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

In the US, there is not a constituency for people who want to nationalize all the land and the businesses, begin total central economic planning, and make earning profit a crime. Nobody wants that. That's not on the ballot.

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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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Reposted by Bethany Allen 貝書穎

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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Reposted by Bethany Allen 貝書穎

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

None of those 7 countries are majority-Muslim. But 6 out of the 8 countries most at risk of famine are majority-Muslim, and none of them receive food aid under the USDA's revamped Food for Peace program.

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

According to a new article by CFR expert Sam Vigersky, Food for Peace now only provides food aid to 7 countries — 2 of which aren't food emergencies — while excluding the countries most at risk of famine, which are Sudan, Somalia, and South Sudan.

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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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Reposted by Bethany Allen 貝書穎

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

But it absolutely does mean that a report that uses science denialism to paint an entire movement, an entire state, and an entire university system as a stooge of China isn't just a worthless report — it's actively damaging to our national debate.

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

That doesn't mean we know the answer to climate change, and it doesn't mean we can't debate what to do about it, or how much to cooperate with a geopolitical rival on an existential threat both countries are facing — and which neither of us can solve alone.

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

Any research report such as this, which is based on the premise that climate change isn't a looming disaster, is more or less trash.

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

Even the Taliban, which rules Afghanistan, has acknowledged the reality of the climate crisis. This NAS report casts emphasis on net zero emissions as radical and dangerous, but in reality, 107 countries in the world have formally adopted net-zero emission targets into law or national policy.

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

In our current political environment, we've gotten used to hearing people deny climate change. But let's inject some facts into our distorted U.S. reality. 194 countries are signatories to the Paris Agreement — every country except Iran, Libya, Yemen, and the United States.

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

That's why I'm writing this thread. I've worked too hard to fight for high-quality China influence research — against attacks from both sides of the aisle in the US, and against attacks by Beijing-backed actors —to see it weaponized like this against basic democratic principles and scientific facts.

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

The point of China influence research is to ensure that Americans can exercise all their rights & freedoms without foreign govt interference. But the point of this report is to use China influence research to crush domestic progressive policies that conservatives (and science deniers) don't like.

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

— One of this report's recommendations (I kid you not) is to "Open Federal investigations into officials and regulators who have engaged in formalized agreements with China." Essentially, this report represents an effort to paint the green energy transition movement as a traitorous communist plot.

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

— Efforts by progressive government officials and institutions to support the green energy transition, and to work with Chinese people to do that, represent a national security threat. -->

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

— Chinese efforts to cooperate with western governments and institutions on climate change policies thus actually represent a purposeful, insidious Chinese Communist effort to compromise the energy and defense base of the U.S. and other western countries. -->

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

This report's basic line of reasoning is this: — Climate change isn't a serious or pressing issue. Climate alarmism is the real threat. --> — The green energy transition is bad for America, and damages America's energy grid, national security, and military preparedness. -->

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

The conclusions this report draws are part of a growing line of argument in far-right (currently mainstream) conservative strategy, which is to view the green energy transition as a plot to destroy America.

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

The fatal flaw of this report, however, is that these basic factual findings are distorted beyond recognition to fit NAS's ideological agenda, which is to fight progressive energy policies and weaken the independence of U.S. universities.

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

Unlike the Bitcoin Policy Institute and Power the Future reports, the basic research in this report is skilled and sound. The report traces the history of partnerships between California universities and Tsinghua University in China. All that is fine.

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

Rather, its primary goal is to achieve domestic ideological and political goals, namely to delegitimize 2 bogeymen of conservatives: Progressive energy policies, and California's public universities, which conservatives have hated since the 1960s.

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

Like the recent reports from Bitcoin Policy Institute and Power the Future, this report's primary goal isn't to ensure the integrity of American civil society.

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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

And finally, these reports make a mockery of actual, high-quality China influence research. This must stop now — and journalists reporting on this style of report should do so with the highest degree of journalistic professionalism and scrutiny.

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

These reports, given both their methods and their political goal, are also a form of disinformation and propaganda, very similar to how China paints Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters as stooges of America.

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

Reports like these represent an anti-democratic abuse of the concept of China influence research, which denies agency to real Americans.

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

I can easily show that these reports are 1) junk quality, and 2) primarily motivated not by a desire to uncover China's influence (and thus to preserve the integrity of US civil society), but rather to delegitimize organic US movements (and thus to compromise the integrity of US civil society)

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

— And this latest one about how China is supposedly bankrolling climate activism at the University of California system and thereby acting to "shape California’s climate and energy policies." thefederalist.com/2026/06/08/h...

thefederalist.com

How UC Became A Stooge For China's Anti-America Warfare

The Chinese Communist Party has leveraged the University of California to shape the state's policies and prioritize China’s interests.

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

This is junk research, primarily motivated by the desire to delegitimize grassroots American organizating by attempting to associate them with "hostile foreign forces" — a tactic widely used by the CCP to delegitimize grassroots Chinese civil society whenever it finds such movements inconvenient.

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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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Reposted by Bethany Allen 貝書穎

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

Overall, our research indicates that democratic leadership in AI is crucial to prevent authoritarians from dominating this space. I'm glad to see our work has reached its target audience.

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