No national belief, no national purpose ,Australian society more fragmented than it has ever been : ABC documentary on an advertising company reveals white Australians coming to the realisation that their "multiculturalism" experiment has failed

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Russel Howcroft said the show is part of his love letter to Aussie advertising

In October 2019 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation put to air the documentary How Australia Got its MOJO.

The documentary was probably meant to showcase how "progressive" Australians in the advertising industry took their country forward, away from their British heritage and into something more Australian. In the process the documentary also revealed a belated realisation that their country was now divided.

In the words of Hugh McKay who was interviewed for the documentary:
We are a society more fragmented than we've ever been

Another commentator said reflecting  on the advertising for the 1788-1988 Bicentenary and probably without realising what he was saying about multiculturalism:

The culture has changed at that time we had a national focus , a national belief a sense of purpose that was common to all people

It brought the nation together, focused on the common great things we celebrated.

None of the above would surprise anyone form South East Asia where Malaysia,Singapore and to a lesser extent Indonesia were forced to deal with the problems of having people from different races, religions and cultures co-existing in the close proximity.

It is not for nothing that this writer enjoys calling  Australia's intelligentsia  white dopes.

END 

City of Sydney Lunar New Year 2020 Festival became an obvious security risk by mid-Jan if not earlier,but no warning from NSW Emergency Management Committee, Clover Moore and no screening at airports

by Ganesh Sahathevan


                                                                         

Lunar Year 2020 banners in Martin Place 

The City Of Sydney's annual Lunar New Year celebrations are designed to attract visitors from China. These probably add to the large number of visitors from China who arrive daily in Sydney via Sydney Airport.

On 22 January 2020 the  WHO had advised:

On 31 December 2019, WHO was alerted to several cases of pneumonia in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. The virus did not match any other known virus. This raised concern because when a virus is new, we do not know how it affects people.

One week later, on 7 January, Chinese authorities confirmed that they had identified a new virus. The new virus is a coronavirus, which is a family of viruses that include the common cold, and viruses such as SARS and MERS. This new virus was temporarily named “2019-nCoV.”

NSW Emergency Management Committee  is responsible for community  safety but it does not seem to have had anything to say.The same can be said of the Mayor,Clover Moore, and the Premier NSW,Gladys Berejiklian.

Additionally, while airports in the US stared screening to coronavirus on or about 18 January 2020 and Thailand as early as 3 January 2020, Sydney and other Australian airports have only just started screening late last week. 
All this despite having in Sydney an annual event designed to attract visitors from China. END 

See Also

Did NSW Emergency Management Services ignore its own data, and fail to advise David Elliot of the likelihood of catastrophic bushfires? Chairperson Andrew Cappie-Wood's advise requires scrutiny

NZ campaign for Massey Uni to cut ties with iFlytek given persecution of Uyghurs and example to follow for NSW LPAB & Law Council Australia who continue endorsing Zhu Minshen & Top Group, despite Zhu's MOU with iFlytek

by Ganesh Sahathevan

As reported on this blog:
Zhu Minshen & Top Group's business partner iFlytek blacklisted by the US Gov for human rights violations:NSW LPAB and Law Council Australia continue to supervise Zhu & Top's activities

The human rights violations concerned China's Muslim Uyghur community.
In New Zealand pressure was exerted on Massey University for the agreements entered into with iFlytek. That seems to have caused Massey to withdraw from the agreements (see story below).


Meanwhile in NSW Zhu and his Top Group maintain their high status within NSW and Australia's legal establishment, which allows Zhu to determine who may or may not practise law in NSW and Australia.See: 

AG NSW Speakman and senior judicial officers at the LPAB ignored the fact that Zhu Minshen undermined an Australian Federal Police directive

END

To: Massey University

Cut ties with iFLYTEK - support the Uyghurs

AP

Campaign created by

Auckland Peace Action

Massey University's agreement with the company is over - but not because of its involvement in surveilling Uyghur Muslims.

We received an email from Massey today saying that the relationship had ended because the "research interests of the Professor of Knowledge Science taking a different direction." In other words, it wasn't Massey that ended the relationship but the company.

Public universities clearly need a more rigorous code of ethics that precludes doing research used for the repression, targeting and surveillance of people. It is not credible for universities to claim ignorance about the applications of research work - our public universities must have research agendas that are clearly in the interests of advancing human knowledge and freedom, not serving authoritarian governments for profit.

The struggle for Uyghurs continues and we will be continuing our work in solidarity with that community. Newshub has just reported that:

"Chinese officials were instructed in 2017 to deport or detain two suspected New Zealanders flagged by a mass-surveillance programme as part of China's crackdown on Uyghurs in the Xinjiang province, according to leaked documents."

If you are interested in being further involved in our Uyghur solidarity campaign, please message us on facebook or twitter @AKPeaceAction or email us at aucklandpeaceaction@gmail.com.

Kia ora Vice Chancellor Professor Jan Thomas,

I recently became aware of Massey University’s funding agreement with Chinese company iFlytek. As you are no doubt aware, this company has been tied to the ongoing appalling human rights abuses of the Uyghur people by the Chinese Government.

In the face of the continued systemic oppression of the Uyghur people which is alarming the world, it is no longer justifiable for Massey to continue this funding agreement with iFlytek. I emplore you to consider not only the ethical violations involved in this partnership, but the moral imperative to do what we can to signal our opposition as New Zealanders to this horrific treatment of millions of human beings. I ask you to end the partnership with iFlytek as soon as possible, and to be part of the right side of history.

Why is this important?

The situation for the Uyghur people in China is horrific and urgent. Mass ‘re-education camps’ are now holding at least one million Uyghur people in China, which many are now acknowledging as concentration camps. Thousands of people have vanished. Children are being removed from their parents and being placed in re-education schools. Women are the subject of forced sterilisation. Muslim Uyghur people are unable to practice their religion, associate with each other or travel freely. More and more reports of torture and sexual abuse are emerging from the camps.

Uyghurs who have fled their homeland are still not free to speak up on what is happening, as China is enforcing a policy of punishing the families of those who do. Words such as ‘concentration camps’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ should not be used lightly, but it is now widely acknowledged that this is the reality of the strategy being employed by the Chinese Government on the Uyghur people. Even here in New Zealand, we are aware of harassment and intimidation of the small Uyghur community by the Chinese government.

Recently released documents obtained from the Chinese Government show what a pivotal role technologies involving data and artificial intelligence are playing in this mass scale repression and ethnic and religious forced assimilation. That iFlytek is involved in supplying technology to the police of the Xinjiang region, where the Uyghur people live, is not speculation but rather well evidenced and documented. Mass surveillance technology has assisted the Government to identify tens of thousands of people recommended for interrogation or detention in just one week.

Massey signed a funding agreement with iFlytek in 2017, a chinese artificial intelligence company worth around $15 billion. The arrangement involves the company funding the salary of an academic who splits their time working at Massey and at iFlytek.

The New Zealand Government has joined more than 20 countries in an official letter condemning the Chinese Government's treatment of the Uyghur people. Human Rights Watch has published an extensive reports exposing the complicity of iFlytek in the violence against the Uyghurs. The US has blacklisted the company. MBIE alerted Massey to the blacklisting “so it could consider any implications for itself”, but Massey has not responded.

Publicly funded institutions like Massey University have no place working in close collaboration, and sharing new technologies and research, with a company involved in these atrocities. Massey ending this funding agreement would send a signal that the world is watching what is happening to the Uyghur people and will not stand by with complicity.

More information:

Masseys ties with iFlytek: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/11/26/913921/massey-working-with-chinese-firm-blacklisted-over-human-rights#

A quick guide on the situation: https://aucklandpeaceaction.wordpress.com/2019/11/28/hard-to-imagine-mass-repression-of-uyghur-people-by-chinese-government/

More info on the camps and mass surveillance: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/secret-papers-reveal-workings-chinas-xinjiang-detention-camps-191125004212642.html

Human Rights Watch report on iFlytek: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/10/22/china-voice-biometric-collection-threatens-privacy

Zhu Minshen & Top Group's business partner iFlytek blacklisted by the US Gov for human rights violations:NSW LPAB and Law Council Australia continue to supervise Zhu & Top's activities

by Ganesh Sahathevan

China’s AI champion iFlyTek brushes off US entity list inclusion with bullish profit forecast

In October 2019 Reuters reported that the China's iFlytek had been blacklisted by the US Government for "human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups.”


The blacklisting " bars the firms from buying components from U.S. companies without U.S. government approval."

In August 2019 this writer reported that Liberal & Labor donor Minshen Zhu's Top Group had entered into a commercial agreement with iFlytek (see story below).

Despite the above, Top Group and Zhu Minshen continue to remain part of the New South Wales and Australian legal establishment as a result of the NSW LPAB and Law Society Australia granting Zhu the"first and only" right to issue LLB degrees issued a private company which is not a university. With that right comes duties and obligations conferred pursuant to Australian laws that can be used to determine who may or may not practise law in Australia, even after degrees have been conferred. 

Being under the patronage and supervision of the NSW LPAB, which is chaired by the Chief Justice Of NSW Tom Bathurst, and the Law Council of Australia provides Zhu and his Top Group a high degree of credibility and status in Australia, regardless of what anyone might think of the iFlytek MOU. 

The NSW LPAB, the Law Council and the Chief Justice have all chosen to ignore the growing number of questions about their dealings with Zhu Minshen and Top Group.

END 

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Liberal & Labor donor Minshen Zhu's Top Group will fund business with China's iFlytek using Commonwealth of Australia FEE HELP funding: iFlytek is being considered for blacklisting in the US, like Huwaei

by Ganesh Sahathevan 

A few other Australians can be spotted in footage of the event, which was attended by Xi Jinping and Politburo Standing Committee Member Wang Yang. Here is Zhu Minshen, who famously paid Sam Dastyari's travel bill, shaking hands with Papa Xi 4/-Alex Joske

@alexjoske

3:59 PM · May 31, 2019·

China-HK protest on Australian campuses but not at Minshen Zhu controlled campuses-Are legal profession admission rules being used (again ) to suppress complaints and protests

The Sydney based Hong Kong listed Top Education Group Ltd,which is funded in part by Australian Commonwealth Government FEE HELP   courtesy of among other things the "first and only"license granted a private entity to issue LLB degrees, informed the Hong Stock Exchange  yesterday that Top had entered into a MOU with two Chinese state supported companies, iFlytek, and its associated company , Jingle Magic:  




The board (the “Board”) of directors (the “Directors”) of the Company is pleased to announce that,  on 21 August 2019, the Company signed a memorandum of understanding (the “MoU”) on the potential cooperation of the international educational artificial intelligence project with iFlytek Co Ltd. (“iFLYTEK”) and Jingle Magic (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. (“Jingle Magic”). Pursuant to MoU, TOP will introduce smart classroom products and related educational artificial intelligence product systems and services from iFLYTEK and Jingle Magic, and iFLYTEK and Jingle Magic will assist TOP in evaluating the smart campus plan, work out an executable plan by leveraging the strengths of iFLYTEK and Jingle Magic, and help TOP complete the development of smart campus. 

The Board believes that this cooperation will take full advantage of the technological strength of iFLYTEK and Jingle Magic in artificial intelligence and assist TOP to achieve 2 its own strategic goals and build Australia's first higher education institute with full coverage of artificial intelligence, which will become one of the symbols for the integrating education with industrial production. It is also a demonstration base of an overseas joint smart campus for iFLYTEK and Jingle Magic. The extension coverage of the artificial intelligence higher education will extend to TOP’s possible expansion targets and related cooperative teaching platforms in China.



In July tis year the  South China Morning Post detailed iFlytek links with the Chinese Government:

iFlytek’s focus on AI technology and its state support has put the company at the forefront of the tech war being waged between the US and China, with Washington deliberating whether to add iFlytek to a blacklist that would bar it from purchasing US components or software without US government approval, Bloomberg reported in May citing a person familiar with the matter.

“Huawei and iFlytek are very similar in DNA. Both are the kind of companies persistent enough to take 10 years to sharpen one sword,” Hu Yu, who takes the title of rotating president of iFlytek, said at an public event in May.

This deal further confirms the Communist Party China links of Top Group's CEO and major shareholder, Minshen Zhu.

It raises further questions about the approvals provided him by the AG NSW Mark Speakman, whose portfolio included security.
END 

Enterprises
China’s voice recognition champion iFlytek gets US$407 million funding boost from state investors

Company to invest 2.05 billion yuan in its AI speech platform, with 1.18 billion yuan coming from proceeds of the private placementSarah Dai


Published: 11:48am, 17 Jul, 2019


iFlytek, China’s national champion in voice recognition, has raised 2.8 billion yuan (US$407 million) via a private placement that brought in money from a state-backed industry fund and several provincial government funds.


The Shenzhen-listed company will use the proceeds to bankroll research in open platforms for smart speech, so-called next generation cognitive technology, and service robots, it said in a stock exchange filing on Wednesday.


The placement has pulled in investors including Anhui Development Investment Company, Anhui Railway Development Fund, Anhui Smart Voice and Artificial Intelligence Venture Capital, as well as an investment fund for state-owned companies under government-controlled investment vehicle China Reform Holdings.


Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Hefei, the capital of the eastern Chinese province of Anhui, iFlytek has established itself as the country’s foremost developer of advanced speech recognition, speech evaluation and natural language processing technologies.





In 2017 the company was handpicked by the Chinese government to spearhead the country’s development in voice intelligence and take the lead in building an “open innovation platform”.


The firm’s AI speech open platform is expected to be the biggest beneficiary of the new funds as iFlytek intends to invest 2.05 billion yuan in that project, with 1.18 billion yuan the amount coming from proceeds of the private placement.


iFlytek’s focus on AI technology and its state support has put the company at the forefront of the tech war being waged between the US and China, with Washington deliberating whether to add iFlytek to a blacklist that would bar it from purchasing US components or software without US government approval, Bloomberg reported in May citing a person familiar with the matter.


“Huawei and iFlytek are very similar in DNA. Both are the kind of companies persistent enough to take 10 years to sharpen one sword,” Hu Yu, who takes the title of rotating president of iFlytek, said at an public event in May.


Huawei Technologies, China’s telecoms national champion, was put on the blacklist in May although US President Donald Trump softened that stance after talks with Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in June.


China Asset Management and Harvest Fund Management, the country’s two top mutual funds, also backed the iFlytek offering, according to the filing. The new investors have a one year lock up period and cannot sell their shares until July 18 next year.

SEE ALSO 

The reports below from Hong Kong' s AA Stock Financial News quote Top Education Institute's Minshen Zhu informing investors in Hong Kong that he expects to increase fees at Top by 5-10% per annum.

Top also expects  local Australian students to constitute 30% of its student population and this will provide Top with a steady Commonwealth funded cashflow for Top has been granted access to Commonwealth funding, in the form of Commonwealth student fee assistance.

The Commonwealth Department Of Education has made clear to this writer, in response to queries, that it will not object to private colleges charging any amount in fees; the Department considers only the decision by students to bear  the debt to the Commonwealth to be  of relevance.

However, despite the guaranteed Government funded cashflow Top's annual operating cash flows are barely positive,and profit margins have been declining.

(See Bloomberg data https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/1752:HK?in_source=DirectQuote)

Approvals from the Chairman TEQSA,Nick Saunders  and the LPAB NSW,which is overseen by the AG NSW  and chaired by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court NSW  are critical to Top's business success. Both have refused to answer queries regarding TOP.

The AG's evasion is particularly troubling for he and his LPAB can and have  used  Rule 19  of the Legal Profession Uniform Admission Rules 2015    under the Legal Profession Uniform Law to discredit any complaint from law students enrolled at law schools in NSW, and it particular private law colleges. The story below from The Australian 17 January 2019 provides an example.Documents provided readers will show that the background to what was reported in The Australian was a series of complaints and stories about another private college, the College Of Law Sydney,

 As with the College of Law, the AG and his LPAB appear not to have taken any action against Top with regards the issues raised in this story in 2016. 

'Internships' at PwC advertised by Top Education Institute for thousands of dollars

End 

See also 

TOP Education Institute's Bachelor of Laws : Political donations,HK Stock Exchange IPO seem to have left regulators confounded, speechless

Australian courts could decide that reporting a case similar to Shi Pei Pu & Bernard Boursicot is defamatory :Well known facts might be considered a case of interfering with a foreigner, but not spying

by Ganesh Sahathevan

In the mid-1960s, Shi was a mildly successful actor and Beijing opera singer when he met French diplomat Bernard Boursicot.






Those of us old enough will remember the story of the French diplomat who had a long term sexual affair with a man who he thought was a woman, who turned out to be a Chinese spy if not a plant by the Communist Party. 
Shi was voted Time magazine's Person Of The Year 2009.Time's memorandum about Shi states:

Shi was a Chinese opera performer who met Bernard Boursicot, a French embassy accountant, in Beijing in 1964. They always made love in the dark, which Boursicot attributed to Chinese modesty. Shi even produced a child, whom he claimed was their offspring. To improve Shi's position with the Chinese Communist Party, Boursicot began passing embassy documents to Chinese officials. In 1983, the two were arrested in Paris and later convicted of espionage. 

Should a similar case arise ,Australian journalists would have to very careful about how they report any of this, for unless there has a conviction, it may not be clear to an Australian judge that this was a case of spying. As this writer has noted:

In a recent hearing before the Federal Court in a defamation matter brought by Chau Chak Wing against the ABC the judge hearing the matter, Steven Rares J, commented:

"If you (the ABC)  had said foreign interference you'd not have a problem ... you've said he's a spy," 

Note from the Time memo that Boursicot began passing embassy documents to Chinese officials to improve Shi's position with the Chinese Communist Party.

There is nothing there to suggest that She was spying though he may been said to be interfering with a foreigner who got so enamoured that he volunteered information. In fact, given present day attitudes towards men like Shi, a judge could well determine that Shi was simply a persecuted member of the LGBTIQ+ minority who should not be described as a spy.

END 

Lee Kuan Yew's grandsons fight for the leadership: Li Shengwu's decision to abandon his defence of the charges against him may signal war in about 10 years between Li Shengwu and Li Hongyi

by Ganesh Sahathevan


Li Shengwu unfriends cousin Li Hongyi, pulls out of legal proceedings with AGC


Lee Kuan Yew's grandson Li Shengwu, the son of Lee Hsien Yang has posted a message on Facebook, reposted by his father and his aunt, Lee Wai Leng, in which he has declared:

"... I have decided that I will not continue to participate in the proceedings against me. I will not dignify the AGC’s conduct by my participation>"

This of course means that Shnegwu will be found guilty of the charges against him, which involve according to the Singapore AGC, “scandalising the judiciary” .
Once found guilty any return to Singapore will be impossible for he is more than likely to be jailed once within Singapore jurisdiction. That then will rule him out as a future prime minister of Singapore and the successor to his grandfather's legacy,leaving his cousin Li Hongyi, son of PM Lee Hsien Loong, the only likely successor. 

However, the past is a different country and a decade from now Li Shengwu could well be regarded as the hero in  exile who was wronged and who must return to lead his country. This may well occur after his cousin Hongyi becomes PM, or when he attempts to assume leadership.

While Shengwu has in the past denied any interest in being Prime Minister of Singapore, Singapore's majority Chinese  are as clannish as Malays in Malaysia remain feudalistic. The contest between the cousins seems almost pre-ordained, regardless of what they may say, think or feel.

Shengwu Li

16 hrs · 

I have an announcement to make regarding the Singapore state’s prosecution against me. As you may remember, in 2017, during the events widely known as ‘Oxleygate’, my uncle Lee Hsien Loong was accused by his siblings of abusing state power to bully them and to subvert his own father’s dying wish. Shortly after, the Singapore Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) started prosecuting me for allegedly “scandalising the judiciary” in a private Facebook post. This prosecution has continued for years, and during that time the AGC has submitted thousands of pages of legal documents over one paragraph on social media.

Recently, the AGC applied to strike out parts of my own defense affidavit, with the result that they will not be considered at the trial. Moreover, they demanded that these parts be sealed in the court record, so that the public cannot know what the removed parts contain. This is not an isolated incident, but part of a broader pattern of unusual conduct by the AGC. For instance, when arguing jurisdiction in the court of appeals, the AGC argued that a new piece of legislation should be retroactively applied against me. The court saw it as unfair for the new legislation to apply retrospectively.

In light of these events, I have decided that I will not continue to participate in the proceedings against me. I will not dignify the AGC’s conduct by my participation.

I will continue to be active on Facebook, and will continue to regard my friends-only Facebook posts as private. However, I have removed my cousin Li Hongyi from my Facebook friends list.