Our picks: China watchChina’s Sputnik Moment? | Empire in the Himalayas | China’s Techlash Gains Steam, and more

China’s Sputnik Moment?  (Dan Wang, Foreign Affairs)
How Washington Boosted Beijing’s Quest for Tech Dominance

China “Found Faulty Locks and Propped Open the Doors” in Microsoft attack: Australian Intelligence  (Anthony Galloway, Sidney Morning Herald)
The head of the nation’s cyber spy agency says China crossed a line in its wave of cyber attacks against Microsoft Exchange servers by allowing criminal groups and other malicious hackers to get into the networks.
Australia last week took the rare step of joining with other countries to accuse China’s Ministry of State Security of being behind the attack on Microsoft Exchange software and allowing criminal groups to conduct ransomware attacks to extort millions of dollars from companies.

China’s Big Tech Crackdown Is About Protecting the Communist Party  (Daniel Howley, Yahoo Finance)
The move to rein in Chinese tech giants also comes after the U.S. passed a law that bars foreign companies from trading on U.S. exchanges unless they surrender to audits. That law, the “Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act,” could stoke the Chinese government’s fears that data on its citizens could end up in the hands of its biggest political rival.

Warner, Cotton Introduce Bill to Prohibit Funding for Huawei, Chinese Technology (Sen. Mark Warner’s Office)
Senators Mark Warner (D-Virginia) and Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) introduced the American Telecommunications Security Act to prohibit federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act from being used to purchase Chinese telecommunications equipment, including from Huawei and ZTE. 
Text of the bill may be found here.

Calls for Independence May Not Help the Uyghur Cause  (Yehan, a pseudonym for a Uyghur writer now in exile, Foreign Policy)
Stopping the atrocities in Xinjiang requires reaching the Chinese public.

U.K. to Gain Access to Classified Pentagon Data as U.S. Revolutionizes How It Would Fight China  (Nick Allen, The Telegraph)
U.S. general reveals plans to give British soldiers access to a ‘combat cloud’ as America overhauls its strategy to counter China.

Western Investors Are “Road Kill” in China’s War against Its Own Tech Giants(Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph)
Xi Jingping’s sole aim is to bring all centers of rival power under tight control and reassert the political monopoly of the Communist Party.

China’s Techlash Gains Steam. Again  (Economist)
Online-education firms will not be the last victims.

Under Xi Jinping, the Number of Chinese Asylum-Seekers Has Shot Up  (Economist)
More and more people are fleeing his rule

Why China Is Cracking Down on Private Tutoring  (James Palmer, Foreign Policy)
Regulations on the $120 billion industry reflect concerns over the education rat race.

China Is Using Tibetans as Agents of Empire in the Himalayas  (Robert Barnett, Foreign Policy)
What life is like for the quarter-million residents of fortress villages in Tibet.