On China, Republicans won't get out of their own way

I don't have a good cover photo tie-in so enjoy this one just because I like it.

Earlier this week, a few well-meaning people shared footage of Senator Tom Cotton grilling TikTok CEO Shou Chew on his nationality and ties to the Chinese government.

Chew is Singaporean, not Chinese -- at least, regardless of how he identifies culturally, he is not a citizen of the People's Republic of China. The clip made for good drama, and was delivered so unwittingly by Cotton to give his opponents fodder for calling Republicans Sinophobic, naive, and racist.

These commenters are not wrong. Tom Cotton sure does come across as racist in that clip, and frankly, his worldview is racist. Here he is in 2020 asserting that the "founding fathers" purposely put the nascent United States on a course to ending slavery -- a claim for which there is no evidence except someone's fever dream desire that the system they were born under and are proud of is also systemically racist. And in case it's not clear, "slavery was seen as a necessary evil", even if true (it's not true), is not good enough.
This pespective, for instance, is racist:  

 Cotton clearly states that he is pleased that American chattel slavery died long ago. But he also clearly states that he thinks this country was only made possible by importing non-consenting persons into forced and uncompensated labor, with all the attending horrors. 

 

I'm sorry, but no, the fate of enslaved people was not some sad inevitable necessity to build a 'great nation'. No nation founded on slavery which then defends that origin can be great, because their foundation is pure horror. It must be possible to build a nation without slavery. If we can't, maybe nations shouldn't exist. Slavery was bad but necessary is execrable excuse-mongering and Tom Cotton is a racist. It's no surprise, then, that he'd question an Asian man in the most racist possible way.

If you're a well-meaning liberal who is fine criticizing the United States (please continue, by the way, that place sucks) but desperately wants to view eery other country in the world through the most positive lens possible, it's easy to stop there. "Look at this Sinophobic racist," you can say, and you won't be wrong.

It makes it easy to say criticizing China is racist even though it's not true because, well, look at this racist opposing Beijing in the most racist possible way. Liberals and the left have ignorant adherents, just like the right. Perhaps they are fewer and less malicious, but they exist, and many of them seem hell-bent on turning "US bad" (true) into "other countries good, probably" (not true per se). It's often just contemporary Orientalism. China is far away and has a very different culture and thus it's Exotic and Exciting, and can't possibly be Run by a Brutal Genocidal Regime. They're primed to defend TikTok because it's Asian and Asian Things Good, but -- and I hate to tell you this -- not all Asian things are good. Groundbreaking, I know. This bothers me a lot, because when it comes to TikTok, the US government is not wholly wrong.

I personally won't use TikTok. In fact, after learning how malicious WeChat is, I won't use any Chinese app. TikTok has been accused of using similar malware. I would recommend nobody use any such app, but clearly the world doesn't listen to me. To their detriment! TikTok may be Singaporean, but its parent company is ByteDance, which is Chinese. In general, Chinese companies are beholden to the CCP for their continued existence. Nice company you got there, shame if something were to happen to it, that sort of thing.

You do what the government says, give them the data they demand, publish what they tell you. You never, ever criticize. Otherwise, you might end up in jail like Jimmy Lai or in what sure looks like exile -- like Jack Ma.

More specifically, ByteDance has an internal CCP committee. Most if not all Chinese "private" companies do. They've been accused of spying on Hong Kong protesters (almost certainly true) and their former head of engineering has said this:  

 

Yintao Yu, formerly head of engineering for ByteDance in the U.S., says those same people had access to U.S. user data, an accusation that the company denies.

Yu, who worked for the company in 2018, made the allegations in a recent filing for a wrongful dismissal case filed in May in the San Francisco Superior Court. In the documents submitted to the court he said ByteDance had a “superuser” credential — also known as a god credential — that enabled a special committee of Chinese Communist Party members stationed at the company to view all data collected by ByteDance including those of U.S. users.

 

Insiders also allege that TikTok is tightly controlled by ByteDance. This isn't a loose parent/subsidiary relationship. 

It's not just something alleged by a gaggle of racist senators, either. It's the subject of FBI investigations. Everyone from investigators to insiders agrees that data from US TikTok users is available to the CCP via ByteDance.

I don't know if TikTok should be banned necessarily, but I do support governments around the world insisting ByteDance divest itself of TikTok for it to keep operating in their country. This is something the Chinese government will most likely never do -- the whole point is CCP data harvesting and media influence -- which means the rest of the world has to force the issue. Which, to be honest, most countries probably won't do, as most lack the stones to stand up to Beijing. Before you come for me, by the way, I do think there's a difference between TikTok/ByteDance's data harvesting and Google's. Both are problematic, but Google isn't controlled internally by a US government committee insisting it turn over user data both domestically and internationally. Google has the power to collect such data, at least internationally, and the US government can request it, and that's very bad.

However, it is not the same as direct government involvement and frankly control of what sure seems to be a purpose-built data harvester and global media influencer. They're both bad, but one is a hell of a lot worse. Which brings me back to Tom Fucking Cotton. He didn't have to hand his opponents a ready-made Look At This Racist clip, but he did. He could have questioned Chew in a reasonable way, about real concerns, and maybe helped convince Americans that they should indeed be wary of TikTok. But he couldn't get out of his own way to do that. Republicans, in general, can't, even when they're not entirely wrong. It bothers me even more that Tom Fucking Cotton is a big supporter of Taiwan. Probably for the wrong reasons, but he is.

I understand that Taiwan needs to work with every party, and cultivate support wherever it can. It's not in a very good position vis-à-vis China, and doesn't have the luxury of picking and choosing its allies. I used to be concerned that pro-Taiwan sentiment being associated with the American right was a problem, and frankly, that's still a worry. Now, however, I worry as well about rejecting any and all support that isn't perfectly aligned with our own values. This isn't just because Taiwan cannot afford to make support for its continued existence a polarizing or partisan issue. It's also because we don't all have the same values. Taiwan has leftists, but isn't a country chock full of them. Not every independence supporter is on the left! It has reactionaries, but again, they don't represent a consensus. Personally, I sympathize with the left but I'm not a communist (I'm nothing because ideology is for the dull, but if I were going to pick a leftist ideology that makes more sense, I suppose I'd be an anarchist, or at least anarchy-adjacent). Avowed conservative public figures who aren't quite Tom Fucking Cotton support Taiwan too. We're never going to all agree, and it sounds frankly very Leninist to try and force us to.

It will never stop bothering me that we have to deal with reactionaries, though. I vomit in my mouth a little every time the Heritage Foundation pops up in relation to Taiwan (hurk). I don't try to engage in more advocacy because I personally will not associate with people who think I, as a woman, do not deserve full human rights and bodily autonomy. But we do have to deal with them, which means that when it comes to Taiwan, Tom Fucking Cotton and all his crappy friends are sadly not going away for the time being. If Cotton can't even get out of his own way on an issue he's not totally wrong about, and stop being racist for the 2 minutes it would have taken to not ask Chew those stupid racist questions, it's very hard to trust him on Taiwan. If all he can see his (frankly correct) hatred for the CCP, then all he sees in Taiwan is a nation that stands in opposition to the CCP. Which it does, but Taiwan is so much more than that, too. We don't need people like him to approve of everything Taiwan does right, from national health insurance to marriage equality. Fortunately, he gets no say in Taiwan's domestic governance. But I can't help but wish he and other Republicans who are ostensible Taiwan supporters could deal with Beijing intelligently, and get out of their own way when trying to stand up to a brutal genocidal regime who is absolutely using fun little videos to harvest your data and oppress protesters. After all, they're not wrong about TikTok, and they're not wrong about Taiwan. Doing so, however, would require them to be less racist and I'm just not sure they can pull that off.

Why Chinese government spying is the scariest sort: an explainer

I'm in the US for the holidays, and a segment came on some silly morning show (they're all silly) about how China is "revolutionizing" shopping and payment through cell phone payment apps at a far higher rate than the US. Or, as the silly hosts of this silly program described it, "China is decades ahead of the US in shopping technology".

And I made a remark about how that's actually terrifying, because the Chinese government watches essentially everything you do on your cell phone in China, and can and will use it against you. They don't even try to hide it. That everyone I know who is knowledgeable about cybersecurity in any way uses a second dummy cell in China for all of the apps there that come packaged with nasty spyware.

The person I was watching the program with looked duly horrified - after all, the silly segment by that silly host on that silly TV show was making China out to be this amazing technological wonderland of the future (the tone was similar the one taken in this article, but if anything less critical). What I was saying was totally at odds with that.

She came back with "you know, I'm sure the US government does that too, we just don't know about it."

Sure. I mean...kinda. But it's not at all the same thing. I don't blame her for her reaction, by the way - when your exposure to current affairs in China comes entirely from Western media, and mostly Western media that is uncritical about China but highly critical of domestic affairs, interspersed with ads for Shen Yun (with no context whatsoever pointing out that a.) the Chinese government hates them, which is great but also b.) that they are owned by a wealthy cult-like religious organization which is not great), then this would be your natural reaction.

But there is a world of difference, and it's important to know why.

I'm going to come at this from a non-expert, non-academic, non-technical point of view. If you want detailed, professional analysis go somewhere else. I've noticed, however, that the average non-expert finds these issues too dense and daunting and typically doesn't read or fully understand them. Hell, I can't claim to fully understand them (this, for example, is barely readable to me despite being highly important). Instead, I'm hoping to tackle this in a way that helps the average reader comprehend what is so terrifying about China's government surveillance, in particular.


"But the US government does the same thing!" 

This is an issue in that the US government does have some unsettling rights to surveillance and data under the Patriot Act. I don't like it either, and I've had it and other surveillance programs affect me three times that I know of, including having to sign something that allowed the US government to monitor one of my bank accounts in Taiwan, and being unable to open a new IRA in the US.

So, yes, it's creepy and horrible. Please don't categorize me as a defender of the actions of the US government.

But. But! This is really not on the same level as what the Chinese government does.

For reasons explained below, it's doubtful that the US government is directly intervening in what private businesses do, forcing them to put spyware into their devices or app/online offerings. They're not using what data they do collect in the same way as China, and while maddeningly opaque and bureaucratic, the very fact that the US is a democracy with certain freedoms of expression and information means it is still more transparent than China.

Oh yeah, and say what you will about who is watching what you do online, but the US government isn't going to disappear you because you said something online that they don't like. Even if you make suspicious purchases or phone calls, or visit certain sites, you might find yourself detained or questioned, but you won't be disappeared in an unmarked van.

No, you won't. Don't give me any conspiracy theory nonsense. But in China this is a real thing. 


"The US government could just be putting spyware in our phones too!" 

Maybe. Somehow, though, I doubt it.

As far as I'm aware, the US government doesn't "own" (or have some sort of control over) the various tech companies that make our stuff. The US government can't tell Apple, Google, Paypal, Venmo etc. what to do the way the CCP can tell Huawei, Xiaomi, ZTE, Baidu and Alipay what to do. It's an open secret - if it's a secret at all - that Communist Party members and officials have a controlling stake in those Chinese companies and they almost certainly do have those companies install spyware and other backdoor access to data in their products.

It is not clear at all that the US has the same thing, and I doubt they do.

The US media, for all we deservedly criticize it, is pretty good at rooting out this stuff, investigating it and exposing it in detail. We know that Donald Trump committed tax fraud thanks to an in-depth investigation by the the New York Times, to give just one example.

If the US government were ordering Apple to install spyware into their phones, or ordering Google to have government spyware installed on everyone's phone with every download of the Chrome app, while those companies would certainly not be transparent about it (seeing as they're not transparent about much), it would still likely break in the media eventually. Criticize it all you want - I do! Push the media to be better. But it's a lot better and a lot freer than in many places, including China.

If anything, you should be scared that the Chinese government, not the American government, is putting some scary things into products by non-Chinese companies. Though it's perhaps less likely as they don't actually control these companies, most of the production takes place in China and some of the components of these products are designed/produced by Chinese companies, so it's still a real possibility.


"But the US monitors our financial transactions and punishes us too, through credit scores!" 

I don't care for credit score companies either. I understand why some institutions would want a heads-up as to how well or poorly you are likely to be able to pay your bills from them, but the way scores are calculated is not nearly as transparent as it needs to be, and in some ways is unfair.

However, most developed countries have some form of credit score system, and the effects are not as far-reaching.

In China, the social credit system being developed will operate on such a greater scale than any credit scoring system that the two can't be seriously compared. A bad credit score might make it hard to get a credit card or loan (or, if it's bad enough, a bank account), and you may be denied a visa to go abroad by that country's embassy, but it won't stop you from buying flight or train tickets or from getting a passport. China eventually will.  Even articles trying to downplay the threat are unconvincing. It is very real, and it's the outcomes, not the details, that matter.

Even if the US government is spying on us in the same way and to the same degree that the Chinese government spies on their citizens (and, possibly, us) - which they almost certainly are not -  a system designed to force you to be a "good citizen" is not the outcome and nobody is talking seriously about building one.

If that were to change (and in the Trump era, who knows?) we still have ways of fighting back that Chinese citizens do not. We can still speak openly about it. Journalists can investigate and publish stories. If nobody will publish your story you can publish it yourself (and who knows, you might go viral or at least show up in search results). We can file lawsuits against the government. We can vote the bastards out of office. We can push for better legislation. We can take to the streets. We can fundraise for a series of legal moves, lobbying and awareness campaigns that aim to change the way things are. It's hard to do, but it is possible and, most importantly, all of this is legal.

In China, none of it is. In China, you have no recourse. You can't protest, you can't sue, you can't raise money for these causes, you can't easily investigate (nothing is transparent enough for you to be able to do so - there is no Freedom of Information Act), and you can't vote in any meaningful way.

Also, in the US, it is still possible to exist (though with difficulty) without giving the government access to a lot of your data. You don't need to use any apps that you don't want to, and you can still (mostly) pay in cash for things. In China, I hear time and time again that it is impossible to keep in touch with people without WeChat (a social media app that definitely funnels information to the government, and every expert I know says likely comes packaged with all sorts of spyware quietly downloaded on your phone) or Weibo (same). You can't hail a taxi without a WeChat-related app, and may not even be able to buy anything at department stores or go out to eat.

It's becoming impossible to pay for things in China without some sort of phone payment app like WeChat Pay or Alipay. Taxis will upcharge you to an insane degree, and some places won't take cash at all. You can't function in China without signing up for these payment apps, meaning you cannot exist somewhat anonymously in even the simplest ways. In the US, you still can.


"But Facebook and Google collect our data too!" 

They do, and that sucks. And the data seems to be mostly used for selling ads. Even though, if I have to see ads, I'd rather see ones that might interest me, I don't really want companies to refine how well they can target me to convince me to spend my money through psychological means that I often find deceptive. That said, I can and do ignore them. It is possible to not buy. You can not pay attention to ads or fake news targeted at you (another way that our data was problematically used). You can ignore memes (I do), check sources (I do), and think critically about what you are reading and seeing, where it comes from and why it appeared on your news feed or in your search results. I do.

That data is not being handed to an autocratic government (the US has many flaws, but it is not an authoritarian state. China is) to build a massive social credit system that you can't opt out of and that you can't ignore the way you can a shitty ad or lizard-brain meme. You can choose not to use any apps you don't trust in the US, and you can choose not to believe or pay attention to dodgy things targeted at you.

And we know that data is not being handed over for the same purposes, and we know the US government doesn't control these companies, because if it were, there would be no reason for Google or Facebook executives to testify before Congress.

You don't have any of those options in China, and there is no need (from the government's perspective) for either testimony or transparency. You know why.


"If you have nothing to hide, then you have no reason to fear!" 

Yeah okay um...who determines whether you have nothing to hide? You, or the horrible government that is monitoring you? Who decides if you've done nothing wrong - them or you?

Do you really trust them to agree with you that you have done nothing wrong? All the time?

What happens when you do have a complaint with the government? A legitimate complaint that is nonetheless not allowed? What if your complaint is that they disappeared your daughter, forced you to have an abortion, or expropriated your house without compensation? What if you took a trip to Taiwan and realized that the situation there was completely different from what you'd always been told, and simply wanted to say that honestly? What if you had an 'undesirable' friend who was not a model citizen like you, but you'd known them since childhood, cared about them and knew them to be a good person? What if the only way to boost your own social credit score was to disavow this friend? What if that person wasn't your friend but your brother, or mother? What if merely calling that person from your compromised phone put them in danger?

Even if you'd been a model citizen up to that point, what happens when suddenly you are faced with this choice?

Don't even get me started with "I have nothing to hide."