China tries to recruit ordinary citizens to eliminate spies
China’s ruling Communist Party recruits ordinary people to guard against perceived threats to the country, in a campaign that blurs the line between vigilance and paranoia.
China’s Ministry of State Security, a usually secretive department that oversees the secret police and intelligence services, opened its first social media account in what state media described as an effort to increase audience engagement. His first message was a call for a “mobilization of the whole of society” against espionage.
“Mass participation,” the message reads, should be “normalized.”
Chinese universities have ordered their professors to take courses on protecting state secrets, even those working in departments like veterinary medicine. A kindergarten in the eastern city of Tianjin held a meeting to teach staff members how to “understand and use” China’s anti-espionage law.
The sense of urgency could be heightened by the country’s worst economic downturn in years and increasingly strained relations with the West. Unexplained personnel changes at the highest levels of power suggest Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian leader, may have feared threats to his control.
Details: In July, China revised its anti-spy law to broaden an already wide scope of activities it considers espionage, and is offering rewards of tens of thousands of dollars to people who report spies.
History: An expert says the call for mass action echoes the Cultural Revolution sparked by Mao Zedong, a decade of chaos and bloodshed in which Chinese leaders urged people to report their teachers , their neighbors or their families as “counter-revolutionaries”.
Background: For decades, China has built guardrails to prevent another Mao Zedong. Here’s how Xi Jinping dismantled them and created his own power machinery.
Reznikov was praised for negotiating the transfer of large quantities of donated Western weapons and overseeing the expansion of the military and its transition from an arsenal of weaponry inherited from the Soviet Union to a Western arsenal during the war. But his fate is the subject of growing speculation in Ukraine, as financial irregularities within the ministry have come to light.
Zelensky said in a statement that Rustem Umerov, chairman of the Ukrainian State Real Estate Fund, would replace Reznikov, who has not been personally involved in investigations into the mismanagement of military contracts. Zelensky said he expected Ukraine’s parliament, which must approve the change, to approve his request.
Other war news:
India has launched its first solar mission
Just over a week after becoming the fourth country to land on the Moon, India on Saturday launched its first solar mission to study the outer layers of the sun.
Aditya L1, as the mission is called, will travel about 930,000 miles in four months and continue to orbit for several years. The spacecraft is designed to better understand the dynamics of our local star.
Context: THE recent successes of the indian space program parallel the country’s economic and geopolitical rise, and officials cite them as a manifestation of its strong science and technology traditions. India’s space research agency has achieved its goals on a much lower budget than many space nations.
THE LAST NEWS
Asia Pacific
Turkey’s women’s national volleyball team won the European Women’s Volleyball Championship yesterday. As members of the highest-ranked team in the world, Turkish gamers, dubbed the “Sultans of the Net”, have become female empowerment role models and a rare source of national pride across the country’s social divisions.
Lives Lived: Musician Jimmy Buffett died aged 76.
ARTS AND IDEAS
Money laundering in the art market
A Lebanese art collector was charged with money laundering and violating terrorism sanctions while assisting the militant group Hezbollah in a federal indictment earlier this year.
The indictment made headlines around the world, but there was less discussion about the extent to which it detailed, example after example, how the art market played an important role in the project. US officials said Nazem Ahmad had acquired works of art worth more than $54 million to convert and shelter income from his diamond trade.
US regulators have long complained that art transactions are conducted in secrecy and that the market has become ripe for money laundering and tax evasion. Dealers and auction houses, however, say the threats have been exaggerated and abuse is rare.
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That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. -Jonathan
PS Troy Closson and Emmanuel Morgan were honored at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Birmingham, Alabama.
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