M

[M @koolnuts]

I'm claiming my AI agent "MarbleMav" on @moltbook 🦞

Verification: lagoon-HJSE

[IT’S TIME FOR JUSTICE @LiddleSavages]

Liberation Day = Great Depression

Bullshit Barbie to Fox News:

DEAR LEADER

IS ADDING NEW TARIFFS TO

MAKE ALL AMERICANS WEALTHY AGAIN

#TrumpTariffs
#TrumpRecession

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

Important update on this 👇: @XHNews, China's official news agency (and the largest in the world) has now done its own investigation and confirmed that the French TV program "Cash Investigation" that aired on France's public national TV channel @FranceTV was "pure fabrication": https://t.co/N0XAlWwtbr

They even call it "a poorly fabricated piece of propaganda against China", which is exceedingly rare language to use for Xinhua.

They confirm everything I wrote, especially that the two French journalists - @JustineJankows1 and @Marinezamb - "distorted a recruitment video from Jifa Group Co. Ltd., a textile company in Shandong Province, deliberately misrepresenting the Chinese term 'Manqinjiang' (which means 'full attendance bonus') as 'Xinjiang' -- twisting ordinary employment incentive into propaganda against China".

They also found out (which I had missed, and which is in many ways even more egregious) that the two French journalists "used a recruitment video originally showing two clearly visible Han Chinese women [and] digitally altered the footage to blur the face of a red-haired woman, while fabricating a narrative that she was a 'persecuted Uygur from China's northwest' coerced into factory labor."

Xinhua interviewed the woman in the video whose face was unblurred and who said that the French journalists "deliberately blurred my red-hair colleague in the video where both of us appeared, and falsely claimed she was from Xinjiang and 'forced' to work here."

Lastly they report that the two so-called journalists Justine Jankowski and Marine Zambrano "used hidden cameras to film a 12-year-old girl who came to see her mother working at [a factory in which they sneaked in]. Against the video's background audio, the girl's voice could be clearly heard saying that she came to see her mother because no one was home to take care of her during the summer break. The two so-called journalists then coerced the girl into performing a task, recorded it, and subsequently manipulated the footage as proof of 'child labor.'"

The lengths to which these two "journalists" went to manufacture a false narrative is beyond disturbing. Digitally altering footage, deliberately mistranslating terms, and manipulating a child into staged scenarios isn't journalism; it's fraud. And yet this fabricated propaganda was broadcast on France's public national television channel as if it were legitimate reporting.

If journalistic integrity means anything at all, France 2 must immediately retract this program and issue an apology. The fact that such egregious deception could pass through editorial review unfortunately proves once more the systemic bias in Western media coverage of China.

This insane case is even more telling when you consider that this "investigation" was produced by Disclose NGO, an organization funded by Soros' Open Society Foundation. The best joke of the day is that in their Charter of Ethics (https://t.co/AReEoxv9YK), they claim they uphold the principles of "truthfulness" and "honesty" with an "absence of hidden agenda on the part of journalists." Emptier words were never written...

[M @koolnuts]

@TonyNashNerd Oh, Tony Nash of 'Complete Intelligence', I’m sure your razor-sharp analysis of China’s navy as 'fishing boats and floating targets' comes from a flawless, all-knowing AI... or maybe just a Magic 8-Ball and a dream!😂

[M @koolnuts]

@thinking_panda Boer Deng and RFA, caught in the crosshairs of Trump's media purge. Looks like even the 'free' in Radio Free Asia couldn’t dodge the irony of government funding drama, turning 'propaganda busters' into unemployed poets!

[M @koolnuts]

@Kanthan2030 maybe the Democracy Index needs a "plutocracy adjustment" to reflect real power dynamics! 😄

[M @koolnuts]

@AndyBxxx Finally, these people have to support themselves through honest labor — but, are they up to it?

[M @koolnuts]

These guys often confuse cause and effect.😂 The reason foreign-made cars lack a market in China is not due to tariffs, but rather their complete absence of price-performance advantage.

[Jonathan Cheng @JChengWSJ]

“China’s car market offers a dramatic illustration of what tariffs can do. Of the 25 million vehicles sold in China last year, 24.2 million—a staggering 97%—were manufactured inside the country. Imports were a mere rounding error.”
@dunne_insights
https://t.co/s1mjKvsbFX

[M @koolnuts]

@GordianKnotRay @WilliamYang120 @VOANews No worries, liars are badly needed everywhere

[M @koolnuts]

@WilliamYang120 @VOANews hahahahahahahaha

[M @koolnuts]

@shaunrein He knows he is lying, he knows that we know he's lying, but he just lies anyway.

[M @koolnuts]

@shaunrein Go get 'em, Shaun! May the force of good and truth prevail! 💪 #StayStrong #TruthPrevails

[M @koolnuts]

Simply mind blowing...

[M @koolnuts]

@denis_guiney @jacksonhinkle It employs only one person and one dog. The dog is in charge of preventing the person from touching the machines, while the person is responsible for feeding the dog.

[M @koolnuts]

What kind of ‘independent journalists’ would lament an ‘extinction event’ over losing government funding?

[Bethany 貝書穎 @BethanyAllenEbr]

Because of the U.S. funding freezing, the entire global ecosystem of China nonprofits is facing an extinction event.

I'm not exaggerating for clicks. This is really what is happening. Read my piece below:

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This is important. Barry Sautman, an American professor emeritus at HK University of Science and Technology, is one of the leading scholars on minority rights in China, particularly in Xinjiang.

Here's his take on the West's accusations wrt the Uyghurs: https://t.co/i6V8OC3t0L

Direct quote: "All these claims made about Uygur genocide, or forced labour, arbitrary detentions – basically they have no cases to present with regard to any of those claims. There’s absolutely no evidence of any person being forced to labour.

As for arbitrary detention, well, there certainly were a lot of people detained and many people imprisoned, and some of them given quite long prison sentences. But this was an anti-terrorism campaign. This was also an anti-separatist and anti-religious extremism campaign.

And the terrorism in Xinjiang was very real. Although the government has really only talked about hundreds of people being killed by terrorists, every scholar I’ve talked to says that this is a gross underestimate – that actually thousands of people were killed by terrorists.

Different governments of course act in different ways in anti-terrorist campaigns. Terrorists of Isis, al-Qaeda are still very much around, still carrying out terrorist attacks in many places in the world. China basically defeated the terrorists in Xinjiang, and it defeated them by some degrees of repression. That’s true. They mobilised the army, they mobilised armed police, the Public Security Bureau.

The main method was to try to do something to alleviate the conditions which create terrorism, religious extremism and separatism. So they constructed these vocational educational training centres, which people in the West love to call concentration camps, internment camps, detention centres. But actually, none of this is accurate in terms of describing what was done in those places.

And they only existed from April of 2017 to October of 2019, after which they were closed down.

The centres had three missions. One was to teach people Mandarin – they learn some rudimentary standard Chinese. They were also taught about laws that they’re supposed to obey – stay away from religious extremism, terrorism, separatism. And then there were vocational skills – there were eight primary vocational skills that were available.

The people who went through that system – and they may or may not have been happy about going through it – some of them were sent there because they had violated laws. Other people were sent there just because they were suspected of being religious extremists.

[...] What’s interesting in that regard is that the governments of Central Asia have a harder line than even China does against terrorism, against Islamic fundamentalism.

Now these are all Muslim countries, but their governments are dead set against religious extremism because they realise that there’s a direct relationship between adopting Salafist religious views – Salafism being the Islamic fundamentalist school of thought – and becoming a member of Isis or al-Qaeda or some other terrorist organisation.

So take for example this question of suppressing women wearing burkas in Saudi Arabia. China since 2014 has suppressed that. They’ve also suppressed men having long beards. Where did China get this idea? Directly from the Central Asian countries which passed laws earlier than China’s law about this. In Tajikistan, in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, people have been arrested for having long beards. People in China have also been arrested, but they’ve been treated much more leniently in Xinjiang than people are treated in Central Asia. Most people are just given a warning and then they obey it. They cut their beard shorter and women will no longer wear burkas.

These governments have a much more repressive outlook with regard to terrorism than even the authorities do in China. Authorities in China are dead set on ensuring that there are no longer terrorist incidents and they’ve been quite successful – there hasn’t been any recorded terrorist incident for seven years in Xinjiang."

There you go. This, by the way, is what all scholars who actually know the issue, have been to Xinjiang, and aren't fundamentally biased (because they're paid to be or just ideologues) are saying... But for obvious reasons, their views are never given the light of day in Western media: they much prefer to unquestionably quote accusations by the US State Department...

[America-China Watcher @PandemicTruther]

The deep tragedy of Britain's Hinkley C nuclear project. Financial Times announces the project will be delayed by several years (2031 against the initial 2017) and the cost will balloon to £46 billion against the original £18 billion.

Forget the Dr K incident and focus on the more newsworthy tragedy of UK's nuclear fiasco.

If the British really want to build top notch nuclear power stations with the most advanced technology and the best safety standards in a viable, cost-effective way, they need to turn to the Sino-French consortium EDF-CGN. It's this consortium that has successfully built and operated the third-generation EPR, the most technologically advanced nuclear reactor in the world.

Do you know why the French nuclear company EDF has formed an alliance with the Chinese nuclear company CGN? It's because the nuclear plants that China and EDF have built together have been incredibly successful. Such a level of combined commercial and operational success has never been achieved in the world, not even in France. The French taught China how to build nuclear power plants, and the Chinese quickly learned and innovated.

The first nuclear power plant built in China with French assistance was the Daya Bay nuclear power plant. Completed in the 1990s, this collaboration between China and EDF marked a significant milestone in nuclear technology transfer. The plant was completed within budget (USD 8-10 billion) and on time (8-10 years). In addition, the construction costs were recovered within 4-5 years. After that, the plant ran on pure profit. Nuclear plants like this became cash cows for China.

The success of Daya Bay paved the way for further cooperation and laid the foundation for subsequent joint nuclear projects between the two nations. Recognising the highly profitable nature of such nuclear plants, the French wanted a stake in the projects rather than just providing a vendor credit line. France now has a 30% stake in the Guangdong Taishan nuclear power plant.

The third-generation EPR (European Pressurised Reactor) power plant, built in China by the China-France joint venture, is best represented by the Taishan nuclear power plant. Taishan houses two EPR reactors and has achieved the distinction of being the only successfully operating EPR 3.0 plant in the world.

This project represents the culmination of joint efforts, with France providing the EPR technology and China demonstrating its ability to successfully implement and operate this advanced nuclear technology. The Taishan nuclear power plant became operational in 2018, marking a significant achievement in the global nuclear energy landscape and highlighting the successful synergy between Chinese innovation and French expertise.

France has not been so lucky with its two other nuclear projects using third-generation EPR technology.

The other two third-generation EPR nuclear power plant projects France’s EDF has been building is the Flamanville nuclear power plant in France and the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant in Finland.

1. The Flamanville project has faced several challenges, including construction delays and cost overruns. Originally scheduled to be operational in 2012, the completion date has been postponed several times, and the plant is not yet fully operational today. Technical issues and concerns about the reactor's safety systems added to the complexity of the project.

2. **Olkiluoto nuclear power plant (Finland):** The Olkiluoto project experienced similar challenges, with significant delays and cost overruns. Originally scheduled for completion in 2009, the construction schedule was extended due to various problems, including difficulties in ensuring the structural integrity of the reactor vessel. Delays in the project led to disputes between the parties involved and increased scrutiny of the EPR technology.

[Nury Vittachi @NuryVittachi]

JIMMY LAI ASKED TRUMP TO SUBSCRIBE BUT WAS TURNED DOWN

JIMMY LAI invited US President Donald Trump and his top US officials to subscribe to a special version of Apple Daily—but the Americans declined because they did not want to leave any transaction records on the newspaper’s website, a court heard.

The approach was made by Lai’s right-hand man, former US intelligence agent Mark Simon. Also invited were former CIA director Mike Pompeo and vice president Mike Pence, Apple Daily staffer Cheung Kim-hung told the West Kowloon Court.

But Simon later told Cheung that the attempt failed because the US officials did not want to leave financial records with the newspaper.

Lai remained anxious for the US leader to intervene directly in his Chinese hometown, so made staff publish ads in his newspaper saying “Trump Saves Hong Kong”.
.
.
.
FOREIGN POLITICAL INTERFERENCE
A series of revelations are emerging in the trial of anti-China campaigner Jimmy Lai about his relations with the US.

The court had heard earlier that the publication of an English language special edition of the paper had been recommended by US anti-China hawk Christian Whiton. The former Washington DC official, who told US reporters he represented Jimmy Lai’s company Next Digital, said an English Apple Daily would be “politically useful”.

By the time the new edition of Apple Daily was launched in May, 2020, Hong Kong people were complaining that the US had interfered in local politics by giving millions of dollars to anti-China activists in the city through various funds, some public, some secret.

But Lai wanted US cross-border political interference presented as a positive thing. He wrote in the new English language paper: “Long live foreign powers!”
.
.
.
BALANCED REPORTING IS BANNED
The tycoon shocked his staff by saying that journalism’s aim of providing accurate, balanced reporting, would not be the goal of the tabloid’s new outlet. “We are not trying to strike a balance,” he said. Instead, they should work to bolster anti-China sentiment.
.
Publisher Cheung Kim-hung told the court that he thought the new west-targeted paper was “extreme” even by the standards of Apple Daily. The paper had turned radical after Lai had met former CIA director Mike Pompeo and other US officials in Washington DC in July of 2020, the court heard earlier.
.
“When we choose writers, we don’t have to think about giving foreigners a balanced view of what happens here of every different [colour]. We only concentrate our Apple Daily view, a general view of the yellow side,” Lai told staff, referring to Hong Kong’s radical anti-China activists.
.
Lai warned staff that they should not publish the journalism of popular Hong Kong-based finance writer Weijian Shan, because he sometimes said positive things about the mainland. Instead, Lai told Cheung to publish the views of a Canada-based anti-China writer.
.
.
.
THE VIOLENT ARE GOOD
More than 90% of Hong Kong’s peaceful protesters had fled the street protests after they became dominated by a violent anti-China faction (codename “Valiant”) who destroyed huge numbers of shops, restaurants and transport hubs.
.
But those were the individuals Apple Daily should support, even if they “stage a riot” or “come out to destroy shops”, Lai told staff.
.
Lai said the newspaper must deliberately blur the division between the peaceful and violent protesters. “Division among ourselves may isolate the more radical ones,” said Cheung, explaining Lai’s philosophy at the time.
.
.
.
MEDIA WITH ONE MESSAGE
Lai’s vision was for the media outlet to be a one-note operation, the court heard. When Apple Daily ran an article in August 2020 about the upcoming United States presidential election, Lai sent a message to his editor expressing his displeasure: “Do we need this kind of news that has nothing to do with China and all major English newspapers have published it?”
.
The editor, a man named Fung Wai-kong, replied that proper news channels always published a variety of international news stories.
.
But Lai said they must limit coverage. “We should focus on Chinese news and be known for it without dilution,” he said. The paper was aimed at US and UK but not Europe, for legal reasons.
.
.
.
INFLUENCE INTERNATIONAL DISCOURSE
Cheung didn’t want to simply publish a stream of anti-China material in English. He told the court that he sought his boss’s permission to publish “soft news” and feature articles like real newspapers did, covering food, travel, culture and so on.
.
“Mr Lai said ‘No’,” Cheung told the court. “Because the English version was designed to draw international attention and influence the international discourse using [stories] which were on the ‘yellow’ side,” he said.
.
While western journalists describe Lai’s publication as “pro-democracy”, Hong Kong people and media tend to describe it as an “anti-China” newspaper, a crucial difference. This week’s hearings strongly indicate that Hong Kong people got it right.
.
.
.
LAI WAS SUCCESSFUL
Anti-China campaigner Jimmy Lai, 76, is on trial for sedition and collusion, which are illegal across the world. His associates have already pleaded guilty to related offences. Lai’s trial continues.
.
.
.
Outside the West Kowloon court, Hong Kong observers said that Jimmy Lai’s campaign to financially harm his own community while presenting himself as a journalistic hero had been a huge success, with 100% of western mainstream journalists adopting that narrative.
.
Several laws were passed in the west which directly damaged the community’s economy—yet he was still presented as a “savior” figure in the mainstream media.

[M @koolnuts]

@Magnus_Fiskesjo @DanielDumbrill @fatimazsaid "Legitimate evidence" or just hearsay? I have a strong feeling that you lot don't have a clue about the difference.

[Nury Vittachi @NuryVittachi]

Anti-China activist Jimmy Lai went to the US to meet top war hawks in 2019—and then returned to tell his newspaper staff to make it seem like the Hong Kong and mainland China governments were to blame for the violent protests roiling the city, a court heard.

The billionaire tabloid publisher met former CIA director Mike Pompeo, war specialist John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence in July of that year, before flying back to Hong Kong with a mission.

“After that [meeting], Apple Daily’s editorial policy became … rather radical, you can say,” said Cheung Kim-hung, former publisher of Lai’s newspaper. “Because of this, Apple Daily would report on and sympathise with this entire movement, however violent and radical the scene was, as if it was the [Hong Kong] government and the Chinese Communist Party who caused [the violent protests].”
.
.
THE VALIANTS
This was despite the fact that mainland China had no involvement in the protests, and the violence came from a Hong Kong group codenamed the “valiants”—a sub-group of masked local protesters willing to undertake scores of violent attacks on shops, restaurants and metro stations, including arson.

Jimmy Lai instructed Cheung to make sure the paper did not differentiate between the city’s traditionally peaceful demonstrators and the “valiant” protesters, Cheung told the court. Lai told staff he wanted the hard line resistance to be a long-term effort, so as to create an atmosphere that implied citizens of Hong Kong were under suppression by their own government.
.
.
BRITAIN’S ANTI-CHINA CAMPAIGNERS
Anti-China people from Britain’s right wing were also roped in to shift the blame for what was happening in Hong Kong, including former governor Chris Patten and anti-China activist Benedict Rogers, Cheung told the court.

(These individuals were associated with a London group called the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group part-funded by a CIA spin-off called the National Endowment for Democracy, and a George Soros political group.)

Jimmy Lai and Benedict Rogers had a Whatsapp conversation, the court heard. The exchanges showed specific ideas that they thought should be included in a statement to be made by Chris Patten. The hoped-for result would be that Hong Kong and/ or Beijing would be hit with international sanctions—for the “crime” of trying to implement a recommendation by the Group of Seven rich nations.
.
.
GROUP OF SEVEN
The Group of Seven’s financial security committee had earlier urged Hong Kong to upgrade its fugitive extradition laws to international standards. But when the Department of Justice tried to do so, the step was used as a flashpoint for street protests led by anti-mainlander groups, some of which were known for their violence.

Cheung said that his boss, Jimmy Lai, caused Apple Daily to label the law a “vicious” bill that should prompt all Hong Kong “residents to take to the streets”.
.
.
BLAMING THE VICTIM
Patten blamed the mainland Chinese for the extradition law, saying the proposed changes “make it difficult to explain to the outside world that Beijing can be trusted to keep its word”. He also implied that the “one country two systems” policy was dead, saying that it was now hard to say “that Hong Kong is different from mainland Chinese cities and must be treated as such”.

The court heard earlier that Jimmy Lai provided evidence for the passing of a September 2019 law in the US which caused notable harm to the Hong Kong community, by changed the city's hard-won status as a place which was seen as separate from mainland China.

In other words, Chris Patten and Jimmy Lai were working to destroy the “one country, two systems” policy, with visible success, while blaming Beijing and Hong Kong.

This tied in with US policy, which aimed to find a way to present safe, thriving Hong Kong in a bad light, so as to provide a boost to Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen, whose popularity was waning.
.
.
WAR HAWK MYSTERY
Deep but puzzling relationships have become visible between Jimmy Lai and anti-China right wingers in the US and UK during the hearings.

For example, during Jimmy Lai’s visit to Washington DC, former US government advisor Christian Whiton presented himself as working for Next Digital, publisher of Apple Daily, the court heard.

A Bloomberg article about Jimmy Lai’s visit to Washington DC that July described Whiton as “a former State Department official who represents Next Digital”.

US security hardliner Whiton is known for his calls for the world’s rich nations to hinder growth in developing China. (While China has lifted its population out of the lowest level of poverty, it still has several hundred million poor people.)

Apple Daily publisher Cheung told the court that he knew nothing of Whiton having any actual role in the Hong Kong publishing group.

At an earlier hearing, the court heard about large sums of money coming into Jimmy Lai’s accounts, and sums being dispatched to anti-China individuals and groups in the US, UK and Hong Kong. Recipients including Paul Wolfowitz, author of a notorious plan for US world dominance.
.
.
Anti-China campaigner Jimmy Lai, 76, is on trial for sedition and collusion, which are illegal across the world. His associates have already pleaded guilty to related offences. Lai’s trial continues.