China’s ongoing threat to our American freedom…
China’s government is both authoritarian and repressive. The ruling CCP (Chinese Communist Party) exercises strict control over the media, universities, businesses, online speech, and religion. No Chinese national leaders are elected freely. The Chinese legislature ‘rubber-stamps’ what the CCP general secretary Xi Jinping wants. Xi has basically formed a cult of personality in China today. Xi seeks communist ideological conformity as well as complete communist party authority.
I am not taking a public stand against the Chinese people, but against their repressive Communist government. It is in direct opposition to the freedom that we have in the United States. What harm is there in using a Chinese app such as Temu? Did you know that what you purchase on Temu comes from a network of 80,000 third-party suppliers. No retailers or storefronts are used in this process. This is the main reason they can offer customers such low prices. Be aware that forced labor is being used in the production of these products. Many scams and poor-quality items have also been associated with Temu.
The Temu app is very challenging to remove from your phone. Your personal data is what all internet platforms and apps use; however, Temu has ties to the CCP, in particular the part of the party which is involved with control, propaganda, and data oversight. Temu could also be used for covert surveillance, as well as denial-of-service attacks. Because of Temu’s success, a new air shipment corridor between Zhengzhou China and Atlanta and Dallas has been created for the large amount of goods being shipped into the U.S.
Temu does business with a company called People’s Data which has been found to be directly involved with the Communist party’s control of both media and data. PDD Holdings is Temu’s parent company and relates to the Communist Central Committee-controlled People’s Data Management department.
In 2022, the HaiEnergy campaign was discovered which included a network of 72 fake news sites as well as social media ‘assets,’ which were used to promote information that was in alliance with the Chinese Communist Party. It is important that the public be aware of these kinds of sites which push Communist propaganda. These activities are supposed to become more prevalent during 2025.
Through the ‘Great Firewall of China,’ the Chinese Communist Party controls information both domestically and internationally. Because of this, the Chinese people’s understanding of other nations is inaccurate. Chinese cyber strategy uses military-civil fusion which is evident through Huawei, Alibaba, and Tencent and the way these companies are used to capture technological control over our world’s communication and digital networks. China also uses government hackers to operate broad cyber espionage and sabotage operations. One of these groups of hackers, ‘Volt Tycoon’ sought access to US critical infrastructure. Volt Tycoon hackers took over hundreds of internet routers in the U.S. to use them as launching pads to attack our electric grid, water treatment plants, and transportation systems. This group uses existing resources in the operating systems of targeted devices to gain pre-positioning within the target to conduct disruption to the system in the future.
China does not have a market economy, but uses a program of government ‘incentives and constraints.’ Within these government-imposed limits, subdued market forces work to benefit China’s government interests. Their economy is business driven but led by the government. China uses its economy as an offensive weapon of its power.
Why should we care? We need to realize that the Chinese government is not a government that values the freedoms that our nation was founded upon.
RESOURCES:
https://www.csis.org/analysis/looking-beyond-tiktok-risks-temu
https://www.gstatic.com/gumdrop/files/cybersecurity-forecast-2025.pdf
https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2025-january-10
