Hong Kong Offices Influencing U.S. Politics at State and Local Levels

Welcome to China Truths. Today we will bring you the following stories. Vance confirms Chinese hackers breached his phone. Hong Kong offices influencing US politics at state and local levels. Google ex-executives name China as top disinformation offender. Now, let's dive into the details. Vance confirms Chinese hackers breached his phone. Republican vice presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance said on October 31 that his phone was hacked by Chinese entities. Speaking during an episode of the The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Vance said that Chinese hackers breached his cell phone but that most of his messages were encrypted using third-party apps such as Signal. I don't think that they really got anything. We'll find out. Apparently they couldn't get the encrypted messages that were sent, Vance said. The confirmation was made less than a week after the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA, published a joint statement acknowledging an investigation into the unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure. The statement said the agencies immediately notified affected companies, rendered technical assistance, and rapidly shared information to assist other potential victims. Vance claimed that the China- able to breach his phone using back-end infrastructure originally created to accommodate the Patriot Act and FISA Section 702. Vance's claims could not be independently verified, however, and CISA and the FBI declined to comment. Vance also said that he believes former President Donald Trump's phone was hacked by China-based actors. He said that authorities informed him that the breach was part of a larger Chinese effort, dubbed Salt Typhoon, which has aimed to infiltrate and exploit U.S. infrastructure. A similarly named Volt Typhoon also exists. That effort is associated with a Chinese hacking group that successfully infiltrated thousands of U.S. systems including critical infrastructure such as water and air traffic control systems. Information of the hacking effort was brought to light amid a closely contested presidential race that has been marred by frequent foreign interference by cybergroups in China, Russia, and Iran. It is the second known hack of the Trump campaign following an Iranian phishing attack in August. In that effort, hackers backed by Tehran infiltrated a member of the campaign's accounts and leaked the information to the press and the Biden administration. We do have a real problem, Vance said. Foreign attempts to influence U.S. elections are nothing new, but their increasing stridency and varying levels of success are. Chinese efforts to influence the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election in particular have become more aggressive and more influential than in previous years. An unclassified memo on election security published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ODNI, in July found that China is seeking to expand its ability to collect and monitor data on U.S. social media platforms, probably to better understand, and eventually manipulate, public opinion. Social media company Meta has also identified the China-backed spamouflage group as the world's largest online influence operation, and found that Chinese actors have created some 4,800 fake social media accounts posing as Americans to pursue their own ends. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence's, ODNI, most recent election security fact sheet claims that China probably does not plan to influence the outcome of the U.S. election, but that conclusion appears at odds with previous ODNI reports. One such report last year revealed that China was more willing to interfere in U.S. elections now than in previous cycles precisely because they did not expect the current administration to retaliate as severely as the Trump administration would have. Hong Kong offices influencing U.S. politics at state and local levels A network of Hong Kong government organizations in the United States is pushing China's agenda at state and local levels, according to a new report. The report, published on October 29 by Washington-based pro-democracy group Hong Kong Democracy Council, HKDC, alleged that the Hong Kong government is strategically targeting state and local media, think tanks, business communities, and academia in the United States, promoting China's foreign policy initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative and whitewashing the Hong Kong government's human rights abuses. According to the report, official agencies of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region S.A.R., Hong Kong's official name since China regained control of the former British colony in 1997, and Hong Kong government-backed local associations have hired U.S. consultants to parrot pro-China propaganda, connected Hong Kong and local U.S. officials, and purported to represent the Hong Kong diaspora in the United States, crowding out pro-democracy voices. The network of influence is spearheaded by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices E.T.O.s, in New York, Washington, and San Francisco, which played a central role in the formation of the S.A.R. network, financially supporting astroturf groups and hiring American political consultants to spread propaganda at the local level, the report said. The authors called on Congress to revoke the E.T.O.'s privileges in the United States by passing the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Certification Act. In response, a spokesman for the Hong Kong government said the three E.T.O.s in the United States have been performing their duties of establishing and maintaining economic and trade relations in compliance with the U.S. laws. The Hong Kong government strongly opposes any unfounded allegations against the E.T.O.s and their work, the spokesman added. Hong Kong authorities have a total of 14 overseas E.T.O.s in Europe, Asia, North America, and Dubai, with different setups and privileges. On September 10, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bipartisan Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Certification Act by an overwhelming majority. If the bill becomes law, the three E.T.O.s in the United States will be subject to annual assessments and be shut down if the U.S. government determines that they no longer merit extension and application of, their, privileges, exemptions, and immunities. In May, the U.K. government was also urged to review the status of the E.T.O. in London after one of its employees was accused of spying for Hong Kong and entering a residential address by force. Another statutory body of the Hong Kong government, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, TDC, also plays a major role in Hong Kong's influence network, the HKDC said. The report cited official records, saying the TDC paid lobbyists to engage the governments of 22 U.S. states since 2021. It alleged that the TDC Council has misled U.S. investors and members of the business community about the political environment in Hong Kong since 2019 and pioneered new ways to advance pro-China propaganda at the state and local levels, such as producing a glowing report on China's business environment in partnership with an influential U.S. think tank. According to the report, the roles of the E.T.O.s and the TDC are complemented by 12 local Hong Kong associations, of which 10 remain active. All 10 of the active Hong Kong associations have self-disclosed financial or political links to the SAR government, and 9 of the 10 have links to multiple SAR government entities, the report said, adding that they typically list E.T.O.s and the TDC as key partners, with some being additionally supported by other Hong Kong government entities. The report said the associations developed relationships with local politicians and government officials, some of whom double as members of these associations. According to the report, the associations facilitated propaganda tours for Hong Kong officials, developed close ties with U.S. academia, and purported to be local representatives of Hong Kong culture, bringing themselves in contact with the pro-democracy diaspora, who are often wary of the Hong Kong government's overseas activities. Hong Kong's Beijing-imposed national security law, passed in 2020, and its homegrown Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, passed earlier this year, claim to have overseas jurisdiction. Hong Kong authorities have issued bounties on a number of exiled pro-democracy activists accused of offenses such as inciting secession and undermining national security by colluding with foreign forces, including HKDC Executive Director Anna Kwok. Google ex-executives named China as top disinformation offender. Senior executives from Google and ex identified China as the top source of foreign interference and disinformation campaigns during their testimonies to the Canadian House of Commons Ethics Committee on October 24. During the committee meeting, Conservative MP Michael Cooper asked the ex-platform representative which foreign state is the most active in spreading or attempting to spread disinformation in Canada on their platform. From our experience over the past year, the spamouflage campaign, which is linked to China, has been the most active, said Guafrido Fernandez, head of government affairs for the ex-platform in the United States and Canada. In October 2023, Global Affairs Canada GAC reported that dozens of MPs, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilevra, were targets of China's spamouflage campaign, a form of disinformation that uses networks of newly created or compromised social media accounts to disseminate and amplify propaganda across platforms. The GAC reported that a bot network left thousands of comments in English and French on Facebook and X, which were detected by its Rapid Response Mechanism or RRM, a tool used by Canada and its G7 allies to monitor foreign state-backed disinformation in the digital information environment. Fernandez testified that, over the past year, X took down roughly 60,000 accounts connected to China's spamouflage operations, including 9,500 identified through alerts from the RRM. Facebook, now rebranded as Meta, also removed thousands of accounts linked to the spamouflage campaign, testified Lindsay Hundley, the company's global threat intelligence lead. We've removed thousands of accounts and pages after we were able to connect different clusters of activity together as part of a single operation, and were able to attribute that operation to individuals associated with Chinese law enforcement, she told the Ethics Committee. We've identified over 50 platforms and forums that spamouflage has used, including Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, Medium, Blogspot, LiveJournal, VidCon, Vimeo, and dozens of other smaller platforms and forums. Hundley said Meta found no evidence that China's spamouflage campaign gained substantial engagement among genuine users on its platforms. However, she noted that the Chinese campaign operates on a global scale and has targeted Canadian audiences as part of its efforts. China Origin operations have evolved significantly in recent years to target broader, more global audiences, including in languages other than Chinese, she said. These operations have continued to diversify their tactics, including targeting critics of Chinese government, attempting to co-opt authentic individuals, and using artificial intelligence-generated newsreaders in an attempt to make fictitious news outlets look more legitimate. In addition to Chinese operations, Hundley said Meta has recently removed nearly 40 operations from Russia targeting audiences worldwide, including four new operations in the past quarter. Russia, Iran, and China remain the top three sources of interference networks globally, Hundley told the committee. Don't forget to comment in the section below to share your opinions on today's topic with us.