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Big Tech Embraces New Cold War Nationalism

Last month, the CEOs of Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon were hauled before the U.S. Congress to be interrogated about their companies’ monopolistic behavior. While Democrats relentlessly grilled the four CEOs over their breach of antitrust laws, Republicans were just as interested in questioning their national loyalty and asking whether they had ties with the Chinese military. At the hearing, Republican Rep. Ken Buck accused Google of declining to work with the U.S. Defense Department while falsely claiming that the company collaborated with the Chinese military. In response, Google CEO Sundar Pichai fought nationalism with patriotism, stating that Google was in fact “proud to support the U.S. government” and boasted that they had “recently signed a big project with the Department of Defense.”
Coming from Pichai, the immigrant CEO of a company known for its progressive values, boasting of Google’s collaboration with the Pentagon may just seem like a defensive response to being called treasonous. But Google’s commitment to the military had long preceded this moment. The company’s former CEO, Eric Schmidt, has long advocated for deepening ties with the Pentagon and now serves as the chairman of the Defense Innovation Board—an initiative to transfer technological innovation from Silicon Valley to the U.S. military. Last month, a federal advisory commission that Schmidt chairs also recommended the creation of an artificial intelligence (AI) school to directly staff the U.S. government, including the Defense Department, with new technologists.

Google is far from alone. Late last year, Microsoft won a $10 billion cloud contract with the Pentagon with the goal of “increasing [the military’s] lethality.” Amazon, which also fought aggressively for the $10 billion contract, continues to provide cloud infrastructure for the CIA and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Underpinning this new affinity for the U.S. government is a widespread anxiety that the rise of China’s tech industry may spell the end of Silicon Valley’s dominance. In the past year, the tech investor Peter Thiel and Schmidt himself both wrote New York Times op-eds with the same warning: Silicon Valley must start working with the Pentagon, or else China will win.

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Closure of pro-secessionist HK-America Center: another spy-hub ousted

The Hong Kong-America Center, a US-backed pro-secessionist organization founded in 1994, has announced its official closure, with six university presidents in Hong Kong withdrawing from the center’s board of directors. The center has been frequently accused of political infiltration under the guise of academic exchanges, including its active participation in the illegal “Occupy Central” movement. 

The organization was observed to have actively taken part in the 2014 “Occupy Central” movement by supporting riot leader Anson Chan Fang On-sang, and brainwashing college students through debate competitions and workshops.

It also attempted to revise liberal studies courses and instill anti-China ideologies in classes by appointing “exchange scholars” to several universities in Hong Kong, Hong Kong-based newspaper Takungpao previously reported. 

Stretching its reach to younger targets, the center has influenced many Hong Kong youths through online games and school projects to join illegal protests and demonstrations in opposition to the proposed amendments of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Ordinance in 2019. 

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Four Chinese COVID-19 vaccines undergoing phase-3 clinical trials

Four Chinese COVID-19 vaccine candidates have started international phase-3 clinical trials, according to the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19.

Some of the phase-3 trials are expected to complete the first round of vaccinations in early September, with preliminary data expected as early as November.

Phase-3 clinical trial usually involves thousands of people to verify the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines, which is the key to their market approval.

As the epidemic has been under control in China, the country no longer has conditions for large-scale clinical trials, so all the phase-3 trials are being carried out overseas.

Two inactivated COVID-19 vaccines developed by the China National Biotec Group (CNBG) have been approved for phase-3 clinical trials in several countries in the Middle East and South America, involving more than 30,000 people, according to Yang Xiaoming, president of the CNBG.

An inactivated COVID-19 vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech Co., Ltd. is undergoing phase-3 clinical trials in some countries in South America and Southeast Asia, according to Yin Weidong, chairman and CEO of Sinovac.

A recombinant COVID-19 vaccine with the modified defective adenovirus as the vector is also undergoing phase-3 trials.