Microsoft's China AI partnerships "increasingly sensitive" in US; Landmark ruling may end Europe's PRC extraditions & UN telecom body votes against Russian, Chinese leadership -- China Boss 11.07.22
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Microsoft's China AI partnerships "increasingly sensitive" for US
Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) has been “an instrumental force helping China become the AI powerhouse it is today,” Kate Kaye last week reported in Protocol, an online tech news and policy magazine. But “as the very thought of a U.S. company partnering in tech projects in China draws scrutiny from lawmakers, national security hawks, and human rights advocates,” what to do about the “thriving AI ecosystem it fostered there,” is forcing the company to “grapple with tough decisions,” she said.
Kaye, Protocol:
There are more than 300 scientists and engineers working at its MSRA labs in Beijing and Shanghai, but Microsoft has a much larger research and development group consisting of 6,000 scientists and engineers in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Suzhou as well as in Taiwan and Japan. That group, which includes a team focused on Cloud and AI technologies, helps transform research from MSRA into Microsoft products and services.
To help it get there, Microsoft has nurtured close ties with universities as well as state and local governments in the country.
Emphasis added. Microsoft has already ended partnerships with firms on the U.S. Commerce Department's sanctions list and is "rumored" to have "stopped recruiting from some Chinese universities," likely due to their involvement in Chinese military research programs.
But as recently as 2021, the company “launched an international research community dedicated to AI for use in 5G networks, joining existing university partners in China including Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, and Peking University,” Kaye said. All three institutions have been described on Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s (ASPI) China’s Defense University Tracker website as posing “very high,” “medium,” and “high” risks, respectively, for links to China’s military.
Microsoft was also “able to maintain a deal with Huawei” after the Department of Commerce blacklisted it in 2019, Kaye said. But three years is an eternity in post-Covid geopolitics as relations between the US and China have become strained. So tense, in fact, that multinationals, like Microsoft, often prefer to stay mum on company achievements and plans for expansion for fear of drawing too much scrutiny.
Protocol:
Despite the lab’s historic role bridging AI research discoveries between China and the rest of the world, these days Microsoft is not eager to broadcast it. Following several months of requests for interviews, the company would only agree to provide written email responses to Protocol.
Part of the reason for its reticence might be that the company’s expanding business in China has become increasingly sensitive in the U.S. Even when Microsoft announced plans in September to grow operations in China to coincide with its 30th anniversary in the country, the company did not publicize the news in English-language media.
Nevertheless, there was a time when successful penetration of China’s market would be celebrated in boardrooms and spun to the press back home as an epic victory of American ingenuity. But that era is no more, Paul Triolo, senior vice president at Albright Stonebridge Group, told Protocol.
Protocol:
Before the Trump administration launched its China initiative in 2018, “MSRA’s China government links would have been viewed as a major positive,” Triolo said.
But now the “D-word” is on many lips: decoupling. “Fast forward to the current situation, and being favored by the Chinese government is clearly viewed in Washington as a major negative,” Triolo said. “But the links are pretty deep and complex, and cannot be unraveled that easily, nor is there a strong desire on either side to break these ties.”
For the rest of Kaye’s report in Protocol, Microsoft helped build AI in China. What happens next?, click here. For SCMP’s update, Microsoft plans 1,000 new jobs in China despite slowing economy and widespread tech lay-offs, click here. For the China Project’s, A short history of Microsoft in China, click here.
Law and International Xi
Landmark ruling may end Europe’s extraditions to China
In what legal and human rights experts describe as a "landmark ruling," the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has "rejected an extradition request from Beijing over torture and human rights concerns," Taipei Times reported. Taiwanese citizen Liu Hong-tao was arrested in Poland for telecom fraud in China. “On Feb. 27, 2018, a Polish court ruled Liu could be extradited,” but, after losing his appeal to the Polish Supreme Court, Liu turned to Europe’s highest authority on human rights for help, news staff said. The Court ruled unanimously in his favor.
Safeguard Defenders, an NGO headquartered in Spain, called the ruling a “landmark decision [that] could herald the end of Europe’s extradition to China.”
Safeguard Defenders:
This momentous decision will most likely mean European countries will find it near impossible to extradite suspects to China again.
It is hard to overstate how influential this decision could be, and how it, in one swoop, has done more to protect basic rights from being undermined by China, as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), than most or all European government actions so far.
The ECHR is a legally binding international judicial instrument and goes further than similar international treatises. It ties 46 European countries to one legally-binding convention, and, notably, does only apply to EU states. The only European countries not bound by it are Belarus and Russia (the latter which was expelled in 2022 after refusing to follow a decision by the court).
For the rest of Taipei Times’s coverage, EU court rejects extradition to China - Taipei Times, click here. For the Washington Post’s report, Europe nears a reckoning in its ties to China’s security operations, click here. For Safeguard Defender’s website post, Landmark decision could herald end to Europe’s extraditions to China, click here.
UN telecom body votes against Russian, Chinese leadership
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