Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying's Regular Press Conference on September 1, 2020 |
2020-09-01 23:09 |
Xinhua News Agency: Statistics show that for the month of August, China's non-manufacturing PMI came in at 55.2, and readings of this index have been higher than the 50 mark for six consecutive months. The subindex measuring business activity in the service sector rose to 54.3 in August from July's 53.1. We noticed comments from Wall Street Journal and Financial Times that suggest China's measures to enhance domestic consumption are working. Some scholars believe that before the global economic cycle is recovered, China's domestic economic cycle is running, and China's growth is relying more on domestic consumption. Do you have any comment? Hua Chunying: This is not a diplomatic matter, but it attracts a lot of attention from the international community. Despite the serious impact of COVID-19 this year, the Chinese economy has stayed strong and demonstrated great resilience and enormous potential. China's GDP expanded by 3.2 percent in the second quarter, making China the first economy to register positive growth. As you mentioned, the month of August saw growing demand in China's manufacturing sector and a recovering cycle of supply and demand. This indicates a brighter economic prospect as well as prominent outcomes in China's efforts to coordinate epidemic containment and socio-economic development. IMF forecasts put China as one of the few countries that will maintain positive growth in 2020. According to a latest survey, 99.1 percent of foreign companies in China will continue to invest and operate in China, and 89 percent of the surveyed EU businesses said they are not considering moving their industrial chains out of China. China remains one of the top three investment destinations for most European companies. All of these are, in a sense, a vote of confidence in China's development. Given the changes in China's development stage, environment and conditions, we have set out the goal of fostering a new, dual-cycle development architecture with the domestic cycle as the mainstay and with domestic and international development reinforcing each other. This is not a closed domestic loop, but an open dual-cycle of both domestic and international growth. China will further tap into its domestic demand, expand opening-up and share more of its development dividends with the rest of the world. With lower level of tariffs, shorter negative lists, more convenient market access and a more attractive business environment, China will foster an open economy of a higher level, delivering more opportunities to the world. Global Times: During an interview with a radio show on August 31, Pompeo said that "we will ban the Chinese Communist Party from stealing the information - your information, my information, your kids' information, whoever is using TikTok. We will prevent that information from being placed in the hands of the Chinese national security apparatus and the Chinese Communist Party...Our obligation is to make sure that our people's data doesn't end up in the wrong place...We're going to do everything we can to prevent them from having it." What is your comment? Hua Chunying: Secretary of State Pompeo has indeed been practicing his own words "we lie, we cheat, we steal", which he blatantly said at a university in Texas. And he's a perfect example. He lies every day on issues of national security. How could TikTok, a social media app for young people to share light-hearted videos like singing and dancing, pose national security threats to the US? Pompeo has been playing up his "China threat" theory around the world, urging others to guard against China "stealing user data". But what about the track record of the US in this regard? When it comes to telecom theft, the US always ranks the first in the world. In addition to pressuring the AT&T, Verizon and other carriers for data supplies, the National Security Agency (NSA) has been using fake base stations named Dirtbox in its wiretapping programs including the Boundless Informant since more than a decade ago. Through Dirtbox, they simulate signals of base stations to tap into and steal data from cell-phones. As Le Monde reported, thanks to Dirtbox, 62.5 million phone data were collected by the US in France. Pompeo has been accusing TikTok, WeChat and other apps of being tools for the Chinese government's "infiltration". But in reality, the US is the one that is adept at turning apps into surveillance units. Leaked documents of PRISM have laid this bare. The NSA sees apps as "data mines" with huge reserves of data to be harvested and thus invests heavily to this end. Under the agency's pressure, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, Google Map and even Angry Birds were forced to cooperate with it. An "innovative move" by the US intelligence is to steal secrets through the app store. As revealed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the NSA and intelligence authorities of other Five Eyes countries initiated Project Irritant Horn, which hijacks Play Store to implant spyware on target smartphones or crack down on loopholes. With this program the Five Eyes managed to acquire massive amounts of data by stealing. As for Clean Cloud, the US is the real gangster of "cloud theft". The Washington Post exposed that the NSA, along with the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) of the UK, launched a surveillance program called Muscular to frequently break into the cloud servers of Google and Yahoo. They even went so far as to intercept data and direct it to the agencies' own database. This was how hundreds of millions of personal information records were collected. According to New Zealand Herald, the US had conspired with the New Zealand intelligence to tap the data flowing in the Chinese consulate general in Auckland. To crack into other countries' data, the US has just spared no wire in a Chinese consulate, not to mention the undersea cables, "the intelligence gold mine". It is only natural that the US will take full advantage of them. Der Spiegel, a German magazine, reported over the years that the NSA has tapped into the "SEA-ME-WE-4", the longest submarine fiber-optic cable system connecting Europe and Asia. The Washington Post exposed some of the US' own fiber-optic cable-tapping programs, known by the names Oakstar, Stormbrew, Blarney and Fairview. The Associated Press wrote that the US Navy went out of its way to repurpose a submarine called the USS Jimmy Carter so they could tap fiber-optic cables. In the 2009 Quadrennial Intelligence Community Review disclosed by the media, the US blithely acknowledges that its intelligence agencies should "conduct cyber operations" and other means against "research facilities" in other countries to help American corporations secure competitive advantages. Documents leaked by Snowden show that the US surveillance program, codenamed Stateroom, ordered the installment of secret signals intelligence equipment in around 100 foreign diplomatic embassies and consulates in other countries for spying purpose. "The Filthy Hypocrisy of America's Clean China-Free Internet" on The Intercept points out that the US vision for a clean network means a China-free network. The policy statement on a clean network is nothing but a piece of xenophobic and nonsensical hypocrisy, and its message is clear: If there's going to be a world-spanning surveillance state, it is the US. Another case in point is the Crypto AG scandal. As you all know, the half-a-century-old Swiss company was proved to be working for the CIA, and the Crypto devices it sold to over 120 countries were ironically tapping equipment. A basic sense of integrity and honor is necessary for anyone. Faced with the iron-clad facts, we hope these senior US officials will immediately stop slinging mud at China. Shenzhen TV: The Australian government will launch an inquiry into foreign interference in Australian universities and how China has recruited scholars in the Thousand Talents Plan. Do you have any comment? Hua Chunying: I read reports on that, but I need to verify if it's true. China is committed to developing relations with other countries on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference. Interfering in other countries' domestic affairs is not in the "genes" of China's diplomacy. As Australia is a close ally of the US, certain Australian people and forces seem to be "infected" with paranoia, dominated by China-phobia and conjectures, to the extent of losing all sense of rationality and justice that they make various accusations against normal educational and people-to-people exchange between China and Australia. If Australia really wants to conduct serious research on foreign interference, I believe there are many clues. For example, as disclosed by media multiple times, those Australian institutions and individuals taking the lead in fueling hostility towards China have received funding from the US government, and one of them is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). Some in Australia revealed that it has long been receiving funds from the US government and arms dealers. Besides, |