@bethanyallen.bsky.social
Head of China investigations @aspi_cts. Was @axios @foreignpolicy @yale @HopkinsNanjing. Author BEIJING RULES, Financial Times Best Books of 2023. Email me: bethanyallen@aspi.org.au
The Democratic Party headquarters in Abilene, Texas— my hometown—has been vandalized in a targeted attack, according to local news KTXS.
The attack appeared to target the party's support for the LGBTQ community, as Pride flags and related items were destroyed or removed.
ktxs.com/news/local/t...
NEW from me: In MN, George Floyd-era faith networks have reignited after Renee Good's killing by ICE.
They often partner w/others: last night, a church, brewery & bookstore hosted an event.
If you showed up w/a whistle (to warn people of ICE), you got a free drink. religionnews.com/2026/01/11/i...
Big year for photos of clergy enduring pain while protesting ICE.
· Rev. David Black, Chicago Sun-Times: chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/10...
· Rev. Jorge Bautista, SF Chron: www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...
· Rev. Hannah Kardon, Chicago Protest Photography: www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1...
Chen Zhi, the alleged ringleader of one of Asia’s largest scam conglomerates, was arrested in Cambodia and extradited to China, the Cambodian government said Wednesday.
www.wsj.com/world/asia/c...
"How I learned to stop worrying and love fossil fuels."
11.12.2025 08:05 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
And, of course, we also see this with climate change.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if climate change weren't real? It would relieve that terrible pressure, those moments when we wake up briefly from our daily lives and feel a sense of impending doom.
"How I learned to stop worrying and love" the authoritarian government, the ruling party, the great leader, the revolutionary system, etc.
11.12.2025 08:05 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
People tell themselves:
"It's not that bad."
"The alternative is worse."
"At least our economy/national power is growing."
Or, people come to fully embrace it.
This doesn't just apply to the threat of nuclear annihilation. It also applies to authoritarianism. Living honestly under an authoritarian regime is extremely psychologically difficult. Most people, over time, find ways to excuse it or accept it.
11.12.2025 08:05 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
That subtitle speaks to the ineluctable pull of cognitive dissonance — it is psychologically difficult for people to squarely and honestly face a horrifying threat for a sustained period of time.
Instead, many people either tune out, or come to deny that the threat is real.
My appreciation for the film Dr. Strangelove has grown over the years. Its subtitle, I now feel, has a lasting brilliance that never loses its relevance — "How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb."
11.12.2025 08:05 — 👍 10 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 1
Wow — even China doesn't do this.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/t...
Screenshot of a Washington Post article quoting Fergus Ryan (me) saying Chinese AI systems have global ambitions and that without understanding how they’re shaped, “we risk importing censorship and political control hidden inside the technology itself.”
Chinese models are rapidly gaining global users through open-weight releases & easy API access.
As I told The Washington Post, if we don’t understand how they’re built, we risk importing censorship & political control hidden inside the technology itself.
www.washingtonpost.c...
We tested image understanding in English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.
We found:
• Much stricter censorship in Chinese
• Strongest distortions on Tiananmen, Tibet, Falun Gong & Xinjiang
• Some models quietly added pro-state framing even without refusing.
Screenshot of a Chinese LLM analysing the Tank Man photo. The model warns it must “be careful”, acknowledges the image is politically sensitive, and avoids historical context — an example from Chapter 1 showing how Chinese LLMs self-censor sensitive images.
The results are staggering.
Models routinely:
❌ refuse to answer
❌ erase key details
❌ repeat state narratives
Here’s one example: a major Chinese LLM flat-out refuses to describe the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
A circular chart showing China’s official AI-safety taxonomy: 31 categories of “unsafe” content, dominated by violations of “core socialist values”. Used in Chapter 1 to show how these categories shape censorship in Chinese LLMs. For more, see Chapter 1.
China’s national AI-safety standard categorises 31 types of “unsafe” content — from terrorism and privacy breaches to…
🟥 criticism of the CCP
🟥 “Western ideology”
🟥 peaceful protest
This is the logic shaping every model released in China.
Cover of ASPI’s “The Party’s AI”. A lone man stands on a road where tanks should be, but they’ve been erased, mirroring how Chinese LLMs censor sensitive images. For more, see Chapter 1.
Our new ASPI report 'The Party’s AI' is out now. It shows how China’s LLMs, vision models and “AI+” governance architecture are hard-coding censorship and control into the future of AI.
www.aspi.org.au/repo...
Beijing Rules: China's Quest for Global Influence
by @bethanyallen.bsky.social (2024)
#AutumnReading
Our report shows that Myanmar and its junta are central to the continued existence of this transnational criminal ecosystem, and that continued significant bilateral engagement with junta authorities is incompatible with goals to disrupt the scam industry.
08.09.2025 03:40 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The compounds are heavily securitized and fortified, with fences, watchtowers, checkpoints and heavy surveillance,
along with considerable permanent border-crossing infrastructure. That infrastructure directly enables the human
trafficking of victims across the Thai border.
The change in nighttime illumination around Myawaddy between 2021 and 2024, with specific scam centre locations annotated. Navy blue shows an increase in nighttime illumination, and red shows a decrease.
08.09.2025 03:38 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
The specific location of 27 identified scam compounds in Myawaddy township along the Thai border:
08.09.2025 03:37 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
In Myanmar, scame compounds have become so ubiquitous in several areas that the language has developed a specific moniker, Kyar Phyant, borrowed from the Chinese word for ‘scam’
08.09.2025 03:36 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Read @aspi-org.bsky.social's full report here. Through extensive satellite imagery analysis, @nrg8000.bsky.social shows that scam compounds along the Thai-Myanmar border have grown from 11 dedicated compounds to 30 since the junta took power in 2021.
08.09.2025 03:35 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
ASPI's exclusive new report, shared with the
@theguardian.com, reveals that the number of scam centers operating along the Thai-Myanmar border has more than doubled since Myanmar’s military seized power in 2021
Read the Guardian's on-the-ground reporting:
www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
WOW. China is drilling for oil and gas inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone, a move that analysts believe is likely part of Beijing’s unilateral grab for disputed territory.
Great scoop from @heldavidson.bsky.social and @thejamestownfdn.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
“The sheer volume of Chinese investment has been so much larger than in the West,” Dr. Wong Leung said. “It meant they could build industries from the ground up, all the way through the supply chain.”
15.08.2025 00:40 — 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
In this article about China's green tech revolution, the New York Times cites ASPI's Critical Technology Tracker and my colleague Dr. Jenny Wong-Leung:
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
I was today years old when I learned the final appendix to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense — the pamphlet that set fire to the Revolution — concludes with a firm rejection of “mingling religion with politics.”
The context is he’s fighting with Quakers he says aren’t Quakers, but he doesn’t mince words.
