Tag: china

Hegseth presses defense industry to ramp up munitions amid depleted stocks, China threat

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gathered some of the leaders of America’s largest military contractors for a closed-door meeting at the Pentagon last week, urging them to ramp up the production of critically needed munitions amidst depleted weapons stocks and a growing threat from China, Just the News has learned.

A senior Trump administration official, who declined to be named in order to describe a private discussion, told Just the News that the main reason for Thursday’s closed-door meeting with defense company leaders — which included well-known firms such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and BAE Systems — was to seek to hold munitions manufacturers accountable so that U.S. warfighters are equipped to face 21st century threats.

The closed-door meeting came shortly after Hegseth gave an impassioned defense of the powerful U.S. military strikes against Iranian nuclear sites earlier in June.

The official also told Just the News that Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, who was also at the meeting with the industry leaders, are working to fix the inefficiencies enabled and ignored by their predecessors, and that the duo encouraged the defense company executives to rise to the moment to meet the significant challenge.

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State Department Confirms: Beijing Exploits U.S. Tech Platforms for Military Intelligence

A senior State Department official confirmed this week that Chinese AI firm DeepSeek has supported, and continues to support, China’s military and intelligence operations. The case highlights Beijing’s broader strategy of using American technology platforms to advance its defense goals.

DeepSeek used Southeast Asian shell companies to bypass U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors, allowing it to operate within the U.S. tech ecosystem while maintaining ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The incident illustrates how China exploits U.S. openness to access critical technology and gather intelligence, an approach likely mirrored across other Chinese firms.

DeepSeek’s operations reflect a broader Chinese strategy of using commercial technology platforms for intelligence gathering. U.S. officials report that DeepSeek appears in procurement records for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) over 150 times and has provided services to PLA research institutions. With a global user base, the company gained access to vast amounts of user data, which it transmitted to China via infrastructure linked to China Mobile, a state-owned telecom provider.

Congressional analysis of DeepSeek’s privacy policies confirms this data flow. The platform collected user queries, data inputs, and usage patterns from millions worldwide, allowing China to profile U.S. research priorities, problem-solving methods, and technological capabilities. This is intelligence gathering at scale, made possible by users unknowingly feeding data into a system tied to a foreign military.

The episode exposes broader flaws in U.S. efforts to restrict China’s access to sensitive technology. Despite bans on sales of advanced AI chips to Chinese firms, DeepSeek reportedly acquired large volumes of Nvidia’s H100 processors by exploiting third-party shell companies and remote data center access. These methods highlight how Chinese firms bypass restrictions through indirect channels, suggesting systemic gaps in enforcement.

DeepSeek’s presence on major U.S. cloud platforms, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, further expanded China’s access to American infrastructure. This integration allowed Beijing to collect intelligence while posing as a commercial partner, gaining insight into cloud operations and user behavior.

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Russian Military Instructs China How To Beat US & NATO Weapons

One key trend to have emerged over the course of the Russia-Ukraine war is that China, Iran, and Russia are increasingly and very openly cooperating militarily and technologically, including Moscow sharing experience gained in the course of its Ukraine ground operations.

Newsweek reports that “Russia plans to train hundreds of Chinese military personnel this year on lessons learned from its ongoing invasion of Ukraine,” based on regional sources. Some of what has been ‘learned’ is how to defend against US-made and NATO-supplied weaponry – something which Beijing is surely interested in amid the long-running Taiwan standoff with Washington.

“Instructors will cover methods for countering weapons systems used by Ukrainian forces that were produced by the United States and its NATO allies, a source in Ukraine’s top intelligence agency told the outlet,” the Newsweek report continues.

Specifically ‘lessons for a Taiwan conflict’ would be gleaned:

This training would further strengthen security ties between Russia and its “no limits” ally China, which in recent years has stepped up joint military exercises. Battlefield insights into U.S. weaponry could offer an advantage as China seeks to surpass the U.S. as the leading military power in the Indo-Pacific.

And Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Directorate has told local media, the Kyiv Post, that “The Kremlin has decided to allow Chinese military personnel to study and adopt the combat experience Russia has gained in its war against Ukraine.”

Not only have Russian forces destroyed and disabled possibly dozens of Western-supplied main battle tanks, including M1 Abrams, UK Challengers, and French Leopard 2’s – but F16s have also been shot down.

American troop carriers have additionally been destroyed, and in some places Western armored vehicles have been put on display in the capital of Moscow, as trophies recovered from the battlefield.

Meanwhile, China this week hosted defense ministers from Iran and Russia for a meeting in its eastern seaside city of Qingdao.

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China’s Answer to WEF Davos: Summer Meeting of the New Champions Advances Beijing’s New World Order Vision

As you read this article, 1,700 participants from over 90 countries are gathered in China, discussing how Beijing can displace the United States as the world’s richest and most powerful nation.

Every June, while Western elites gather at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos to push globalist agendas, China hosts its own rival summit: the Annual Meeting of the New Champions, or Summer Davos. Marketed as a forum for innovation and entrepreneurship, the event serves a deeper purpose, advancing Beijing’s long-term plan to dismantle the U.S.-led international order.

Behind the veneer of business networking and technological cooperation, China uses Summer Davos to promote a multipolar world where Western influence declines, Chinese leadership rises, and China ultimately replaces the U.S. as the global hegemon.

Summer Davos began in 2007 as a collaboration between the World Economic Forum and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Its effectiveness lies in its veneer of legitimacy: operating under the WEF brand makes it easier for international participants to attend without appearing to endorse Chinese political positions. This allows Western corporate elites to engage with China’s strategic agenda while maintaining plausible deniability.

The 2025 meeting in Tianjin made this purpose unmistakably clear, as more than 1,700 participants from over 90 countries convened, the underlying message centered on “navigating a future less intertwined with Washington.”

Summer Davos began in 2007 as a collaboration between the World Economic Forum and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). What makes Summer Davos particularly effective is its veneer of legitimacy. Operating under the WEF brand, makes it easier for international participants to attend without appearing to endorse Chinese political positions. Therefore, Western corporate elites can engage with China’s strategic agenda while maintaining plausible deniability. The 2025 Tianjin meeting made China’s strategic intent clear: “navigating a future less intertwined with Washington.”

The attendee list reads like a who’s who of globalist corporate power. Major consulting firms that shape Western economic policy, including Deloitte as a Strategic Partner and Bain & Company as regular participants, send senior executives to these annual gatherings. McKinsey & Company’s Chairman for Greater China regularly appears on panels, while technology giants like Intel have leveraged the forum to announce massive investments, including a $2.5 billion semiconductor facility in Dalian. European aerospace giant Airbus used Summer Davos as the platform to establish its first final assembly line outside Europe, extending the partnership through 2025. Even more concerning, major Western financial institutions and consulting giants use these gatherings to legitimize China’s economic model while helping Beijing develop alternatives to American-led global systems.

Perhaps most telling is the regular presence of Klaus Schwab himself, the WEF founder and architect of the “Great Reset”, who personally attends Summer Davos closing ceremonies. His participation represents the ultimate validation of China’s challenge to Western-led globalism, as the very figure undermining national sovereignty lends his support to Beijing’s alternative world order.

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Germany Pressures Apple and Google to Ban Chinese AI App DeepSeek

Apple and Google are facing mounting pressure from German authorities to remove the Chinese AI app DeepSeek from their app stores in Germany over data privacy violations.

The Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, Meike Kamp, has flagged the app for transferring personal data to China without adhering to EU data protection standards.

Kamp’s office examined DeepSeek’s practices and found that the company failed to offer “convincing evidence” that user information is safeguarded as mandated by EU law.

She emphasized the risks linked to Chinese data governance, warning that “Chinese authorities have far-reaching access rights to personal data within the sphere of influence of Chinese companies.”

With this in mind, Apple and Google have been urged to evaluate the findings and consider whether to block the app in Germany.

Authorities in Berlin had already asked DeepSeek to either meet EU legal requirements for data transfers outside the bloc or remove its app from German availability.

DeepSeek did not take action to address these concerns, according to Kamp.

Germany’s move follows Italy’s earlier decision this year to block DeepSeek from local app stores, citing comparable concerns about data security and privacy.

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Kash Patel Says He Can Prove Christopher Wray Lied Under Oath About Election Interference

While many on the left insisted that President Donald Trump’s first term was illegitimate due to unfounded allegations of foreign election interference, the same sources were indignant — or simply remained silent — in the face of similar claims surrounding Joe Biden’s victory four years later.

And now, FBI Director Kash Patel is coming forward with evidence he has about his predecessor’s assurances that China didn’t play a role in the 2020 presidential election.

According to the Daily Mail:

The Daily Mail can exclusively report that Patel plans to hand over to Congress this week proof that former FBI Director Christopher Wray lied to Congress.

Specifically, he will detail to leaders how FBI headquarters ‘recalled’ a report solely because it contradicted Wray’s claims under oath to Congress that China was not conducting a foreign influence campaign in U.S. elections.

The FBI field office in Albany, New York produced an Internal Intelligence Report (IRR) that was published and then pulled back without justification, Patel reveals.

FBI bosses at the time shut down this legitimate investigation into the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to shield Wray from fallout, sources tell the Daily Mail.

The FBI was investigating at the time the existence of CCP-produced drivers licenses to obtain paper ballots and the Albany office published an IRR on the claims.

They were then told by headquarters to pull the report and pretend it didn’t exist, Patel will reveal.

The current Director will tell Congress that the reason the IRR on this investigation was never released was because they admitted that ‘the reporting will contradict Director Wray’s testimony.’

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GOP Senators Present Evidence China Bankrolls Environmentalist Lawsuits To Cripple U.S. Power

Senators met yesterday for a subcommittee hearing to discuss claims that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), foreign donors, and leftist legal activism are behind a “systematic campaign” to dismantle American energy dominance.

Throughout the hearing, Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, emphasized how foreign funding and activist litigation are undermining U.S. energy infrastructure, posing a national security threat. His four Democrat colleagues repeatedly dismissed the concerns as a “conspiracy theory,” instead focusing on energy costs and “global warming.”

The “assault by the radical left,” “paid for by the [CCP],” seeks to “seize control of our courts [and] to weaponize litigation against U.S. energy producers,” Cruz said. He noted the assault is “three-pronged,” weaponizing “foreign funding, mass litigation, and judicial indoctrination” against “American energy independence.”

In describing the first prong, Cruz highlighted a “strategic alliance … between leftist billionaires, radical environmental organizations, and the Chinese Communist Party.” He said, “One of the primary vehicles for this alliance is Energy Foundation China, which has funneled upwards of $12 million to U.S.-based climate advocacy groups since 2020.”

This money flows “directly to aggressive litigation outfits” that file lawsuits against American gas and oil companies, Cruz said. He later said the “second prong” of the assault is a “legal barrage” aimed at bankrupting such companies. Cruz said more than 30 lawsuits have been filed in “at least 15 Democratic-run jurisdictions, including by 12 states” against U.S. oil, gas, and coal producers.

Scott Walter, president of Capital Research Center, testified during the hearing. He said, “Many environmentalist groups funded by the multitude of left-wing billionaires have disturbing foreign ties,” citing big-money international players such as Neville Roy Singham.

Singham lives in Hong Kong and was investigated by the FBI in 1974 for being “potentially dangerous” because he engaged in “activities inimical to the U.S,” according to Influence Watch. Walter also highlighted Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, who spent $650 million on left-wing organizations, including “ClimateWorks Foundation, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, and Natural Resources Defense Council,” Walter’s testimony cites.

Climate lawfare groups suing American energy have raked in $500 million in 2023 from lawsuits, according to IRS forms Cruz cited during the hearing.

“They are using theories that are preposterous, legally speaking, and most of these theories will eventually hit a wall when they hit the final court,” Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach told The Federalist. Kobach said in his written testimony that some states have overstepped their bounds by “regulating conduct and industries far beyond their borders.”

Cruz said the “third prong” of the assault against American energy is “judicial capture,” primarily by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), which holds “near total control over climate-related judicial training.” ELI’s Climate Judiciary Project (CJP) seeks “to ‘educate’—from a left-wing perspective—federal and state judges about climate change and related litigation designed to extract billions of dollars from energy companies,” Walter said in his written testimony.

The program claims to be nonpartisan but pressures judges into a specific “predetermined political narrative” and is funded by “left-wing bankrollers,” Cruz said. He said “more than 2,000 judges have participated” in the program.

“I’m skeptical that the CJP wants to help energy,” Walter said in response to a question from Cruz.

The four Democrat senators at the hearing unanimously wrote the CCP allegations off as a “conspiracy theory,” with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, saying global warming is the real threat Congress should address. Witness David Arkush, the director of the Public Citizen’s Climate Program at the left-wing Roosevelt Institute, also dismissed the CCP allegations as “conspiracy theory.” Arkush told The Federalist, “I don’t see why [CCP] would be funding litigation against the U.S. oil and gas industry.”

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Rare Earth Startups Say Without Subsidies and Support, US Can’t Shake China’s Control

Without a federally supported market and strategic reserve stockpile, the United States will remain reliant on China for critical minerals and rare earth refining, experts told a House panel during two-plus hours of testimony on June 24 that exposed how vulnerable the global economy and the nation’s defense is to the whims of the Chinese Communist Party.

Even with swift deregulation, permitting reform, and rapid recycling ramp-up, they warned, it will take years of government support to untether domestic manufacturing from a supply chain China has strategically built for decades.

“Over the years it’s taken for us to do nothing, the Chinese have dominated. They and their government have been extremely supportive of their ability to create world dominance in this, and it was part of a strategy,” U.S. Critical Materials Executive Director Harvey Kaye said during the hearing before the House Small Business Committee.

This glaring vulnerability is confirmed by the Congressional Research Service’s April 2024 report documenting the nation’s 100 percent import reliance for 12 of 50 “most critical” minerals, and more than 50 percent import reliance for another 29.

The U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries January 2025 report paints an even scarier picture. Of 31 critical minerals needed to produce everything from iPhones to F-35 fighter jets, the United States cannot domestically source any and can commercially refine only one, beryllium.

China, meanwhile, is the lead source for eight and the near-exclusive provider of 17 minerals needed for a rapidly electrifying economy. China processes two-thirds of the world’s lithium and cobalt, supplying 60 percent to 90 percent of the world’s processed minerals.

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China Reportedly On Verge Of 100 DeepSeek-Like Breakthroughs Amid Aspirations For World Domination

China is preparing to launch a tsunami of domestic AI innovation, with more than 100 DeepSeek-like breakthroughs (more here) expected within the next 18 months, according to former PBOC Deputy Governor Zhu Min, as reported by Bloomberg. This development signals Beijing’s intent to rapidly close the technological gap ahead of the 2030s. 

Speaking at the World Economic Forum’s “Annual Meeting of the New Champions” in Tianjin, China, Min told the audience that 100 DeepSeek-like breakthroughs “will fundamentally change the nature and the tech nature of the whole Chinese economy.”

The emergence of DeepSeek, a low-cost, powerful AI model, has fueled Chinese tech stocks and underscored China’s AI competitiveness despite U.S. restrictions on advanced chips and domestic macroeconomic headwinds. Bloomberg Economics projects high-tech’s contribution to China’s GDP could rise from 15% in 2024 to over 18% by 2026.

Traders are rotating into Chinese equities, with the Hang Seng Index surging 25% year-to-date, significantly outperforming the S&P 500, which is up just 3.3% and effectively flat in real terms. China stocks outperformed soon after DeepSeek’s launch in January. 

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Will China, Not the U.S., Rule the 21st Century?

I recently read Ray Dalio’s Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order. While I take issue with many of Dalio’s views, his method for measuring national power is worth paying attention to. He breaks it down into eight key pillars—education, innovation, competitiveness, military strength, trade influence, economic output, financial center dominance, and reserve currency status—and then uses something called z-scores to compare countries across each one.

Having recently written to you about the ongoing U.S.–China trade war (see here and here), I was curious how this framework would stack up when applied to the two major powers today. So I went digging—and sure enough, I found a recent dataset that applies the same methodology using updated numbers. I’ve plotted it in this week’s chart below.

Again, what you’re seeing here are z-scores—basically, a way to show how far above or below the global average a country sits in each category. A score of 0 means you’re at the global average. Scores below 0 mean you’re trailing it. Anything above 1 means you’re solidly ahead. Above 2? You’re in rare company—top-tier status.

Now, the U.S. still dominates in the areas you’d expect—finance and military power. For example, America’s financial center strength (2.7) dwarfs China’s (0.2). Same goes for reserve currency status: 1.9 for the U.S., versus -0.6 for China.

Naturally, I’m not exactly sold on that financial dominance narrative. A bit hard to claim that with nearly $37 trillion in debt, deficits that would make a drunken sailor blush, and a global reserve status that’s losing altitude fast.

Either way, here’s where things get interesting…

Data shows that while, yes, the U.S. still leads in finance and military power, China’s catching up fast in the areas that matter most for the future.

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