Tag: china

What Future for U.S.-China Science and Technology Collaboration?

On Tuesday this week the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement (STA) is due to expire unless the U.S. and China can agree on its extension. Today I provide some background on the agreement, why it is now being debated, and my view on what should happen next.

STAs are a common tool of science diplomacy. The U.S. has more than 60 STAs with countries around the world, overseen by the State Department, which explains:

These agreements, and their associated expert meetings, strengthen international cooperation in scientific areas aligned with American interests, ensure open data practices, promote reciprocity, extend U.S. norms and principles, and protect American intellectual property.

We recognize that not every country shares American values – in fact, some attempt to illicitly acquire America’s intellectual property and proprietary information. As such, STC works with foreign allies and federally funded scientists to ensure the United States rightfully reaps the benefits of international science and technology cooperation and that those with whom we cooperate adhere to the rules-based order. STC monitors worldwide trends in science and technology to retain U.S. advantages over strategic competitors and improve our understanding of how they may influence—or undermine—American strategies and programs.

According to a 2021 study, at that time China had 52 STAs and 64 other cooperative agreements with countries around the world. “Science diplomacy” is low hanging diplomatic fruit for both the U.S. and for China.

The U.S.-China STA was first signed in 1979 and originally emphasized agricultural research and development. The STA was the first agreement between the countries following the normalization of relations in January of that year.

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American Pharmaceutical Companies Accused of Carrying Out Clinical Trials With Chinese Military

A bipartisan House committee has revealed that American pharmaceutical companies carried out drug trials in conjunction with the Chinese military for more than 10 years.

The revelation came in a letter penned by Republican and Democratic leaders on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Robert Califf. In the letter, they pressed him to supply information about these clinical trials for new medications.

In their letter, they explained: “These collaborative research activities raise serious concerns that critical Intellectual Property is at risk of being transferred to the [Chinese military] or being co-opted under the People’s Republic of China’s National Security Law.”

They also expressed reservations about how much the results of clinical trials produced by China can be trusted.

The letter states that hundreds of clinical trials for drugs have been carried out at medical centers and hospitals in China that are affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at sites such as the PLA’s Air Force Medical University and the PLA’s General Hospital and Medical School.

One of the institutions is operated by the PLA’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, an institution which the Department of Commerce has banned businesses in the United States from sharing technology with due to national security concerns.

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Russia China and Iran Are Being Patient…

It has become clear that with the lack of response from Iran (so far) over the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh the political leader of Hamas, that in conjunction with Russia and China a common approach has been taken not to be responsible, or even seen to be responsible in the West, for precipitating an all-out military conflict.

We see this approach with Russia’s Special Military Operation as well. Russia is careful to contain it between Russia and Ukraine, despite NATO’s involvement in the provision of modern equipment and personnel to Ukraine, and Ukraine’s deep strikes into Russian territory.

Russia is completely surrounded on her western flank by NATO forces, threatening Russia with a full-scale attack and invasion. All that’s needed is an excuse. To ensure the western border coverage is total, America leaned heavily on Finland and Sweden to join NATO, breaking their long-standing policies of neutrality. Who knows what threats the Americans made to force them to accept and provide weapons and military bases targeting Russia from their territories.

Europeans should be extremely concerned about this, because the Americans don’t care much about collateral damage so long as it is not in America. It was the US’s determination to punish Sadam Hussein, Gaddafi, Assad, and the Taliban in the wake of 9/11 which led to a flood of refugees in Europe. But that’s not America’s problem, and presumably nor will it be if the Europeans get nuked. So long as it’s not US civilians.

That the Europeans, including formally neutral Swedes and Fins have fallen for it says more about their pusillanimity in the face of US diplomatic aggression than anything else. They are cannon fodder for the US’s determination to break up Russia. But in Putin, America has an adversary who demonstrates statecraft and strategic cunning over impetuousness.

In the Middle East, Israel is frightened for its very existence. Netanyahu wants to provoke Iran and her proxies into a confrontation to bring America into direct conflict on her side. Officially, the US is resisting involvement but is reported to have sent a naval fleet to the Eastern Mediterranean signalling that she will back Israel against Iran if necessary.

But the Asian partnership is playing a different game. They are acutely aware that America is looking for excuses for military action in Europe. As the pressure mounts, Russia, Iran, China and even North Korea will have to find alternatives to military action designed to cripple the western alliance.

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Israel launches violent raids on southern Lebanon as China urges nationals to leave

Israeli forces intensified their cross-border attacks on Lebanon overnight Wednesday-Thursday with a series of 10 raids across eight different southern areas within 45 minutes, Lebanese media reported on Thursday.

The attacks took place around 1am local time, according to security sources, adding that the strikes targeted and destroyed several buildings in the Khiam, Kfarchouba, Mhaybib, Aita al-Chaab, Ghazziye, Ramiye, and Kaouthraiyet al-Sayyed, villages that lie about 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) past the Blue Line. No casualties were reported.

The Israeli military said that its air forces had hit more than 10 “Hezbollah targets” in different areas in southern Lebanon.

The army claimed on X that “among the targets attacked were weapons depots, military buildings, and a launcher used by Hezbollah to carry out operations against Israel”.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah announced it had targeted Israeli army barracks in northern Israel.

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How Taiwan Became an Issue

Given that official Washington seems increasingly determined to fight Beijing over Taiwan, concerned Americans are right to wonder: how did the question of Taiwan come to be of such purported importance to these global powers?

While several closer islands, such as the Penghu (or the Pescadores as they are now known), were incorporated into the Chinese polity during the period of Ming blue water exploration in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Formosa (or Taiwan as it came to be known) never was.

After shuttering its large scale naval activities in the mid-fifteenth century, the Ming were thereafter largely content to let the rival trading companies of the Portuguese and Dutch quarrel for influence on Formosa, where trade revolved around tea and camphor.

In an odd bit of history repeating itself, the island first became a central focus of a ruling mainland Chinese regime as a result of a civil war that needed concluding: displaced by the invading Manchurian forces (the eventual Qing), in 1661 what remained of the Han, Ming ruling clique retreated to Formosa. It was following their ultimate defeat in 1683 that Formosa started to become ethically and administratively integrated into China (a process completed around a century later).

Despite its import as a trading hub in the centuries thereafter, when the Japanese took possession of Formosa at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), per the terms of the Treaty Shimonoseki (1885), the island’s new rulers found a society, economy, and polity virtually untouched by modernity.

And while initially brutal, putting down an anti-Japanese insurgency of emigre Han Chinese and native Taiwanese, the Japanese colonial administration of the island, which lasted until the end of World War II, would see the island transformed into an educated, urbanized, and rationalized society with living standards far higher than on the mainland.

Despite the increasing gap, most Taiwanese, whose cultural links with the mainland were still strong, were open to rejoining mainland China when the war finally ended—although it is worth noting that this willingness proved short-lived, the Kuomintang (KMT) regime needing to viciously suppress a mass uprising against its terrible misrule in 1947.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, at whose feet a great deal of blame for a whole host of problems may be laid, also laid the foundation stone for misadventure in dealing with China, including Taiwan.

Indeed, while there was a reasonable possibility that Taiwan could have been its own independent country at the end of the Second World War, it was FDR and his successor, Harry Truman, who ensured this would not happen.

Ignoring the wisdom of multiple of his predecessors, who had refused to get involved either in internal Chinese squabbles or its feuds with neighboring Japan, FDR began supporting the KMT regime of Chiang Kai-Shek.

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Why The U.S. Faces Chinese Dominance For Critical Energy Minerals

More than three years ago, in May 2021, I wrote a piece here detailing the importance of a relatively obscure mineral, antimony, to the ultimate success of alternative energy sources like wind and solar and electric vehicles, and thus to the progress of the energy transition itself.

Even more pressing is the fact that antimony is critical to the needs of major weapon systems used by the U.S. military. The piece also discussed the urgent need for policymakers to find ways to speed up the permitting processes for mining of this and an array of other critical energy minerals if the United States were to avoid becoming almost wholly dependent on China for its future energy needs.

The story was focused on the struggles of Perpetua Resources, a mining company that had at the time struggled for over a decade to obtain the needed local, state, and federal permits to mine a long-known major resource of antimony at the Stibnite mine in Idaho. Stibnite is a long-ago abandoned gold mining operation that Perpetua says it could quickly place into antimony production once all the needed permits are secured.

Since that time, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and fellow sponsors have tried to move federal permitting reform bills in both 2022, and again this year. The 2022 bill failed in the face of bipartisan opposition, and this year’s effort currently seems doomed to the same fate. It must seem to Sen. Manchin that no one in Washington, D.C., other than himself and a handful of fellow members of congress, is serious about getting anything real done on this pressing issue that is essential to the entire energy transition effort.

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China’s Restrictions on Antimony Exports Could Cripple US Military-Industrial Complex: Here’s Why

China has slapped export controls on antimony metals, ores and oxides effective September 15. Companies seeking to export these materials will have to apply for export licenses for dual-use products. That’s bad news for resource import-dependent American arms manufacturers.

In its explanation of last Thursday’s decision to introduce export controls on antimony, China’s Commerce Ministry said the measure was not aimed against any country, but at assuring China’s national security and fulfilling the PRC’s “non-proliferation obligations.” But with China accounting for nearly half of global antimony ore production in 2023, and the US a top buyer, it’s not hard to discern who the restrictions may hit the hardest.

The US International Trade Commission considers antimony “critical to economic and national security – similar to rare earth elements, plus cobalt and uranium.” US business media have described it as “the most important mineral you never heard of.”

That’s because in addition to a long list of civilian uses ranging from flame retardants, lead-acid batteries, and plastics, to ceramics, consumer electronics and safety clothing, antimony has a dizzying array of military applications, from armor-piercing bullets and tracer ammo to night vision goggles, laser sights, communications equipment and even components in nuclear weapons.

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US Army Soldier Pleads Guilty After Selling Military Secrets to China

A U.S. Army intelligence analyst has pleaded guilty to charges accusing him of selling military secrets to China for a total of $42,000, according to the Department of Justice.

Sgt. Korbein Schultz was an army intelligence analyst with the First Battalion of the 506th Infantry Regiment at Fort Campbell, an army installation on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. He was arrested at the military base in March following an indictment by a federal grand jury.

On Aug. 13, Schultz pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, exporting technical data related to defense articles without a license, conspiracy to export defense articles without a license, and bribery of a public official, the Justice Department said in a press release.

“The defendant abused his access to restricted government systems to sell sensitive military information to a person he knew to be a foreign national,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division in a statement.

“By conspiring to transmit national defense information to a person living outside the United States, this defendant callously put our national security at risk to cash in on the trust our military placed in him.”

Schultz held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearance in the Army.

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‘Realists’ Think We Need To Prepare for a Draft So We Can Win a War With China

Doubling down on their recent war-game exercises and report on the (un)readiness of the U.S. to activate a military draft, Taren Sylvester and Katherine Kuzminski of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) have a new article in War on the Rocks, “Preparing for the Possibility of a Draft Without Panic,” laying out why they think the U.S. needs to prepare for a draft in order to be able to win an all-out war with China over Taiwan.

CNAS and War on the Rocks like to describe themselves as “realists”. But their arguments for stepped-up planning and preparation for a draft are strikingly unrealistic, in at least four respects.

First, Sylvester and Kuzminski – like the Selective Service System and the Department of Justice – entirely ignore whether, much less how or at what cost, a draft could be enforced.

The practical difficulty of enforcing a draft in the face of widespread evasion and resistance was the Achilles heel of the last U.S. draft, and has to be central to any realistic plan for a future draft.

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US Continues To Prep For War On China

We’ve been focused lately very much on Russia, Iran, and the Middle East. But the current state of war is very much a global one. Yes, China is at the center of Anglo-Zionist war plans, but the position of China geostrategically inevitably draws in all of SE and South Asia. So let’s look at that region briefly, because there are important events taking place.

The US has been openly “predicting” (promising?) that it will attack China by 2025. Yes, I did carefully consider what I just wrote. China has no intention of attacking the US, so if a war breaks out it will only have been instigated by the US. Now, this doesn’t mean that war will begin with a massive missile attack. It is more likely to begin as an economic war or, more specifically, an energy war. That is the type of war the US has been preparing for years—via regime change/color revolutions in all countries that are located along China’s trade routes—Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Myanmar, Thailand—to insure that they will participate in a blockade of China.

This is also more or less the template that the US has been following in our war on Russia and Iran. Yes, we are in a hot war with Russia, but not a full out war as regards our own military. The same could occur in the Far East—if we could find a proxy like Ukraine that would be willing to accept national destruction. I continue to believe that the Chinese on Taiwan are smarter than that.

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