Latest news with #ChinesePeople'sPoliticalConsultativeConference
Time of India
12 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Buyer with ties to Chinese Communist Party got VIP treatment at Trump crypto dinner
The Trump White House has repeatedly sounded an alarm about visitors with ties to China's Communist Party coming to the United States, arguing that they are a potential security threat. But the administration appears to have literally left the door open to a member of a Chinese government group when it went along with a plan to give the biggest purchasers of President Donald Trump's digital currency access to the president and the White House. Trump launched a so-called meme coin, a type of cryptocurrency, just days before his inauguration. To bolster sales, the president's business partners created a contest in April, offering the coin's top buyers a tour of the White House and a private dinner with Trump at his Virginia golf club. Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions settings , opens captions settings dialog captions off , selected Audio Track default , selected Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like If You Eat Ginger Everyday for 1 Month This is What Happens Tips and Tricks One of those buyers was He Tianying, who is a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, according to government documents in China examined by The New York Times. That government group, referred to as the CPPCC, is an advisory body that seeks to broaden the Communist Party's influence and solicit support from influential people in Chinese society. Live Events He, who was registered at the Trump event as a resident of Hong Kong, advises the Chinese government through his role as a delegate of the Fangshan CPPCC, a district of Beijing. He is listed as a member of the organization's science and technology committee. The Times could find no indication that He is a member of the Communist Party, and the government body he serves on is fairly low-level. Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories There were no restrictions on who could buy the Trump meme coin -- which was marketed like a collectible baseball card -- including foreign nationals. But the winning buyers were given the opportunity for close proximity to the president. It is not clear why He wanted to attend. Still, at a time when the administration is seeking to scrutinize and revoke the visas of Chinese students with ties to the Communist Party, the incident illustrates inconsistencies in the Trump administration's approach to how it handles Chinese nationals, as well as potential weaknesses in the background checks the Trump administration did on the guests who bought his meme coin. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in an interview that the dinner was a private event and that government officials were not closely involved. "As the White House has always maintained, this was not an official White House event," she said. Once a crypto skeptic, Trump has done an about-face and declared himself a digital coin enthusiast, raising ethical concerns and blurring the line between his personal business ventures and the presidency. His family's company has issued its own cryptocurrency, and he has also heavily promoted the meme coin, known as $TRUMP. The meme coin dinner engendered strong criticism from Democrats, government watchdogs and even some Republicans about the appearance of monetising the presidency for personal gain. The event was arranged by the president's business partners to directly enrich the first family, even as Trump spoke that evening behind a stand emblazoned with the presidential seal. Bidders competed to accumulate the largest holding of the coin over several weeks. The top 220 won a dinner with Trump, and the top 25 also got a "VIP" tour of the White House. The buyers used self-adopted nicknames that disguised their identities, but the Times obtained copies of several pages of an official sign-in sheet for the dinner and over the past two weeks has been examining the biographies of many of the attendees. He, using the nickname Sky, owned $3.7 million worth of the meme coin, public transaction records show, at the time the contest ended. He was ranked as the seventh-largest buyer of the cryptocurrency, which entitled him to a gold-colored VIP wristband for the event. The day after the dinner at Trump's golf club, He was observed by a reporter from the Times entering the White House for the tour that had been set up by Trump's business partner Bill Zanker, who created the Trump meme coin. Zanker and the Trump family share in the revenues from the meme coin business, which has already totaled at least $320 million, according to an estimate by Chainalysis, a crypto forensics group. After the tour, He, using a social media account under his Sky pseudonym, posted a series of photos from the dinner and White House tour, which he electronically modified to cover his face. The Times was able to establish his identity through publicly available information, including photos and biographical information on his company website. He made several waves of purchases during the three weeks of the meme coin contest, according to the transaction records. "May I have the pleasure?" he wrote in one social media post, showing off his standing as one of the top owners of the meme coin, several days before the contest ended. He declined to comment as he entered the White House, and he did not respond to follow-up emails, calls and text messages from the Times. The dinner invitation sent to He stands in contrast to the statement Trump issued Wednesday, arguing that his administration needed to urgently move to block visas for certain Chinese nationals, including those attending Harvard University, as "the Chinese Communist Party has sent thousands of midcareer and senior bureaucrats" to the United States. He said this order was for "crucial national security reasons." A senior White House official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitive nature of the matter, said this week that the presence of He at the dinner and White House tour was unfortunate and that overall, the meme coin dinner had created unnecessary questions. But the White House official added that it had occurred because Trump "carelessly committed" to his longtime friend and business partner Zanker that he would be a part of it. The official added that Trump was not notified who would be attending and was unaware of He's background. Supporting the party The mission of the Fangshan District division of the CPPCC, which lists He as a member, is to "uphold the overall leadership of the Communist Party of China and strengthen the common ideological and political foundation," the group says in describing one of its meetings this year. CPPCC committees are advisory bodies to China's rubber-stamp legislatures at the national, provincial and, like Fangshan, district or county levels. Members can make policy recommendations to the legislative bodies, called People's Congresses. These committees are part of the Communist Party's United Front system, which is devised to co-opt broad segments of the population, including entrepreneurs like He, into supporting and carrying out the party's policies. The CPPCC bodies also act as networking clubs. "When you are a CPPCC member, you are expected to be a part of the United Front system and carry the water where the party asks you to," said Peter Mattis, the president of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation who studies the United Front. The Times turned up documentation on Chinese government websites showing He's participation in the CPPCC group, as well as an attendance list for the committee's gathering in Beijing in January that included He's name. Chinese government records show that He is the majority owner of a Beijing-based investment firm, TechSharpe (Beijing) Capital Management Co., which says on its website that it uses artificial intelligence to "conduct quantitative investment in stocks." Recently, He has also promoted a crypto firm called LuckyFuture and has interacted on social media with Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the giant crypto exchange Binance. In a social media post, responding to an inquiry from the Times, Zhao said he learned about LuckyFuture after He reached out to him in the last few weeks. (A Binance spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.) He came to the United States from China about a decade ago to get a master's degree in finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before returning to China and becoming active in the CPPCC, which is noted in his TechSharpe biography. This made He just the kind of student Trump is now targeting. But there was no hint of those kinds of fears in gracious invitations sent via email in mid-May to the dinner guests. "Congratulations!" said the notice sent to He, with a photo illustration of a muscular, smiling Trump at a dinner table, with an American flag on his lapel. "We can't wait to see you at the Gala Dinner." (He posted a copy of these emails on his social media account.) A table of foreign visitors According to a video taken at the dinner, the VIPs at just one table illustrated how many of the guests had traveled from overseas, including from China. He's dining companions included Justin Sun, a Chinese-born billionaire who was the contest's single largest buyer and one of the largest investors in the Trump family's other crypto venture, World Liberty Financial. Sun also has experience as a CPPCC member. In 2016, he was named as a delegate for a committee in a district in Guangzhou, a city in southern China. Only 26 at the time, he was among the youngest people in the country to sit on a CPPCC body. "I feel that the responsibility is very heavy, and I must strive to adapt to the new role as soon as possible," Sun was quoted in state media as saying at the time. (His representatives did not respond to a request for comment.) Also seated at the table were Cheng Lu, a Singapore-based crypto investor, who told the Times in an interview outside the White House that he bought a large amount of the family's meme coin because he wanted a chance to privately meet with Trump. Sheldon Xia, the founder of BitMart, a cryptocurrency trading platform backed by China-based Fenbushi Capital, joined them at the table, along with Sangrok Oh, the CEO of Hyperithm, a Seoul- and Tokyo-based firm that manages digital assets for institutional investors. Guests invited to the dinner were "required to fill out a brief form as part of the security background check to gain entry to the event," according to an email sent to the winners. The questionnaire was created with a service called CryptoComply offered by the New York-based firm Canaria Consulting. It requested information such as name, date of birth and place of residence. The 25 top Trump meme coin holders had their names submitted to a background check system called White House Worker and Visitor Entry System, a government official told the Times. This system compares the names of the pending visitors with government databases that include terrorist watch lists and lists of known criminals. "The U.S. Secret Service is responsible for vetting all White House visitors and guests, and we fully trust their process in doing so," Leavitt said. Some guests at the dinner said they were surprised at how lax the security appeared at the event. People not on the guest list were in certain cases allowed to enter the golf club grounds that evening and remain there after Trump arrived, the Times also confirmed. "I expected more from the security questions," said Nicholas Pinto, a Florida resident and crypto trader who attended the dinner. "It was very basic. And next thing you know, I am standing there in the room with President Trump."
South China Morning Post
05-05-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong doesn't need lawmakers who have to be reminded to do their job
Every now and then, Hong Kong's Legislative Council reminds us of grade school. Just like in a school year, lawmakers have historically enjoyed a summer recess – of two to three months at the end of July – before beginning the next legislative year in October. Advertisement After the 2021 overhaul of the electoral system, however, Legco elections were moved from September to December, which meant the legislative year started in January instead. To ensure that school could still be out for the summer, lawmakers voted in 2023 to abolish a rule of procedure requiring that two consecutive meetings are not held more than six weeks apart in the same legislative year. Summer was saved – by lawmakers undoing the rules. There has been noise over the prolonged summer 'break' our honourable legislators enjoy. Most notably in 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Leung Chun-ying , vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the city's former chief executive, challenged the need for a Legco recess when so much needed to be done. In 2022, former lawmaker Wong Kwok-hing urged the chief executive to cancel the recess altogether. In 2023, commentator Chris Wat Wing-yin called the arrangement ridiculous and wondered why not a single member of the expanded 90-person Legco had proposed its cancellation. Advertisement Every time the subject is brought up, lawmakers react with indignance. It's not a break from work but an adjournment of meetings, they say; they don't stop working because there are other meetings and events to attend and people to meet; and, some of these people they need to meet require overseas travel as lawmakers work to tell good stories of Hong Kong, they also say.
South China Morning Post
01-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Relying on AI carries risks, cybersecurity expert warns amid China's DeepSeek craze
Excessive reliance on artificial intelligence for decision-making could pose a security risk, exposing users to hackers and other bad actors, a cybersecurity expert has warned amid a nationwide frenzy over China's home-grown chatbot DeepSeek. Advertisement Qi Xiangdong, chairman of Beijing-based cybersecurity firm Qi An Xin (QAX), told the Digital China Summit in the southeastern city of Fuzhou on Tuesday that large AI models brought security challenges and risks, according to domestic media reports. 'As AI becomes more deeply integrated across industries, large models will grow increasingly powerful, and users may become overly dependent on AI-assisted decision-making and judgment,' said Qi, who is also a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body 'From an external threat perspective, hackers can exploit vulnerabilities or engage in data 'poisoning' to manipulate the model's decisions, committing malicious acts under the guise of a large model,' he said. 'From an internal operations perspective, if the staff involved introduce erroneous information while updating the knowledge base, it can contaminate the model's learning environment, leading to incorrect outputs.' Advertisement Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek in January launched a chatbot on par with US rivals such as ChatGPT, stunning the tech world and triggering a nationwide AI frenzy among the general public and government agencies. Authorities have firmly backed the push for widespread AI use. Beijing has hailed DeepSeek as a success for the country's innovation drive in the face of Western sanctions that have limited China's access to hi-tech chips.
Straits Times
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
China lunar chief accuses US of interfering in joint space programmes with other nations
FILE PHOTO: Wu Weiren, CPPCC member and chief designer of China's lunar probe program speaks to the media before the opening session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China March 3, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer/Fille Photo China lunar chief accuses US of interfering in joint space programmes with other nations BEIJING - The chief designer of China's lunar exploration programme accused the United States on Wednesday of interfering in Beijing's attempts to cooperate with Europe and other foreign partners in space programmes. Wu Weiren, in a rare interview with foreign media, told Reuters that China pursued a policy of open space diplomacy, in contrast with the U.S., and that it remained open to cooperating on lunar exploration with developing and developed countries. Wu said the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), an initiative led by Russia and China to establish a permanent base on the moon by 2035, was developing well, with 17 countries and international organisations already signed up as members. But he suggested China had not been able to attract as many lunar project partners as the U.S. because of U.S. interference, though he didn't provide details. "The ILRS' development trend is very good but compared to the U.S.' Artemis Accords, ours is much smaller in terms of countries because the U.S. is always interfering in our cooperation with other countries, including with Europe," Wu said, without elaborating on the interference. The Artemis Accords are a U.S.-led multilateral agreement meant to establish norms of behaviour in space and on the moon and Mars, which has over 50 signatories so far. "China and Russia cooperate the best with each other now," Wu said, adding that China looked forward to further cooperation with Russia on moon-based nuclear energy. Recent Chinese unmanned missions to the moon, to lay the groundwork to eventually build a manned lunar base, have carried foreign payloads from countries like Pakistan, Thailand, Italy and France, raising the profile of Beijing's space diplomacy. "ILRS is the sole mission in the world that provides equal opportunities for any country to be accepted and to participate actively by proposing payloads and satellites," said Hernan Merino Choque, a deputy director at the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization, an ILRS member and a multilateral grouping whose biggest funder is Beijing. China in February said it would train a Pakistani astronaut to join a future space flight next year to the country's Tiangong space station. This will be the first time a foreign astronaut enters the station. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the European Space Agency (ESA) ruled out joining the ILRS due to Russia's involvement. Meanwhile, U.S-China space diplomacy has been limited by the Wolf Amendment, a U.S. law passed in 2011 that banned NASA from collaboration with "China or any Chinese-owned company unless such activities are specifically authorised." While ESA sent a payload aboard China's latest lunar probe, the Chang'e-6 mission, it has since said there were no plans for it to join the Chang'e-7 and 8 missions, slated for next year and 2028, respectively. In 2023, the European agency said it would no longer consider sending European astronauts to the Tiangong space station. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Zawya
17-04-2025
- Business
- Zawya
South Africa: Deputy President Mashatile receives courtesy visit from Mr Gao Yunlong
Deputy President Shipokosa Paulus Mashatile has today, Thursday, 17 April 2025, received a courtesy visit from His Excellency Mr Gao Yunlong, Vice-Chairman of the 14th National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the Chairman of the All-China Federation on Industry and Commerce (ACFIC), at the O.R Tambo Official Residence in Pretoria, Gauteng Province. Established in 1953, the ACFIC is a mass organisation and chamber of commerce led by the Communist Party of China with non-public economic activities as the principal composition and with unified, economic and non-governmental characteristics. It is also a bridge linking the Party and the government with people in non-public economic activities, an assistant to the government in managing and serving the non-public economy and an important part of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. The courtesy visit to the Deputy President forms part of the high-level engagements between South Africa and China, which are key to strengthening bilateral relations and advancing political, trade and investment cooperation. The Deputy President welcomed the recent elevation of diplomatic relations between the Republic of South Africa and the People's Republic of China to an All-Round Strategic Cooperative Partnership in a New Era, and expressed South Africa's commitment to continuing exchanges of high-level engagements with China. "Our economic partnership must reflect this elevation. We continue to call on China to work with South Africa in changing the trade structure and diversifying market access for value-added products to close the concerning trade deficit," said the Deputy President. Discussions also focused on enhancing cooperation in health, the automotive and energy sectors, which will contribute to local job creation, technology, and skills transfer. transformation, and skills development. "It is essential to underscore the significant role that China's support plays in advancing health cooperation, an area where both sides have made meaningful progress in fostering collaboration. This partnership continues to be a vital aspect of our growing bilateral relations." With South Africa preparing to host the G20 Summit in November 2025, the Deputy President emphasised the importance of China's role as a global development partner. "President Xi Jinping's visit to South Africa for the G20 Summit in November of this year will be a momentous occasion for South Africa's Presidency of the G20, under the theme "Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability," said Deputy President Mashatile. The Deputy President was supported by the Acting Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ms Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, and the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Mr Parks Tau. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa.
