What Happens Now That China Won’t Take U.S. Recycling – The Atlantic

China’s refusal to accept American recycling could lead to a drastic change in consumer habits. Perhaps we will finally have a discussion about our throwaway society.

For decades, we were sending the bulk of our recycling to China—tons and tons of it, sent over on ships to be made into goods such as shoes and bags and new plastic products. But last year, the country restricted imports of certain recyclables, including mixed paper—magazines, office paper, junk mail—and most plastics. Waste-management companies across the country are telling towns, cities, and counties that there is no longer a market for their recycling. These municipalities have two choices: pay much higher rates to get rid of recycling, or throw it all away.

Source: What Happens Now That China Won’t Take U.S. Recycling – The Atlantic

Evacuated after ‘health attacks’ in Cuba and China, diplomats face new ordeals in U.S.

Here’s a frightening, detailed account of what it’s like to become a victim of the mystery sonic/microwave attacks that have plagued our diplomatic corps.

WASHINGTON — Alone in her bed in a sprawling Chinese metropolis, Catherine Werner was jolted awake one night by a pulsing, humming sound. It seemed to be coming from a specific direction.

Perhaps the A.C. unit in her upscale Guangzhou apartment was malfunctioning, the American diplomat thought. But at the same moment, she also noticed intense pressure in her head.

The sounds and sensations returned, night after night, for months. When Werner’s health began declining in late 2017 — vomiting, headaches, loss of balance — she brushed it off at first, thinking China’s polluted air and water were getting to her.

It wasn’t until months later — after her mother, Laura Hughes, grew alarmed, flew in from the U.S. and then got sick, too — that Werner was medevaced from China back to the States. Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania found a vision disorder, a balance disorder and an “organic brain injury” — diagnoses similar to those of 26 U.S. diplomats and spies in Cuba who started hearing strange sounds and falling ill in late 2016.

Source: Evacuated after ‘health attacks’ in Cuba and China, diplomats face new ordeals in U.S.

How China’s lunar relay satellite arrived in its final orbit | The Planetary Society

This is a pretty fascinating explanation of China’s lunar relay mission, Queqiao, becoming the first relay satellite to serve the far side of the moon.

After a 24-day journey, Queqiao, the relay satellite for China’s Chang’e 4 lunar mission, successfully entered its Earth-Moon L2 halo orbit. A normal mission to lunar orbit usually takes four or five days, but Queqiao took much longer due to its special orbit. Here’s a guide to the spacecraft’s long and complicated journey.

Source: How China’s lunar relay satellite arrived in its final orbit | The Planetary Society

China Snuck Chips Into CIA, U.S. Military, Commercial Servers Leaving Them Open To Hacks: Report – The Drive

China seems willing to gamble its huge manufacturing industry in service to its spying. Why should foreign companies trust their manufacturing to China anymore? Regardless of the economic price China will pay for this, it can never be fully trusted again.

A new report is alleging the Chinese government directly interceded to insert small microchips into motherboards from a company called Supermicro, that are in use in servers everywhere from the adult film industry to U.S. military and U.S. Intelligence Community data centers, which make them vulnerable open them up to remote hacks. If the claims turn out to be true, it would be an intelligence operation of historic proportions that would have far-reaching and long-lasting ramifications.

On Oct. 4, 2018, Bloomberg Businessweek published its story, which is the culmination of years of investigative work and cites nearly 20 anonymous sources from both the U.S. government and private companies reportedly involved in the affair. The piece says that American authorities first became aware of the existence of the chips in 2015, that the classified probe is still ongoing, and that U.S. officials have identified an unspecified unit of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as being responsible for sneaking the malicious hardware into the servers.

Source: China Snuck Chips Into CIA, U.S. Military, Commercial Servers Leaving Them Open To Hacks: Report – The Drive

Pompeo says China incident is ‘entirely consistent’ with Cuba ‘sonic attacks’ – CNN

Sonic attacks on American diplomats continue, this time in China.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that an incident involving a US government employee stationed in China who reported “abnormal sensations of sound and pressure” suggesting a mild brain injury has medical indications that are “very similar” and “entirely consistent” to those experienced by American diplomats posted in Havana.

US officials have issued a health alert in China following the incident. Additionally, the US State Department is looking into whether the incident is similar to what happened in Cuba in 2016 and 2017, a US diplomatic official told CNN, which the US government characterized as a “sonic attack.” That incident led to a reduction in staffing at the US Embassy in Havana.

Source: Pompeo says China incident is ‘entirely consistent’ with Cuba ‘sonic attacks’ – CNN

Japan coastguard rescuing more North Korean ‘ghost ships’ as sanctions, food shortages drive fishermen into farther waters | South China Morning Post

A severe shortage of food and foreign currency amid harsh international sanctions are contributing to rising numbers of North Korean “ghost ship” fishing vessels washing up in Japanese waters, analysts said.

Dozens of North Korean fishing vessels wash up on Japan’s coast ever year, but last month Japanese coastguards registered 28 cases, the highest monthly number since records began in 2014.

Meanwhile, there have been multiple cases of “ghost ships” found packed full of bodies, with 18 corpses recovered so far this year. During the same period, there has been a record number of North Korean fishermen rescued alive – 42 this year compared to zero in 2016.

Japanese authorities say it is often hard to determine exactly how they died as the boats often drift for months before washing up in Japan.

“Fishermen are desperate to meet annual catch goals, which are elevated to higher levels every year,” said Toshimitsu Shigemura, professor emeritus of Waseda University and North Korea expert.

Source: Japan coastguard rescuing more North Korean ‘ghost ships’ as sanctions, food shortages drive fishermen into farther waters | South China Morning Post

China hacked 7% of America – Business Insider

Remember the Chinese hack on OPM? It’s far worse than we were told. Ugh. I’m thinking somebody needs to go to prison.

More than 20 million people had their personal information stolen when Office of Personnel Management (OPM) servers were breached by Chinese hackers last year, sources close to the agency are reporting.The New York Times and the government are reporting 21.5 million, and CNN is reporting 22.1 million. ABC and Reuters have reported 25 million.

Source: China hacked 7% of America – Business Insider

China’s little emperors – the children without siblings | Life and style | The Guardian

One day in October 2001, I made my way to Heathrow airport to pick up the son of a family friend. This was in the days before Chinese students had started coming in numbers to the UK and a tall, skinny Chinese youth standing at the airport exit was quite noticeable.

Du Zhuang, frail and as insubstantial as plasterboard, was pushing his suitcase with one hand, and holding his phone with the other. He was not looking around, but listening to the person on the other end with single-minded devotion. On his face was the serious, almost devout, expression of someone receiving an edict from the emperor.

It was only when I was standing right in front of him that he finally looked at me, and smiled. In those days, Chinese people did not hug or exchange pecks on the cheek, while shaking hands was for grownups only.Instead, Du Zhuang passed me his mobile phone, saying, “My mother’s been waiting to speak to you!”

Hearing her shout down the phone it was as though she had jumped out in front of me. I will never forget his mother’s first words that day: “Xinran, my son is in your hands now! Remember to help him to open his suitcase, he can’t do anything!”

Source: China’s little emperors – the children without siblings | Life and style | The Guardian

Holding China back

During a recent visit to the wonderful Quail Ridge Books (boy how we need more local bookstores), I picked up a copy of the latest Foreign Affairs magazine. I used to subscribe to Foreign Affairs as an enlisted sailor in the Navy, trying to learn more about why the military was doing the things it was doing. It’s a wonderful (if pricey) magazine. Anyhow, the latest issue has an essay that says China sees America as a bully out to block its rise.

I don’t think that’s an accurate view of America-China relations. If America really wanted to thwart China, however, here’s how it would be done:

Keep selling Buicks to Chinese as fast as we can make them. The goal is to make China so car-dependent that its already notoriously-overcrowded streets become permanently gridlocked and the country becomes ever more dependent on oil. Chinese were once happy using bikes and scooters to get around but Buicks and Mercedes are the new hotness. It’s hard to live large on two wheels, right?
Export movies to China reinforcing the car-centric culture. See above. It’s all about face and keeping up with the Joneses.
Encourage China to build up an oil-dependent military, building a fleet of gas-guzzling ships and aircraft.

With the rest of the world going green by reducing car dependency and building greener military fleets, this strategy should set China back for decades.

China Shows Off an Aircraft Carrier, but Experts Are Skeptical

The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning

Lt. Gen. Qi Jianguo, assistant to the chief of the PLA’s general staff said “All of the great nations in the world own aircraft carriers — they are symbols of a great power.”

No, simply owning an aircraft carrier isn’t power. Anyone can buy one. Knowing how to use an aircraft carrier is a great power.

Cute, China. Cute.

In a ceremony attended by the country’s top leaders, China put its first aircraft carrier into service on Tuesday, a move intended to signal its growing military might as tensions escalate between Beijing and its neighbors over islands in nearby seas.Officials said that the carrier, a discarded vessel bought from Ukraine in 1998 and refurbished by China, would protect national sovereignty, an issue that has become a touchstone of the government’s dispute with Japan over ownership of islands in the East China Sea.

via China Shows Off an Aircraft Carrier, but Experts Are Skeptical – NYTimes.com.