Người biểu tình Hồng Kông chuyển phương pháp liên lạc sang các mạng lưới MESH để trốn tránh sự kiểm duyệt của Nhà nước Trung Quốc

Hong Kong protesters turn to mesh networks to evade China’s censorship

The rather cramped streets of Hong Kong are currently lined with tens of thousands of people — the Umbrella Revolution. They are mostly students and members of Occupy Central, who are protesting for a fully democratic election process during the Hong Kong 2017 leadership election. The Chinese government, as always, has blocked and censored a number of social media sites so that mainland China can’t see what’s going on in Hong Kong. If the protest continues, the authorities might turn to more drastic measures — such as cutting Hong Kong’s internet connection, or turning off the cellular networks. The Hong Kong protesters won’t be so easily thwarted, however: They are already using a mesh networking app called FireChat, which allows the protesters to communicate freely without any kind of centralized cellular or WiFi network. Clearly, the Umbrella Revolution is in it for the long haul.

On August 31 2014, the Chinese government dictated that the next Chief Executive of Hong Kong (the prime minister) must be supportive of the National People’s Congress (the main Chinese parliament). In effect, the Chinese government dictated that all candidates who run for the position of Chief Executive would be pre-vetted, to make sure they don’t cause too much trouble. This upset the pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong, which obviously wanted a completely free and open election — and thus, the Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP) organization was formed. The plan: A massive non-violent display of civil disobedience in Hong Kong’s Central district. A sit-in on a grand scale.



Starting September 28, Central has been filled with tens of thousands of protesters. Chinese riot police have tried to rout the non-violent protesters with tear gas, pepper spray, and some baton use, but the protesters haven’t budged; as you can see in the photos and videos throughout this story, the Central region of Hong Kong is still completely packed. (The name “Umbrella Revolution” stems from the fact that many of the protesters are using umbrellas to protect against the midday sun and the tear gas.) The Chinese government don’t seem to know what to do. They’ve resorted to the usual tactic of censoring Weibo (a Chinese micro-blogging service), Instagram, and other social media networks, to ensure that dissidence doesn’t spread to mainland China. I’m sure the Great Firewall of China is working overtime right now, to stop any website or document that mentions Hong Kong from getting into the country.

But the Occupy Central protest continues — and if other Occupy protests are anything to go by, downtown Hong Kong could be occupied for weeks and months to come. There are certainly some more drastic measures available to the Chinese government, such as cutting off Hong Kong’s internet access entirely or turning off cellular networks in the Central region, but will they use them?



This Umbrella Revolutionist has not one but two umbrellas to fend off the tear gas

Mesh networks to the rescue

In the last few months, Android and iOS have started to see the arrival of mesh networking apps — apps that can use Bluetooth and WiFi to create a local, decentralized network of smartphones (or tablets). If you want technical details of how mesh networking works, read our detailed explainer. In short, though, mesh networking allows anyone using the app to talk to anyone else using the app — as long as there are other app users in the middle, keeping the route open. Obviously, as more people connect, the mesh network becomes more and more resilient. (The internet itself started off as a mesh network, incidentally.)

The Hong Kong protesters are using a mesh networking app called FireChat. The app isn’t of much use in normal circumstances, but the developer says it was downloaded 100,000 times between Sunday and Monday in Hong Kong. FireChat was also used by protesters in Taiwan this spring, due to weak cellular coverage — and it’s also being used in Iraq, where the government is blocking internet access in an attempt to restrict ISIS’s communication channels.





                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              FireChat on iOS



The Occupy Central Hong Kong protet, in Causeway Bay [Image credit: Citobun]



Occupy Central protest in Hong Kong, near Tamar [Image credit: Citobun]

In Hong Kong, where internet access and cellular connectivity is still going strong, FireChat isn’t of much use — though it is a good way for the leadership of Occupy Central/Umbrella Revolution to minimize any chance of intelligence agencies listening to their communications. If the authorities do cut off internet or cell access, then FireChat suddenly becomes a very good way of keeping everyone up to date. FireChat itself doesn’t solve the no-internet-access problem, though — for that, someone in the mesh network would need to provide a satellite uplink, or some other alternate route to the global internet.

Despite the decentralized nature of FireChat, I think such a network could still be shut down by the use of radio jammers. FireChat creates a mesh network via Bluetooth and WiFi — both of which use very standardized, well-known frequency blocks (2.4GHz and 5GHz). If the Chinese government so wished, it would not be hard to blanket the Central region of Hong Kong with jamming radio waves at those frequencies. But that’s another topic for another day. Hopefully the government’s response to the Umbrella Revolution doesn’t escalate to that point…

With tomorrow — Wednesday, October 1 — being the Chinese National Day, tonight will be a crucial moment for the Umbrella Revolution. It is expected that Hong Kong’s police will try to clear the streets in preparation for the national holiday, so that the usual festivities can take place. The protesters, on the other hand, aren’t ready to leave. It’s going to be an interesting 24 hours.

Quyển tự điển Ngụy Ngôn Ngữ....hehehe

Chính quyền địa phương Trung Quốc gian lận sổ sách để thông báo tăng doanh thu

Local governments in China cook the books to inflate revenue

Staff Reporter

Some local governments in China have begun cutting expenditure on non-essential investments, while seeking new financial sources by using reserve funds and selling local government assets to ease financial pressure, Beijing-based Economic Information Daily reports.
Against the backdrop of the government loosening its grip on the property sector and in view of current economic stagnation, financial departments of some local governments are resorting to extreme measures such as cooking their books to inflate revenue.
Financial departments usually cook their books by purposefully altering financial accounts to show high revenue if they find that their revenue targets are set too high at the beginning of a year and cannot be achieved by year end.
They may provide funds to subsidize enterprises and then reimburse the money through tax payments by these enterprises, which amounts to falsifying financial information by inflating spending and revenue.
A financial official in a city in northern China told the newspaper that falsifying financial records is a long-standing practice and that it is getting worse. Last year, 15% of the city's recorded revenue was a result of these practices. In some county governments, up to 30% of their recorded revenue was generated this way.
According to the paper, more than 95% of 70 large and medium-sized cities in China reported a month-on-month decline in property prices in August. The decline in the housing market has posed a challenge to the country's economic growth.
A report by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services stated that property-related revenue was estimated to comprise about 20% of the total revenue of local governments in 2013. This included net income from land leases, stamp duty, value-added taxes, real estate taxes, and income and business taxes from property developers.
An analyst from the ratings agency said that to cope with the reduction in property-related revenue, local governments have adopted some measures, including reducing non-essential spending, increasing tax levies, using reserve funds and selling assets.
A direct measure adopted by many local governments to respond to the issue is to reduce financial spending.
Some local governments have begun using cumulative earnings and financial reserves and have sold off assets to help make up for their financial shortfalls.
All of these measures may work in the short term, but cannot resolve the root cause of the problem, said Xu Gao, chief economist at Everbright Securities.
Given that the rate of urbanization in China is about 50%, the demand for property is still strong. Therefore, the government should work to maintain healthy and steady development of the property market, otherwise, measures aimed at easing the financial pressure on local governments will not work, Xu added.

References:
Xu Gao 徐高

Trung Quốc GIAN LẬN SỔ SÁCH KINH TẾ ?

Is China Cooking The Books? 

CarlosMurphy

Looks like China has been cooking the books when it comes to its exports according to Bank of America. Things are a lot worse than they are letting on even echoing the pattern in 2008.

Latest research figures carried out by the Bank of America Corp. are set to rock the economies around the world once again. Has China been hiding the real state of its economic data? It would seem that the PRC hasn’t been quite as honest as it might have us all believe! According to the Bank of America Corp., the Chinese trade surplus that was meant to stand at some $61 billion turns out to be a meager mere tenth of that so far this year.
The true figure amounts to only $6 billion and that means it will be the smallest Q1 figure posted since the $10.8-billion deficit in 2004. Research on calculations carried out by the head of BoA’s Greater China Division, Lu Ting, suggests that the supposed tripling of China’s surplus was nothing more than fake, and that China has been cooking the books to appear to be better off than the rest of the world. True figures point to the fact that China’s growth rate is slowing down and that the economy is being restrained rather surging ahead. There’s being growing cause for concern since January this year as it turns out that China has been fibbing about its unemployment figures as well as GDP. Growing skepticism amongst analysts has led to worldwide concern as to the ability to provide real trade data.
Some are saying that the export situation can be likened to 2008 at the very moment when the financial crisis hit the world. China too was plunged into a difficult time as exports decreased back then. Shipments plummeted and out of that panic grew illegal practices in a bid to make money. Irregularities in export data have emerged and allowed for hot-money flows.
True figures seem to highlight that we have had the wool pulled over our eyes as figures show that there is a real growth of just 5% in exports, whereas the PRC has issued figures as high as 17.4%. Similarly, imports have increased by 7.6%, rather than the official government line figure of 10.6%. In a recent Bloomberg poll, investors believe that the Chinese economy is set to deteriorate in the coming year, despite what the official government figures might be stating.
But, it’s no consolation that China’s economy has also taken a downtown like the rest of us. While growth seems to be still partly there, it is definitely slowing down. That could be bad news for the rest of us, in already economic hard times, as we could see a knock-on effect around the world. That’s something we could surely do without right now! This is all in the wake of the Yuan’s all–time high. It currently stands at its highest level for almost twenty years in comparison with the Dollar. The Yen is suffering badly too from the adverse effects of never-before-seen monetary easing policies implemented by the Japanese government. Where do we go from here? Well, questions are now being raised as to how much longer China can withstand a growing Yuan in the face of a failing Dollar and troubled Yen. If it carries on much longer, China can only be on the receiving end of the adverse effects of that.

Ở Trung Quốc; 1 + 1 = 7,7% tăng trưởng của Tổng sản phẩm quốc nội (Và Chớ có mà tranh luận)

In China; 1 + 1 = 7.7% GDP Growth (And Don't Argue)

By Tyler Durden

With China's shadow-banking system turmoiling and data not at all supportive of the same kind of growth investors are hoping for, some were surprised when China's GDP magically turned out at the 7.7% expectations deemed acceptable by the government. As Xinhua reports [6], not all is as it seems.  
China's GDP amounted to 56.9 trillion yuan (9.3 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2013. However, the aggregate of the provincial GDP figures, which were independently calculated and released, was about 2 trillion yuan more than the 56.9-trillion-yuan figure arrived at by the NBS, even though three of the 31 localities that were yet to release the figures were not included.
This has aroused suspicion (just as we saw with the PMI data in the past [7]) that some growth-obsessed local officials have cooked the books.
 Via Xinhua, [6]
For 2011, the aggregate GDP figure of all localities was 4.6 trillion yuan more than the NBS tally of 47.1 trillion yuan. In 2012, the aggregate figure was 5.76 trillion yuan higher than the total of 51.93 trillion.
"This is an old problem which recurs every time the data is released. The gap is mainly caused by duplicating calculation," Zhang Liqun, researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, told Xinhua.
Overlapping calculation often occurs when a big company has many subsidiaries, Zhang explained. In this case, the added value of the subsidiaries tend to be double calculated.
"In this case, overlapping calculation is unavoidable," he added.
 Cong also pointed to price divergence among different regions as a major factor for the gap.
 "For a certain product, you have a price in, for instance, Hebei Province. But the price of the same product would be different when it is sold in Beijing. However, the NBS statistics are based on a unified nationwide price."
In addition to double calculation and price differences, experts pointed to the so-called "GDP obsession" of local officials as another key factor for the gap between national and local data.
"It is possible that the national and local aggregate figures are not in accordance, but that is not reasonable if local figures are higher year after year than the national, and never go in the other direction,"
At the press conference, even Cong of the NDRC admitted to the phenomenon.
Due to local officials' obsession with governing performance, the local figures will be more or less overblown. The NBS is working hard to correct this," he told reporters.
 Experts also suggest the assessment standards of local officials' performance be comprehensively changed.
"In assessing local officials' performance, we should not lay too much stress on GDP growth rate, but also care for areas related to social well-being, including improving the employment rate," said Cai Zhizhou, a researcher with Peking University.
So, in summary, the number don't add up; they never added up; local governemnt officials always overstate their performance... but they always have so don't worry about it... oh and we always hit our expectations...
Is that why - all of a sudden - when the shadow banking system suddenly exposes those swimming naked, that capital markets in China are in a crunch?

Dữ liệu thương mại 'giả mạo' của Trung Quốc vẫn còn "Một Tí gì đó Bí Ẩn" mặc dù đã có nỗ lực Dọn Dẹp Làm Sạch

Chinese 'Fake' Trade Data Remains "A Bit Of A Mystery" Despite Clean-Up Efforts

By Tyler Durden

Over a year ago we first brought China's 'fake' trade data and abundant discrepancies to the public's attention [6] and in December China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) began clamping down on trade-financing on fabricated deals after the first crackdown failed to eliminate the deception. Now over a year later, as Bloomberg reports [7], China's data still does not add up. "It's still a bit of a mystery," said StanChart's Stephen Green, the data "suggest that some of that is still going on."

China's exports have been overstated by Chinese data...
[8]

and still are... despite crackdowns... (as Bloomberg reports) [7]

A discrepancy between Hong Kong and Chinese figures for bilateral trade remains even after a crackdown last year on Chinese companies’ use of fake export-invoicing to evade limits on importing foreign currency.

China recorded $1.31 of exports to Hong Kong in June for every $1 in imports Hong Kong tallied from China, for a $6.4 billion difference, based on government data compiled by Bloomberg News.

...

Any discrepancies make it tougher to gauge the impact of global demand on a Chinese economy that’s projected for the slowest growth in 24 years.

“It’s still a bit of a mystery,” said Stephen Green, head of Greater China research at Standard Chartered Plc in Hong Kong. Regarding fraudulent invoices, “the fact that the ratio is like that would suggest that some of that is still going on,” he said.

...

The initial crackdown may have failed to eliminate deception. SAFE said in December that it would boost scrutiny of trade financing and that banks should prevent companies from getting financing based on fabricated trade. The State Administration of Taxation said earlier this month that it found instances of fraudulent exports used to obtain tax rebates by some companies.

“You can’t exclude the possibility that capital flows are being disguised as exports” in the China-Hong Kong figures, said Yao Wei, China economist at Societe Generale SA in Paris. “As the capital account becomes more open, the flows will show up in the places they should.”

*  *  *
The question of course is which way do they converge? Is China's data correct showing a more exuberant global trade or are the rest-of-the-world right showing trade flows slowing?

 

Ngay cả Goldman cũng nói Trung Quốc GIAN LẬN SỔ SÁCH KINH TẾ

Even Goldman Says China Is Cooking The Books

Tyler Durden

That China openly manipulates its economic data, especially around key political phase shifts, such as one communist regime taking over for another, is no secret. That China is also the marginal economic power (creating trillions in new loans and deposits each year) in a stagflating world, and as such must be represented by the media as growing at key inflection points (such as Q4 when Europe officially entered a double dip recession, and the US will report its first sub 1% GDP in years) as mysteriously reporting growth even without open monetary stimulus (something we have said the PBOC will not engage in due to fears of importing US, European and now Japanese inflation) is critical for preserving hope and faith in the future of the stock market, is also very well known. Which is why recent market optimism driven by "hope" from Alcoa that China is recovering and will avoid yet another hard landing, and Chinese reports of a surge in Exports last week, are very much suspect. But no longer is it just the blogosphere that is openly taking Chinese data to task - as Bloomberg reports, even the major banks: Goldman, UBS and ANZ - are now openly questioning the validity and credibility of the goalseek function resulting from C:\China\central_planning\economic_model.xls.
From Bloomberg:

China’s unexpected surge in exports last month renewed concern from analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., UBS AG and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. (ANZ) that statistics from the nation can be unreliable.

The 14.1 percent jump from a year earlier was the biggest positive surprise since March 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The increase didn’t match goods movements through ports and imports by trading partners according to UBS, while Goldman Sachs and Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. cited a divergence from overseas orders in a manufacturing index.

Smaller trade gains could signal a less robust recovery from a seven-quarter slowdown just as Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan says the economic rebound is a sign of improving global demand. Accurate statistics from the world’s second-biggest economy are increasingly important for domestic and foreign investors and for China’s government, ANZ’s Liu Li-Gang says.

Too good to be true:

ANZ’s Liu and colleague Louis Lam published research last week that underscored doubts about the quality of China’s economic data. They found that quarterly GDP, industrial production, fixed-asset investment and inflation data published in percentage terms failed to conform to “Benford’s Law,” which holds that in any series of numbers certain patterns will be found only if the statistics are naturally generated.

As we have previously observed, even China has previously mocked its own data "fudgability":

Li Keqiang, who may succeed Wen Jiabao as premier in March, was quoted in 2007 as saying he watched figures on power, rail cargo and loans because gross domestic product numbers were “man-made.” Li’s remarks were in a U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks in late 2010.

One reason for the "surge" in recent data may be the demand of the new Politburo to telegraph that all is well following the latest Congress which took place in November, and that the economy is once again picking up, even if in reality it isn't:

After China’s statistics bureau reported third-quarter GDP in October, Standard Chartered Plc analysts said the 7.4 percent increase was “too good to be true” when compared with the slowdown in electricity production and the readings of a manufacturing index, while London-based Capital Economics Ltd. said its own analysis indicated expansion of about 6.5 percent.

The median forecast for December exports in a Bloomberg survey of 40 economists was for a 5 percent gain, with the highest estimate at 9.2 percent, after November’s 2.9 percent growth. Goldman Sachs, ranked by Bloomberg as the most accurate forecaster for the indicator, projected a 7 percent rise.

The increase, which was the biggest since May, could indicate exporters’ rush to finish year-end orders and government pressure to report exports before the end of the year to reach the government’s 2012 target of 10 percent growth, Shen Jianguang, Mizuho’s Hong Kong-based chief Asia economist, said in a Jan. 10 note.

A possible explanation for how Chinese companies are cooking their export books comes from none other than Goldman:

“It is possible that local governments may have tried to boost exports data by either making round trips in special trade zones” or by exporting “earlier than otherwise in an attempt to improve the annual exports data,” Goldman Sachs’ Beijing- based economists Yu Song and Yin Zhang wrote the same day.

Rushed shipments and even faked exports to secure tax refunds may have contributed to the stronger growth data, according to Alistair Thornton and Ren Xianfang, Beijing-based analysts at IHS Inc.

Some trading companies are turning to transportation providers like Shenzhen Global Express Logistics Ltd. for help in shipping goods through so-called bonded zones to claim export tax rebates or charge higher import prices for goods without them physically leaving the country. Shenzhen Global offers customs clearing and other freight services including a “one-day tour,” Lin Yongtai, a manager with the company in the city bordering Hong Kong, said in a telephone interview.

For a fee of 1,000 yuan ($161) per vehicle per day, the company will drive trucks into warehouses in bonded zones, where cargo must clear customs, so that businesses can obtain a refund of value-added tax on the “export” of their products or boost sale prices for goods that carry the cachet of being imported.

“A poor villager can boast he has thousands of yuan of turnover every day, but people later discover he only has one bull -- he takes the bull out every morning and brings it back every evening,” Lin said. “The same applies to some parts of China’s foreign trade.”

Of course, there is also the simple test of matching one country's exports to another one's imports (after all, it is a closed loop). Once more, it appears that China is literally pulling numbers out of thin air:

UBS economists led by Hong Kong-based Wang Tao pointed to a “quite obvious discrepancy” in the growth of China’s exports to Taiwan and South Korea and those economies’ reported imports from China in recent months, even as historically they have tracked each other well.

Finally, that China is openly making up numbers is no surprise: it will continue doing that until, like everywhere else, the discrepancy between perception and reality (usually manifested in the case of China by a lot of angry people breaking something or simply rioting) becomes too glaring for even the most optimistically inclined to ignore.
What is a surprise is that it is none other than the banks - the primary carriers of the status quo gene - who are implicitly pulling the rug out from beneath the economy that is supposed to once again, as in 2008 and 2009, provide the bridge from a contracting "here" to a growing "there."
The question is why?
Is this an attempt to undermine the Chinese leadership which has so far merely sought to grow the economy by fiscal stimuli, while avoiding monetary ones: i.e., finally get the PBOC involved in not only growing the money supply (if not the economy), but in joining the rest of the world's central banks in a race to debase? And if indeed this is the case, what happens when China begins growing its own local inflation in addition to importing everyone else's.
Or is it a way to force a drop in a market that hangs on to every piece of good news like a drowning meth addict clutching at the tiniest of straws, allowing the same "skepticism-inducing" banks to buy at cheaper prices?
Or, more likely, is this merely a red herring to be used as a scapegoat when the latest dead cat bounce, so optimistically telegraphed by every sell side strategist, fails to materialize once more? After all: when in doubt, blame it all on the upcoming debt ceiling fiasco, and now: made up Chinese data.
We are confident we will get the answer very soon.