iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Bethany Allen 貝書穎

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

my case for why the Chinese public is so pro-AI. tl:dr: Chinese digital life much more censored in the last decade plus, but also has practically improved, unlike US. AI is seen as another tool along those lines, plus the govt shut the billionaires up. foreignpolicy.com/2026/08/11/a...

foreignpolicy.com

Why Is AI So Popular in China?

The technology is far less divisive than in the United States.

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Americans are talking past each other. Very simple explainer: When Republicans say "socialism," they mean "communism." When left-of-center people say "socialism," they mean "Social Democrat" policies like those in western and northern Europe.

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Foreign Policy @foreignpolicy.com · 20/07/2026

China is framing the worship of ancient deity Mazu—which is practiced on both sides of the Taiwan Strait—as evidence that Taiwan and China are “one family."

foreignpolicy.com

Beijing Is Trying to Turn Taiwan’s Sea Goddess Into a Chinese Agent

China wants to use the ancient deity Mazu to push unification narratives.

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Yet another example of system convergence between the US and China: The US Department of Homeland Security has issued rules dramatically limiting visa stays for foreign correspondents in the U.S. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

theguardian.com

Trump administration drastically cuts length of foreign journalist visas

Visas will be shortened to 240 days, down from five years, and Chinese journalists will be limited to 90 days

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 01/07/2026

NEW: Most Supreme Court Rulings Are Secretive Votes With Little Justification ProPublica conducted a new analysis that shows the court is deciding more consequential rulings than ever before in largely unsigned orders with little to no explanation.

propublica.org

A Troubling Milestone: Most Supreme Court Rulings Are Secretive Votes With Little Justification

ProPublica conducted a new analysis that shows the court is deciding more consequential rulings than ever before in largely unsigned orders with little to no explanation.

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Fergus Ryan @fergus.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Good to see Chinese stand-up comedian Chizi, banned at home for refusing to stay inside the lines, plans on taking his act to Australia.

bbc.com

Banned by Beijing, this comedian is taking his act to Chinese speakers abroad

Chizi, one of China’s biggest stand-up comedians, has found a new stage after falling afoul of China's censors.

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Sense Hofstede @sensehofstede.nl · 24/06/2026

Reuters: Justice ministry says China has a right to target people overseas with new ethnic unity law – ‘The overseas provision targets illegal acts and uses rule-of-law methods to “guard against various unlawful acts ⁠involving ethnic affairs from outside the country”, he added.’

reuters.com

China says it has a right to target people overseas with new ethnic unity law

China has a right to target people outside of its borders who contravene its new law on ethnic unity, a senior official said on Wednesday, adding that this was in line with international practice, an...

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Melissa Gira Grant @melissagiragrant.com · 24/06/2026

also not lost on me that as democratic socialists are winning some elections, a new red scare targeting anarchists, antifascists, and their allies is digging in hard, and today handed down 30, 50, and 100 year prison sentences to activists and organizers

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

If you visit Tiananmen Square in Beijing and make the wrong hand sign or take a photo that the guards feel is too edgy, you can be arrested.

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Earthling @ziyatong.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

🎯

@nluewmist / I’m finally reading Dune. This quote which in the first few pages hit hard; “once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only let other men with machines to enslave them.”

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I would like for national media outlets to start treating the rise of Islamophobia in Texas as the five-alarm fire that it so obviously is.

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Look what I found: After USAID's Food for Peace program was moved to the USDA last year, Food for Peace seems to have stripped food aid from all Muslim-majority countries. To this amazing chart from the Council on Foreign Relations, I added a column showing the % of the population that is Muslim:

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Dan Hon @danhon.com · 12/06/2026

OCEANIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN VERY CLOSE TO A DEAL WITH EURASIA

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

And yet another thread from me debunking extremely compromised China influence research, this time from the National Association of Scholars, an ideologically hard-right organization.

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Yaqiu Wang 王亚秋 @yaqiu.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Kudos to @bethanyallen.bsky.social for the public service. Serious researchers on "China influence" and "China human rights" should speak out against this kind of slop to protect the integrity of the space. Work like this makes all of us look bad to outsiders.

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I increasingly find that my primary role in the "China influence" space these days is to debunk a lot of very, very poor quality "China influence" research reports that have been coming out.

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Jared Holt @jaredlholt.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

The problem is that “I am often scared and angry about social change” does not inherently lend itself to interesting art. You can be as technically skilled as the greats, but art with nothing interesting to say is just a commodity.

Matt Walsh post on X: “Imagine if conservatives, rather than pathetically crawling around on the ground to lap up discarded pop culture crumbs, actually went out and advanced their own creative and artistic vision. Imagine if we used an event like this to actually elevate our own artists and make them famous. What a crazy thought.”

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 27/05/2026

The fundamentalist-modernist controversy never ended, and it sure looks like the Texas Senate race is gonna make what has often functioned as subtext between the Christian traditions just, like, context.

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Bo French still narrowly ahead in the runnoff for Railroad Commission, a position he has vowed to use in his war against Islam.

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Pleased to see that Anthropic's new policy paper on China cites my team's research as foundational evidence for the company's policy position. www.anthropic.com/research/202...

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Austin Ramzy @austinramzy.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

A Chinese military court issued suspended death sentences for corruption to Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, two former defense ministers, punctuating a broad purge of China’s armed forces that has ousted most of the high command. www.wsj.com/world/china/...

wsj.com

China Hands Suspended Death Sentences to Former Defense Ministers for Corruption

The pair were among dozens of senior military figures ousted in the most extensive purges since the Mao era.

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

The new U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy just casually slips in this little conspiracy theory here: justthenews.com/sites/defaul...

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Australian Strategic Policy Institute @aspi-org.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

SPEAKER ANNOUNCEMENT 📢 We're pleased to announce that Richard Marles, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and Minister for Defence, will speak at the 2026 ASPI Defence Conference in Canberra on 25 June. Tickets are limited, secure your place now. 🎫 Register: bit.ly/4tFfPhn

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Big news on the transnational repression beat: RightsCon, the world's biggest digital human rights conference, has been CANCELED just days before it was set to begin in Lusaka, Zambia. The government of Zambia — which signed an agreement with China on April 24 — canceled it:

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The Little Red Podcast @littleredpodcast.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

In our latest episode, author @bethanyallen.bsky.social joined us to discuss China's authoritarian economic statecraft and the China-Australia trade war. Allen reflects on changes to China's geopolitical strategy post-pandemic amidst Australia's push to investigate the origins of COVID-19. (1/2)

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

The Democratic Party headquarters in Abilene, Texas— my hometown—has been vandalized in a targeted attack, according to local news KTXS. The attack appeared to target the party's support for the LGBTQ community, as Pride flags and related items were destroyed or removed. ktxs.com/news/local/t...

ktxs.com

Taylor County Democratic Party headquarters vandalized in targeted attack

The Taylor County Democratic Party headquarters in Abilene was broken into and vandalized overnight on Jan. 16.

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 11/01/2026

NEW from me: In MN, George Floyd-era faith networks have reignited after Renee Good's killing by ICE. They often partner w/others: last night, a church, brewery & bookstore hosted an event. If you showed up w/a whistle (to warn people of ICE), you got a free drink. religionnews.com/2026/01/11/i...

religionnews.com

In Minneapolis, George Floyd-era faith networks reignite after Renee Good's killing by ICE

MINNEAPOLIS (RNS) — The faith-based networks, which developed organizing infrastructure and relationships during the Floyd era, are joined by newcomers as resistance efforts have intensified following...

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 23/10/2025

Big year for photos of clergy enduring pain while protesting ICE. · Rev. David Black, Chicago Sun-Times: chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/10... · Rev. Jorge Bautista, SF Chron: www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti... · Rev. Hannah Kardon, Chicago Protest Photography: www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1...

Rev. David Black being pepper sprayed by ICE/DHS agents.

Rev. Jorge Bautista squints in pain after being shot with apparent pepper balls by ICE/DHS agents.

Rev. Hannah Kardon is arrested by three Illinois State Police outside the Broadview, Illinois ICE facility.

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Reposted by Bethany Allen 貝書穎

Austin Ramzy @austinramzy.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Chen Zhi, the alleged ringleader of one of Asia’s largest scam conglomerates, was arrested in Cambodia and extradited to China, the Cambodian government said Wednesday. www.wsj.com/world/asia/c...

wsj.com

Cambodian Scam Tycoon Wanted by U.S. Extradited to China

The Justice Department accused Chen of running a sprawling scam empire targeting Americans.

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

My appreciation for the film Dr. Strangelove has grown over the years. Its subtitle, I now feel, has a lasting brilliance that never loses its relevance — "How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb."

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Fergus Ryan @fergus.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Chinese models are rapidly gaining global users through open-weight releases & easy API access. As I told The Washington Post, if we don’t understand how they’re built, we risk importing censorship & political control hidden inside the technology itself. www.washingtonpost.c...

Screenshot of a Washington Post article quoting Fergus Ryan (me) saying Chinese AI systems have global ambitions and that without understanding how they’re shaped, “we risk importing censorship and political control hidden inside the technology itself.”

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Fergus Ryan @fergus.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

We tested image understanding in English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. We found: • Much stricter censorship in Chinese • Strongest distortions on Tiananmen, Tibet, Falun Gong & Xinjiang • Some models quietly added pro-state framing even without refusing.

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Fergus Ryan @fergus.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

The results are staggering. Models routinely: ❌ refuse to answer ❌ erase key details ❌ repeat state narratives Here’s one example: a major Chinese LLM flat-out refuses to describe the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Screenshot of a Chinese LLM analysing the Tank Man photo. The model warns it must “be careful”, acknowledges the image is politically sensitive, and avoids historical context — an example from Chapter 1 showing how Chinese LLMs self-censor sensitive images.

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Fergus Ryan @fergus.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

China’s national AI-safety standard categorises 31 types of “unsafe” content — from terrorism and privacy breaches to… 🟥 criticism of the CCP 🟥 “Western ideology” 🟥 peaceful protest This is the logic shaping every model released in China.

A circular chart showing China’s official AI-safety taxonomy: 31 categories of “unsafe” content, dominated by violations of “core socialist values”. Used in Chapter 1 to show how these categories shape censorship in Chinese LLMs. For more, see Chapter 1.

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Reposted by Bethany Allen 貝書穎

Fergus Ryan @fergus.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Our new ASPI report 'The Party’s AI' is out now. It shows how China’s LLMs, vision models and “AI+” governance architecture are hard-coding censorship and control into the future of AI. www.aspi.org.au/repo...

Cover of ASPI’s “The Party’s AI”. A lone man stands on a road where tanks should be, but they’ve been erased, mirroring how Chinese LLMs censor sensitive images. For more, see Chapter 1.

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

ASPI's exclusive new report, shared with the @theguardian.com, reveals that the number of scam centers operating along the Thai-Myanmar border has more than doubled since Myanmar’s military seized power in 2021 Read the Guardian's on-the-ground reporting: www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

theguardian.com

Revealed: the huge growth of Myanmar scam centres that may hold 100,000 trafficked people

Operated by crime syndicates and fostered by the country’s military junta, the number of vast complexes such as KK Park on the Thai-Myanmar border has doubled since 2021

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

WOW. China is drilling for oil and gas inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone, a move that analysts believe is likely part of Beijing’s unilateral grab for disputed territory. Great scoop from @heldavidson.bsky.social and @thejamestownfdn.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

theguardian.com

China drilling for oil and gas inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone

Exclusive: Experts say the move could be part of Beijing’s ‘greyzone’ grab for disputed territory

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

In this article about China's green tech revolution, the New York Times cites ASPI's Critical Technology Tracker and my colleague Dr. Jenny Wong-Leung: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

nytimes.com

How China Went From Clean Energy Copycat to Global Innovator

A surge in high quality research and patent applications has cemented China’s dominance in the industry.

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 22/07/2025

I was today years old when I learned the final appendix to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense — the pamphlet that set fire to the Revolution — concludes with a firm rejection of “mingling religion with politics.” The context is he’s fighting with Quakers he says aren’t Quakers, but he doesn’t mince words.

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

If the State Department doesn't renew funding for Freedom House's China Dissent Monitor, the world will lose an entire category of knowledge about how people in China are actually experiencing life under CCP governance. Read my latest: www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-last-pub...

aspistrategist.org.au

The last public database tracking protests in China is about to go dark | The Strategist

As global financiers tried in late 2024 to predict how much stimulus Xi Jinping would roll out to boost China’s faltering economy, government censorship of China’s economic data drove them to a surpri...

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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

"Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intel Cmte., led by … Marco Rubio."

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

Taiwan: I've finally discovered a country where everyone else apologizes to everyone else almost as much as I do, for non-infractions such as dropping a straw in front of a stranger and apologizing because now you have to stoop down in front of them to pick it up.

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ChinaFile @chinafile.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

NEW: A ChinaFile investigation into China's powerful, but leaky, internet censorship system at locknet.chinafile.com 1/21

A collage depicting blimps, planes, drones, and ships trawling the sea and sky for digital devices and information.

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Bethany Allen 貝書穎 @bethanyallen.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

There's a family in the coffee shop I'm at who are alternating between Farsi and German. The fact that I understand both these languages has basically never been useful in my career, but it does make me an A+ eavesdropper lol

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