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Legend of Wuhan Coronavirus Whistleblower Will Live Forever on Ethereum Blockchain

Li Wenliang was an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital who became something of a national hero amidst the turmoil of the Coronavirus. His legend has only been further galvanized following his recent death where he succumbed to the dreaded virus.

According to the Washington Post, the Chinese doctor was silenced by police and charged with “rumor-mongering” after he tried to share news of the Coronavirus outbreak prior to Chinese health authorities coming to terms with the severity of the spread of the disease. Here is a copy of the original letter he received from the Wuhan police.

While Li’s attempts to warn his country about the deadly disease was met with anger from the Chinese Communist Party, there was an equally vicious outcry by the people who grow tired of the CCP’s censorship solutions to most of their problems.

Immutable Ethereum Monument

On Jan. 31, someone honored the late Dr. Li Wenliang when they created a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain, aligning the source codes in the shape of a monument in his memory.

The source code of the Monument describes the life of Dr.Li and honors him for his defiance of the CCP censorship to alert the public to the dangers of the virus.

The monument that now exists on the Ethereum blockchain will serve as Dr. Li’s last act of defiance, as his memory will now be preserved in blockchain immutability. The story of his courage and compassion for his people at his own risk will now live forever beyond the scope of those who would seek to censor the truth.

Blockchain for Greater Transparency in China

As previously reported by Blockchain.News, there has been concern that the millions of dollars being donated for the public, as well as the protective equipment to combat the outbreak are not being put to use where needed, and it has been reported that the equipment has been misdirected.

The Red Cross in China has previously mishandled billions of dollars donated for the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan province in Western China in 2008. The Red Cross in China reflected, “One of the lessons learned was that emergency response must be better developed at the local level.”

With the issues in the chain of donations, the public in China has been angered as their contributions have not ended up where they expected, which diverts the objective of addressing the crisis. This, in turn, also impacts the public’s willingness to donate in the future.

Syren Johnstone, the Executive Director of the Masters of Law (Compliance and Regulation) Program the University of Hong Kong has recently suggested that a private blockchain network would “enable the recording and tracking of anything that is donated, from donation dollars to N95 masks.” By holding the person or organization accountable, donations for delivery could be tracked from the donor all the way to its final-use. Blockchain would also enable transparency for the general public to understand how their donations have been used and its progress. While a private blockchain is strictly controlled, it can also allow for public transparency for donors and receivers, as well as authorities.

Image via Hong Kong Free Press

Trump Administration Wants Clean 5G Networks Free of China State Actors

Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State for the Trump administration has announced the launch of the expansion of the Clean Network program, outlining five new lines of defense to protect America’s critical telecommunications and technology infrastructure from untrusted Chinese state-owned enterprises like Huawei and ZTE.

The Clean Network program is the latest initiative in the Trump Administrations’ war on China’s tech invasion. The five-pronged approach aims to enhance the safeguarding of United States data and sensitive information from aggressive attacks and intrusions by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) through state-owned enterprise actors.

US-China Tech War Bubbling

The Trump Administration’s scrutiny of China’s tech firms and their services operating in the United States has been well documented in recent weeks as TikTok, the Chinese social media app has come under fire for alleged data sharing with the Chinese Communist Party, an allegation that parent company ByteDance Ltd has strongly denied.

Currently, over 30% of the world’s smartphone sales come from Chinese vendors Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo. The tech firms so far have been able to enjoy a relatively open mobile ecosystem, in which consumers in most countries can freely access the likes of Google, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The Clean Network program aims to flush out any transmission, control, computing, or storage equipment from untrusted IT vendors, such as Huawei and ZTE, which US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo asserted are “required to comply with directives of the Chinese Communist Party.”

The Clean Network program is an expansion of the internationally accepted digital trust standards and built upon the 5G Clean Path—which is a coalition of like-minded free countries and companies aiming to secure their critical telecommunications, cloud, data analytics, mobile apps, Internet of Things, and 5G technologies from malign actors. As announced on April 29, 2020, the 5G Clean Path will rely on only trusted telecommunications and technology vendors who are not subject to unjust or extra-judicial control by authoritarian governments, specifically China.

While Huawei has already had their access restricted from key Google services, which has crippled much of their overseas phone sales. Other Chinese telecommunications companies could suffer the same setback as Huawei, should the Clean Network be applied to them, which is very likely at this stage.

Beijing responded on Aug 5, saying that it is strongly opposed to US restrictions on Chinese tech firms and dismissed the United States measures as actions to preserve its own technological dominance.

The Five-Pronged Approach

According to the official statement by Pompeo on Aug 5, the programs of the Clean Network initiative are “rooted in internationally accepted digital trust standards and built upon the 5G Clean Path initiative [….] to secure data traveling on 5G networks into U.S. diplomatic facilities overseas and within the United States.”

The five new lines of effort for the clean network will basically remove and block Chinese telecommunications carriers, applications, cloud, cable, and data storage services from United States 5G networks.

While the Clean Network program is currently aimed at protecting US data and information, the momentum for the program is growing. More than thirty countries and territories are now Clean Countries, and many of the world’s biggest telecommunications companies are Clean Telcos. All have committed to exclusively using trusted vendors in their Clean Networks.

Pompeo wrote, “The United States calls on our allies and partners in government and industry around the world to join the growing tide to secure our data from the CCP’s surveillance state and other malign entities. Building a Clean fortress around our citizens’ data will ensure all of our nations’ security.”

With the growing enthusiasm to block malicious data and IP theft, as well as the growing mistrust for the CCP, the initiative when it comes into full effect will most likely be devastating for Chinese tech firms’ sales and services globally.

China's CCP Official Expelled for Violation Crypto Mining Ban Provisions

A former member of the CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) got fired by touching Beijing’s nerve. Xiao Yi, a former advisory member of CCP has been expelled from the party in what appears to be the first full-blown sanction of an official that violated Beijing’s stance against cryptocurrency mining.

Per the translated version of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) report, the sanctioned official was accused of many crimes ranging from abuse of power to illegal monetary transactions and mining digital currencies without recourse to the environmental damage it may have caused.

“[Xiao Yi] violated the new development concept, abused power to introduce and support enterprises to engage in virtual currency “mining” activities that do not meet the requirements of the national industrial policy,” the CCDI report reads.

China implemented its zero-tolerance policy for Bitcoin mining with a series of crackdowns on miners that finally led to the exodus of mining firms from the Asian nation. Beijing’s negative stance about crypto miners is fueled by the supposed environmental impact as the majority of the nation’s power source comes from coal.

With the Chinese Communist Party’s clampdown on mining, party members and especially officials were ethically expected to abstain from Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining, making the Xiao Yi offence more grievous.

“Xiao Yi seriously violated the party’s political discipline, organizational discipline, integrity discipline, work discipline, and life discipline, and constituted a serious job violation and was suspected of taking bribes and abusing power,” the report reads.

In addition to expelling Xiao Yi from the party, the disciplinary committee said it has referred the case for additional legal sanctions.

“He was expelled from public office by the State Supervision Commission; his qualifications as a representative of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the 14th Party Congress of Jiangxi Province were terminated; his income from violations of discipline and law was confiscated; his suspected crimes were transferred to the procuratorial organ for review and prosecution in accordance with the law,” the party concluded.

Over the coming months, more related sanctions for offenders of the Bitcoin mining ban may become a trend in no time.