I was also told it is a country where forced confessions form the backbone of much police work (admittedly by a pot-hollering kettle of a hypocrite mouthpiece media from a nation that "tortured some folks," but....):
"Chinese police force bent rules on spying" by Simon Denyer and Xu Yangjingjing, Washington Post January 08, 2015
BEIJING — Don’t click on links sent by strangers, the police in one Chinese district warned last year, because malware known as Trojan horses use all sort of tricks to burrow into people’s phones and computers.
‘‘Curiosity hurts,’’ the Public Security Bureau in Wenzhou in southeastern China posted on its social media account.
Yet a few months after that warning, a lower-level police department in Wenzhou was reported to have spent $24,000 buying a device and software designed to plant Trojans into phones to monitor its citizens.
The embarrasing revelation was spotted on the website of the Wenzhou Economic and Development Zone, on a list of purchased items last month.
It showed about $16,000 spent on a coding machine used ‘‘to plant Trojan programs on jail-broken Android or iPhones,’’ and nearly $8,000 spent on malware targeting the same phones, ‘‘to monitor in real time information such as cellphone calls, text messages, and photos.’’
China’s government insists it staunchly opposes hacking and cyberattacks, and has denied US government accusations that it spies on foreign companies. State media have also accused the United States of hypocrisy after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed details of the NSA’s own cyber-surveillance program.
Reacting to the Wenzhou report, Chinese Web users cited Article 286 of the country’s criminal law that threatens up to five years in prison for those who ‘‘deliberately make and spread disruptive programs such as computer viruses.’’
But the revelation did not surprise citizens, who live in a culture where surveillance is central to the Communist Party’s effort to ‘‘maintain security.’’
Wenzhou’s Public Security Bureau has since taken down the offending list of purchases from its website.
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Related: China arrests activist who assisted in daring 2012 escape
C'mon, cut the crap.
"Hong Kong vows to follow Chinese law for elections; Protest leaders set to be arrested; Officials warn against blockades" by Alan Wong, New York Times January 07, 2015
HONG KONG — The Hong Kong government vowed Tuesday to press ahead with an election proposal that ignited months of street protests last year, using a report originally offered as a concession to student demonstrators to warn that the authorities would not shift course from plans laid down by Beijing.
The report, which was presented by the local government as a summary of the protests that erupted in late September and the state of public opinion in the city, was released as the police notified organizers and prominent supporters of the protests to prepare for arrest. And the city’s leader warned against any attempt to repeat street blockades.
The city’s leader, or chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, said Tuesday that there would be a new round of public consultations on the election plans but that any suggestions had to follow the Basic Law, the framework that established Hong Kong’s status as a special region under Chinese sovereignty. China has said that the Basic Law rules out the protesters’ demand that members of the public have a more direct say in nominating future candidates for Leung’s job.
“Nothing can coerce the central and special administrative region government,” Leung said Tuesday, according to his website. “Because Hong Kong is, I repeat once more, a society of rule of law.”
Opponents of the government, however, promptly accused Leung and the Chinese government of ignoring the protesters’ legitimate demands.
Hong Kong 2020, a political group led by the city’s former number two official, Anson Chan, said in a statement that the report “fails totally to convey the deep sense of disappointment and betrayal felt by Hong Kong people” at the terms Beijing imposed on elections.
“The Basic Law promises us the right to elect our chief executive by universal suffrage,” the group said, “but we are now being fobbed off with a sham version of democracy that makes a mockery of this promise.”
During the months that protesters blocked major roads in three parts of Hong Kong, the only concession they won from the local authorities was an offer to submit the report that was released Tuesday, which officials said would inform Beijing of the protesters’ demands.
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The report did not deliver any surprises, but it set in motion steps that are likely to bring renewed contention in this regional financial and trade hub. The unyielding positions laid out by the Hong Kong authorities and the Chinese government appear likely to meet resistance, and possibly renewed protests, from activists demanding fully democratic elections.
Those positions are also likely to spur resistance from prodemocratic members of the city’s legislature, who for now have the numbers to stymie any changes to the voting system....
A spokesman for the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, the Chinese government’s arm for dealing with the two former colonies, said, “Voicing demands by wrecking rule of law and ruining normal social order is unacceptable.”
The proposal released in August would, for the first time, allow the Hong Kong public to vote directly for the chief executive in 2017. But Beijing would effectively have the power to vet the candidates.
Arrests of protest leaders are expected this month, and the authorities have begun asking some of them to report to the police next week....
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"Hong Kong stands firm on voting rules; Police threaten to arrest leaders of 2014 protests" by Simon Denyer, Washington Post January 08, 2015
BEIJING — Hong Kong’s government began a second round of ‘‘public consultations’’ on political reform on Wednesday as it signaled its refusal to yield ground to demands for greater democracy.
Police, meanwhile, threatened to arrest the leaders of last year’s protest movement, sparked by Beijing’s plan to vet election candidates in the former British colony.
The rallies and occupation-style protest camps marked the most serious challenge to authorities since Hong Kong came under Chinese control in 1997.
Hong Kong’s government said Beijing’s decision on the election process cannot be questioned. It allows universal suffrage but places controls over who can be on the ballot for chief executive in 2017.
That leaves little room to maneuver during this round of public consultations, barring some minor, technical details on the two-stage process for nominating candidates.
The start of the consultation process comes a day after the Hong Kong government submitted a report to Beijing laying out the major events during the two months of protests and with the government and opposition factions as far apart as ever.
Even writing such a report had been presented by the government as a concession during talks with the protesters. But the document failed to satisfy protest leaders, who denounced it as poison, a waste of paper, and ‘‘a collection of news clippings and trash talk.’’
The report described the prodemocracy movement as a series of unlawful rallies that blocked roads and ‘‘aroused widespread concern in the community.’’
It went on to conclude that it was ‘‘the common aspiration’’ of officials and the people of Hong Kong to implement universal suffrage in accordance with the rules set down by Beijing.
That conclusion did not impress student leader Lester Shum, who said it will only make people angrier. He described the report as a pile of news clippings that could have been put together by a secondary school student, while others said it lacked analysis or investigation.
Eighteen-year-old student leader Joshua Wong said writing the report was supposed to have been a concession — or a sweetener — from the government, ‘‘but it is actually poison, not even wrapped in a sweet coating.’’
Shum and Wong said police had phoned them this week and told them to report later this month, when they would face arrest for participating in what was deemed an unlawful assembly.
The South China Morning Post said more than 30 protest leaders will be charged, including at least four pro- democracy lawmakers, but will be granted bail, while an additional 100 could face arrest in a second phase.
Anson Chan, who was the territory’s chief bureaucrat after the handover from British rule, said there was no point in having a public consultation process when the government had shown ‘‘no desire to forge a consensus’’ and left ‘‘no room for maneuver’’ in what reforms could take place.
The government’s report, she said by phone, ‘‘had completely failed to bring out why people are so angry and so frustrated.’’
‘‘It is increasingly clear that Hong Kong is being governed by Beijing,’’ she added.
Launching the public consultation process in the territory’s Legislature, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam said that the government respected freedom of expression but that it would be futile and impractical to ask for constitutional reform beyond the decisions from the Communist Party.
‘‘If people ignore legal and political realities or even resort to disrupting public peace and undermining other people’s rights, the so-called ‘pursuit of the ideal’ or ‘fight to justice’ is just empty talk,’’ she said.
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Related: Hong Kong Cash
NDU: Chinese netizens squirm as party tightens grip on Internet
Hey, gotta catch those homegrown terrorists, right?
Cui bono?
