Insightful newsletter of Drishtikone: Issue #201 - the Chinese takeover
“Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise.” ― Horace
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GRATITUDE: Thanks to Ajitji for a very generous contribution to Drishtikone. Thank you so much, sir. Truly humbled.
The Chinese Communist Party has over 92 million members. It is not easy getting into the party. Only 1 in 10 get to join the party.
These members swear allegiance in an oath to the party.
‘It is my will to join the Communist Party of China, uphold the Party’s program, observe the provisions of the Party Constitution, fulfil a Party member’s duties, carry out the Party’s decisions, strictly observe Party discipline, guard Party secrets, be loyal to the Party, work hard, fight for communism throughout my life, be ready at all times to sacrifice my all for the Party and the people, and never betray the Party.'(Source)
A database has been leaked via Telegram by Chinese dissidents. The Chinese dissidents, and whistleblowers had hacked into a Shanghai server to extract the data in April 2016. In mid-September it was leaked to a new group called the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC). This body includes over 150 lawmakers from around the world who look at the influence and activities of the Chinese government.
“It was then provided to an international consortium of four media organisations, The Australian, The Sunday Mail in the UK, De Standaard in Belgium and a Swedish editor, to analyse over the past two months, and that’s what we’ve done”. Ms Markson said it, “is worth noting that there’s no suggestion that these members have committed espionage – but the concern is over whether Australia or these companies knew of the CCP members and if so have any steps been taken to protect their data and people”.(Source)
What does this database provide?
Personal details (names of members, place, and dates of birth, Chinese ethnicity and in some cases addresses and telephone numbers) of 1.95 million communist party members. Most of these members are from Shanghai. The database dump also has the details of 79,000 communist party branches. A lot of these are within some major companies
The revelations are startling! Folks named in that database are linked to some of the top universities, research projects, and corporations with sensitive technologies around the world. For example – (Source) these organizations have been compromised.
Chinese academics who swore the oath to assist the party attended British universities where they were involved in potentially sensitive areas of research including aerospace engineering and chemistry;
There were more than 600 party members across 19 branches working at the British banks HSBC and Standard Chartered in 2016. Both have drawn criticism for their response to Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong;
The pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and AstraZeneca – both involved in the development of coronavirus vaccines – employed a total of 123 party loyalists;
Firms with defense industry interests including Airbus, Boeing, and Rolls-Royce employed hundreds of party members.
From sensitive aerospace and arms-related technology producing companies to those involved in cutting edge pharmaceutical research, the Chinese Communist Party branches have infiltrated every major establishment.
The news is devastating to those who have been trying to fight the fascism and high-handedness of the Chinese.
Along with this rather startling revelation came the news of another strange occurrence from a European country known to keep secrets and look out for its own interests even while messing up the world’s democratic societies by keeping the ill-gotten wealth of their criminals hidden in their banks.
how the Swiss taxpayers paid for Switzerland’s sellout to China
Europe is in some kind of serious crisis. As is the world. Earlier this year, in August 2020, something unprecedented happened. Unthinkable really. Treason of the level that is hard even believe.
Switzerland had agreed to allow agents from China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS) to roam freely – unsupervised – inside the country in a secret agreement that came into effect on 8 December 2015. (Source)
This was done under an arrangement that Switzerland has called the ‘Readmission Agreement’. Under this agreement – a reciprocal deal is struck with another state to return nationals of each others’ countries.
The problem was that this deal was so secretive that its details were not even shared within Switzerland with anyone. Its provisions came to light when the Swiss authorities were seeking to renew it since the original agreement was to expire.
The normal readmission agreements are quite simple and run-of-mill, in a general context. What are they?
These rather innocuous agreements between States or jurisdictions establishes a channel for two countries to communicate with each other, and requests help. For example, if the Swiss authorities find a person residing in Switzerland illegally, or without the correct papers, and they suspect that person is Swedish, they use a formalized channel to communicate with that country’s immigration or similar department, to get help to determine if this person is indeed Swedish. If they can be sure that they are, they will then cooperate with Sweden to have the person sent back. In return, the other side performs the same duty back. In short, they are reciprocal.(Source)
The provision for personnel from another country to come into Switzerland is (1) only for taking their nationals back, and (2) only in very few agreements.
The Chinese deal was something else altogether.
When the report came out in the German-language newspaper NZZ am Sonntag in August, that was the first time that the public, the Swiss Parliament, and the Foreign Affairs Committee were informed about this secretive deal.
After that, the government embarked on the mission to ‘normalize’ this deal and even call it an ‘Administrative’ or ‘Technical’ agreement. In fact, the cabinet ministers said that such agreements were done with 60 countries and that “two such deals, with China and India.”
The only catch was that the deal with India was on the government website and the ‘Readmission Agreement’ was done with 52 entities.
Another catch which the Swiss authorities never discussed, which those who got a copy of the Chinese deal into their hands found was something startling.
Most importantly, they are reciprocal. Not this deal with China. It only gave China the access and ability to do what was needed by them but not the other way around. Also, these deals address ‘irregular migration’, as opposed to the standard provision of ‘illegal immigration’.
All other such deals are normally done with either the immigration authorities of the country (Sweden for example) or the Foreign Ministry (India for example), which anyway is responsible for immigration issues.
The Chinese deal was done with China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS). MPS take care of immigration but also is the police agency. They are also responsible for “in charge of policing, national security, and with dedicated branches dealing with espionage and counterintelligence.”
This part of the Chinese government has been called out for a lot of human rights abuses as well.
This was the agency with which the Swiss authorities did their secretive deal to allow unfettered access to their agents into Switzerland to talk to the Chinese nationals that Swiss authorities wanted to deport.
The result was an unfettered and unknown amount of access for the Chinese espionage authorities into Switzerland.
The key purpose of the deal is to allow agents of China’s MPS — an agency accused of crimes against humanity[xii] – free access in Switzerland, for unsupervised operations across the country. Switzerland agreed to keep the identity of visiting agents secret. Agents are selected by China, and Switzerland has no part in the selection. China thus selects any member of the MPS to be sent to Switzerland, and it most certainly aren’t any immigration officers being sent.
After all that investigation that the Chinese secret police does within Switzerland, they submit their report on who all to deport. Switzerland does not take any verification of these individuals. Just merely rubber-stamp their deportation!
Now just suppose that the person who the Chinese want to deport is some dissident who is anti-CCP. He is going to be tortured and subjected to utterly bad treatment, if not killed. He should be covered under the rule of non-refoulment, where you cannot return an individual who will be persecuted or killed in another country, where he/she is seeking shelter from!
All this is bad enough. But here is the rub – all this treason was paid for by the Swiss taxpayers!
Furthermore, Switzerland bears the total cost of this for the Chinese side. That includes flights, accommodation, per diem costs, communication, office space, and any other operational costs. That is, Swiss taxpayers are paying for Chinese police agents to secretly enter Switzerland and conduct unsupervised operations against Chinese people inside their country.
The Chinese Communist Party has been trying to do this across the world. They do it clandestinely or with the connivance of the malleable local authorities (as in the case of Switzerland).
The idea is to kill dissent against China globally. For that, the Chinese are going to any length.
In US, they tried to do it clandestinely but were called out and indicted by the US Justice Department.
“The defendants, allegedly acting at the direction and under the control of PRC government officials, conducted surveillance of and engaged in a campaign to harass, stalk, and coerce certain residents of the United States to return to the PRC as part of a global, concerted, and extra-legal repatriation effort known as “Operation Fox Hunt.”” – the U.S. indictment.(Source)
But that was under the Trump administration. With Biden, the US may become another Switzerland. Pusillanimous and willing.
market corner – 10 quick bytes
Crude at $55/barrel to add 34 bps to headline inflation says Barclays – more
DHFL Case: Latest Grant Thornton report flags fraudulent transactions of Rs 1,058 crore – more
China bails out Pakistan, sanctions $1.5 billion loan for Saudi Arabia debt; the loan has come by augmenting the size of 2011 bilateral Currency-Swap Agreement – more
Hiranandani Group bets on COVID-19 recovery for real estate, to invest ₹8,500 crores on data centers – more
Foreign investors stock up on Indian equities with a record Rs 1.4 lakh crore net inflow; dump debt securities – more
Big Bazaar aims to have 300 hypermarket stores in the next three quarters – more
Average time spent on a smartphone up 25% to 6.9 hrs amid pandemic: Vivo-CMR report – more
Rs 20 lakh-crore pandemic package: Barely 10% disbursed, says RTI – more
New Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region (PCPIR) policy moots central funding for infrastructure – more
Agri-tech startups reap nine-fold investment growth: Report – more
nota bene
Riot in Bangalore iPhone factory: Authorities vowed to crack down on workers who went on a violent rampage at a Taiwanese-run iPhone factory in southern India over allegations of unpaid wages and exploitation, with 100 people arrested so far. The workers rioted Saturday at Wistron Infocomm Manufacturing’s facility on the outskirts of Bangalore, India’s IT hub, with videos of the violence showing glass panels smashed with rods and cars flipped on their side. (Source)
100 mn Americans to be vaccinated by March: The United States expects to have immunized 100 million people with the coronavirus vaccine by the end of March, the chief adviser for the US Covid-19 vaccine program. The first vaccine was authorized for emergency use by US regulators on Friday night and began shipping on Sunday. (Source)
Rapist Bishop on Church Calendar: Angry believers and church reformers hit the street and burnt copies of the 2021 calendar of Thrissur Archdiocese of Syro-Malabar church after it featured the photo of rape accused and former bishop of Jalandhar Franco Mullakal. The month of March had Mullakal’s photo, displaying his date of birth and other details. When contacted, a spokesman of the diocese refused to comment. The trial against the former bishop, who is accused of raping a nun, is in the final stages. (Source)
3 arrested for 2 crores worth of charas: Two women and a man were arrested from Kurla LTT railway terminus on Sunday with charas worth Rs 2 crore in the illicit market, a Narcotics Control Bureau official said. He said the three, identified as Aftab Shaikh, Sabir Sayyed, and Shamim Quereshi, were held after a tip-off and 6.628 kilograms of charas, a form of cannabis, were seized from them. “The three are residents of Kurla East. The contraband caught is Kashmiri charas,” he added. (Source)
Grooming Jihad: A day after the Delhi police apprehended an 18-year-old man named Shoyab Khan on serious charges of impersonation, kidnapping, and forced marriage of an underage girl. As per reports, Shoyab is a resident of Mewat in Rajasthan. He used to befriend girls on Facebook under the pseudonym of SK Sinha. The accused sent a friend request to the 15-year-old victim in July 2019. They would chat frequently on Facebook. On October 22 this year, he travelled to Delhi and forced the underage girl to marry him. (Source)
Austria seizes arms meant for German extremists: Austrian police seized a huge cache of automatic weapons, explosives and hand grenades intended to arm right-wing extremist groups in Germany, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said on Saturday. Five people were arrested following a series of house searches, Nehammer told a press conference in Vienna. “We have struck a massive blow against the right-wing extremist scene in Austria and organized crime, and how they are connected,” Nehammer told reporters. (Source)
ayurveda and the power of 100-year ghee
Modern medicine looks at things in the context of populations or groups. They want to look at statistics to make sense of the tests. That may work in some contexts. Ayurveda looks at illnesses at the individual level. Everyone is different. Their vikruti and their prakriti plus their environment are different. Whatever medicine or treatment is given should align with that combination.
Here is a very interesting conversation between Sadhguru and Dr. Vasant Lad. The discussion also goes into female and male trees and also ghee being preserved for decades – even a hundred years, buried in the ground. That ghee is a very powerful healer.
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