Tag: china

China plans to block rare earth shipments to US military contractors: report

China is reportedly crafting a plan to block the US military from getting shipments of rare earth magnets – even as it eases restrictions on shipments to US companies making electronics and other consumer goods.

Beijing has repeatedly used its near-monopoly over rare earth metals – crucial to make everything from iPhones to military hardware like F-35 fighter jets and drones – in tense tariff talks with the Trump administration.

Beijing is planning a “validated end-user” system that fast-track shipments for approved civilian firms in the US, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the plan. It would allow China’s President Xi Jinping to keep his promise to President Trump about easing exports while cutting out military contractors.

If it is enacted, the plan could cause ongoing headaches for US companies that make “dual use” products or have both civilian and military clients, such as certain automakers and aerospace companies, according to the report.

The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.

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Will the Taiwan Issue Stay Quiet During Trump’s Term?

President Trump professed to be extremely pleased with the results of his recent summit meeting with Xi Jinping in South Korea.  Indeed, with his typical hyperbole, he rated it “a 12 out of 10.” Trump expressed special satisfaction with the conclusion of new trade agreements that significantly eased bilateral economic tensions between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).  In what amounted to a casual comment, he also stated that he had received a pledge from Xi that the PRC would not take any military action to change Taiwan’s political status during the remainder of Trump’s term.  Interestingly, neither the U.S. nor PRC documents summarizing the summit indicated that the Taiwan issue was discussed at all – a very surprising omission given the usual importance of the topic.

More-neutral observers were less overwhelmed by the summit’s results.  Critics contended that the economic agreements amounted to little more than a temporary cease fire in the tariff wars that had raged between the two countries since Trump took office in January 2025.  The new steps largely restored the status quo ante, with tariff rates mostly returning to the levels that existed before all the recent posturing and blustering by Washington and Beijing.

Trump’s comments about his alleged pledge from Xi are more interesting and potentially much more significant.  If such a substantive “understanding” now exists between Beijing and Washington that the PRC will not take any military actions to change Taiwan’s political status, it would ease tensions in an especially volatile and dangerous global geostrategic hotspot.  There are, however, some reasons to doubt Trump’s rosy interpretation.  For one thing, the alleged pledge would be a sharp change in Beijing’s rhetoric and conduct for the past several years.

The PRC sought to strangle Taiwan in the global diplomatic arena throughout the 8-year tenure of former Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen.  In response to vigorous lobbying campaigns by Beijing that combined roughly equal amounts of bribery and threats, 10 of the 22 small nations that still maintained diplomatic relations with Taipei when Tsai took office in 2016 switched ties to Beijing.  The attempted intimidation, coercion, and isolation of Taiwan occurred not only on the diplomatic front, however.  Beijing also sharply increased the number and scope of its military exercises in the vicinity of Taiwan.

Both trends have grown more pronounced under Tsai’s successor, Lai Ching-te (William Lai) since he took office in May 2024.  The PRC’s menacing military maneuvers are especially noticeable.   Beijing dislikes Lai even more intensely than it did Tsai.  She was a member of the “light green” (more restrained and pragmatic) faction of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).  Lai unsubtly favors the goal of formal independence that the “deep green” faction pursues.  His confrontational course seems aimed at securing eventual international recognition of Taiwan’s (currently de facto) independence and a firm commitment from the United States and its allies to defend Taiwan from PRC coercion.

Lai also is waging a bitter internal political war with the more moderate Kuomintang Party, which favors a decidedly softer, less confrontational policy for dealing with Beijing.  The DPP and its rival have both adopted highly questionable tactics to undermine the other.  It is an increasingly tense political environment with Lai holding the presidency but a KMT-led coalition controlling the legislative branch. In July, 2025, voters rejected an effort by Lai to purge targeted opposition legislators through an unprecedented recall vote.

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China Tops US With The World’s Biggest Prison Population

America has one of the world’s largest prison populations, with an estimated 1.7 million people in confinement.

Going further, America’s incarceration rate is the fourth-highest in the world. Despite being a developed economy, its prison population is more than double that of Russia, India, and Brazil combined.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows the countries with the most prisoners, based on data from the Prison Policy Initiative.

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LSAT Suspends Online-Testing In China After Alleged Data-Theft Tied To Chinese Prep Companies

Chinese companies preparing students for the American Law School Admission Test (LSAT) have gained unauthorized access to U.S.-based LSAT preparation companies and stolen information, according to the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), the organization that administers the American LSAT.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, LSAC began permitting remote LSAT administration. In China, that shift fueled a lucrative market of firms exploiting loopholes in LSAC’s online security—enabling hired test-takers, armed with fake identification, to impersonate students and complete the exam from abroad.

LSAC announced in August that it had suspended online testing from mainland China. The suspension came amid concerns that Chinese actors compromised and penetrated remote testing systems and services.

New reports, including one by Dave Killoran, the CEO of PowerScore, an American LSAT prep company, reveal just how these Chinese companies are scamming the LSAT. 

Killoran said that a Chinese whistleblower, told him last May that he had access to what appeared to be stolen LSAT questions. The whistleblower was frustrated how easy it was to gain access to cheat materials. 

Killoran told The Washington Free Beacon that screenshots of the test questions are “compiled into PDFs and sold to students who can’t pay the high fees for a proxy test taker.”

Chinese companies have been charging up to $8,000 for the stolen information. These firms advertise “guaranteed results” through encrypted social media channels and claim to have access to upcoming LSAT questions weeks before the exam.

Actors reportedly stole this information through a variety of means, one of the most prominent being hiding high-definition cameras to photograph in-person and remote exam questions.

This is not the first time that Chinese influence has penetrated American higher education. The Hudson Institute conducted a report on Harvard University published in June, that highlighted how Harvard was training Chinese government officials.

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LOST IN ORBIT: Chinese Astronauts Stranded in Tiangong Space Station After Debris Strikes Their Return Capsule

This is a distressing trend in space exploration.

No matter what our particular feelings about Communist China and their space program, it is worrying news to learn that a Chinese space crew is temporarily stranded at the Tiangong space station.

The astronauts – or rather, taikonauts – have been put in this dangerous situation after space debris struck their return capsule, according to China’s spaceflight agency.

Fox News reported:

“The three-member Shenzhou-20 team had been scheduled to return to Earth on Wednesday, but their mission has been temporarily extended as engineers conduct impact analysis and risk assessments on the damaged spacecraft, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement.”

“The Shenzhou program regularly sends crews of three Chinese astronauts to and from the Tiangong space station for six-month missions, where they carry out tasks ranging from scientific experiments to repairing debris damage.

The Shenzhou-20 astronauts – mission commander Chen Dong, fighter pilot Chen Zhongrui and engineer Wang Jie – arrived at Tiangong in April for a six-month rotation. They were nearing the end of their mission when the issue occurred.”

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Three Chinese National Scholars at University of Michigan Charged in Plot to Smuggle Biological Materials into the U.S.

Three Chinese national research scholars from the University of Michigan have been charged in a federal case involving the illegal smuggling of biological materials into the United States.

According to the Department of Justice, Xu Bai (28), Fengfan Zhang (27), and Zhiyong Zhang (30), all Chinese nationals working in the University of Michigan’s “Shawn Xu Laboratory,” were arrested and formally charged for their roles in the conspiracy.

Federal prosecutors allege that Bai and Fengfan Zhang conspired to smuggle restricted biological materials into the U.S., while Zhiyong Zhang faces charges of making false statements to federal agents during the investigation.

All three were research scholars holding J-1 visas, temporary research visas often used by foreign nationals conducting work at U.S. universities.

The laboratory where the trio worked, led by Dr. Xianzhong “Shawn” Xu, has been engaged in advanced biomedical and neurobiological research.

Federal authorities have not yet disclosed the exact nature of the biological materials involved, but officials emphasized the grave national security implications of the case.

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Florida Wins Court Battle on Law Limiting Homes, Land Purchases by Chinese Citizens

A U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday that Florida can restrict home and land purchases by Chinese citizens, dismissing claims that the 2023 law is discriminatory.

It comes after a court dismissed a challenge to a similar law in Texas that restricts the ownership of properties by Chinese individuals or entities.

The 2–1 ruling by the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cleared the way for Florida to enforce SB 264, or the Interests of Foreign Countries Act, which bans individuals who are domiciled in China from buying property in the state unless they already owned all or part of a property before July 1, 2023.

The ruling could also encourage other states to adopt so-called alien land laws, which were once common but fell out of favor a century ago.

The court said the plaintiffs lack standing to challenge the law’s purchasing restriction because they failed to show an imminent injury.

According to court documents, three of the individual plaintiffs are domiciled in Florida, and the fourth, who’s “at least arguably domiciled in China,” already has a home in Florida and has no plans to buy another. The last plaintiff, a real estate brokerage firm primarily serving Chinese and Chinese American clients, also failed to establish an imminent injury, circuit judges said.

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China’s technocratic surveillance state, brought to you by American Big Tech and designed for global application

Daniel Corvell has an excellent analysis of the U.S.-China collaboration on what amounts to the creation of a coming globalized surveillance state. Of course it all hinges on countries adopting biometric digital IDs, tied to our bank accounts and tokenization. Once that’s in place, it’s game over for freedom. Below is an excerpt from the article, at The Conservative Playbook, which is a must read for understanding the symbiotic relationship between communist China, Silicon Valley, and “democratic” Washington.

China’s surveillance regime is often depicted as a uniquely authoritarian system — a dystopian fusion of cameras, algorithms, and totalitarian ambition. But a growing body of evidence shows that the foundation of Beijing’s digital panopticon was not built in isolation. It was quietly funded, equipped, and technologically enabled by the very institutions that claim to defend freedom: American corporations and the U.S. government.

According to a recent report by the NGO C4ADS and the Intercept, American tech giants and defense-linked suppliers have been directly feeding China’s expanding surveillance apparatus through sophisticated biometric, semiconductor, and AI technologies.

The report maps out how dozens of U.S. companies, some operating through intermediaries or “shell” distributors, have supplied the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance infrastructure — from facial recognition components to data-processing software that powers state monitoring of its 1.4 billion citizens.

At the center of this web are biometric technologies — tools that scan faces, track movements, and identify individuals in real time. Many of these systems were originally designed for security or retail analytics but have been absorbed into China’s “public safety” network, a euphemism for omnipresent state surveillance. In regions such as Xinjiang, these tools have been weaponized to monitor and detain Uyghur Muslims, tracking everything from gait patterns to smartphone activity. But the scandal is not only what China has done with the technology — it’s how easily American firms helped make it possible.

Researchers discovered that many U.S. suppliers, including major chipmakers and sensor producers, continued selling hardware and software to Chinese entities long after Washington imposed export restrictions. They did so indirectly — by routing shipments through subsidiaries or rebranding products under “neutral” names. Some contracts were even facilitated through government-backed programs encouraging “U.S.-China technological collaboration,” showing that the American national security establishment has, at times, spoken out of both sides of its mouth.

It is a hypocrisy that runs deep. Publicly, Washington condemns Beijing’s human rights abuses and warns about “digital authoritarianism.” Privately, many agencies and corporations have viewed China as too profitable to restrain. The result is a moral paradox: American taxpayers fund defense and intelligence programs to “counter Chinese influence” while their own technology firms supply the infrastructure for the CCP’s surveillance state.

Unfortunately, it’s far worse than just hypocrisy that’s affecting the Chinese people. The same tech deployed in China is quickly integrating with America’s burgeoning Surveillance Industrial Complex. It’s as if they’re testing it in a known authoritarian state ahead of becoming our own authoritarian state.

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Scientists Use Novel Materials That Mimic Wormholes and Multiple Realities to “Transcend the Limitations of Physical Dimensions”

In Erwin Schrödinger’s most famous thought experiment, a cat is seemingly able to be alive and dead simultaneously, as it exists in superposition within a closed box alongside a radioactive atom, a detector, a hammer, and a vial of poison.

Now, reaching into similar mind-bending territory that blurs the lines between practical science and science fiction, researchers in China report in a new study that they have successfully used nonlocal artificial materials to create what they call “photonic parallel spaces,” emulating the effects of wormholes, and even multiple realities.

At the heart of the new research are optical systems, in which a single material is able to perform the role of two distinct optical devices at the same time—not unlike the bizarre “superposition” of Schrödinger’s cat—whereby light is able to display multiple properties at once.

The experiments, detailed in a new paper in Nature Communications, allowed the researchers to produce invisible pathways and other optical effects that could pave the way toward the creation of a range of new technological applications in the coming years.

Photonic Parallel Spaces

“The concepts of the multiverse and wormholes in dimensions beyond our physical space have long captivated curiosity and imagination,” the authors of the new paper write. However, demonstrating such ideas in an experimental setting has long been challenging.

To overcome such hurdles, the research team relied on special artificial materials that allowed them to develop what they characterize as a “photonic analogy” of parallel spaces, which they describe as conditions where “two distinct effective optical media coexist within a single artificial material,” each of which is accessible using different boundaries in the respective material.

The team’s method, which was complemented with machine learning for their study, successfully helped them to create analogies for what they call “photonic wormholes,” which function as invisible optical tunnels, as well as “photonic multiple realities” where the independent function of two different optical devices occurred within a single location. The effect, the researchers describe, produced optical scatterers that functioned “as if they exist in separate dimensions.”

“Higher-Dimensional Phenomena” in the Lab

When light enters one boundary in the artificial materials used by the team, it experiences an entirely different set of optical effects compared with light entering from another boundary. Surprisingly, each of these optical experiences can occur without any interference between them.

The researchers liken this effect to C.S. Lewis’s classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where different “doors” could lead to entirely separate worlds located in a single place.

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Calls Hakeem Jeffries “Ignorant” Following His False Statements Made About President Trump’s Meeting with Chinese President Xi 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was on “Fox News Sunday” to discuss President Trump’s use of tariffs. He was also optimistic that the Supreme Court would side with President Donald Trump on emergency tariffs.

“What did and didn’t get accomplished when Presidents Trump and Xi met face to face?” Bream asked.

“What do you make of his characterization of what happened in China?” Bream referencing Rep Hakeem Jeffries’ inaccurate comments on President Trump.

“I think it’s ignorant, and I think it’s kind of sad he has no idea how ignorant he is, because I was in the room and I can tell you I was there for the President’s entire trip and it was a tour de force,” Bessent said.

“The President went into Malaysia, signed trade deals, peace deals with Thailand and Cambodia,” Bessent said.

“We moved onto Japan. The President and the new Prime Minister of Japan had great chemistry,” Bessent continued.

“The meeting with President Xi was one of great respect and many accomplishments,” Bessent said.

“What do you make of their characterization of you?” Bream asked regarding a Washington Post article referencing Chinese negotiators that may have upset him.

“Highly inaccurate and look we saw that Chinese manufacturing has been down for 7 months in a row. So, let’s do the math. The liberation day, April 2nd. Where are we today? November 2nd, seven months. Chinese manufacturing has been down every month,” Bessent said.

“Their trade with Europe is up 10 percent, but it’s all discounted. They’ve depreciated their currency and the Chinese economy, they are in the middle of a real estate crisis,” Bessent continued.

Secretary Bessent also talked about the rare earth minerals and explained that it has been a problem for many decades, and that the administration is working hard to become more independent in that area.

“We are going to be moving at warp speed,” Bessent said.

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