Tag: china

Mystery Biotech Explosion Kills 8 in China, Company Legal Rep Arrested

Chinese state media agencies confirmed a massive explosion taking place at a facility owned by a biotechnology company killed at least eight people in Shanxi, northern China this weekend.

Multiple Asian news outlets identified the company involved as Shanyin Jiapeng Bio-Technology, which reportedly manufactures a host of chemicals including agricultural products and paint. None of the reports on the incident indicate any known reason for the explosion, indicating that investigations are still ongoing. The government’s Xinhua News Agency reported that the Communist Party had detained the company’s legal representative, stating that he or she was “placed under control” without any details. It remains unclear at press time why the legal representative, and no other employee of the company, was targeted.

China has a long history of industrial, chemical, and scientific research accidents, as well as corporate misconduct and corruption. Among the various scandalous incidents involving biochemical or industrial corporations is the infamous 2015 Tianjin explosion that killed 173 people, the Changsheng Biotech scandal in which nearly 1 million children were administered ineffective or watered-down vaccines, and the ongoing investigation into potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

“An explosion that occurred in the early hours of Saturday at a biotechnology company in Shuozhou, North China’s Shanxi Province has resulted in eight fatalities as of 9:30 am Sunday,” the Chinese state newspaper Global Times reported on Sunday, “and the cause of the incident is still under investigation.”

“The company is located in a mountainous area more than 40 kilometers from the county seat. At the accident site, Xinhua reporters saw thick yellowish smoke still billowing, as emergency response and cleanup operations continued,” the outlet added. The Global Times described search and rescue crews being forced to dig deep into the complex to find all the known working crew and finding multiple bodies — suggesting that more victims could still be found.

The investigation into the incident is reportedly in the hands of the State Council Work Safety Committee, suggesting that it may escalate to a national level. The state newspaper China Daily added, without directly linking this fact to the explosion, that “a nationwide campaign has also been launched to inspect and rectify illegal production sites involving hazardous chemicals and other related activities.”

The accident is the latest in several incidents that have resulted in calls for better control of chemical and pharmaceutical corporations in the country. The largest such incident occurred in 2015, when nearly 200 people were killed by a massive explosion in Tianjin, northeast China. The explosion, equivalent to that of 21 tons of TNT, was found to be caused by unsafe storage of large amounts of sodium cyanide and resulted in the imprisonment of 49 individuals tied to Ruihai Logistics. The Communist Party accused the imprisoned of bribing local officials to store the chemicals illegally without facing repercussions.

In 2018, a scandal involving biotechnology consumed the nation. A massive pharmaceutical company, Changsheng Biotechnology, was caught administering watered-down or otherwise ineffective vaccines, then producing fake vaccine records, profiting tremendously by defrauding parents of vaccinated children. Multiple batches of vaccines totaling nearly 1 million doses were found to have not met the standards necessary to properly immunize the children involved. The Communist Party heavily condemned the company, resulting in dozens of arrests and criminal charges, and made a rare allowance for the parents of the affected children to protest publicly. In January 2019, a mob of angry parents staged a protest that ended with parents beating local officials for not properly enforcing regulations surrounding vaccines.

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China calls on banks to limit exposure to US debt – Bloomberg

China has urged its banks to curb their exposure to US government debt, citing market volatility and growing financial and geopolitical risks, Bloomberg has reported citing people familiar with the matter.

Over the past decade, China has steadily trimmed its US Treasury holdings, a shift that has seen it overtaken by Japan and the UK as the largest foreign holders of American debt. Since peaking at around $1.3 trillion in 2013, its holdings have fallen roughly by half to about $650–700 billion, reaching levels not seen since 2008.

Beijing has advised China’s major financial institutions to limit new purchases of US government bonds and reduce positions where exposure is high, according to sources who spoke to the outlet on Monday. The guidance reportedly does not apply to Beijingss’s official state holdings.

According to the report, which cited China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange, Chinese banks held about $298 billion in dollar-denominated bonds as of September. It is unclear how much of that total consisted of US Treasuries.

The guidance, reportedly intended to diversify market risk, came ahead of last week’s phone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart, Donald Trump. In October, the two leaders agreed to a one-year trade truce, under which tariffs and export controls on each other’s goods would be lowered.

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Red flags raised over Chinese communist academics inside U.S. colleges developing advanced tech

A new watchdog report is raising concerns that elite American colleges developing advanced technology with military applications have been “infiltrated” by academics who are card-carrying members of the Chinese Communist Party.

The conservative, nonprofit American Accountability Foundation reported it found nearly two dozen Chinese academics working at elite U.S. schools and labs “who, because of the dual-use threat of their research, close ties to the military research sector in China, and/or clear ties to the Chinese Communist Party should be expelled from the United States or never be re-admitted.”

A review by Just the News found at least three Chinese academics affiliated with U.S. universities who have been repeatedly described as members of the CCP, and another Chinese scientist tied to an American college who is a leader within another CCP-controlled Chinese political party.

The new report came out the same week it was revealed that an illegal biolab in California inspected by federal authorities in 2023 and a separate hazardous lab inside a Las Vegas garage searched by the FBI this weekend. Both labs appear tied to a CCP-linked Chinese national who is currently in federal detention awaiting trial for fraud, false statements, and the adulteration of medical devices.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation, told Just the News that the explosion of the number of Chinese academics on U.S. soil was a direct consequence of the Biden administration’s open borders policies and its decision to shut down the FBI’s main counterintelligence program vetting Chinese threats inside U.S. academia.

“Whenever I read these stories, I think back to the start of the Biden administration, where they canceled the program within the Department of Justice to investigate the theft of U.S. intellectual property and universities,” Johnson said in an interview on the Just the News, No Noise television show. 

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Illegal Biolabs In Vegas & California Linked To Chinese National With Alleged Military-Civil Fusion Ties

Federal and local authorities are investigating suspected illegal biological laboratories in Las Vegas and California’s Central Valley linked to a Chinese national accused by Congressional investigators of ties to a PRC military-civil fusion enterprise, who spent a decade operating what Canadian courts found was a systematic technology-theft operation from British Columbia before fleeing south with a $330 million fraud judgment against him.

The FBI and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department executed search warrants over the weekend at two residences connected to Jiabei “Jesse” Zhu, a 62-year-old Chinese citizen already under federal indictment for operating an illegal biolab in Reedley, California that contained labeled samples of at least 20 infectious agents including HIV, tuberculosis, and what the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party described as “the deadliest known form of malaria.”

Las Vegas Metro Sheriff Kevin McMahill confirmed Monday that investigators recovered over 1,000 samples of biological material “consistent in appearance” with items found in the California facility.

“This can’t keep happening,” Congressman Kevin Kiley said after the Las Vegas raid, calling for immediate hearings on bipartisan legislation he introduced with Representatives Costa and David Valadao. “The illegal bio lab just raided in Las Vegas was operated by the same LLC and Chinese nationals as the one discovered in Reedley.”

In the Reedley case, investigators discovered nearly 1,000 bioengineered laboratory mice, infectious agents including E. Coli, malaria, various chemicals, medical waste, blood, tissue, serum, body fluid samples, and illegal pregnancy tests, Congressman Jim Costa noted, citing the Select Committee’s review.

Property records show both the Reedley warehouse and the Las Vegas homes are owned by the same limited-liability company whose officers include Zhu and his business partner Zhaoyan Wang, both Chinese citizens facing federal trial in April 2026 on charges of distributing hundreds of thousands of misbranded COVID-19 and other testing kits.

The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party’s investigation frames Zhu as a Chinese citizen from Canada “associated with PRC-government linked companies” and with direct ties to state enterprises and military-civil fusion networks.

Photos from their review show freezers packed with numerous small bottles and sample containers holding what the caption identifies as blood and other fluids, plus sealed bags labeled with apparent drug shorthand (for example “MDMA,” “Coca,” and “Met”), suggesting the freezers were being used to store both biological materials and suspected narcotics-related items.

The report states that in the early 2000s, Zhu served as vice chairman of Henan Pioneer Aide Biological Engineering Company Limited, a PRC state-controlled enterprise whose corporate ownership structure the Committee mapped to show interlacing with state-linked financing channels running through China Development Bank and its affiliated funds, the National Council for Social Security Fund, and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

The report explicitly flags Chinese military exposure, noting that beneficial owners operated through passthrough joint-venture companies including Henan Investment Group Company Limited, which the Committee describes as “involved in military-civil fusion.”

The Select Committee documented that Zhu’s work in cattle genetics connected to strategic PRC priorities.

As Zhu stated in documents obtained from the Reedley Biolab, “the Company is looking to seize the opportunity to develop the operational platform for the rapid growth in the Chinese dairy industry, fulfilling [PRC] Premier [and CCP Politburo Member] Wen Jiabao’s wish to ‘provide every Chinese, especially children, sufficient milk every day.’”

At that time, China faced a pressing milk crisis.

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Collins says China-linked Drug Networks are Expanding in Maine as Crackdown Language Heads to Trump’s Desk

Sen. Susan Collins (R) says she secured new funding and legislative language aimed at combating Chinese-linked illicit drug operations in Maine as the Fiscal Year 2026 National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs (NSRP) Appropriations Act heads to President Donald Trump’s desk to be signed into law.

The bill passed the Senate last week and was approved by the House of Representatives today, according to Collins’ office. Collins, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the measure is intended to support efforts to disrupt drug and money laundering operations tied to PRC-linked criminal syndicates.

“PRC-linked criminal syndicates continue to expand their illegal marijuana grow operations in Maine while contributing to the flow of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals that threaten communities in our state and across the country,” Collins said. “This legislation strengthens our ongoing efforts to expose and disrupt these networks and provide law enforcement with the information and tools they need to protect public safety.”

Among the provisions highlighted by Collins: the bill includes language directing the Secretary of State, in consultation with the heads of other relevant federal agencies, to submit a report to the appropriate congressional committees on PRC-linked criminal syndicates or nationals who may be directly or indirectly involved in illegal drug and money laundering operations in the United States, including in Maine, California, and Oregon.

The legislation also includes $150 million to counter the flow of fentanyl, fentanyl precursors, and other synthetic drugs into the United States.

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CCP-Linked Figure Caught Bankrolling Anti-ICE Agitators Through Shady Network

As clashes between agitators and federal law enforcement intensify in Minneapolis, the money trail behind the anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unrest is starting to surface.

Investigators and congressional Republicans are zeroing in on a wealthy American expat living in China who has been linked to a web of dark money groups accused of fueling far-left activism tied to Chinese Communist Party interests.

A Fox News Digital investigation this week identified several organizations acting as the primary engines behind the Minneapolis unrest, mobilizing protesters and coordinating messaging across multiple platforms to push demonstrations in Minnesota and beyond. Among the most prominent are the Party for Socialism and Liberation and The People’s Forum.

Both groups have been heavily subsidized by former tech executive Neville Roy Singham, according to media reports and congressional probes. Singham, a multimillionaire who sold his IT consulting firm in 2017 for $785 million, relocated to Shanghai and has largely remained out of reach of U.S. authorities.

A former federal prosecutor told Fox News Digital that Singham’s move to China effectively shields him from subpoenas, allowing his funding network to operate with little accountability.

Singham was the subject of a 2023 New York Times investigation that detailed his alleged ties to CCP-aligned propaganda efforts and his role in funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into opaque nonprofit organizations in the U.S. The report said more than a quarter-billion dollars had flowed through entities with vague names, minimal disclosures and mailing addresses tied to commercial mailboxes.

The 71-year-old U.S. citizen reportedly shares office space in Shanghai with the Maku Group, a media company he funds that promotes pro-CCP messaging, including efforts to “tell China’s story well.”

Singham’s name has surfaced in federal investigations for decades. The FBI probed him in 1974 for potentially being “engaged in activities inimical to U.S. interests,” according to records cited by lawmakers.

In 2025, Singham and organizations tied to his funding have faced mounting scrutiny from House and Senate committees. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., launched a House Oversight investigation last year into Singham’s alleged role in financing anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles.

“Mr. Singham, who resides in the People’s Republic of China, has a long track-record of assisting far-left entities, such as Code Pink, that oppose U.S. interests and support U.S. adversaries,” lawmakers wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The Oversight Committee also flagged the Party for Socialism and Liberation as an organizer of “destructive protests and civil unrest,” pointing directly to Singham’s financial backing. The group did not respond to requests for comment.

The People’s Forum, another alleged organizer in Minneapolis, has drawn similar attention. In 2024, the House Ways and Means Committee questioned the IRS about tax-exempt groups promoting CCP propaganda, naming The People’s Forum in its inquiry.

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How China supercharged ‘birth tourism’ and scammed American citizenship for up to 1.5 million babies

“Birth tourism” — where pregnant women have their child on America soil to become citizens — has been happening for decades. But Chinese elites have “weaponized” the practice, says author Peter Schweizer, raising a generation of legal citizens who have no loyalty to the US. In this excerpt from his new book, “The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon,” he explains how.

As we sang “Auld Lang Syne” in the early morning of Jan. 1, 2025, the first American newborn of the year arrived to much fanfare and celebration.

But this time, the baby was the progeny of Chinese citizens, and the mother had intentionally traveled to give birth on American soil, so that the child would automatically be granted US citizenship, a practice known as birth tourism. When such children turn 21, they can also apply for resident status for both of their parents.

This baby was born in the US territory of Saipan in the Pacific. More than 70% of the newborns in Saipan are Chinese birth tourist parents who utilize the territory’s 45-day visa-free visitation rules and the “Covenant of the Northern Mariana Islands” to guarantee that their children will have American citizenship.

That little child’s parents are two of many who are taking advantage of America’s birthright citizenship policies, based on an interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. How many is anyone’s guess.

Since the US government does not directly track birth tourism, we must rely on estimates. In 2012, one nonprofit calculated that about 36,000 foreign-born women gave birth in the United States and then left the country.

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Inside The Alliance Between American Marxists And Communist China

Arecent investigative report by Newsweek has exposed troubling connections between the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) — America’s largest socialist organization — and officials linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). These revelations demand serious scrutiny because the DSA has achieved growing political influence in recent years. This influence reached a new peak with the 2025 election of longtime DSA member Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City.

The Newsweek report drew on dozens of internal DSA documents, including meeting minutes and presentation materials dating back to 2021. These records show the DSA’s international committee actively pursuing closer relations with CCP-affiliated entities, often framed as solidarity in the fight against “U.S. imperialism.” In one striking example from a 2025 meeting of the DSA China Working Group, a New York-based member stated: “China wants to interface with the DSA … If we develop a killer two-week itinerary, hire locals, and develop further connections with the CPC [Communist Party of China], then we’re golden.”

Other documents included detailed presentations about at least two trips to China taken by some DSA members in 2023 and 2025. It remains unclear whether these visits were directly sponsored by the Chinese government or by entities tied to the CCP’s United Front Work Department, the party’s propaganda arm, which Chinese leader Xi Jinping describes as a “magic weapon” for global influence operations. The United Front is notorious for recruiting foreign “useful idiots” to aid in its influence operations, often through fully funded, carefully scripted trips to China.

Code Pink Ties

Furthermore, the DSA’s documents demonstrate that the organization actively sought guidance from other radical leftist groups, such as Code Pink, in strengthening ties with China. Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink and a CCP apologist, presented her group’s “China Is Not Our Enemy” (CINOE) campaign at one of the DSA meetings. She encouraged the DSA to promote a positive view of Communist China in the U.S., while deliberately avoiding contentious topics such as China’s potential invasion to Taiwan and the documented genocide against Uyghur Muslims.

Evans is married to Neville Roy Singham, a U.S.-born tech billionaire and open Marxist currently living in Shanghai, China. Together, they play a pivotal role in influencing both the messaging and financial support of Marxist groups in the U.S., such as the New York City-based People’s Forum. These groups aim to promote CCP propaganda and instigate chaos in the U.S., including backing the anti-ICE protests in Minnesota and anti-Israel protests in New York City following the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

In light of these activities, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has called on the U.S. Justice Department to launch a federal investigation into Code Pink, accusing it of providing “material support to foreign terrorist organizations” and serving as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government.

Still, internal documents from the DSA reveal that the organization was acting on Evans’ advice and planning events to promote the Chinese government’s poverty alleviation program. Alarmingly, even the United Nations has raised serious concerns about this program, citing allegations of human rights abuses, including forced labor involving Uyghurs, Tibetans, and other vulnerable minorities. The national DSA organization, along with its local Minnesota chapter, also supported the anti-ICE protests, which have created significant divisions among Americans.

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160,000-year-old sophisticated stone tools discovered in China may not have been made by Homo sapiens

Archaeologists have found that early humans in what is now China were using sophisticated stone tools as far back as 160,000 years ago.

“This discovery challenges the perception that stone tool technology in Asia lagged behind Europe and Africa during this period,” the research team wrote in a statement about the discovery.

At the site of Xigou, discovered in 2017 in Henan province in central China, the archaeological team found the remains of more than 2,600 stone tools and determined that some of them were “hafted,” or attached to a piece of wood or other form of stick.

“The identification of the hafted tools provides the earliest evidence for composite tools in Eastern Asia, to our knowledge,” the team wrote in a study published Tuesday (Jan. 27) in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers already knew of extremely early tool use in East Asia, with the oldest known wooden tools there dating to 300,000 years ago. However, the new findings, which were excavated between 2019 and 2021, are the earliest known tools consisting of two materials, as is evidenced by the hafted artifacts.

Hafting “is a new technological innovation whereby the stone tool is inserted or bound to a handle or a shaft,” Michael Petraglia, director of the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University and a co-author of the paper, told Live Science in an email. “This improved tool performance by allowing the user to increase leverage and providing more force for actions such as boring.”

It appears that the tools were used to process plant materials. “Microscopic analysis on the edges of the stone tools indicate boring actions, used against plant material, likely wood or reeds,” Petraglia said.

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China Purges One of Its Top Military Leaders After He Allegedly Leaked Nuclear Secrets to U.S.

A senior figure at the very top of China’s military has been abruptly removed amid allegations he passed highly sensitive nuclear information to the United States.

Zhang Youxia, long regarded as the operational leader of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), was dismissed on Saturday for a “serious violation of discipline.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, the 75-year-old general is accused of sharing classified details relating to China’s nuclear weapons programme with Washington.

The allegations were reportedly laid out during a closed-door briefing attended by senior PLA officers.

The meeting took place only hours before Beijing publicly confirmed that Zhang was under formal investigation.

Officials at the briefing are said to have accused Zhang not only of leaking state secrets, but also of accepting bribes in exchange for promoting a senior officer to the defence minister.

He was further alleged to have formed “political cliques” within the military, a charge that often signals concerns over loyalty rather than corruption alone.

Evidence presented at the meeting was reportedly supplied by Gu Jun, a former executive at China National Nuclear Corporation, which oversees both civilian and military nuclear programmes.

Gu himself is under investigation as part of a sweeping corruption probe targeting China’s defence and nuclear sectors.

Officials told the briefing that the inquiry into Gu had uncovered a major security breach inside the nuclear establishment, to which Zhang was allegedly connected.

Zhang’s downfall is particularly striking given his status within the PLA.

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