This Could Be the End of Hong Kong

Chinese cargo ships are spying on the US military. The FBI uncovers an insane breach of US government agencies. And this could be the end of Hong Kong. That and more on this week's China news headlines. Welcome to China Uncensored, I'm Chris Chappell. Started small, a peaceful protest. An attempt to work within Hong Kong's democratic system by forming a party. And now, this. Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has pleaded guilty in a national security case. And he's about to get a long prison sentence. The system works. The system, of course, being totalitarian repression. Why did Joshua Wong plead guilty? He had no choice. Since the CCP forced the national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, it has worked hard to corrupt the court system. Justice is blind. Because the CCP gouged her eyes out. In particular, they've eliminated jury trials for national security cases, meaning one corrupt judge can decide the outcome. And it doesn't matter whether the defendant is actually guilty of subverting national security. Which is why this week, Wong had two choices. Plead not guilty, and be convicted and given a life sentence. Or plead guilty and hope for a reduced sentence. But it will probably be at least a decade. What was his so-called crime? Why, the most vile, despicable act imaginable. Prosecutors say that around 2016, Wong lobbied other countries to support Hong Kong keeping its own legal and political system distinct from mainland China. That was it. What, you thought it'd be more? Isn't that enough? This also included asking Washington to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, and asking other governments for sanctions. And he succeeded. In 2014, Wong was a student leader of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. Not that umbrella. I'd support his arrest if he were. He wanted Hong Kong to honor its promise to let citizens elect their own chief executive. At the time, Fortune Magazine called him one of the world's 50 greatest leaders. Democracy? Holding people accountable? People looking up to him? Yeah, the CCP was going to let that last about as long as Helen Keller in a UFC fight. Dang, the Miracle Worker 2 Ready to Rumble goes hard. When I first interviewed Joshua Wong in 2016, he was positive about Hong Kong's future. When I interviewed him in 2019, he'd just gotten out of prison for refusing to dismantle the protests five years earlier. He was still positive. But soon after that, authorities threw Wong into prison again. And he's been locked up now for nearly six years. And while in prison, they slapped additional national security charges on him, with the goal of keeping him locked up forever. This is how the CCP treats people who call for democracy, or ask other countries to support Hong Kong's democracy. This issue is much bigger than one man in a prison cell. It's bigger than all the other pro-democracy people in prison, like newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai. Hong Kong's entire pitch for being Asia's financial hub was its independent courts. They'd use the Western legal system with contracts enforced by independent judges. A fair court system meant foreign companies could do business next door to mainland communist China without fear of getting screwed by the arbitrary whims of the CCP. Here's actual footage of how that's going. The whole thing is unraveling. Under the national security law, the Hong Kong chief executive decides which judges will hear national security cases, and he can fire the judges if they don't do what he wants. There's actually a name for those types of judges. Pawns! This whole thing is so backwards. Which is ironic, since pawns can't move backwards. A financial center runs on the belief that if you're wronged, you can win. And now that belief is disappearing. Hong Kong hasn't crashed yet, but the most talented people are leaving or being put in prison. Western executives are scared and pulling out. The money will eventually dry up. And worse, the spirit of the Hong Kong people is being crushed, one persecuted pro-democracy activist at a time. And this will eventually be the end of Hong Kong. And the CCP is even more petty inside mainland China. A Chinese artist was sentenced this week to three years in prison over making satirical mouse statues. The CCP doesn't know art, but they do know what they will throw you in shackles for. A court in Hebei Province sentenced 70-year-old artist Gao Jun for, quote, infringing upon the reputation of heroes. You can tell how unserious the crime is, since it sounds like the title to a Fall Out Boy song. Gao was arrested in August 2024 while visiting family in China. He's a US permanent resident who moved to the United States in 2022. He has a young son who's a US citizen. The statues and other arts he and his brother made are from the 2000s. They include this 2009 statue called Mao's Guilt, which shows a sculpture of Mao kneeling in repentance. You know, for causing like 100 million deaths. China's Insulting Heroes and Martyrs offense was created in 2018, long after Gao made that art. But don't worry about that, because Chinese laws can be applied retroactively. Which is why if I ever return to China, I can also be thrown in prison for a lot of things, probably. But also for making this t-shirt. Get one now to infringe on Xi Jinping's reputation. Link is below. But I can make shirts like that without fear of being arrested, because I live in the US. Although I do feel a bit less safe now that I know how much China is spying on us. It turns out the Chinese state-owned shipper Costco collects intel for Beijing with concealed equipment. According to US officials. Cos-co, not cost-co. You don't want to meet the Costco guys. White House officials allege that Costco has been hiding signals intelligence gear on its cargo ships to secretly monitor military communications off the coasts of the US, Europe, and Asia. China's embassy calls these allegations baseless. Which of course they would. What is definitely true is that Chinese law requires Chinese companies to support state intelligence work. So it would be more surprising if Costco didn't do it. So can't we just cut them off? Well, here's the problem. Costco is one of the largest shippers docking at American ports. They account for about one in every eight cargo ships. And they import more than $100 billion worth of goods each year. So cutting Costco off means temporarily higher prices for US consumers. And that's not something the Trump administration wants to do right now, especially ahead of midterm elections. Actually, the Trump administration was planning to put massive port fees on Costco and other Chinese shippers, but paused that after last year's trade talks with China. That truce expires in November. Trump and Xi will meet a few weeks from now, but I don't know how much of this issue will be on the agenda. But Costco isn't the only Chinese company causing a headache for the US. Last Wednesday, the US Justice Department and the FBI announced they'd seized three Chinese hacking platforms, switching off an eight-year Chinese hacking operation. It turns out a totally private Chinese company called Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology was doing a bit of hacking work for the Chinese Ministry of State Security and the PLA. Totally privately, of their own accord, for no directed reason at all. They successfully hacked a number of major US institutions, including three Department of Energy laboratories, the National Institutes of Health, and a US security device manufacturer. Laboratories, because I grew up watching Dexter's Lab. And they did this in a way I've been warning people about for a decade. They hijacked the Internet of Things. You know those Chinese smart devices everyone has nowadays, like refrigerators, thermostats, and vacuums? They act as nodes to the internet, and they allow hackers to access other info on those same networks, while pretending they're just pings from a local device. Not from an office building in China. So yeah, don't buy Chinese smart devices. I mean, do you really want a Roomba that's a snitch? That would...suck. US authorities are also cracking down on US-based Chinese individuals for stealing corporate secrets. A court has just sentenced an ex-Google engineer who stole trade secrets to nearly 12 months and a big fine. The prosecutors say the software engineer, Lin Wei-Ding, stole confidential information from Google, more than 1,000 files worth, according to Google, including data Google uses to train its AI models. Google had hired him in 2019 to help develop its data centers. The judge said that a rational juror could have found beyond a reasonable doubt Ding intended to take the trade secret information for the benefit of himself and the company he was forming in China. But Ding only got 12 months in jail and a fine, which is pretty lenient. That's because the judge dropped the economic espionage charges. It was hard to prove the Chinese government was actually behind the theft. Which is nice, maybe he just did it because he was a selfish jerk. And speaking of selfish jerks, on Tuesday, an American journalist was sentenced to two years in prison for working as an asset for Chinese intelligence. Thomas W. Pawkin II moved to China in 2010 and eventually ended up editing for state-run Xinhua News Agency. Then in 2017, a woman calling herself Cathy recruited him. She told him she was a think tank consultant, but surprise reveal, she actually worked for the Ministry of State Security. For the next seven years, at her behest, Pawkin flew back and forth to the US to cultivate sources with security clearances. For his noble efforts on behalf of China's spy agency, prosecutors said the Chinese wired at least $100,000 to a bank account held by Pawkin's wife, and also covered his travel expenses to the US and a family vacation to Shanghai. I'm not saying he should have done it. But it was nice of them to give him a paid vacation. You don't hear that too often from murderous authoritarian regimes. The prosecutors stopped short of calling it espionage, calling it instead quasi-espionage. Arguing he didn't actually do it to help the CCP, he just did it for the money. Meaning if they were to make a movie about this, it would only be quasi-entertaining. His defense attorney claimed Pawkin was operating under a misplaced and naive, but sincere belief that his work for Cathy could enhance religious freedoms and influence China-US relations to prevent an armed conflict between the two superpowers. Ugh, I've heard enough of people desperately trying to go for the insanity plea this week in the Lindsay Clancy case. They argued that in Pawkin's mind, he wasn't betraying America, he was preventing World War 3. So his defense wasn't that he was insane, it's that he's stupid. Well, he did work for Xinhua News Agency, so I can believe it. So I think today's lessons are don't go to Hong Kong or China. And if you exercise free speech in a way that makes Xi Jinping uncomfortable, definitely don't go to Hong Kong or China. Don't buy products made in China, because they're probably transported to you on a spy ship. And those products might spy on you as well. Also, don't steal from Google with the intent of setting up your own Chinese knockoff. And if you don't listen to any of that, and you do go to China, don't fall for a beautiful Chinese woman who says she wants to give you lots of money to help enhance religious freedom. Also, less importantly, someone needs to make the Miracle Worker 2 ready to rumble. Now look, which I realize is an insensitive thing to say after mentioning Helen Keller. I've been uncensoring China for almost 14 years. I've traveled the world to investigate what the CCP is doing. I've met with activists, officials, and a lot of folks like you who want to stand up to the CCP. But I can't keep doing this without your support. YouTube ad revenue is not nearly enough to keep this show going. Which is why I need you to join my 50 cent army. That's people who help the world see what China is all about by subscribing to my website, ChinaUncensored.tv. When you subscribe, you'll get special China Uncensored episodes that I don't put on YouTube. Plus, you can talk with me directly on members-only live streams, and join a community chat that's actually really fun and not toxic like the rest of the internet. So go to ChinaUncensored.tv and click that orange button to subscribe and join my 50 cent army. And now, I'll leave you with this. Do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men? This is the music of the people who will not be slaves again. Thank you for watching. I mean it. I'm Chris Chappell. And I'll see you next time.