《華爾街日報》稱美國研究引發憂慮後, 中國限制數據源

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

China Limits Data After US Research Spurred Alarm, WSJ Says

Sarah Zheng

Mon, May 8, 2023 at 3:25 a.m. GMT+1

(Bloomberg) -- Beijing curtailed access by overseas firms to Chinese data sources at least in part because of a series of reports written by US research institutions that alarmed officials, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Senior officials grew concerned about research by American think-tanks based on public local data sources that focused on sensitive issues such as collaboration between the military and private organizations, the Journal reported. Those reports emanated from sources such as the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University and the Center for a New American Security, which was co-founded by Kurt Campbell, now the White House’s Indo-Pacific coordinator, the newspaper said.

Beijing is moving to tighten its grip on sensitive data as tensions with Washington mount. Despite the administration’s push to encourage investment into China this year, investors continue to grapple with a lack of transparency and information across swaths of the world’s No. 2 economy.

Think-tanks, research houses and consultancies seeking information on the world’s No. 2 economy have long relied on domestic sources to dive deeper into specific issues and industries. But Chinese services such as Wind Information Co. in recent months stopped providing detailed data on the nation’s companies to overseas clients.

That coincided with a clampdown on foreign firms that regularly gather information on businesses in the country. Consultancies are under the microscope in particular, with Beijing in recent weeks targeting the local offices of Bain & Co., Mintz Group and Capvision, according to media reports. And the government just last month passed a counter-espionage law that expanded the list of activities that could be considered spying.

“By taking crucial data off the table, public discourse on China will drift further from the truth. It’s a reckless move by China to limit access to the data,” said Dakota Cary, a China-focused consultant at Krebs Stamos Group who previously worked for CSET at Georgetown. “The US-China relationship will be made worse by this decision.”

The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s powerful internet overseer, notified data providers in March to restrict overseas access to sensitive information such as patents and statistics, the Journal reported, citing people who have consulted with Chinese authorities. Organizations received notices in March warning about upcoming restrictions on services including the popular academic database China National Knowledge Infrastructure, the University of California, Berkeley said in an online notice.

“Many content types that were previously viewed as mundane have now been flagged by the Chinese authorities to be subject to government review,” the university’s library said in its notice. “The duration of such suspensions is not yet known, but we have been told that access will resume upon CAC determining that Chinese publishers have addressed their requirements for the review of the affected content types.”

One report in particular that caught Beijing’s eye was a policy brief published by CSET in June, titled “Silicon Twist,” according to the Journal. That report focused on the military’s access to American-designed chips intended to train artificial intelligence models. The authors said they analyzed thousands of purchasing records to formulate their conclusions, and described steps the US government could take to cut off that access.

Another, from the same center, zeroed in on how Beijing employed programs to track and recruit talent from around the globe to boost its strategic goals, the Journal reported. The think-tank had relied on sources including China National Knowledge Infrastructure, said Lynne Weil, a spokeswoman for the institution. But she said it had no insight into what may have triggered information curbs.

Representatives for the Center for a New American Security weren’t immediately available for comment outside regular business hours.

Chinese data has gradually become less available, Hao Hong, chief economist at Grow Investment Group, told Bloomberg Television on Monday.

“People learn to get around the issue by using different data sources, but at the end of the day it’s becoming harder to analyze what’s going on in China,” he said.

 --With assistance from Rebecca Choong Wilkins. 

Translation

（彭博社）- 《華爾街日報》援引知情人士的話報導稱，北京限制海外公司接觸中國數據源，至少部分原因是美國研究機構撰寫的一系列報告引起了官員的警覺。

據《華爾街日報》報導，高級官員越來越擔心美國智庫基於本地公共數據源所進行的研究，這些研究側重於敏感問題，例如軍方與私人組織之間的合作。 該報稱，這些報告的消息來源來自喬治敦大學安全與新興技術中心, 和新美國安全中心等。該中心由現任白宮印太協調員 Kurt Campbell 等共同創立。

隨著與華盛頓的緊張關係加劇，北京正在加強對敏感數據的控制。 儘管美國政府今年大力鼓勵對中國的投資，但投資者仍在努力應對世界第二大經濟體各個領域缺乏透明度和信息的問題。

尋求有關世界第二大經濟體信息的智庫、研究機構和諮詢公司長期以來一直依賴國內資源來深入研究具體問題和行業。 但最近幾個月，Wind Information Co. 等中國服務停止向海外客戶提供有關中國公司的詳細數據。

這恰逢對定期收集該國企業信息的外國公司的打壓。 據媒體報導，諮詢公司尤其受到留意，最近幾周北京將目標鎖定 Bain & Co、Mintz Group和 Capvision 在當地的辦事處。 政府就在上個月通過了一項反間諜法，擴大了可被視為間諜活動的範圍。

曾在喬治城的 CSET 工作的 Krebs Stamos Group 的中國顧問 Dakota Cary 說: “透過將關鍵數據從桌面上拿走，關於中國的公開討論將進一步偏離事實。 這是中國限制數據訪問的魯莽舉動” 。 “這一決定將使美中關係變得更糟。”

據《華爾街日報》援引諮詢過中國當局的人士報導，中國強大的互聯網監管機構中國國家互聯網信息辦公室在 3 月份通知數據提供商限制海外訪問專利和統計數據等敏感信息。 加州大學伯克來分校在一份線上通知中表示，各機構在 3 月份收到通知，警告即將對包括廣受歡迎的學術數據庫中國知識基礎設施在內的服務進行限制。

該大學圖書館在其通知中說: “許多以前被視為內容平凡的類型, 現在已被中國當局標記為要接受政府審查” 。 “此類暫停會持續多久尚不清楚，但我們被告知，在 CAC 確定中國出版商已滿足他們對受影響內容類型的審查要求後, 接觸數據將會恢復。”

據《華爾街日報》報導，一份特別引起北京注意的報告是 CSET 在 6 月份發布的一份政策簡報，標題為“矽扭轉”。 該報告聚焦於軍方獲取美國設計的用於訓練人工智能模型的芯片。 作者說，他們分析了數以千計的購買記錄以得出結論，並講述美國政府可以採取切斷該獲取美國設計的步驟。

據《華爾街日報》報導，來自同一中心的另一位研究人員關注北京如何利用項目跟踪和招募全球人才，以推進其戰略目標。 該智庫的發言人 Lynne Weil 表示，該智庫依賴包括中國知識基礎設施在內的消息來源。 但她表示，它對可能觸發信息限制的原因一無所知。

因在辦公時間以外，無法立即聯繫到 Center for a New American Security 的代表發表評論。

Grow Investment Group 首席經濟學家 Hao Hong 週一對彭博電視表示，中國的數據越來越少。

他說: “人們學會了通過使用不同的數據源來解決這個問題，但歸根結底，分析中國正在發生的事情變得越來越困難” 。

              So, Beijing has restricted access by overseas firms to Chinese data sources at least in part because of a series of reports written by US research institutions that alarmed Chinese officials. It was said that many content types that were previously viewed as unimportant have now been flagged by the Chinese authorities to be subject to government review. China is closing its door on information access and I am wondering whether an information war is on the horizon.

Note:

Cyberspace Administration of China (国家互联网信息办公室) (CAC) is involved in the formulation and implementation of policy on a variety of issues related to the internet in China. It is under direct jurisdiction of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, a party institution under the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. (Wikipedia)