As an amateur China geopolitics reader & watcher, I have noticed that the media and punditry's takes on things sometimes are really weird. We also know that China does spend a lot of resources trying to influence foreign opinion and behavior. The field of anti-ccp or "alternative" news about the CCP, too, is full of 10+ incarnations of FLG, some obviously associated and some barely able to be distinguished from independent. We are not trying to detect those; we're trying to detect people who are on the other side.
This is a fun little market with a very long term resolution date based on which people who are allegedly independent will be concretely revealed to have been privately / secretly influenced by the CCP and that it will be revealed later.
The influence
Threats, bribes, favors, money, opportunities, romance, attention, etc used to influence someone's opinion, attitude, decisions, views, choices, etc, to do or not do something in response. Threatening the person's family, inlaws, etc can also be a method of influence. Supporting someone's ego, flattery, companionship, all would count. The timespan of the influence DOES extend to before the creation of the claim. Re: proof, we have to be open minded here since even leaked docs will be doubted. As a baseline, if the person is imprisoned due to the action by the US government, i.e. an ambassador later jailed for an undisclosed affair with a Chinese national while in residency as the US Ambassador to China, for example, that would count, even if he and China deny it. But at the other end, mere rumors about someone is not enough to YES. Again, note the extreme weakness of this scheme, and don't bet a ton of mana, please. Note that someone who is FLG, but then later turned out to also have sympathies and be influenced by the CCP, can still YES, even if they were sincerely FLG. Similarly, someone who only did a few things they shouldn't have, but then later stopped, can still count. And even if the info only comes out many years later, YES is possible.
For organizations, we require the highest level direction of the org to be serving the PRC, not just a staff member. i.e. the leader, Board, cabinet, or senior C-level equivalent people (not all but at least one) needs to be influenced for the organization to count. Also, timespans don't have to overlap here perfectly. For example, someone who is clearly proven to have been influenced, say, from 2030-2040, but then later leads an organization from 2045-2046, could still be said to have been influenced there, too, if they weren't caught, reformed, etc from the prior case. That is, once someone has been converted to an agent of influence, all groups and actions they do after the proven period of being influenced are now suspect.
The influencer
It's the CCP or some subcomponent of it (military, an agency, etc). If an individual who is related to the government is implicated as an influencer, but in a private capacity, it wouldn't count. This could get very murky.
Judgment procedure
If the person is later revealed to have received secret or not well known benefits from the CCP or agents of sections of its department, then YES. Otherwise NO at market end. In general, the fact that the influence happened or that the benefit was received has to have been secret to the other people around the target. If there is doubt we can use an advanced LLM/agent by submitting proven or agreed upon information, the contents of this description and title, and asking the percentage satisfaction of the requirements in spirit. If it's 70% or more, then YES. Otherwise, no result until end of time, when we'll fall back to NO. We will use an agreed upon best practice for using multiple LLMs and repeated tests based on best practices at the time.
Examples of YES for a person
having had an affair with the influencer or connected person, with intention to influence/blackmail/etc with them.
If someone has an affair, but then quickly admits it in public, then the claim that they were influenced would be weakened. But if, for example, the US ambassador had an affair for 20 years which was undisclosed until finally concrete news and proof leaked, even if no proof that it influenced his behavior is revealed, it would YES for them.
with later changes or apparent changes of view, possibly can YES if the case can be made that it's greater than 70% likely that the action was secretly influenced by the CCP, as judged by the top LLM/agent or analyst under repeated tests.
This is a fun small cap market, unlikely to make you lots of mana
I hazard to say you'd be better off just throwing in 10mana here and there than actually trying to move and keep the price right until the information is revealed. The actual chance it would come it seems very low, since nearly nothing has leaked from inside the CCP in the past, and misinformation or fake leaks seem more likely to increase forever. Still, it would be fun and could serve as an accumulation point for information about these pundits and their motivations.
Note on people I add:
It's likely that although this is a political question, the distribution of people who are nominated will not be a random sample of human beings. That's because 90%+ of the people the CCP rules are Han, and of all Han, many live inside the CCP (although many don't). In general I am not going to be adding CCP citizens since it seems impossible to be clear about the result, given the multitude of sources of influence.
List of people
Note: I am including people of upstanding reputation, which I do not at all think would do something like this. Inclusion on the list does not mean suspicion, merely, that these are people whose reputation might need to be protected because casting doubt on them would be detrimental to fairness and honest outcomes.
Jeffrey Sachs
Huey Li - geopolitics, tiktok/YouTube https://youtube.com/@drhueyli?si=G6dox5ztoRWZsPDb
Nicholas Kristof
Michael Pettis
Steve Hsu - physicist, research leader, company founder including genetics companies in China
Elon Musk
Laowhy86
James Fallows
SerpentZA
Peter Hessler
Kevin D Walmsley of Inside China Business
Liziqi, China traditional lifestyle videographer
Nathan Rich, China youtuber
Bill Biship, Sinocism
Living in China https://www.youtube.com/@JasonLivinginChina/videos
Jerry Kowal https://www.youtube.com/@jerrykowal1007
Asia Society Policy Institute
Yale Center Beijing
Brookings Institution (China Center)
Blondie in China
Update 2025-02-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Private Influence Clarification
Core Requirement: The key issue is whether the individual has been targeted by a CCP-organized influence campaign that compels a change in behavior in a private manner.
Not Just Natural Business Decisions: Normal business considerations (such as silencing criticism to maintain a market presence in China) do not qualify unless there is evidence of a personalized and private compulsion.
Personalized Compulsion: A generic set of guidelines (e.g., watching a general informational video) is insufficient. The influence must be directly tailored to the individual, such as a private threat or specific demand (e.g., a threat to cancel a China factory).
Behavioral Shift: A clear, conscious, and sustained change in behavior following a private interaction (like receiving a personal video with explicit directives) would qualify as evidence of CCP influence.
1,000Sorry, can you explain the resolution criteria more clearly? Particularly this part:
Threats, bribes, favors, money, opportunities, romance, attention, etc used to influence someone's opinion, attitude, decisions, views, choices, etc, to do or not do something in response
Musk has a substantial business presence in China. This is a significant opportunity afforded to him, and likely influences his politics. (For example, despite being aligned with right wing forces, he’s far quieter on China issues.)
@OP it's probably not possible to define rigorously. The core questions is: has this person been the target of a government influence campaign which has affected them? One key aspect of it is that the person was compelled in a private way to change their natural behavior, and that the compulsion was organized by the CCP in some way. So let's compare two possible cases:
normal Elon wants to build & sell cars in China. In this case, naturally, Elon would realize he probably shouldn't trash the CCP in public. Even still, he would have some behavior re: ccp, i.e. he still speaks out loud about the factory, visits it, etc. This is NOT enough for YES even though the general tendency of the CCP is influencing him. Similarly, if he was sent a video "how the CCP expects cooperating factory owners to behave", watching and conforming to their requests to avoid saying things X, Y, and Z about the leadership, with no specific threats or bribe offers to Elon) is NOT enough to YES. BUT, if the video was made for him specifically, and had things like "You will promote China as a land of peace or else we'll cancel your factory" and then Elon knows this, does it, and doesn't acknowledge he's doing it because of the threat, then that would YES. It's a fine line to distinguish between "avoiding directly criticizing the CCP" to "avoiding mentioning CCP crimes" to "denying CCP crimes through silence" all the way through.
normal Elon builds the China factory, and does things his own way, keeping quiet but saying certain things and doing certain things. THEN an agent of the CCP approaches him and threatens him with info/video/leaks/etc, and this is private. Subsequent to this, Elon consciously behaves differently and consistently acts this way going forward. This is YES because he has private info that would clearly show that he wasn't acting in good faith with his prior self due to CCP influence.
I agree it's very hard to precisely define the line here. I imagine that actual spy/manipulation agencies also have a hard time with this. Do you have any ideas?