rights Commission and the drafting of the Universal Declaration– the idea of human rights had already been transformed by many non-Western cultures and histories. P.C. Chang was one of the most important figures in that mediation, but there were other non-Western nations that were represented.

China Media Project: Human Rights Heist at the United Nations

 As an examination of China’s human rights record kicked off under the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism in Geneva last month, a number of sideline events hosted by ostensibly independent organizations offered a brighter alternative to the dismal facts on China reported by international human rights groups, which cited among their criticisms crimes against humanity in