Two of China's most populated cities reimplement COVID restrictions as case numbers rise



As Omicron and Delta variant case numbers rise, China is reimposing COVID-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions in parts of the country.

The New York Times reported that two of China’s largest cities, Shenzhen and Shanghai, initiated stringent COVID protocols on Sunday that restrict the movements of city residents.

These lockdowns stand to further exasperate the ongoing disruption of global supply chains.

Shenzhen, a city along the border of the Hong Kong province, is the hub of China’s tech sector and is a magnet for electronics manufacturing. The city is going into a one-week lockdown in which all nonessential workers must stay home and adults must take three PCR COVID tests.

Public transit systems in Shenzhen have been closed, but supermarkets, farmers’ markets, pharmacies, medical institutions, and express delivery services will be allowed to continue operating.

Shanghai halted its intercity bus service but stopped short of ordering a whole-city lockdown.

Shenzhen and Shanghai officials have barred their residents from leaving either city unless it is deemed necessary, and even then, residents must present a negative PCR test to the government.

Both cities are reporting fewer than 100 cases of COVID-19. Shenzhen reported 66 cases, and Shanghai reported 65 cases on Sunday. In some of the infected, symptoms are apparent, which means they have an increased chance of passing the virus to other people.

In February, Shenzhen took steps to limit the spread of COVID from truck drivers. City officials reportedly took measures to prevent truck drivers from bringing infectious diseases into the Chinese mainland from Hong Kong, where there is currently a massive outbreak of the virus.

On Sunday, according to Reuters, Hong Kong health authorities reported 32,430 new cases of COVID-19.

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam said that the government was taking steps to reach out to the 300,000 people in Hong Kong who are isolated at home.

She said, “With so many people put under isolation or quarantine, the government has been strengthening our capability to support them. However, we’re still catching up.”

Lam said she could not comfortably say whether virus numbers had peaked in this recent outbreak.

ABC News reported that as of Friday, more than 3,000 Hong Kong residents had died in the province’s current wave of COVID.

Many users of Weibo, a Chinese social media network, blame Hong Kong for the outbreak of COVID-19 in Shenzhen due to the province’s hesitance to implement wide sweeping lockdowns like those seen in mainland China.

Hackers backed by the Chinese government compromised computer networks of at least six American States



A Chinese state-sponsored hacking group successfully compromised the computer networks of at least six U.S. states between May 2021 and February 2022.

CNBC reported cybersecurity firm Mandiant’s findings that detail how the hackers employed by the Chinese government were able to exploit vulnerabilities in web applications used by these state governments to gain access to their networks.

The group that hacked the state networks is known as APT41. It is a state-sponsored espionage organization that takes advantage of flaws in software to exploit existing security vulnerabilities. The group is able to adapt its approach to hacking using different methods.

The Mandiant research said, “APT41’s recent activity against U.S. state governments consists of significant new capabilities, from new attack vectors to post-compromise tools and techniques.”

It continued, “APT41 can quickly adapt their initial access techniques by re-compromising an environment through a different vector, or by rapidly operationalizing a fresh vulnerability.”

The report from Mandiant said that this process is called “deserialization.”

Mandiant said, “APT41 has primarily used malicious ViewStates to trigger code execution against targeted web applications. Within the ASP.NET framework, ViewState is a method for storing the application’s page and control values in HTTP requests to and from the server. The ViewState is sent to the server with each HTTP request as a Base64 encoded string in a hidden form field. The web server decodes the string and applies additional transformations to the string so that it can be unpacked into data structures the server can use. This process is known as deserialization.”

Mandiant is not the first tech company to sound the alarms about the threat posed to American cyber sovereignty by APT41.

Researchers from BlackBerry have previously identified APT41 as “a prolific Chinese state-sponsored cyberthreat group.”

In the fall of 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted five Chinese nationals for crimes related to computer intrusions that affected over 100 private companies in the U.S. and abroad. Some of those who were indicted were part of APT41.

Mandiant said on Tuesday that APT41 appeared “undeterred” by 2020 indictment and that the group’s goals remain “unknown.”

The Mandiant researchers said, “Overall goals of APT41’s campaign remain unknown. Their persistence to gain access into government networks, exemplified by re-compromising previous victims and targeting multiple agencies within the same state, show that whatever they are after it is important. We have found them everywhere, and that is unnerving.”

In February, FBI Director Christopher Wray accused the Chinese government of “trying to steal” information and technology. Wray extended the accusation to condemn the Chinese Communist Party for launching cyber attacks against Western corporations.

In 2021, the U.S., European Union, NATO, and other allied leaders blamed the Chinese government for directing and sponsoring a massive cyberattack on the Microsoft Exchange email servers.

Zhao Lijin, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, denied that China was involved with in the cyber attack targeting the Microsoft Exchange.

Zhao said, in July 2021, “China firmly opposes and combats any form of cyberattacks, and will not encourage, support or condone any cyberattacks.”

The Mandiant report did not say which state governments were targeted by APT41.

China is expected to increase military spending in 2022



China is expected to increase spending on its defense budget in 2022.

The Global Times, a tabloid newspaper owned and operated by the Chinese Communist Party, said, “Ahead of China's announcement of its defense budget for 2022, analysts and observers predict that the country will likely continue to steadily increase its military expenditure, at a rate possibly slightly faster than last year.”

“China enjoys a positive economic development but faces security threats,” the global times continued, “The two factors provide a foundation and need for China to further develop its national defense capabilities to safeguard national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and rightful interest.”

Military experts believe that the Chinese defense budget could grow by as much as 7 percent.

Fu Qianshao, a Chinese military expert, said, “China will likely continue to expand its military expenditure this year, as the defense spending should be closely related to the development of the national economy.”

China has made single-digit increases to its annual defense budget every year since 2016. In 2021, China’s GDP expanded by 8.1 percent marking the fastest growth in the Chinese economy in almost a decade.

“While the economy has been affected by COVID-19, China did well with epidemic prevention and control, and is enjoying a relative healthy economy,” Fu added, “So, it is likely that China will spend more on national defense.”

Many in the West expect China to invade the island nation of Taiwan in the near future. In fact, Chinese President Xi Jinping has made it clear that it is a matter of “when” and not “if” China makes a move on Taiwan.

Chinese leaders have even said that if the United States comes to the aid of Taiwan and affirms the nation’s independence it could lead to military conflict between America and China.

In a recent interview with NPR, the Chinese Ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang, said, ‘If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict.”

Xi Jinping recently reached out to his counterpart in North Korea, Kim Jong-Un, and called for the two communist countries to come to a “common understanding” as they work to build supportive and friendly relations under “a new situation.”

The increasingly likelihood of Chinese aggression in Asia has prompted Japan to break with its post-WWII pacifistic tendencies and reconsider its approach to national defense.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe suggested that Japan house nuclear weapons on behalf of the United States as a preemptive defensive measure against China.