Tag: china

US State Department Concerned Over Malaysia’s Arrest of Falun Gong Practitioners Before Xi’s Visit

Malaysia’s decision to detain dozens of Falun Gong practitioners before and during a visit from Chinese leader Xi Jinping has drawn alarm from the U.S. State Department and human rights advocates.

Two days before Xi’s arrival in mid-April in the country’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, about two dozen police officers appeared at a private venue where nearly 80 Falun Gong practitioners had gathered for a routine study of spiritual texts. The officers demanded their identification documents and forcibly detained them.

Those arrested include a woman older than 80 and a 10-year-old child. Among the group were also 29 people originally from China who are seeking protection from the sweeping persecution targeting their beliefs in China. Several are U.N. refugees. The 47 Malaysian citizens were released hours after Xi left, and the Chinese nationals were freed during the two weeks that followed.

The mass arrest marked the first of its kind in Malaysia, taking place as Xi toured Southeast Asia to promote the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a reliable trading partner amid a tariff war with the United States.

The U.S. State Department expressed concern about the reports.

“We call on the Chinese Communist Party to end its nearly 26-year campaign to eradicate Falun Gong and to cease its attempts to pressure other governments to repress the practice of Falun Gong,” a department spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

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Huawei Hires Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Dark Arts’ Spin Doctor To Beat Off Trump Ban

Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies has hired the former public relations firm of sex predators Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein as it fights against Trump administration efforts to ban the use of its computer chips over espionage and national security concerns.

Sitrick Group, owned by veteran publicist Michael S. Sitrick, registered this month as a foreign agent of Huawei and its American subsidiary FutureWei, according to documents filed with the Department of Justice. Sitrick, who calls himself one of the “most accomplished practitioners of the dark arts of public relations,” will provide “strategic counsel, media relations, analyst relations, data insights, content strategy, and public communications” for Huawei at a rate of $75,000 per month, according to a contract disclosed to the Department of Justice.

It could signal that Huawei—and its overseers in the Chinese Communist Party—are taking a new approach to fighting U.S. government sanctions against the company. American officials have warned for years that the CCP uses Huawei to conduct espionage and surveil critics of China’s government. The Trump administration issued a warning to tech companies last week that using Huawei chips would “violate U.S. export controls” issued against the Chinese firm. The Chinese government shot back that it will take “resolute measures” against the United States for blacklisting its chips.

Sitrick, whose memoir is entitled The Fixer, has represented thousands of clients, including companies like PepsiCo and McDonald’s and actresses Halle Berry and Kim Basinger. He’s also represented some controversial names in his nearly 40 years in the PR business.

Weinstein hired Sitrick’s firm in 2017 after the Hollywood mogul had been accused of sexual offenses. Dozens of women later accused Weinstein of sexual assault. Sitrick executive Sallie Hofmeister, a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, served as Weinstein’s primary publicist and issued statements on behalf of Weinstein that “any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied.” Weinstein is serving life in prison following several rape convictions. Sitrick Group resigned from representing Weinstein in April 2018. Hofmeister is listed as a Sitrick Group representative on the Huawei account, according to documents filed with the Department of Justice.

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USDA ends ‘maximum pain bird flu gain-of-function experiments’ with Wuhan lab parent

The U.S. Department of Agriculture canceled its $1 million collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the parent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, to conduct gain-of-function experiments on bird flu viruses, Secretary Brooke Rollins told Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va.

Speaking at a House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee hearing, Rollins said “it is my understanding that those [experiments] have been discontinued just in the last few months” when Cline asked for their status, started in the Biden administration, and that if she’s wrong, “then 100%, yes,” USDA will stop them.

Cline said her predecessor Tom Vilsack “defended and distorted this risky research” when Vilsack testified, denying it was a “collaboration” even though the “project title” calls it that and claiming there was no “data sharing” even though public records show USDA visiting the China lab to “share results on site.” The Chinese researcher lists the Wuhan Institute of Virology as an affiliation, Cline said.

“It is outrageous that U.S. taxpayer dollars were ever used by the Biden USDA to fund joint experiments with the Chinese Communist Party, especially research that could be catastrophic if mishandled or weaponized,” Cline said in a statement.

The White Coat Waste Project, which exposed through public records requests the five-year project on what it called “maximum pain bird flu gain-of-function experiments” on birds as young as a day old, cheered Rollins’ declaration.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay for the creation of pandemic-causing pathogens, and now, following a White Coat Waste campaign, they won’t have to,” President Anthony Bellotti said.

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China has an off-switch for America, and we aren’t ready to deal with it.

Imagine waking up tomorrow and your phone has no signal. Your smart home isn’t working. Your Ring camera is offline. You get in your car, but your GPS won’t route. Worse, every traffic light in town is out. Intersections are a mess of blaring horns and confusion. Sirens echo in the distance. You drive to an ATM, hoping to grab some cash. The screen flickers, then goes black. It’s not just your neighborhood. It’s not just your state. The entire nation has gone dark.

This scenario is digital darkness, caused by China’s “off-switch” for America. It is the penultimate step in China’s strategy to defeat America before gunning for global control.

So-called “assassin’s maces” play a central role in China’s plan to become the world’s sole superpower by 2049. Of the many known assassin’s maces, four demand immediate attention:

1) Tactical Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Weapons: China develops tactical EMP weapons that can disable entire regions by targeting civilian infrastructure America relies on to function. These compact pulse generators can hover above unprotected data centers, destroying electronics inside with pinpoint electromagnetic blasts. Several dozen well-coordinated EMP strikes could wipe out cloud infrastructure, disrupting America’s power, transportation, communications and financial systems nationwide.

2) Deep Sea Fiber Cuts: Over 95 percent of global internet traffic travels through undersea fiber cables. China recently unveiled deep-sea cable cutters capable of severing cables at extreme depths. Recent disruptions near Taiwan and the Baltic Sea suggest these tools are already in use. Cutting a few lines disrupts global communications instantly and fractures U.S. military coordination.

3) Anti-Satellite Weapons: As America stockpiles low earth orbit satellites, China expands its anti-satellite arsenal to include missiles, parasitic satellites and lasers designed to disable or destroy orbital assets. In March 2025, the U.S. Space Force reported that Chinese satellites performed aggressive “dogfighting” maneuvers in orbit. This capability allows China to carry out precise strikes designed to trigger the dreaded Kessler Cascade, a chain reaction of satellite collisions capable of destroying all low earth orbit satellites within days, crippling internet, communications and surveillance systems. 

4) Cyber Attacks: China’s cyber weapons are the most deeply embedded assassin’s mace. Just this week, U.S. investigators uncovered rogue communication devices hidden in Chinese-made solar inverters and batteries. Such undocumented components can bypass firewalls, allowing China to remotely monitor, destabilize and disable critical infrastructure. Chinese-made chips, routers and switches embedded throughout U.S. networks contain dormant firmware that, upon activation, could place critical U.S. infrastructure under Chinese Communist Party command.

The Chinese army’s “blended domains” philosophy strips traditional boundaries between war and peace. An omnipresent battlefield erases any line between military and civilian enterprise. The doctrine is described in “Unrestricted Warfare,” the 1999 book in which Chinese military leaders promote the use of psychological, technological and informational attacks to undermine and subsequently overwhelm America.

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China’s Solar Firms Face Potential Tax Credit Freeze Under House ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

Chinese clean energy companies would be excluded from tax benefits they enjoyed under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), should the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, currently considered by the U.S. Congress, become law.

The act, a budget reconciliation package aimed to implement President Donald Trump’s policy agenda, was passed by the House of Representatives early Thursday by one vote. China solar importers are asking the Senate to change course in their version of the bill.

The IRA, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022, is often dubbed the “Green New Deal.” It provided tax write-offs to clean energy producers and manufacturers, primarily of EV batteries, battery storage, solar, and wind.

For China, the IRA was mostly a solar story.

China is the world’s No. 1 solar manufacturer. Its solar companies account for eight out of the top 10 globally, according to researchers at Photovoltaic Brand Lab.

Since the law, no other country has invested more in solar projects in the United States than China.

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‘There Are Chinese Spies At Stanford’: Bombshell Report Reveals CCP Student Espionage

Astudent newspaper at Stanford University dropped a bombshell report earlier this month revealing “there are Chinese spies at Stanford.”

The report, titled “Uncovering Chinese Academic Espionage at Stanford,” was published by The Stanford Review, an independent student-run newspaper. This alarming investigation is based on “over a dozen interviews conducted between July 2024 and April 2025, involving Stanford faculty members, current and former students, and independent experts specializing in Chinese intelligence operations and technology transfer.”

The report highlights three critical findings. First, it exposes that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Ministry of State Security (MSS) is actively recruiting or coercing Chinese students and scholars at Stanford to serve as “non-traditional” intelligence assets. The MSS demands these individuals gather information that it deems valuable. Rather than targeting classified documents, the MSS is focused on obtaining “the know-how behind American innovation,” which encompasses “conclusions from Stanford research projects, methodologies, software, lab workflows, collaborative structures, and even communication channels.” The agency is particularly interested in information related to artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics.

Fears of Harassment, Losing Scholarships

The Stanford report underscores a critical nuance: not all Chinese students and scholars on campus are engaged in espionage for China. However, those who are involved often operate under vastly different motivations. While some choose to cooperate with the MSS voluntarily, others are unwitting victims of their government, acting out of fear, as highlighted by the Stanford Review. Reports indicate that some Chinese students feel pressured by MSS handlers in the U.S. who closely monitor their actions. The threat of repercussions, such as harassment of their family members back in China, looms large for these students.

Moreover, a pervasive fear of losing scholarships supplied by the Chinese government plays a significant role in this dynamic. The Stanford Review highlights the China Scholarship Council (CSC), a leading Chinese government agency that funds between 7 and 18 percent of Chinese students studying in the United States. Its sponsorship comes with stringent conditions: Students must align their research with state priorities, particularly those outlined in the government’s “Made-in-China 2025” industrial initiative. Furthermore, scholarship recipients must pass a loyalty test, pledge allegiance to the CCP, and agree to return to China upon completing their studies.

In addition, while studying in the U.S., the CSC mandates that sponsored students submit regular “situation reports” detailing their research to Chinese diplomatic missions, further emphasizing the controlling nature of this scholarship program. These students’ family members in China often serve as guarantors of these scholarships, and these guarantors will face financial penalties should their students “violate” the arrangement or refuse to go back to China.

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US wants to exploit bases in Brazil and provoke the country over its role in BRICS

The plan by American diplomats to achieve rights for the United States to use Brazilian military bases is a radical maneuver and a political provocation against Brazil, particularly given its relationship with BRICS partners, especially China.

US diplomats linked to President Donald Trump’s Republican Party have been discussing in informal meetings with Brazilian interlocutors the unrestricted use of the Fernando de Noronha Airport base in the Atlantic Ocean and the Natal Air Base in Rio Grande do Norte.

According to DefesaNet, the excuse given to defend the plan is the so-called “historical right of operational return” for investments made by the US during the Cold War. Washington’s argument is also based on the fact that military assets financed in other countries can be reactivated based on tacit agreements or the principle of hemispheric reciprocity, especially in the context of a global threat, as well as contractual elements.

Despite being broken in 1977, the Brazil-US Military Assistance Agreement continues to be cited by US policy-making think tanks, such as the RAND Corporation, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and The Heritage Foundation, as a reference to the so-called “hemispheric interoperability tradition.”

Furthermore, the Technological Safeguards Agreement (AST) — signed in 2019 under the administration of former president Jair Bolsonaro, created to enable the use of the Alcântara base — is often cited as a political and diplomatic precedent for new modalities of US military access to sensitive facilities under Brazilian control.

Behind the scenes, sources from the Ministry of Defense emphasize that Washington’s plan is unconstitutional since the 1988 Constitution prohibits the use of military installations by foreign forces without prior authorization from the National Congress.

At the same time, the request for bases by US diplomats has no real or concrete objective since neither the US nor Brazil is at war, and, therefore, there is no operational need. Rather, this is a political provocation made by the Trump administration. Given the fact that Brazil has a special relationship with Russia and China, countries that form the core of BRICS, Trump intends to create external and internal embarrassment for Brazil with this unreasonable request.

There are similarities with the US demands against Greenland, Canada, and Panama.

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The Pentagon Is Using a Fabricated Chinese Threat to Build Genetically Engineered Soldiers

On April 8, a bipartisan commission chartered by Congress warned that China is rapidly advancing a terrifying new military threat: genetically engineered “super soldiers.”

The report by the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) urges the U.S. to respond with a sweeping effort to militarize biotechnology. It offers little concrete evidence that such Chinese programs even exist.

In the name of national security, Washington is now pushing for deregulation, massive government investment, and human experimentation. Experts say this effort echoes Cold War-era paranoia and threatens to erode ethical boundaries in science and warfare.

A Congressional Research Service fact sheet on the report claims its contents “describe how biotechnology could potentially revolutionize agricultural production in the U.S., transform U.S. health care, and change the future of computing power.” While that may sound promising, the report’s focus is overwhelmingly on using biotechnology for military purposes, including the creation of “genetically enhanced soldiers.” The report also states that “biotechnology’s impact on surveillance could be … transformative.”

The report argues that biology could revolutionize warfare just as airpower did in the 20th century, promising new advantages in stealth, logistics, and real-time physiological monitoring of soldiers. It calls for “a fundamental rethinking” of how the U.S. uses biotech in combat.

Biotechnology also promises new advantages in stealth and mobility. Dynamic biological camouflage, for instance, could shield warfighters from thermal detection, while wearable biosensors could adjust mission parameters based on real-time physiological data. Taken together, these advances demand a fundamental rethinking of how biology supports sustained, agile military operations, revolutionizing what it means to defend the U.S., including building for, nourishing, and healing forces in the field.”

The report argues that “winning” the global biotech race will “require de-risking the domestic production of defense-related biotechnology products” and changing “military specifications” to enable biotechnology companies to sell their products to the Pentagon more easily. Repeated references are also made to the need to “reduce or remove regulatory hurdles for familiar products.” Although the report never defines “familiar products,” the term may refer to controversial and experimental technologies such as CRISPR gene editing and mRNA therapeutics.

NSCEB also calls for large-scale “biological databases” to be treated as a “strategic resource.” It urges Congress to direct the Pentagon to build commercial facilities across the country to biomanufacture products deemed “critical for DOD needs.” The U.S. government “will need to shoulder some of the risk of early-stage financing for biotechnology and encourage private investment,” such as “[streamlining] regulatory processes to alleviate unnecessary burdens and accelerate the commercialization.”

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How Beijing’s 1995 Disappearance of the Panchen Lama Enabled Crimes Against Humanity

Thirty years ago today, Chinese authorities disappeared a six-year-old Tibetan boy and his family. They haven’t been heard from since – but the impunity enjoyed by the Chinese government continues to fuel threats to religious freedom, collective punishment, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detention. 

In early 1995, the Dalai Lama identified a young boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as the incarnation of the Panchen Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s second highest-ranking monk. But the government, then headed by Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin, refused to acknowledge the Dalai Lama’s decision, and identified another child for the role. To prevent Tibetans from becoming loyal to the boy chosen according to religious traditions, authorities opted to abduct him and his family. 

But this story didn’t end in 1995: the genuine Panchen Lama and his family are far from Beijing’s only Tibetan victims of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention. Databases of Tibetans wrongfully detained currently reflect grim descriptions: “life imprisonment,” “forcible disappearance,” and, chillingly, “no further information.” Chinese government restrictions on information make definitive conclusions difficult, but research that likely underestimates counts of political prisoners shows that while Tibetans comprise only half a percent of China’s total population, they made up 8 percent of all prisoners of conscience sentenced between 2019 and 2024.

In 2017, United Nations human rights experts tasked with tracking arbitrary detention assessed the case of Tashi Wangchuk, a Tibetan shopkeeper, and determined that he had been wrongfully detained for his wholly legal advocacy in support of Tibetan-medium education. In the same decision the experts also argued that the scope and scale of such abuses across China might be so great such that they might constitute a crime against humanity. 

It is possible Beijing will never clarify how, let alone how many, Tibetans have died in state custody. Even in high-profile cases authorities have refused to provide the remains of and key information to family and religious community members. The body of revered monk Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, who died in July 2015 after being tortured in prison, was swiftly cremated, preventing an investigation. Questions are swirling about Tulku Hunkar Dorjee, a well-known monk who fled political pressure to Vietnam, where he died under highly questionable circumstances in April 2025; he too was cremated without family consent, but with Chinese officials present.

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Chinese ‘Kill Switches’ Found in US Solar Farms

Chinese ‘kill switches’ have been found hidden in American solar farms, prompting calls for Ed Miliband to halt the rollout of renewables over security concerns. The Telegraph has the story.

On Thursday, the Energy Secretary was urged to impose an “immediate pause” on his green energy blitz to review whether UK solar plants are also at risk.

The components found in the US included cellular radios capable of switching off the equipment remotely, raising serious concerns about grid security, according to Reuters.

They were found inside power inverters manufactured by unnamed Chinese companies.

Power inverters are the key links between solar or wind farms and the rest of the power system, converting their electricity so the wider grid can use it.

One source told Reuters that compromising such equipment would give Beijing the ability to inflict blackouts on the West, claiming it would create “a built-in way to physically destroy the grid”.

China has dismissed the claims as a smear. But the discovery has sounded alarm bells within the US Government and is likely to prompt a similar scramble in Britain.

Andrew Bowie, the Shadow Energy Minister, on Thursday said the “worrying revelations” should spark serious concern for Mr Miliband and called for an urgent investigation.

He said: “We were already aware of concerns being raised by the Ministry of Defence and the security and intelligence services surrounding possible monitoring technology on Chinese-built wind turbines – but given the dominance of China in solar, these developments are equally if not even more worrying.

“Ed Miliband’s Made in China transition – clean power at the expense of everything else – is a threat to our national security and makes a mockery of his claims on energy security.

“It is essential that an immediate pause and review is carried out to ensure the safety and security of our energy system.”

One industry source on Thursday said that British solar farms used inverters from a variety of sources, including Chinese, American, German and Israeli suppliers.

A UK Government spokesman said: “We would never let anything get in the way of our national security, and while we would not comment on individual cases, our energy sector is subject to the highest levels of national security scrutiny.”

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