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Our So-Called Foreign Policy: America’s Latest China Spy Conviction Might Not Even Be Tokenism

07 Sunday Nov 2021

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Our So-Called Foreign Policy

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aircraft, Aviation Industry Corporation of China, AVIC, avionics, China, Clyde V. Prestowitz, FBI, Gary Locke, GE, General Electric, Justice Department, manufacturing, Obama administration, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, spying, tech transfer, technology

Sorry, but I only gave a cheer or a cheer-and-a-half upon learning on Friday that a Chinese national was convicted in a federal court of trying to steal “trade secrets” relating to a key aviation technology from General Electric (GE).

Don’t get me wrong – it’s great that this spy was caught. But anyone knowing anything about the relationship between way too many other U.S.-owned advanced manufacturing and information technology companies and China would surely be asking why Beijing even bothered to send him into the field. Because the amount of sophisticated technology – and even clearly defense-related knowhow – that such companies have transferred to China voluntarily has clearly been more than enough to help the People’s Republic narrow the military gap with the United States substantially. (See, e.g., this piece I wrote for Bloomberg.com from 2013.) 

And even though the Justice Department says GE was working with the FBI to catch Yanjun Xu, it’s been a prime culprit. Notably, as recounted by long-time U.S. trade official and Asia watcher Clyde Prestowitz in his outstanding recent study of Sino-American relations The World Turned Upside Down, in November, 2009, the company announced the merger of its avionics division with China’s Aviationcons Industry Corporation (AVIC) and headquartering the new entity in Shanghai.

As Prestowitz explained, the deal was bad enough from a U.S. economic standpoint because standard commercial considerations had nothing to do with the resulting offshoring of high value manufacturing and employment. Instead, GE recognized that it wouldn’t be selling much in the way of avionics to China unless it made lots of them in China. In other words, it was victimized by extortion.

But the national security implications were even worse. For avionics are the electronics systems used in aircraft and missiles, and AVIC isn’t just another aerospace company, but an organization owned and controlled lock, stock, and barrel by the Chinese state, and one that has a “monopoly on military aircraft manufacturing and maintenance.” So it had to be clear from the get-go that any breakthroughs in avionics generated by GE would ultimately be available to AVIC and deployed in weapons that could well be used against American soldiers, sailors, and pilots in a future conflict between the two countries. Yet good luck trying to find any federal government opposition to the transaction. You won’t.

Indeed, when the new arrangement was formalized in 2011, the signing ceremony was attended by Gary Locke, former President Obama’s Commerce Secretary – who apparently didn’t even blink an eye when GE proudly declared that the new venture “will develop and market integrated, open architecture avionics systems to the global commercial aerospace industry for new aircraft platforms. This system will be the central information system and backbone of the airplane’s networks and electronics and will host the airplane’s avionics, maintenance and utility functions.”

And apparently Locke – and Obama – were just fine with GE’s avowed aim of developing with AVIC “a world-class engineering organization” with “the JV itself…creating new IP [intellectual property] and new technology.”

I guess they thought that the technology for developing civilian avionics and military avionics are fundamentally different, and that AVIC’s interests are purely commercial.

The technology that Yanjun Xu was seeking isn’t avionics-related. It has to do with engine parts made from composite materials – which the Justice Department says “no other company in the world has been able to duplicate.” And GE’s cooperation obviously means that the company wants to maintain ths monopoly over all actual and potential competitors, including from China.

But since it succumbed to blackmail over avionics, it’s far from a sure bet that it will keep drawing a line in the sand on composites – or anything else. Indeed, as the company boasts, its cooperation with AVIC on “technical training, manufacturing, spare parts distribution, and…maintenance and overhaul” for engines is already substantial. As a result, it’s equally unlikely that American regulators will be able to keep this knowhow in American hands.

The American journalist Michael Kinsley once famously wrote that “the scandal isn’t what’s illegal, the scandal is what’s legal.” You don’t need to look much further than GE’s deep, longstanding, and officially sanctioned ties with China’s state-run aerospace industry to see how right he was.

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Making News: Podcast On-Line of NYC Radio Appearance on Swalwell Media Cover Up…& More!

21 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Making News

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CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Eric Swalwell, Frank Morano, Germany, journalism, lockdowns, Mainstream Media, Making News, shutdowns, spying, The New York Times, The Other Side of Midnight, Wuhan virus

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is now on-line of my appearance in last night’s wee hours on Frank Morano’s “The Other Side of Midnight” talk show on New York City’s WABC-AM radio. Click here to listen to a timely discussion of two recent RealityChek items: the national media’s near news blackout (and possibly coverup?) of the Eric Swalwell China spy scandal story, and the increasingly US-like anti-CCP Virus performance of Germany — whose lockdowns-heavy strategy and early successes won such fulsome worldwide praise.

Special bonus for Baby Boomer native-New Yorkers-in-exile (like me!) — right at the beginning of the recording, you’ll hear the same “77 WABC” jingle you may remember from your childhood and adolescence.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments

Im-Politic: The Swalwell Spy Scandal News Blackout Extends Far Beyond the NY Times

17 Thursday Dec 2020

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

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ABC News, Associated Press, Bloomberg.com, CBS News, China, Christine Fang, Eric Swalwell, espionage, Fang Fang, Fox News, Im-Politic, Mainstream Media, McClatchy News Service, media bias, Michael Bloomberg, MSM, MSNBC, NBC News, NPR, PBS, Reuters, spying, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USAToday

If you’re a news hound, you know that The New York Times, long – and long justifiably – seen as the most important newspaper in the world, has devoted exactly zero coverage to a bombshell report earlier this month that California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell several years ago was pretty successfully targeted by a spy from China.

And if you don’t know about this Swalwell story, you should. He’s a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which means that he’s been privy to many of the nation’s most important national security secrets. In addition, he has long been a genuine super-spreader of the myth that President Trump is a Russian agent. So although there’s no evidence so far that Swalwell either wittingly or unwittingly passed any classified or otherwise sensitive information to this alleged spy, understandable questions have been raised about his judgement and therefore his suitability for a seat on this important House panel. Further, he hasn’t denied having an affair with this accused operative, who was known as Christine Fang here, and Fang Fang in her native country.

In other words, it’s a pretty darned big story, and The Times decision to ignore it completely (not even posting on its website wire service accounts of developments) is a flagrant mockery of its trademark slogan “All the News That’s Fit to Print” and clearcut example of media bias – especially since the paper showed no reluctance to report on his abortive presidential campaign this past year or his (always unfounded) attacks on Mr. Trump.

At the same time, if you don’t know about l’affaire Swalwell, you’ve got a pretty compelling excuse. Because The Times has by no means been alone in its lack of interest. Joining it in the zero Swalwell coverage category since the China spy story broke on December 8 have been (based on reviews of their own search engines):

>The Associated Press – possibly the world’s biggest news-gathering organization

>Reuters – another gigantic global news organization

>Bloomberg.com – whose founder and Chairman, Michael Bloomberg, is a leading fan of pre-Trump offshoring-friendly China trade policies

>USAToday

>NBC News

>CBS News

>MSNBC (The FoxNews.com report linked above says this network covered this news once briefly, but noting shows up on its search engine.) 

>National Public Radio (partly funded by the American taxpayer)

>McClatchy (another big news syndicate)

Performing slightly – but only slightly – better have been:

>PBS (one reference on its weekly McLaughlin Group talk show – nothing on its nightly NewsHour)

>ABC News (one news report)

>The Wall Street Journal (one news article, one opinion column)

The Swalwell story isn’t the world’s, or the nation’s, or even Washington’s biggest. But it’s unmistakably a story, and the apparent blackout policy of so many pillars of journalism today, coming on the heels of similar treatment of the various Hunter Biden scandal charges, further strengthens the case that a national institution that’s supposed to play the critical role of watchdog of democracy has gone into a partisan tank.

The only bright spots in this picture? Social media giants Twitter and Facebook haven’t been censoring or arrogantly and selectively fact-checking Swalwell-related material. Yet.

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Chief Economist at Daniel Stewart & Co - Trying to make sense of Global Markets, Macroeconomics & Politics

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So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

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So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

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So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

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RSS

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

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