RE:that Robert Friedland has thrown himself in with communists. Give me a break, Demcare. Nearly everything in Walmart is made in China. Why don't you walk with a sign outside Walmart, berating customers for their disloyalty? Zijin and CITIC are mining companies. They're not involved in the internal security business, anymore than the average American runs CIA rendition sites.
And by the way, all phone and internet communication are also monitored by Western intelligence agencies, the so-called Five Eyes. We in the West started this blanket surveillance business. Yet we act outraged when others do the same. Granted, China has carried this a step further, but it's just a question of degree. The biggest threat to Western civilization doesn't come from China. It's from within, as intelligence agencies ,with insufficient civilian oversight, continue to erode democratic institutions in the name of sacred National Security. This lack of oversight is the Achilles Heel of our democratic tradition.