I read The Reg for articles by Liam Proven and by SJVN. So far, I’ve used the global RSS, which includes the whole crap posted by all kinds of idiots: pseudo-news reports, and sometimes heinous comments, like this one signed by Simon Sharwood: China’s not thrilled its AI experts want to leave the country.

If this is news reporting, I’m the Pope, the Dalai Lama and the reincarnation of Confucius, 3-in-1.

It even starts with a defamatory conclusion:

China appears to be unhappy about its brightest AI talent going offshore, either to visit or to sell their wares.

The real news: facts only

The Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation, an entity located in San Diego, California, organizes the Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS). This year, the 40th edition of NeurIPS will take place in Sydney, Australia.

The organization announced that, as it operates in the US legal jurisdiction, it can’t accept submissions from any person or entity included in the “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons” (SDNs).

As a reaction, the China Computer Federation (CCF) issued a statement in which it accuses NeurIPS of violating the values of openness, inclusiveness, equality, and cooperation. The CCF also called on all Chinese computer scientists to boycott NeurIPS and refuse to submit papers.

Quick suppositions

The OFAC Sanctions List Service offers a “human-readable version of the SDN List” as a main SDNLIST.PDF plus the changes for 2026 in SDNNEW26.PDF.

This famous American list is huge and full of shit. It includes individuals and entities known or alleged to be connected ever so loosely with sanctioned Russian, Iranian, DPRK and other actors (ISIS, Hezbollah, and whatnot), but also drug-related sanctions. There’s no guarantee whatsoever that this list is anywhere near accuracy or juridical legitimacy. Here’s the first change for 2026:

The following [ILLICIT-DRUGS-EO14059] entries have been changed:

DIANA, Cristian, Isernia, Italy; DOB 03 Oct 1974; POB Isernia, Italy; nationality Italy; Gender Male; Passport E619547 (Italy) (individual) [ILLICIT-DRUGS-EO14059] (Linked To: STILE ITALIANO S.R.L.; Linked To: WINDROSE TACTICAL SOLUTIONS S.R.L.S.).

to:

DIANA, Cristian, Pordenone, Italy; DOB 24 Nov 1971; POB Pordenone, Italy; nationality Italy; Gender Male; Passport YB8215970 (Italy); Tax ID No. DNICST71S24G888J (Italy) (individual) [ILLICIT-DRUGS-EO14059] (Linked To: STILE ITALIANO S.R.L.; Linked To: WINDROSE TACTICAL SOLUTIONS S.R.L.S.).

If that person is in jail, why bother sanctioning him? And if he’s not, as he seems to have a valid passport and a new date and place of birth (wow!), how can he be sanctioned without a trial? America at its best.

OK, it has to do with Ryan James Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned international narcotics trafficker and fugitive on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. Not being able to bring the entire alleged network to justice, the US Treasury “imposed sanctions on nine individuals and nine entities tied to his operations, exposing a transnational web of facilitators spanning Mexico, Canada, Colombia, Italy, and the United Kingdom.” Meanwhile, Ryan James Wedding was arrested on January 22, 2026, in Mexico City, to face trial in the United States. As for the rest…

Working alongside him, Gianluca Tiepolo, a former member of Italian special forces, managed Wedding’s fleet of luxury cars and motorcycles, including a USD 13 million Mercedes CLK-GTR seized by the FBI. Tiepolo used companies in Italy and the U.K. — Stile Italiano S.R.L., TMR Ltd., and Windrose Tactical Solutions S.R.L.S. — to disguise ownership of these assets and to operate paramilitary-style training camps for Wedding’s enforcers.
…
Two of Tiepolo’s close associates, Cristian Diana (Italy) and John Anthony Fallon (U.K.), were also designated for helping manage the front companies and conceal illicit wealth. Fallon controls LMJ Trading Ltd. and Made in Italy Motorcycles Ltd., both now sanctioned. Collectively, these entities formed a transatlantic network that laundered drug profits, hid assets under shell ownership, and facilitated the global expansion of Wedding’s cartel operations.

In my book, should these be actual facts, it’s for the judiciary to decide on such individuals after a fair trial. They should be on the Interpol list, not on the SDN list. This Cristian Diana, passport number YB8215970 (Italy), is free to travel, just not to the United States or using a US airline. As far as justice is involved, he’s innocent. They don’t say he’s a fugitive but only an SDN. Cool, just like Russian oligarchs!

Back to China. With such a list, I expect there are sanctioned Chinese individuals or entities that triggered Beijing’s ire. It’s just that the China Computer Federation doesn’t mention any names.

The smear campaign in The Reg (aka El Reg)

The Register often spots presentations by Chinese computer scientists who attend academic CompSci conferences held outside the Middle Kingdom. Attendees often represent the country’s tech giants and present candid insights into their operations and innovations.

CCF clearly doesn’t want presentations of that sort at NeurIPS, which would likely mean some significant Chinese boffins don’t make it to Sydney.

Remember the title of the article? “China’s not thrilled its AI experts want to leave the country,” yeah. These are all lies.

Chinese AI scientists do not leave China; if anything, some of them returned home from the US in the Trump 2.0 era! The actual trend has been that many Chinese AI researchers returned from US institutions to Chinese companies and universities. This misrepresents the direction of the current talent flow.

Then, the part about “candid insights” is deceiving (“Alibaba Cloud reveals its datacenter design,” signed by the same Simon Sharwood). The Register has archived that paper as if it was about to disappear. The paper can still be found online at the author’s site:

SIGCOMM’24Alibaba HPN: A Data Center Network for Large Language Model Training.
Kun Qian, Yongqing Xi, Jiamin Cao, Jiaqi Gao, Yichi Xu, Yu Guan, Binzhang Fu, Xuemei Shi, Fangbo Zhu, Rui Miao, Chao Wang, Peng Wang, Pengcheng Zhang, Xianlong Zeng, Eddie Ruan, Zhiping Yao, Ennan Zhai, and Dennis Cai.
ACM SIGCOMM (SIGCOMM’24), Aug 2024. [PDF]

This is what sinophobia looks like. The Communist Party of China is so dictatorial that it prevents people from leaving China and, should they “candidly” disclose “AI secrets,” then… um… I don’t know what happens.

The guy then creates a connection where there isn’t any:

The spat between CCF and NeurIPS comes in the same week that Beijing has reportedly prevented the founders of agentic AI startup Manus from leaving China. Such a ban would complicate social networking giant Meta’s planned acquisition of the company.

Manus established an entity in Singapore to get better access to funding and customers. The move also made it an easier acquisition target.

Beijing reacted angrily when Meta bought Manus, on grounds that it doesn’t want domestic AI companies going offshore.

And now Chinese computer scientists have been given a reason to stay at home, too.

Because they want to leave, to defect, to escape, to get free, right?

Another biased report. As the FT notes:

China has restricted two co-founders of Manus from leaving the country as regulators review whether Meta’s $2bn acquisition of the AI agent company violates Beijing’s investment rules.

Manus’s chief executive Xiao Hong and chief scientist Ji Yichao were summoned to a meeting in Beijing with the National Development and Reform Commission this month, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

They said Xiao and Ji were questioned on potential violations of foreign direct investment rules related to its onshore Chinese entities.

After the meeting, the Singapore-based executives were told they were not allowed to leave China because of a regulatory review, while they remain free to travel within the country, two of the people said.

No formal investigation has been opened and no charges have been brought. Manus is actively seeking law firms and consultancies to help resolve the matter, said a person with knowledge of the move.

Manus was founded in China but last year relocated its headquarters and core team to Singapore. Meta acquired it for $2bn at the end of last year. The deal is under regulatory review by China’s Ministry of Commerce for its potential violation of export controls, the FT reported in January.

Further scrutiny of the transaction highlights growing concern about what Chinese leaders have described as “selling young crops” to foreign buyers in strategic areas such as AI. There are also concerns that by moving out of China, Manus bypassed domestic regulation in ways that would encourage other groups to follow.

Manus’s alleged FDI violations are related to Chinese reporting rules after its ownership changed, said the people with knowledge of the case.

While such violations, if confirmed, are unlikely to lead to serious penalties under Chinese law, regulators appear to be seeking ways to intervene over the deal.

An extreme outcome would be to unwind the transaction, one of the people said. Because the deal has been completed and Meta has started integrating Manus AI agent software into its platform, such a settlement would be “messy”, the person said.

Chinese regulators have not decided whether to pursue such a drastic step, the person added.

Oh my, what EXTREME measures MIGHT be taken!

My sanctions against El Reg

I unsubscribed from their shit and only added the RSS feeds for Liam Proven and SJVN to my RSS app, which has changed from Capy Reader to Feeder.