If you are watching this on Zoom, please use the Q&A function to do so. If you are watching this via the Facebook feed, then you can still send in your questions which will be put to me and to the speaker. When you raise a question, if you wish to remain anonymous, please say so and I will not read out your identification. But nonetheless, it will still be very helpful to me if you would tell me who you are so that it gives me a sense of what categories of participants you are. It will just help me to manage the event better, but your wish for anonymity will be respected. As you would know, the speaker we have for this webinar is Dee Dee Kirsten Tallow, who is a very distinguished journalist who had worked for the South China Morning Post and the New York Times. Dee Dee was actually born in Hong Kong and raised in Hong Kong. I think she will identify herself as a Hong Kong person. She's also a graduate of SOAS and has been working on very widely on the political system of China, his impact on Europe, technology and worldwide transfer, the ideology, disinformation Taiwan and Hong Kong. Now she is at the moment a senior fellow at the German Council of Foreign Relations in Berlin. She is also a senior non resident fellow at Project Synopsis in the Czech Republic. She is the co-editor and co-author of this fantastic book, which I think you see on the screen more clearly about China's quest for foreign technology beyond espionage, which is also very much the focus of her presentation this evening. Over to you, Dee Dee. Thank you very much, Steve. Really lovely to be here. Thank you very much indeed for the invitation. I am indeed a SOAS graduate. When I was there, I graduated in, I think, 1993. I wasn't really going in the technological direction or anything like that, although I was always intensely interested in politics. I think that probably came from my own background in Hong Kong and watching China when it was closed. I was going there in the first time in 1984, only able to speak bit of Cantonese and north of Guangzhou was, we just had to get, we just had to manage. I think, and indeed we did myself and my brother and a friend. You know, but what pushed me toward this direction of taking on something as serious as China's quest for foreign technology beyond espionage is the title of the book goes. Really was the realization of just how intensely important the technology question is in terms of China's rise and how intensely poorly we've understood what's happening, and I really was driven to try to examine and explore what the earth is going on. You know, all my years as a journalist in China, most recently from 2003 to 2017, I moved to Berlin in 2017. I saw a huge amount of things and wasn't necessarily able to contextualize them. And I think this is the problem that a lot of people have when they deal with China and one of the key reasons for this is that we simply have been working quite strange and I think often incomplete paradigms we thought things were different from how they are I think we for a long time ignored the enormous deliberateness of the Communist Party of China and what it wants to achieve we thought things were going to turn out differently. I don't think too many people think that anymore. So you know how did China even get to where it is today with this kind of economy has today how did it go from having essentially and I will attempt to show this here. A GDP of $178 billion in 1978 to one of 14.3 trillion in 2018 is 40 years. Well, first of all, of course, huge amount of hard work hunger on the part of the Chinese people ordinary people ambition, a desire to to survive not just to survive but to thrive. But also, let's be honest, you know, a core conundrum that this book looks at is exactly the quote at the top there. It is the rise of China under the Communist Party as a neo totalitarian technological power. Now the word neo totalitarian is carefully chosen because it's to do with technology. It has been made possible through access to the science and technology created by countries it now challenges for global leadership. And that's what we're seeing is this incredible switch. First we'll go out. And as I will hope to show you procure the technology identify where it is get it back by all means possible, and then manufacture at home. And then we'll go back to the world, as well as building up your own country because technology is above all also a state building thing. That's what it does. So, you know, of course, Mao Zedong had his goals to make the West China, etc. And also 1956 interestingly he said, you know, overtake Great Britain 15 years the US and 50 to 60. And in 2049 goal of the Communist Party to be dominant in the world technologically economically and militarily. If you add on the 30 years lost during Mao's intense politics and the kind of poverty that China was plunged into after 1949 between 1976 78 really it's kind of bang that things are kind of bang on target actually. So that's quite a strange point. But of course the whole issue with China and technology is older than Mao it's older than the Communist Party and it goes back to the late 1800s. The idea of how was China this very old culture civilization going to move into the contemporary era it had be absolutely surrounded by colonial powers, who did take some bits of it, not all of it ever.  I think and this was really the attempt to gain science and technology from the West was really an old attempt to overcome the difficulties of Chinese culture, in terms of modernizing. So, how exactly then did did this process take off well certainly after 1949 it had a huge step forward after 1956. Our quote here from this from the book. Since 1949 a vast deliberate and unique. That's important unique system of foreign technology spotting and transfer has operated in China and overseas. Very little of it a secret. This is also important. It's written in Chinese. A lot of people have bothered to read or can't read the material. The projects are described in party and state documents announced in the media and executed in venues that are broadly speaking, not hidden from the outside world. Again, we get back to the idea that one of the reasons we haven't really understood what China was doing was because we haven't really been looking and we've been living in a certain thought paradigm that has not encouraged us to look too closely it's been driven mostly by the desire to, you know, make money and this sort of rather arrogant Western belief actually that China would just change and become like us. Not so. At least not under the Communist Party I think that's of course the key here is the party and I am talking about the Communist Party, all the time now. In the beginning in at least the 1950s in 1956 we had a very interesting quote from Joe and lie who was, of course the premier but he was also China's leading intelligence officer, which is relevant when you're talking about technology transfer in terms of setting the mindset for a lot of activity. When China was building at the first long term science and technology plan, and they produced a first draft in 1956 I think it was indeed and presented it to Joe and lie. He was happy with it. He said doing science is like fighting a war. He'd been working all these years on constructing the first long term science and technology plan for China, and you haven't even set up an intelligence agency. How can you fight this war. That's quite thought provoking isn't it I think that it sort of sets the scene for for this for this technology push, because it suggests one thing very important about it, which is that a lot of these methods are in fact, you know, to do in the borderline zone of what is espionage what is what is legal what is illegal and such and I think that that's very much a reflection of the entire mindset in China. It's a mindset of a communist party, which was of course born in conspiracy sees power in revolution, and held on to power through dictatorship, and all that goes with it, for example, terror, but also of course, the sense of economic progress, and that people supported it so it's a mixed situation. Earlier success as you might know, 10 students who came back from America. There's a very good chance to use a museum in Shanghai which of anyone from China I encourage you to go and take a look above all a very intelligent system was built up in China construction of a massive system of information delivering libraries specialist libraries with really extraordinary abilities and detail management vision. You know when one looks into the literature in Chinese. It's astonishing how good the system is and also how quickly it can grow develop how it's bringing in AI, all kinds of stuff now. So, you know, essentially you have in China after all these decades of building up through policies through party documents in very disparate ways, but always guided by this idea of gaining technology and building a state for the Communist Party we've got there are over 100,000 S&T information researchers alone so focusing on science and technological information gathering, and their work feeds into this policy system. It feeds into the party system of course as well. You know, that's just something that just simply doesn't exist anywhere else in the world, which is why when people say over all developing countries still technology or but over all countries still technology, which is something that I hear a lot. There are people are wrong to say that they're wrong to think it's the same thing it's not the same thing we're talking about a much bigger, more minutely worked out more deliberate system with very clear set of goals in mind. In 2001, importantly, five ministries, Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Personnel, aka the Ministry of Human Resources and and Social Security, the Ministry of Finance Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Public Security issued a policy joint five ministry policy, which in the book we call the multiple means formula. Basically, it was it was a lot of fun for that first question say it was a lot of fun for technology technology should be transferred a lot of fun for by multiple means. There are other variations there you don't do to see what you see what this is is, you know, a carte blanche to provide whatever is useful, wherever it is found. So first to do that you have to identify where it is in the world, you have to figure out how to get hold of it. And what this then produced was really a very wide range legal illegal in Gray's own methods. One example here would be the China Association of Science and Technology this is a key organization within China it's national but it's also the provincial level at the local level. This is one of the key organizations that China that the Communist Party has identified as a way to reach out into the outside world into America into Europe into Japan and Korea of course we're not just talking about the West we're talking about the developed industrial nations of the world wherever they are. You know what's important about cast is not just all the programs that it co runs and the technologies that identifies and the sheer energy and power behind this ability to to get technology back to China through cooperation is through through you know university partnerships all kinds of things. But also that it is part of the United Front work department, which means that we are now straying fully into very political territory. And that's because I think that a key aim of the United Front work department and a United Front work will broadly in China is in fact to to spot and to bring back foreign technology and also talent again to strengthen the Communist Party to grow the economy and to achieve that great rejuvenation of China the China dream to overtake the world essentially in 2049. You know what's interesting here is, and this speaks to our inability for so long to really understand what was going on what the Communist Party was doing with technology. This is the homepage in Chinese. Wang Chuxian. You'll recognize many of you will recognize that it's a Xi Jinping quote don't forget your roots. You know it's your destiny. Essentially it's saying be what you already are which is a loyal citizen of China don't think you can change don't think you should change work for us. And this is of course a message to Chinese people citizens in China and throughout the world and also of course, very troublingly for many people for two overseas Chinese who will also be claimed by the party in similar ways. In English. It's quite a different experience to look at their homepage, the homepage of cast looks terribly sober to top 10 achievements life sciences in China in 2020 like a nice sort of spacey page there. You know, materials, etc. It's a completely different atmosphere, you know, and I think that this is a big part of why this policy has been so successful. Because you know foreigners will of course go to the English for example if they don't read Chinese which let's face it very few non Chinese people do read Chinese. And they'll see this and people think oh well that's you know, sounds great. And they'll probably be some message there now. I'm not sure about you know fighting the coronavirus collaboration with the WHO. But again, just compare these two things you know in a sense what's been going on has been a kind of a parallel story. One story for Chinese readers Chinese speakers Chinese people citizens, whom the party targets in order to deploy for its goals, and another story for foreigners who are the target of much of this activity and who need to be kind of one over in a way that is anxious and doesn't make people realize just how much the goal is to in fact bring technology and therefore power. You know to bring it back to China therefore to create power that will then go back out into the world in the form of science and technology and economy. This reflects this basic thing of the inside and the outside are different. And as Tom Gagnon, who wrote a book about being the United Front cadre that published in 2016, wrote the basic idea of the United Front was that the inside and the outside is just along for the ride. Even within China people who were not part of the United Front system often really had very little idea what was going on. The United Front system of course being, you know, a organization of the Communist Party tasked with connecting to organizations outside the Communist Party both in China and overseas with the aim of co-opting them for the party. This is essentially rooted in revolution and the need to win over the enemy, if you possibly can, or win over friends, first of all, and then to essentially grow increase your power. So again we get back to the United Front because I think a lot of this technology transfer issue is closely connected to United Front activities. And later on I'll show you some more of how that works for example in Germany. Primarily, you know, I think United Front is the strategy. It's also bureaucracy. It's work carried out by the whole party. It's designed to be hard to define hard to see plausible deniability is built into a lot of this activity, mostly within China but also overseas. Here I get into some detail and you get into what is the construction of a pipeline, what I think of as a pipeline which begins with undergraduate students overseas to go overseas. Now nearly 6 million university students have gone overseas from China since approximately 1970, most of them since 1978 of course. Several million have gone home, several million are still overseas.  Now, I don't think the party really minds which way you choose. So you go back that's great you stay overseas that's great because there's a whole system of, and I'll actually skip forward to show you the language there's a whole system of appealing to PRC students who go overseas and we're talking mostly science and technology students here. Powerful repeated appeals to loyalty to the ancestral country to go. And Xi Jinping has given speeches here some of the phrases they use to continually keep up the pressure. You must never forget that you are first and foremost a citizen of the PRC for the simulation overseas is not desired you should pay back to the mother and serve the country, they were fooled, repay the mother land, Baoxiaozhu Guo match talent to need. That's about saying I'm overseas I'm a physicist. I work on new materials or whatever and you know, I then can work with a organization back home which has been set up to bring exactly back as to receive the technology that I can bring back. And by multiple means to commercialize it in China to turn it into actual economy into business into product and therefore to grow the economy and to grow national strengths, gather talent all over the world and use it for China. That's pretty clear. I think the last one is in a sense the most interesting for those who return to the ancestral land a place to use their weapon.  And this is extremely important, because I think that China realized at some point the government realized at some point that a lot of people did want to stay overseas. And so what would they do they didn't want to lose the talent, you know it's a question of national development, the party didn't want to lose the talent they didn't want the brain drain. We're all familiar with the issues of brain drain from China I think they've been discussed for many years now. So the idea was that China, you know the party then move to start setting up a kind of a kind of a parallel system. There are within China, there are about 200 technology transfer parks innovation centers, at least. And there were 200 excuse me back in 2013 today they're about 2000 and many of them are called double bases so basically you would have a base in China and then you'd have a connection point overseas for example in the US or in Belgium or in Germany. These places would often be talent workstations that be workstations that are sort of tasked with keeping the connections back to China alive for example to cast to universities to commercialization on slaves in China, and also to do the same work in your in business parks increasingly. And in commercial venues also you know, here we have again the issue of this Chinese student scholar associations. There are hundreds of these around the world. I recently counted together with my colleague Cheryl you 265 in the US 80 plus in Germany alone about 93 in the UK. So we then did in order to figure out, you know, this is the first port, the first point in the pipeline if you like, this is where it all begins Chinese students come overseas and they join a CSSA for lots of often innocent reasons like, where do I get decent food in this place or how do I rent a flat when I'm faced with German bureaucracy. It can be really difficult right. So this kind of community support this moral support the friendship. It's completely understandable, and, you know, very valuable. And then it comes with the strings attached because a lot of these. A lot of these CSSAs are indeed very closely in fact they're all attached to the embassies or consulates, but often their leadership for example, is actually chosen, or it's suggested to a certain type of student that they might want to become the local CSSA, and then you know this is almost invariably taken up. You know, it's a mixed picture but but this is definitely happening. And we did some counting on Europe, for example, and you know so as obviously in the UK I'm in Berlin so we take Europe as an example. We counted the next step of this whole process which is the professional guilds and so after kids graduate. Get a job, stay here, maybe they go work for BASF, the biggest chemical company in the world down in Ludwigshafen in Germany for example. And they then joined the local chemical engineers guild, yeah, which happens to be located just outside BASF in Ludwigshafen, which is really close by. And we counted 95 of these kinds of professional associations for working Chinese PRC citizens, usually still, who've graduated from university in Europe and in Germany maybe or somewhere else and have come here to work. And of these 95 professional associations. 47 of them stated on their own websites that they engage in technology transfer back to China through these sort of workstations as they call them through these multiple connections back to universities to companies to to government ministries to the local level at the provincial level, just an absolute extraordinary range and detail in how these connections will work. And they then gather together in Germany under in fact in Germany but for all of Europe with something called the FCP AE the Federation of Chinese professional associations in Europe, which organizes an annual conference in a European city. And this was I think online the year before that was in Dublin and the year before that in Helsinki last year's was supposed to be in Manchester, they were reacting to Brexit by going to Ireland in 2019 and Manchester in 2020. That was the plan to explore opportunities for science and technology cooperation, as it's always called and friendship and such like, you know, in, in the UK and Ireland after Brexit. So, um, yeah, technology transfer parks back in China it's been set up over the years the double base system so therefore it's increasingly practice overseas as well. The talent plans are extremely important people have heard of the thousand talent plan by this point but there may be as many as 500 of these at work they're set up in China they make competitions, and they try to stay spot talent overseas. So here Charles Lieber Harvard University there's a lot of money involved here Charles Lieber was reportedly offered 50,000 US dollars. This is all at the allegation level to to work with a Wuhan Institute University. So, so it says really complicated area and and it's butchers by the fact that China has a lot of cash. It's got big state funds able to pay these things the universities will do that. Again we get back to the United Front connections for this technology outreach. Who does the outreach well the science and technology diplomats or the education section diplomats at concerts and embassies around the world. These connect to, you know, as we said students researchers business. The dream party in the Western return students association are United Front organizations, importantly to. We're talking about the United Front and its role in organizing at least some of this and somehow also shading a lot of the work that happens in and sort of giving it a kind of framework is to know that the Ministry of State Security does work through the United Front as well. That one, what are the solutions to all of this. So there's a lot more detail about you know the actual examples of this and in our book we've got concrete examples such as the example of nuke tech, a piece of technology developed in Europe in the UK Britain and France in the very late 1980s, early 90s that was then literally copied and developed at Tsinghua University which had this you know ability to commercialize its research this is something that the Chinese system is very good at. It commercializes research very quickly. Western universities are not good at that at all they come up with amazing developments innovations then just basically don't do anything with them. You know this is the power of the state working economic statecraft pushing pushing the country forward all the time under the Communist Party. And new tech essentially you know was set up by the son of who didn't how he's called who I phone. And new tech has now become the largest provider of cargo security and people scanning security solutions that railways ports airports in Europe that occupies about 80% of the market. So it's been hit with dumping charges because it was constantly sold below market rate. It donates equipment or offers it and loans and sensitive areas like in the Western Balkans with explicit provisions such as you know this cost this much but if you can't afford it to say the republic of you know Serbska, then they say well in 30 years if you haven't paid it back we'll just drop the whole thing. So it's clear that there's also you know constituency building with this kind of activity and again, there's always a state behind this stuff. Nobody else can compete with a cheap price of this technology which was originally, you know developed in Europe taken to China literally copied from, from whatever material they could get their, get their hands on, and then has been manufactured sent back out into the world and dominant started to corner and dominate markets. And that's technology transfer one kind to, there's lots of examples in the book about military technology, which is of course the whole issue of its own but I thought perhaps I would leave you there with some of these solutions, some of the key ones. I think number one, what we do about all this well there's a huge debate about what to do about all this because nobody wants to end open collaboration nobody wants to cut chances for individuals. Nobody wants to demonize people, but we do need to face this problem because it is becoming really well it's long become out of control and it's you know actually attacking the core foundation of economies. And the, you know what so what are we going to do first of all I think we need to do an enormous amount more of due diligence. We need to invest in the research we need to know what we're talking about we need to know about these policies in China. We need to know about the system the structure who does what, what are they actually doing you know. It's extraordinary how little we know you're working in the dark. And I have to say that, once I, once I started researching this book myself and this interest goes back to roughly 2013 when I was still working in China. I began to come across this stuff so it's been nearly a decade now. It really was like a process of switching the light on in a dark room, you know you could suddenly understand what was going on around you and I think this is something that you know to understand the intention and the tactics the techniques of what the party is doing to identify technology how they get it back to China. I think you know the rest of the world needs to do this to this is pretty much what we need to do. So, I think specifically, we need to raise the cost of joining the Communist Party for talented Chinese people scrutinize CCCCP membership in, you know, in our interactions with Chinese companies, researchers, universities, I think we do need to start doing this and I actually think since it's a one party state I think that's completely reasonable and interesting to do. It's not like saying well you're a member of the Tory party whatever because in a democracy the system is profoundly fundamentally different from one in a one party state in a dictatorship, where being a party member absolutely raises the risk that you will be called upon to do certain things to serve the party to serve the motherland. I don't say that people are not party members don't get drawn into it they do through variety methods, but I think that raising the cost for talented Chinese people joining the party the thought that well if I am in the party I actually might not be able to get that scholarship to go and research, you know, nuclear physics in, you know, the Leopoldina National Academy of Sciences in Germany, I might not get that, because, you know, Germany's worried they don't actually want Communist Party members from China, working within their systems because these systems are at the end of the day, high research, you know, and have national security implications. So that's the third suggestion, of course exclusion from sensitive research, particularly PRC nationals or CCP members. Yeah, we need to do a huge amount more strategic communication with universities and companies, politics needs to understand what's going on leaders need to understand what's going on European leaders are very bad at that frankly they don't really have the knowledge they need. There isn't enough knowledge about China by a long way is crucial awareness and strategically communicate this within their own societies. And last but not least law enforcement action. It's, it's a tricky area, but there's considerable confusion, for example here in Germany about who even should one turn to when one notices that information is is being siphoned off.  I think, I hope there's lots of questions, I, I'm not quite sure how I'm doing for time Steve. Perhaps you could, if you wanted to exit the screen and we could get on to the questions I think that that might be or maybe I can do it in fact. See, I think that is a really interesting presentation that you have made. We already have a number of questions being raised. Before I open the floor as usual. Let me start off by asking you a question. Two very important points one is that the Chinese government are using the overseas Chinese communities, particularly the student or academic community of ethnic Chinese origins for the efforts to secure foreign technologies. And you also then suggest that the important content one important content measure is to scrutinize and screen out communist party members, if they are trying to get engaged into that kind of sensitive technological institutions. And I thought implicitly there is a bit of a contradiction there and I would like you to clarify whether I am, I am reading it right or not. Because if the whole issue is primarily one of members of the communist party. Then it cannot be very effective. Even though there are 90 million members of the communist party you're talking about population of over 1.3 billion. It's not really that high a percentage yet. And the overwhelming majority of Chinese students and scholars overseas. Yeah, I know, yeah. So isn't there a bit of a disconnect unless your assumption is that the Chinese government's efforts to recruit overseas Chinese students and scholars are not very effective if they are not members of the communist party. Yeah, sure. No, I think the thing is that this idea is a really difficult issue to deal with Steve because nobody wants to. Nobody wants to discriminate based on anything you know that's appalling and everybody you know and it's something that's often used against people trying to draw attention to this risks. The massive risk we face with this situation is that you know somehow one is racist. I mean that's complete nonsense, but it's manipulated it's an argument that's taken by the party and thrown back at people who are trying to deal with a very neutral kind of political risk that is somehow turned into a racial argument by the party this is to be completely energetically and utterly rejected. So I think the reason for focusing first of all on the party is that saying well nobody from the PRC can come. That's really, really difficult. It's in a sense it's not fair. It's counterproductive, and it carries with it an enormous sort of set of problems as well. So how does one actually manage the problem. Well, sure a lot of the students are not party members but it's important to remember that there's all kinds of different students going overseas and very often these CSS as for example are led by quite politically ambitious PRC students people who do actually want a career in politics back in China. So these are kind of key people if you like. Now if people who have that kind of ambition and many of these people will be party members actually. If they, you know, for a start have problems, you know if that's the kind of a practical block, as well as a symbolic message to China. Don't send party people abroad to take on these positions to run these kinds of CSS says which some of which are fine and some of which are absolutely not fine you know. Because it may cost you in future you know you because you might not be able to do it because we're just going to say we don't actually want the Communist Party operating and an underground hidden fashion among us in democratic countries the political risk is simply far too high. So it's kind of a mixture of being a practical block, given the prominence of some individuals within the system and how they can then act on the other individuals within the overseas Chinese student or professional system and their disproportionate influence they will have. And it's also a symbolic gesture to say, look, we kind of know what you're doing and you need to stop. I think that that I hope that answers your questions. I think that the next step might be indeed to to look even more thoroughly at who's coming in what they're studying. Or it's something that should be done in parallel certainly keeping out PRC research is I'm afraid from you know sensitive areas is going to become increased the pressure there is going to grow and grow. It's a huge problem of course because under conditions of military civil civil fusion in China, who's to say, what is the sensitive area, everything's a sensitive area. That's kind of the goal by the party they kind of want to fuse everything you know, it's a sort of fusion system that, of course Stalin also operated. You know, democracy is operate very differently they operate under separation separation of powers to keep things safe for the individual. But there we, you know, there we are right up against the political issue that we're trying to deal with here. Okay, that answer your question I hope it does. Thank you very much so there is kind of a slightly complimentary question that comes from David Tiefel, and he would like to ask you how easy is it to check if somebody is a member of the Communist Party. Yeah. Well it's not. As I suspect you all know. But, you know, if one puts up rules, it's a bit like saying well, you know, sure people can lie. But there are ways of finding things out. I myself have recently seen a list of 5700 members of the Communist Party, who worked for a particular company, a foreign company, which, you know, so look, there are ways. I, you know, some of these lists are moving around.  And the minute you lie, you are legally liable, you know, it's a bit like saying, it's a bit like, well, it's a bit like sort of a taxation system, isn't it? It's like, you know, you can lie about your taxes, but if we catch you, you'd be in serious trouble. And in fact, this is exactly how they have been identifying and arresting people in the US now with the Department of Justice's China initiative. Often it's through things like financial issues, you know, you declare taxes, you say this is all I have, but it turns out, you know, you may be getting more, quite a lot more. But you're not declaring it. You're keeping it a bank account in China, for example. So, you know, there are ways of doing it. Okay. Next question I picked comes from Charlie Parton of Lucy. When a Chinese company buys into a foreign company, perhaps only five to 10%. Does it get the right to access the technology? Under what circumstances short of a majority is access to the technology permitted? Well, that really depends on the agreement, I think that the two companies strike and I think that one of the problems we've had is that Western companies or, you know, companies from industrialized countries have been extremely generous in their technology transfer to China. That's the basic system of tech for trade.  Right. So tech for trade is, but tech for trade is one of only 32 methods that we identified in our book of technology transfer and it's probably the least problematical in the sense that the company can simply say we're not signing this.  I mean, there does need to be some sense of responsibility. And, you know, kind of agency among companies in the West as well. But, you know, I mean, Chinese company, Western company technology, again, Western companies need to look at what they're transferring over and whether or not it's worth it in the long run. A small example, somebody I know developed a system for how to deal with sewageways from high speed trains. This is quite detailed. It's completely brilliant, right. And he's been working with China for a long time as an engineer. And he's, you know, the idea is that he's going to sell us for a certain sum of money. But if he would just stay, stay, you know, in control of the technology, and not sell it to China for a certain amount of money, he would probably over time. Eventually, you know, the ideas make a huge amount more money. So I mean, what what price are we actually selling our technology for we tend to think that we're just giving second rate stuff, or stuff and we will stay ahead with innovation. But that's not necessarily the case. And I think we're starting to feel that the catch up isn't working anymore. But for Charlie's point, I think like the main point is like it's going to be up to the companies to to decide what is the terms of their agreements together. And do they actually want to, you know, work with with with a with a country where the laws are so clearly aimed at getting technology from from themselves, their company. Okay, I'll move on. Next questions comes from William Knight, also from London. In your research, were you able to determine the likely average time it takes for a Western company entering into a technology transfer agreement with a Chinese technology partner for technology supply to become redundant. Because the Chinese partner has reached the point where it has obtained all it needs in the first instance. Right. The short answer to that is no we didn't because it's not really germane to the book. The book is about essentially about legal illegal and gray zone technology transfer and it was about sketching the system. For the first time actually what's happening in Europe, also in Japan and Korea, there's also unique chapters in this book. So this this again this is the tech for trade situation that I mentioned one of 32 methods. And no so I we haven't we didn't address that in the book, but you know I'm sure that it. I mean I'm sure that there are a legion of different possibilities for that kind of thing I think that there will be other sources where you could, where you could go for that. One thing that's very interesting really your question prompts me to say is that it's striking how many sort of experts in this field really didn't themselves understand for the longest time what was going on. I think that I think is that they simply weren't looking at this from an intelligence point of view. Now I had nothing to do with in intelligence world I don't work in it I'm a think tanker former journalist. You know what this book draws on is all open source and you know open source and classified intelligence are two different things in the West we we we differentiate quite carefully, and yet 95% of intelligence is open source you know that's kind of like something that people very often kind of say is a sort of a ballpark figure. And it's in a way China's ability to use open source so cleverly that has enabled the growth of this really extraordinary system. I think that that's something that we might actually need to change moving forward is become more sort of, how should I put it more intelligent eyes about how we use information as well. So, that's just a thought prompted by by the question. And, you know, of the 32 methods of technology transfer. The need of transfer is impossible to to, it's impossible to estimate I think that, you know if you were talking actual cyber espionage. You know it would be faster if you're talking about cultivating an individual who goes overseas and works in the German Research Institute and then goes back and works in the China Academy of Engineering Physics, which is down in me and young startups and designs Chinese nuclear weapons, then you might be talking, you know, many years. Okay, next question that becomes from a source student. Beath and how would you say that foreign technology acquisition in the PRC is still out stripping Chinese domestic innovation, or is Chinese technology production catching up now. Yeah, that's super important point. There's no question that innovation is growing in China. Mostly what is growing is what's known as secondary innovation.  One great example of that would be the WeChat app, which is of course, I think. Well, it is highly, highly insecure. But it's very practical, easy to use everyone loves it in China and you know in other places to tick topping another example. People will know exactly where you are when you're using these apps anywhere in the world really 10 cent will know that's the owners. So, you know, and we'll be watching and listening. So that's, you know, people say that we chat etc is better than various other Western forms that's possibly true. So that would be a very good example of secondary innovation. When we're talking about basic innovation, I think that there's still our problems there for sure. You know, I think that that really has to do with that really has to do with quite complex cultural factors that are sort of difficult to get into briefly. The political is one aspect of it that the lack of desire to to just sort of let people go and let them explore completely freely. And also the education system, of course, requires a certain amount of certain style of teaching, perhaps to even learn Chinese I mean this year wrote memorization required doesn't exactly lend itself to sitting around blue sky thinking from a young age. So there's something of a contradiction right there I do think. Next question I pick comes from Graham Hutchings of the Oxford China Center and the University of Nordic. He thanks you for your authoritative presentation. In spite of your findings. Is there case for curtailing, or even ending the presence of confucius institutes in universities in democratic countries. Yeah, thank you Graham. With the question. Yes. There is. I've done it. You know, I looked at the website of a Confucius Institute in a German University recently and you know amid all the controversy swirling around the weaker regions, what's happening there, the forced labor issues. That's which we've seen on satellite images many we've heard so many first person testimonies and you know that's just one of very very many.   Here's you know how to do spot of your own calligraphy, come and have some language classes, and it was like a parallel universe to all of that stuff. There was no examination of the problems. Now you could say well we don't need to examine problems all the time. That's true. We don't. But we do also need to examine problems that take place because at the end of the day, people want to work towards happy as safe for societies and happy as safe for people, and you're not going to be able to do that. If you don't tackle problems. So, you know, I see. I think it's very, very risky. I think it's wrong. I think it's, you know, to to enable this kind of sanitized version of China to dominate within academic institutions in the West and a key reason why it's risky. It's because it means that the Western institutions themselves won't pay for it when they need to because they want to keep control over their research. They need to be independent. They need to be financially independent. They cannot hand over power to Beijing to tell the China story well as Xi Jinping wants all Chinese people to and he wants foreigners to kind of fall in line with that too. So it's, you know, it's dangerous. I think it's very, very risky for many points of view. Now if China wants to have institutes that do those things, you know, cultural affairs and calligraphy, tea and people and whatever fantastic stuff. So as a Chinese government sponsored cultural institute operating independently outside of the halls of academia, the precious knowledge resources that you know countries are built up over decades hundreds of years within free democratic societies to really pursue excellence and knowledge and they should do so outside, but they should not be mixing propaganda with real research. So I think absolutely we need to shut we need to simply ask them to go go and do it somewhere else do it in the embassy or do it in an independent situation but not not not not in universities. Next questions comes from the face time, the Facebook feed. And the question is how successful is China in obtaining foreign technology at an overall level, and whether there are structural weaknesses for China's approach to obtain foreign technology. Okay, I'm not quite sure. How successful is it means right okay. It's massively successful. That's why we wrote the book. It's extraordinarily successful. Think for a minute, you know, this is where we get into these different worlds like what we think or what foreigners think China has done and what's actually been going on a very two very different things often. And, you know, one reason of course again is the language keeps a lot of people out. It's enormously successful the sheer growth of Chinese economy the figures that I read out at the beginning 178 billion in 1978 to I think 14.3 trillion in 2018 just 40 years later. It's incredibly possible without technology transfer from the West because so much of this technology has been brought over by foreign companies, or was brought by students returning from overseas, or was sent back from overseas, or has been, you know, taken by theft we've had lots and lots of cases. One in Germany in Cologne and Lanccess, the company the usual technology theft situation USB stick or stuff going back and then, you know, competitor is set up in China, often who worked at the other company in the first place and then goes back with the knowledge and sets up another company and then they turn up at a trade fair and offer their same product made much more cheaply and offer technology theft to the same buyers and then that's when the whole thing gets realized what's going on. It's been enormously successful. So much of that economic growth I think came from this entire mindset of, you know, needing to get hold of this technology from the West, which I do understand because we need to think back. You know, on one level I understand that we need to think back to why China was so far behind why it fell behind in the first place in the late 1880s, the whole arrival of the Iron Dragon which was the railway. I think the first one was built by Germans in China if I'm not wrong. So, and the impact that they had on a very proud civilization a very proud culture very wonderful culture in many ways, and the actual existential fear, you know, of not being able to assert themselves now when a communist came along. You know, being Communist Party and a dictatorship and you know Leninist Party which vanguard of the people so that people never get a say in things, basically, because there's a party to speak for them at all times or to tell them what to do etc. And then turned into a very, very powerful weapon that that that longing to catch up or that determination to catch up became used against the West because the Communist Party always planned to, you know, overtake the West or to to kind of beat the capitalist countries I think I actually wanted to put it might be nice to read a little quote from the book if I may. You know in 2013 Xi Jinping, quoting Deng Xiaoping who was of course a leader before who before down before she pointed out that quote we are carrying out socialist modernization to catch up with a developed capitalist countries, economically, and politically create a higher and more effective democracy than the capitalist countries, moreover we will train more and better skilled persons than in those countries. So there you can see how important science and technology training and knowledge was to Deng's plan for China, after the death of Mao to kind of join a world socialist modernization as they call it. And of course when he talks about higher and more effective democracy, they're talking about the so called democratic, you know people's democratic dictatorship they're talking about leadership by the party they're not talking about the democracy that Democrats have. So, you know, science and technology was essential to this political rise of the Communist Party so overall, it's been enormously successful. Absolutely brilliant system is probably the single most brilliant system of technology acquisition in the world, you know, there isn't anything even near it somewhere else so any more specific questions that are there any structural weaknesses, structural weaknesses. Well, there probably are. I really addressed the strengths. That's a good question, because the strengths are manifold enormous input from the ministries. You know you've got this sort of situation in China where you've got for example the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology MIT, and it's like a pillar right, but then when you go across as the MSS, that's another pillar, and they connect, they connect very, very directly. You've got the MSS able to use everything that the MIIT is doing and MIIT needing, you know, benefiting also from what the MSS does. That's the structural, if you like, the structural reality of the one party state. So, structural weaknesses, probably they would be in areas like provincial competition or something like that. But again, you know, that's not limited to foreign technology so I would focus more on the strengths here I think there's enough reason to focus on the strengths. Is it more successful? Some types of foreign technologies. Yeah, I don't know. China costs a very, very wide net is looking for everything. It's always looked for everything from from from very early days. Nothing really is too small to be of interest. Some foreign countries make a mistake of saying, Well, but we only have 5 million people they're not interested in us. That's just not the case. Okay. Next question I picked comes from a SOAS PhD student, Melia Howe. It was reported that the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to use the Queen's speech next month to announce that bills to counter hostile states, including a foreign agents registration scheme, which would require all individuals and government in the UK to register their presence. Sorry. Do you think the CSSAs and the CCP members in the UK should be included in the scope of this bill? Thank you. This is the difficult question and I think that actually, yeah, I think we do need to include the CSSAs in this and other organizations. For example, I mentioned earlier the FCPAE, the Federation of Chinese Professional Associations in Europe which is in Frankfurt. Look, look, I went down there to take a look at the place. It's in the suburb of Frankfurt. It's a residential suburb. Nobody's been in that house for a long time. I talked to the neighbors. You know, there's dust on the doorstep. It's a kind of a front. The people who should be living there whose names are on the doorbell have been back in Fujian province for a long time. You know, so, yeah, we are definitely talking about really deep political structures, which are quite conspiratorial. And if you read the, if you read the organizational chapters of the FCPAE, it says quite clearly in their description, whereby they obtain charitable status in Germany, that they are not politically affiliated, that they are not religiously affiliated, but above all, they're not politically affiliated, that they are neutral. And that's simply not the case, because the goals that they pursue, the people that push them forward, the presence of the United Front, the Jurgen Party, for example, addressing these meetings of all these professionals in Europe who attend, and of course not everyone goes, you know, it's very, very clear that the Communist Party is behind this and is organizing it directly or indirectly and is calling the shots. So yeah, I think I'm afraid we do need to do something about all of this. Another example I can give you is the CSSA here at the Free University of Berlin, where basically I had like a hundred plus page brochure about, you know, join us and you'll be able to figure out how to go find a flatmate, etc, where's the best libraries. And then it says on page 101, and when, you know, Xi Dada and Peng Mama, so Xi Jinping and Peng Yu Yuan, his wife, come to Berlin to visit, you can take to the streets and shout your support for them.  It's hidden within the practical information that students do need is this political organization. And if I see no way around it really I think that I think that, you know, Democratic countries have tried for a very long time with China to say look, you need to don't do this or perhaps don't do that and you know, stop stealing our technology and our stuff. Obama tried it doesn't work. So what do we do next. We really have got to the point I think where we need to think about our own Democratic security about protecting our own Democratic systems because they are highly vulnerable. Okay. Before I put the next questions to you, there's a question that I need to clarify. And these questions come from Lawrence Wong asking whether so has a Confucius Institute on the first floor of Paul Wabili Wing. The short answer is that you have got it confused. The institution you're talking about is the source China Institute, which is not a Confucius Institute has nothing to do with the Confucius Institute. Next questions I would like to pick comes from Graham Leslie at Cardiff University. Should company acquisitions in certain sectors be opposed by states for self protection. And what percentage of Chinese students are persuaded and what percentage are forced to act in ways which will damage countries they are operating in. Yeah, that's two really great questions. States need to move to protect acquisitions in critical areas Germany started has done some of that. There have been a couple of big examples recently energy. Unfortunately, there are other examples where nothing is happening. We need to do that. I mean, you know, in an ideal world we wouldn't, but we're not in an ideal world, and we are in assist in a systemic rivalry. I think that's very clear. So you need to, again, you need to ensure your own democratic security, which is a term that I like because it suggests a form of security that is sort of not scary that is democratic. You know, a way of securing democracy, if you like, so it's a term that works in both directions. And that, by the way, really needs filling out so if you've got people there, Steve, but you're so as who want to work on the issue of democratic security in China in the West. I think that would be absolutely amazing. We do need to do a lot more conceptual and practical work on it. You know, I mean the sectors I think we know the sectors broadly they are things like telecommunications. I would say that we need to actually think about health in this way, because the trouble is that everything is turning into data. You know, for example cargo securities screening companies, Nucatec the one I mentioned the Chinese company. Basically these companies are becoming data companies. And the minute, you know, that starts happening, then you're in completely different territory in the territory where we need to start regulating data and technology, and we need to recognize what these companies are doing. And, you know, privacy issues, data protection issues. It's getting super complicated but I think company acquisition well we just again we need to identify sensitive or critical sectors there's quite a lot of debate about that. So, so yes we need to do that. This is an interesting question because you know, I've often I sort of ask people all the time what they sort of think about this because it's a sensitive question again nobody wants to discriminate no one wants to be unfair. And answer I very often get from people who have been in the party for example, and then went overseas. In fact, one recent specific example of exactly that situation is the person simply said to me look any PRC citizen who's working in a sensitive area from, you know it could be to do with new energy it could be, it could be particle physics, it could be, you know, these these big x-ray incredibly powerful fast x-ray systems that they're building in some places in Europe, for example in Hamburg up there. All kinds of stuff it could be seeds, you know, anyone working in an area with the Communist Party says we need that, you know, this is fits into our new plan is going to be vulnerable to pressure to transfer technology. That's just how it is. Next, I'm going to put to you two questions, which are kind of related. I will start off with what Peter Humphrey would like to put to you. It was hard for companies and universities to perform due diligence and scream out CCP members, but perhaps they can perform due diligence on other institutions and affiliations of applicants. The United States used to withhold visas from Communist Party members, not only from China, but from other countries, perhaps we should go back to that sort of rule. What do you think that allows you to that I would also like to put to you the question from a Chinese person, Mr Tong Zhao. I have a problem about the Communist Party member pond. I know some Chinese who are Communist Party members, but don't like the party. They joined the party because they were good students and teachers just that they should join. When they realized that they did not like the Communist Party, they could not quit. Do you deal with those people? Yeah, absolutely. Mr Tong Zhao and Peter, these are such important, difficult, really, really crucial questions. I think the issue, I'm also very aware that there are many people who joined the party who may not like it or may. I mean, they may not, right? So how can we know? I mean, the problem is that there needs to be some way of raising the cost to people about joining the party in the future. If, you know, we want to manage this problem of people coming in and, you know, extracting this kind of stuff and just basically having all those political contacts and ties, which are invisible to the new environment in which they are in, like the UK or Germany, they're invisible to German UK societies, right? But it's there. It's there all the time. So how do we do that? And, you know, the fact that you can't leave the party tells us so much about what the party is like. And I don't know exactly what is the best solution here. I think it needs to be talked about. I'm afraid that we probably do need to think about the fact that there will be people for whom this works out badly, that there's a price to be paid. It's about raising the cost. It's about young kids saying, look, maybe I shouldn't join because you don't have to join. You know, I know plenty of people from my years in China who were asked to join the party and didn't. Now, I know that some people will join just because they know it will provide benefit, enable them to get ahead and make contacts. And I'm not making a, you know, I'm not judging them or making a person, I'm not blaming them personally to put it better. But, you know, there does need to be a way of raising the cost to all of this. So I think that that's going to be a really difficult one to deal with about the party about actually outright denying entry. That's one option. I think it's tricky one. It's definitely difficult to know who's in the party and who isn't. But again, I repeat the point I made earlier that you can ask people to declare. And if they lie, and you find out, well, then they've kind of, you know, they will be punished. There will be responsibility involved with this. If they are in fact, you know, if there's some kind of pharaoh style situation comes in foreign agents registration act, which I think it does need to, you know, so again, they, they, they make themselves vulnerable. So the next step about denying entry, I actually suggested this and something I published back in 2018 after arriving in Germany from so many years in China and Hong Kong, 39 years in China and Hong Kong. And then coming to Germany is sort of realizing what was going on here and how none of the Germans realized what the party was actually doing in German society, both in business technology and in cultural groups, social groups, politics, if you like, also politics. And I said well maybe we need to think about this and I think that maybe we do need to think about it. Yeah. Yeah, but how else to manage the problem, you know, this is this is the difficulty. Okay, next question I pick comes from a so was student. Marie stocky is the question is really about how would you suggest balancing the economic interests with the security risk. And the question I was asking you in terms of how you balance between technology sectors from China, where China is leading. We accept them, do we not accept. Yeah. No, we don't. We don't accept them. I think, you know, I don't see that, you know, I think I think it's a reflection of our incredibly sort of economic stick mindset of the last decades that we even think that it's possible to accept, you know, technology which is outright dangerous to democracy and threatens privacy in really fundamental ways. And I think that that we even think that we have to accept that we don't have to accept it. We can, you know, even if it slows down our fight against climate change. That's actually somebody else. Chris Alex would like to follow up on that. Now this climate change issues course super important. And also, I suspect and I've thought for a long time that it's an area where the Communist Party is going to use as leverage against democracies to try and like get us to look away from all these other things that are happening that the absolutely persistent technology theft the hemorrhaging of intellectual property to China, you know, it's going to be if, if you don't, you know, if you punish us if you do this or that we won't cooperate with you on climate. That's a really zero sum game. I would like to push people's attention toward an article published in foreign affairs recently by Andrew Erickson and somebody else it was just a few days ago. Very interesting concept in there which I think is very fresh. It's basically saying that we need to compete with China on climate and not seek to cooperate in a sort of a kind of naive friendly we're all in this together way because frankly I don't think it really thinks it's in the same boat as democracies in most ways I think it feels profoundly threatened by democracies and absolutely determined to neutralize democracies. So, you know, we need to rethink how we deal with the climate issue in order that the party cannot use it as leverage against democracies I think that's the that's the basic point and I think that there are ways of doing that. It's maybe another for another discussion or so.   Because apart from anything else, China aims to replace much of the technology and manufacturing in the West in Germany in particular, quite an old model, you know, making machines you know it's very sort of 19th, 20th century right. And, you know, made in China 2025, but also the medium long term science and technology plans, and the China standards 2035, and also the China brain project 2030 which is all about AI, and, you know, artificial issues. I mean, all of this is aimed at essentially making the world dependent on China's supply chains, and also replacing manufacturing ability elsewhere in the world. And you know, Xi Jinping said it back in October, we want to make the world dependent on China. So, again, it's not a secret, it's just the problem is that we don't really listen, and we don't take it seriously and we seem to be afraid to act. That's really, you know, what boils down to. Next question that comes from Jonathan, Jonathan Fenby. He's really asking you about how important is the military element in the technology gathering by China, or whether that is now in which point because there's all under the military civil fusion. Oh, it's very, very important. Got a couple of specific chapters on that in the book. Again, here it is. I can only encourage you, of course, from my point of view to go out and get it, get hold of it. It's enormously important. There are a lot of areas where China still needs to catch up. There are areas where it has where it's already probably too late. We're looking at the South China Sea, for example, China has about 80 of these sort of catamarans that fire missiles, right so they can function in shallow waters. They are absolutely warships got about 80 of them. I believe they're made under license from an Australian company.  There's a lot of other stuff like that a lot of the espionage in particular and also the gray zone stuff, because remember military civil fusion MCF means that everything is connected on a fundamental level you have no idea what your stuff will be used for once it goes to China. That's the whole point. So, yeah, but still there are very specific military, you know, goals toward this a lot of this for example quantum stuff like that a lot of this would be now in communications. The quantum thing was a lot of it was taken from Austria and from Heidelberg, and taken back to China Academy of Sciences in heads and through corporations, which were perfectly legal. They were just, you know, thought to be a really great thing at the time. You know, quantum communications and encrypted communications these are things which technically in future the idea is they can't be broken that this sort of quantum communications supplies a form of encryption that can't be broken.  So, you know, we are very, very, very, very, very, very enthusiastic to supply this kind of thing to a country that has clearly made clear that it really lows the political systems, you know, of democracies is frankly beyond my can. I'm going to read you a comment, and then I'll turn it into a question. The comment is from Henry Tillman 10 cent has 10 cent has minority investments in over 800 companies, Ali Baba in over 325. Partnerships, not intellectual theft licensing deals structure, protect Western intellectual property. The question I'm going to turn you is, how would you suggest we deal with companies like Ali Baba and 10 cent. Yeah, there are absolutely a lot of legal agreements between 10 cent for example and I when you say when when I'm sorry I didn't catch your name. When the questioner commentator said that 10 cent had 800. I assume they meant 800 companies overseas or what 800 companies overseas. Yeah, there's a lot of you know that's the whole point about technology transfer works in three ways legal illegal gray zone. So this would be some examples of legal, completely legal and we've got a list, you know in the book of how this process is working. There's a specific number of types of transfer legal transfer 12345612 legal transfer methods, you know in general, eight illegal coding espionage, cyber espionage and then 24612 again our gray zone. Okay. So, so what does one. I'm so can you just repeat that question again the actual way you turned it into a question from being a comment. How should we deal with companies like Ali Baba or 10 cents, because they are clearly private companies in China, very strong vibrant global companies. Clearly private companies in China, frankly, I mean if you just look at the situation with with my unit with Jack Ma and Ali Baba. What is going on there is a lot of to and fro discussion. There's no such thing as a clearly private company in China. And to make my point, I think, you know, please, you know, go and read what Xi Jinping himself says about the United Front, and the importance of the, what's called the non state economy, i.e. the private economy but he calls it the non state economy. And the United Front activity, which is once again, all about co opting people who do not support the Communist Party co opting them to support the Communist Party at home or abroad. He says very clearly that the non state economy, i.e. the private economy is a key part of the political of supporting the party that it should be. Always support the party and the country when called upon. We are not talking about clear distinctions between, you know, something being a private company that's simply not the case when you look at the Chinese legal structure. It doesn't work Chinese law states very clearly. The whole raft of laws state very clearly that all Chinese citizens and all Chinese companies enterprises organizations have certain duties such as to comply to cooperate to collaborate with the state security demands which are set by the party and the state. And that not only must they collaborate, even if you're 10 cent, and you know they must also. They may also not say that they are collaborating they must also keep it secret that they are in fact supporting the national security objectives of party states so yeah no I mean that whole purely that private company thing. Again, we're talking about fusion, not separation. Okay, we have two minutes left I want to squeeze in one last question. It is one for seeking clarification from Jenny born to what like you to explain to people who are not so familiar with international copyright law. What is the distinction between legal and illegal technology transfer. Yeah. So if you think legally legal distinction is difficult try gray zone, that's even harder. It's, it's a complex area we need much better definitions in law. That's something that we, one of the conclusions that came out of the book, we also need better definitions of what's the concept the known concept known as foreign instrumentality. You know, when the interests of a foreign government are at work within your own society who is it serving, we better definition legal definitions of that too. I mean, I can quote for you what it says in the book, extra legal indicates that the types of transfer. These organizations engaged in typically are not subject to outside scrutiny, hence the legality of the transactions is unknowable. That's one way of understanding it. Another way, another way would be that, for example, illegal transfers would be things like breaches of contract. Computer network exploitation inside operations, reverse engineering very popular one the whole high speed train network in China was course was reverse engineered from German and Japanese high speed trains they have the Ministry of Railways was very open about that he said we're going to see and we're going to reinvent. Examples of legal transfers would be the tech for trade agreements that I talked about. Some things there's no startup competitions which from the party state says competition who does best gets the money come back make the stuff at home. Direct technology purchases is of course legal. Extra legal would be things like again like this way that we have no way of knowing all the legal systems in a in a foreign state cannot cope with sort of very unique reality that is the Chinese Communist Party structures and and activities. And then you would have things like transfer incentive programs so transfer incentives to transfer technology back to China, the people get paid for it or they get a job for it or whatever. Technology transfer centers, you know, university linked innovation parks where, where they very much focus on bringing stuff back again overseas scholar return the facilities in China. Recruiting brokerage websites, foreign based alumni associations and front organizations in overseas for PRC offices so these would be some extra legal areas. That is a lot you know I mean we need to do a huge amount more work on all of this and I'm really pleased to have had the chance to just sort of broach some of it. At least here. Thank you very much for sharing your very stimulating thoughts with us. I'm afraid that it is my duty to draw this to a closed two minutes past our scheduled time. I must apologize to those of you who have raised questions that I have not managed to squeeze in a few more came in in the last few minutes. But please be reassured that all your questions will be sent on to the speaker for information as our general practice. So let me just thank all of you again and draw this webinar to a close and I hope to see some of you again next week. Right. Thanks a lot Steve thank you everyone. Thank you. Thank you.


Welcome back to the original gangsters podcast. I'm Jimmy Buccellato. We're recording a remote episode one of these quick hitters and usually Bernie goes solo with these but once in a while I'm happy to jump in and break things down with my esteemed colleague Scott Bernstein in the house. So I just want to remind everyone please if you like the show please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Please subscribe to our audio podcast. We're on Spotify. We're on iTunes Google podcast and just make it I've made this appeal before but if you're familiar if you like our video content just recall that we have other audio episodes you can check out and if you primarily listen to us on audio remember we also have some video exclusive so I encourage audience members to be open-minded and check out both formats we have a pretty cool topic for today involving some heavy hitters some bosses in the five families Messino and also the boss of the west side and Scott has been doing some data mining and was looking at some core filings and found some interesting tidbits in there that we're going to talk about for a few minutes so Scott you want to go to set up what you were finding yeah so this involves Joe Messino, Vinnie Gorgias-Basiano and Barney Belomo. I don't know up until recently if we've been able to draw any connections or lines between Joe Messino who was the most powerful biggest New York mafia don of the 90s and early 2000s to Barney Belomo who in 2023 is I don't want to say without question but for for most peoples you know bottom line I would say that Barney Belomo is the most powerful modern day mafia don in America and New York and let's start with some information that came out last week via gangland news and we always give props and shout out to to Jerry Capace over at gangland news he started this whole game that we play so always got to give him give him his props he wrote a column or part of his column was about Vinnie Bassiano the former acting boss of the Bananos who was underneath Joe Messino and had a pretty tumultuous short-lived tenure as as boss of the family in 0405 he's now doing multiple life sentences for a pair of murders as well as some murder plots against prosecutors and judges but there was appeal that's now being heard by US district court it's been a six-year waiting period to get in front of the judge now they're getting in front of the judge and Bassiano is appealing his murder sent a murder conviction in the Randy Pazolo hit from 2004 under the theory that he was in trap because Joe Messino at that time had flipped was working for the government nobody knew it was wired up and Bassiano's council is saying that it was entrapment and that it was ineffective council for not bringing up this entrapment issue before that when Messino was asking Bassiano to explain what happened in the Pazolo hit Bassiano had no other option but to respond because he was being ordered to respond by he's appearing the mafia and if he didn't respond he could be murdered within that reporting Jerry made a reference to a piece of a court transcript that came up in Vinnie Bassiano's trial back in 07 with Messino on the witness stand again this has been there in the transcript for for let's say 15 years but this little anecdote I don't think it ever made it to the light of day until last week and Jerry says there was a conversation or I should say points out in the transcript that Messino testifies to a conversation that he had with the Genovese crime family that they had come to him when he was locked up and asked him if they wanted them the Genovese to murder Vinnie Bassiano and we'll get into why in a second Jerry didn't put in there who the people within the Genovese had approached Messino so myself I saw some people online did it as well went back into the court transcript from Messino's testimony and it's clear from this testimony that it was Barney Belomo who approached him in around 2005 in the Metropolitan Detention Center uh and we're going to read the the direct uh quotes but you know for all intents and purposes and to break it down into a small bite sized uh uh situation he he says you know your boy Vinnie is acting crazy out on the streets he's walking around the Bronx like he's John Gotti and that's upsetting a lot of people uh Messino says no don't touch him but it's interesting to see that you have this meeting of a Don that was on his way out and a Don that was ascending you know into the stratosphere in Belomo and they had this conversation back in 2005 yeah um I want to read some some things from the transcript here so at the beginning and I just want to clarify because you've studied this documentation more than I have at the beginning he says I could have killed him they wanted me to kill him but I gave him a pass the west side comes to me when I was on the floor they said he need help we'll get rid of him I said let him go let him do what he's doing so in that context Messino's talking about Bassiano he's saying I'll give him a pass leave him alone and then it says um well let's just tell people what the issue was the issue was that Bassiano was acting autonomously um and breaching a lot of protocol uh first when it came to appointing himself acting boss Messino never officially assigned him the role of acting boss Bassiano assigned himself and then retroactively got permission from Messino and then within that time period which was about a eight month nine month time period Bassiano orders the murder of Randy Pizzolo who was a former member of his inner circle I think he drove drove for Bassiano for a while and was a real cowboy uh it seemed like Vinny's ascension in the Bananos went to Randy Pizzolo's head as Vinny got more powerful Randy's behavior got more outlandish he was proposed to be made but never made it to a making ceremony because of upsetting too many people he upset the Gambino's he upset the Genovese and eventually he upset Vinny himself by botching a home remodel job and he was killed in November of 04 about two weeks after Vinny Bassiano is arrested um fast forward into 05 I believe is when these conversations or this conversation was being had by uh Belomo to Messino in lock up being like Vinny is um being insubordinate I guess in some of his actions and that will kill him for you yeah um so I would I would also add from this documentation so when so they ask him who were you talking with specifically and as you point out he says he says Barney and this is a quote listen the word is in the street nobody's happy with Vinny Bassiano the way he's acting and then this is for Messino quote Barney comes to me and says quote he's causing a lot of waves in the Bronx he thinks he's John Gotti and then he says if you need help again makes this offer like we can we can we can take care of this according to Messino and in terms of your point about um causing a lot of waves and walking around the Bronx and this is from also from I'm getting this right from our friend Tony DeStefano's book on Vinny Gorgeous well he's been on our show before not on video I don't think but we have an audio episode with him that Messino claims that Bassiano wanted permission to kill a number of people including DeFilippo a high-ranking member of the including Patty from the Bronx who was his capo but also the parents of witnesses uh in this trial um and uh civilians civilians and the prosecutor and that was the that was the biggest the biggest one that ended up getting him uh getting him jammed up so um apparently this wasn't sitting well with all these different things wasn't sitting well with with people on the west side and they approached Messino I think there should be a um just to fill in a little bit more background and I want to throw this out to Jimmy um so you had a situation where in the lead-up to Bassiano being imprisoned less than a year I believe before this conversation happens between Belomo and Messino there's an issue between Bassiano's son Vinny Jr and quiet Dom Cirillo's son Nikki and quiet Dom Cirillo uh was an acting boss was a conciliary of the Genovese very close to the chin um and apparently in late April or early May of 04 Nikki Cirillo physically attacks Vinny Bassiano Jr um on May 10th which was Mother's Day of that year Nikki Cirillo disappeared and has never been heard from since Randy Pozzolo one of the final nails in his coffin was Pozzolo was going around town bragging that he had killed Cirillo to defend the Bassiano's honor so but there's a lot of confusion of what happened there because when Bassiano is asked about Nikki Cirillo from Messino in these recorded conversations Bassiano says it came from his own dad right Bassiano says that was Dom killing his own son not I don't know if that's true Bassiano was just was ordering a lot of murders and taking part in a bunch of murders that he wasn't getting sanctioned yeah now the Frank Santoro murder which he he had even if he gets the Pozzolo murder tossed or or or acquitted on it in a retrial if it ever gets to that point he still has to deal with the Frank Santoro murder uh back in 01 where he killed a guy that had been threatening his son Vinnie Jr that was a murder that was done without any permission and he was just a soldier at that point he wasn't a cop yet and then Pozzolo murder he does without checking with Messino which is one of the reasons Messino was talking or ostensibly one of the reasons Messino wanted to talk to him about it when when they were locked up and I think the famous line that came from that was that uh you know we needed to send a message Randy was acting um subversive uh and we needed to send a message to the street this was Vinnie trying to like establish his his aura as a boss and that you know even my even guys in my inner circle are going to be killed if they don't tow the line yeah I mean that that's the one guy that there seems to have been a consensus on like killing like the Pozzolo but um back to um Cirillo uh for what it's worth I hate to even say this I've heard I know it sounds like obnoxious but talking to people off the record people on the street find that difficult to believe that he had something to do with the disappearance of his own son that's right that's right and so that um and and so that if you analyze that take it for what it's worth but I can't really say more but I just think it just I just I think it gives some context and some color to 2005 Barney sidling up to Messino and being like listen you know you need to be aware that your boy is ruffling a lot of feathers meaning Vinnie Bassiano that he whether or not he eventually got it cleared that he had appointed himself boss we know from the Gotti situation with Castellano the west side doesn't take kindly to people just doing stuff without permission or without the proper sanctioning they're very buttoned up they're very buttoned up organization that's that's one of the reasons why they're usually the the most powerful family they're probably buttoned up well organized and the analogy to Gotti probably wasn't what I'm saying was probably part of that analogy with Belomo being like we don't need another yeah you know a replay of someone like a Gotti who was doing all these things um that that you're uh uh making waves causing heat and and Bassiano seemed to love the heat like Gotti loved the heat yeah there's a there's a there's an irony here this is just my own conjecture so again take it for what it's worth the irony is I suspect right now the west side may prefer Bassiano back the try for stand compared to what what's going on right now with the Bananos like so things change right and Bassiano's tied into that same group that or was tied in to that same group that that's leading uh the banana organization now the Bronx crew the powers in the Bronx now with Mikey Mancuso um and Johnny Joe these were guys that were at one point then these guys he put Mancuso into power when he left and went to prison and eventually had a falling out with Mancuso tried to kill me or try to put a contract out on Mancuso's head was trying to put a contract out on on Patty from the Bronx's head these are all guys that were in his camp that kind of so it's not shocking that that Belomo would approach Masino it's just interesting to find that out now almost 20 years later and it's interesting that Jerry either didn't want to go dive into the uh transcript or he didn't want to put Barney on blast but he had a whole paragraph about the Genovese approaching Masino but didn't say that it came from Barney it seems like that would be you know the meat and potatoes of that news at least in I guess the way I would cover it and by the way just if people if you if you never look at the document they actually they actually don't say Belomo but Scott and I are almost certain that it's a it's a spelling error on the part of this denographer um well they say Barello I think right Barney Borello who was Barney Borello which it's it's unimaginable to me that Masino wouldn't know who wouldn't know who Barney was so I would bet anything that that wasn't just an error on the part of this denographer um but let me ask you you're you're put on your uh law degree hat Scott before we wrap up um in my opinion this is a very legitimate case Boschiano is making about entrapment I I absolutely think he's onto something here I think that was dirty pool to use a cliche that the feds did with Masino wiring Masino up and then him giving Boschiano orders basically that Boschiano has no no choice but uh and then and then you're going to indict Boschiano for following orders that seems dirty pool to me um so I would ask you two questions a what do you think you think you agree with me on that but then also let's say he wins that doesn't he have so many other chargers that it's not like he would be released anytime soon even if he were to win that appeal right what do you think about those two points so first I I I agree with you I think they're at least at least in terms of the eye test and the fact that I have a um a law degree hit the slider and Benny um there seems to be some legal merit to that uh and the fact that the judges is going to consider it now um I think speaks to that to your other point he's got the Frank Santoro murder which he was convicted of he's got these murder conspiracies attempted murder conspiracies that he was convicted of but so so yes it even if he gets a new trial with the with the uh the wire uh of him talking to Masino tossed Masino can't testify to that that conversation and let's say in a in a perfect world for for Vinny Gordus he's acquitted of the Pozzolo murder I think his theory I mean there'd be a lot of red tape to have to cut through to eventually see freedom but at that point there's a potential light because you can as crazy as it sounds with deals and time serves and stuff you know Michael Mancuso who we're talking about Mikey knows he caught two the Randy Pozzolo murder yeah the twelve years for the Pozzolo murder um but it didn't send him away for the rest of his life so I'm thinking to myself if he can get the Pozzolo murder tossed he could somehow go to a get a reset or attempt to get a resentencing from the judge on the Santoro murder and possibly get an out date where he's done 30 years um and and there's an opportunity for him to hit a halfway house and then uh he's only 63 I think he's probably in his mind thinking if by my early 70s I can I can get out I can live my last 15 years yeah free who knows there's been there's crazier things have happened I mean I was in the mob I always point to Joe Legambi in Philadelphia I mean there should have never been a Joe Legambi uh uh mafia godfather era you know he was he was dead to rights in prison doing doing a life sentence and then uh case gets uh tossed and and he's out on the streets and he becomes boss so yeah the star is aligned right so yeah the especially the assassination conspiracy with the prosecutor is the one that I always think he's gonna have the hardest time with because the feds especially do not take that lightly that that alone they would try to try to get you a life sentence yep and that's why he was in uh super max for a while I don't know he's still in super max I don't think he's out by now out of the super max but uh and last thing I'll say you know we've said it before here I mean nothing seems to phase been e-gorgeous I mean John Gotti at the you watch the uh those those tape recording those surveillance videos of him in prison uh between 90 92 and 02 when he died he seemed just really pissed off and he's unrecognizable toward the end he was you wouldn't even know it was John Gotti all the pictures that are filtering out of Vinny he's smiling near the ear his hair he's got a he's got his tan he's he's sitting posing with I mentioned it on a quick hitter that we just did about the appeal that he one of the video or one of the those pictures that recently came out on on social media is him with a bunch of Mexican mafia guys yeah with like five or six Mexican mafia guys so he doesn't he seems like he can go with the flow uh and doesn't he seems to be doing the time instead of the time doing him yeah yeah yeah he seems yeah he still he still looks like um you know pretty pretty healthy guy so we'll see what happens well thanks for joining me Jimmy um another one of these quick hitters in the books we'll keep you updated on what's going on with Vinny's appeal um check out gangsta report with some you know deep dives into to Vinny's case I did a deep dive into the pozzolo hit I also uh did a story about um how Dom Ciacali who was Vinny's right-hand man and along with Messino the star witness at Vinny's trial how Ciacali met Bonanno and he was actually introduced by one of the characters in Goodfellas or I said one of the actors in Goodfellas who played one of the characters in the famous bamboo lounge scene when he's introducing all the members of the vario crew uh Pete the killer who says I took care of that thing for you that's his uncle right isn't that Ciacali you know Pete the killer was a real lukezi mob guy his uncle was a guy named Pete the neck Ciacali who played Pete the killer in Goodfellas and Pete the neck was the one who introduced Ciacali to Vinny Gorgeous at a Christmas 1999 lunch meeting in Manhattan with Bruno Indelicato who was his entry point into Vinny so check that out I'm going to do something else on the Patty from Patty from the Bronx murder conspiracy that will be out in the next couple days that I got from the court filings and and then obviously what's going on the west side we're always uh keeping tabs on that because they are uh they're they're they're the front page mob family they're they're the mob family that everybody wants to know about because they're doing things at a level that nobody else does it does it at they're they're elite so yeah the uh yeah I think you said how he met Bonanno but you met Basiano yeah sorry Basiano right how I'm apologize how Ciacali met Basiano eventually became Basiano's best friend right hand man um but didn't know him until the late 1999 intro through his uncle Pete the neck who played Pete the killer in Goodfellas yeah a lot of it's been uh again shout out to our friend Tony DeStephan a lot of that is um not only check out gangsta report but um yeah in that book Tony's book is great book great book all right well thanks jimmy for Ben behind the glass scott burnstein og pod out


Happy New Year, friends. The grace and peace of Christ be with your spirit. As we begin 2024, we find ourselves reflecting and aspiring. The beginning of a new year can serve as a marker for new beginnings. It allows us to pause and reflect on the paths we've traveled the past year and the lesson we've learned. And with hopeful hearts, we turn to the future, ready and resolved to embrace all the possibilities. Many of us will personally use the beginning of a new year as an opportunity to set resolutions, envisioning and planning for what we hope to do and who we hope to be in a year. Resolution shares its root with the word resolve, which means to decide firmly on a course of action or firm determination to do something. Jesus' ministry was one to resolve. In Luke 9.51, we read, as a time junior for him to ascend to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. The message translation reads it like this, he gathered up his courage and steeled himself for the journey to Jerusalem. Jesus was firmed and determined in his course of action. As local churches, laity, clergy, and annual conferences, we can also be collectively resolute in our course of action. We are resolved to multiply Jesus' followers. Our mission as United Methodist remains to make followers of Jesus Christ for the world's transformation. But what we're resolved to do is to multiply Jesus' followers. We resolve to encourage and equip Jesus' followers of all ages with the tools to multiply themselves. We resolve to be prayerful followers of Jesus who model life worth living and live out a transformed life in front of a broken world for God's glory. This year, we resolve to offer all a relationship with Jesus Christ and a compelling vision to follow. Second, we are resolved to champion children and youth. This is a big undertaking, but a most critical and missional one. Jesus put children at the center of his ministry. He welcomed and cared for children, and so must we. So as followers of Jesus, we resolve to enrich and support the spiritual, emotional, and social needs of children and youth and their families in the year to come. We will recruit and equip laity to serve as children and youth ministers and develop outreach initiatives to reach un-churched children and youth with a gospel and ministries that empower, advocate, alleviate suffering, and heal. We will advocate for young people's safety and security and church environments where children and youth feel valued, respected, connected, and heard. Third, we are resolved to maximize care and healing. Everywhere we look, we see the impact of depression, guilt, loneliness, addiction, stress, anxiety, division, and strife. But as a church, we are uniquely equipped to speak hope and life in the face of these ills. This year, we resolve to offer systems of support, resources, and training that lead to wholeness and human flourishing. Fourth, we are resolved to pursue and embrace diversity. You know, we live in one of the fastest growing and diversifying parts of the country. The nations of the world no longer live only across oceans and international borders. The people of the nations of the world live right next door. Jesus tells us to go and make followers for him who confess him as Lord, but their whole trust in his grace and promise to serve him as Lord of themselves and of the nations. So to be a church of Jesus' followers in this racially and culturally diverse demographic landscape that reflects Christ's openness and inclusion of people of all ages, nations, and races, we resolve to grow in our cultural awareness and understanding. We will learn to build relationships with people from different cultures and appreciate diverse customs, traditions, and values to establish connections based on mutual respect and shared experiences. We will become aware of our own cultural lens to reduce our bias and prejudice. Last but not least, we are resolved to tell our story. We're gonna move towards Christ's vision of a loving, just, and free world for all people and we'll resolve to take the message of God's hope and invitation into a transformed life guided by faith in Jesus Christ beyond the walls of our churches and into our communities. We resolve to move beyond the narrative of disagreement and conflict and division and instead lift stories of hope, grace, and healing. We resolve to see these stories in the news outlets and headlines and to equip members to become storytellers, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ person to person. So I'm excited about the potential that is ahead of us this new year and all it holds for us. There are so much opportunity to live into these priorities, these resolutions every day in the coming year. And you know what? We are poised to build on our solid foundation, unifying and aligning our conferences, gifts, talents, and resources to do this important work in you thoughtful and effective ways. So as 2023 ends, I want to celebrate your dedication and great year of ministry. You have shaped Jesus' followers of all ages through your congregations nurturing and outreach ministries and provided a strong needed witness for Christ in the world. You've cared for individuals and families emotional and spiritual needs during most challenging times. You've met needs in your community through your outreach ministries of compassion and mercy and justice. And for all of this, Jesus rejoices and God is glorified. Together with you, I look forward to the even greater things that God will do through us in the next 12 months. So may God who knows how to give good things to those who ask, may God give us strength, bless us and multiply the life-giving ministry entrusted to us by Christ for His glory. Have a great year. Peace.