Tag: china

Suspected Chinese Spy Bases in Cuba Have Undergone Expansion: Report

Cuba has upgraded and expanded four electronic surveillance facilities, including one near the Guantanamo Bay naval base, amid growing concern about China’s spying efforts in the United States’ backyard, according to a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

“While China’s activities on the island remain shrouded in secrecy, satellite imagery analyzed by CSIS provides the latest and most comprehensive assessment of where China is most likely operating,” the report reads.

The report pointed to four active sites at Bejucal, El Salao, Wajay, and Calabazar. It added that the four locations are “strategically located” and are “among the most likely locations supporting China’s efforts to spy on the United States.”

In June 2023, the White House confirmed that China has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019. In the same month, the State Department warned that the Chinese regime will “keep trying to enhance its presence in Cuba,” and the United States “will keep working to disrupt it.”

China’s surveillance activities in Cuba are a grave national security concern for the United States, given that Florida is home to numerous U.S. military bases, including the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command and the U.S. Southern Command, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and Eglin Air Force Base.

“Collecting data on activities like military exercises, missile tests, rocket launches, and submarine maneuvers would allow China to develop a more sophisticated picture of U.S. military practices,” the report reads.

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Will Congress’ Chinese Derangement Syndrome Ground Drones?

Those who hoped that our leaders have recovered from China Derangement Syndrome (CDS) may soon be disappointed. This is because Congress is considering including legislation targeting Chinese drone manufacturer DJI to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

DJI is the world’s largest drone manufacturer and is estimated to control between 65% and 90% of the world’s drone market. DJI’s drones are user-friendly and can safely be operated even by novice drone users.

One reason for DJI’s popularity is it protects their users’ privacy. DJI does not store user data within its system unless the user opts to. DJI also uses a “Local Data Mode” assuring that user data is locally controlled and kept off the internet. Universities, filmmakers, hobbyists, farmers, and first responders are amongst those who use DJI drones. Many businesses have found DJI an invaluable tool to increase efficiency. Individuals and businesses use DJI drones to take photographs, record videos, and even do deliveries.

You soon may have your pizza flown to you thanks to a DJI drone. More importantly, a DJI drone operated by a first responder could someday save your life and/or the life of a loved one—unless Congress gets in the way.   

CDS has led many in Congress to conclude that because DJI is a Chinese company, it is controlled by the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—even though no representative of the Chinese government or the CCP sits on DJI’s board—has influence over the companies’ policies and operations.

These facts have not stopped Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) from introducing two bills to “protect” the American-people from DJI. One, the Countering CCP Drones Act, adds DJI products to the official list of items constituting a “national security risk” that are banned in the USA. The bill would do more than just prevent future purchases of DJI products; it could lead to the Federal Communications Commission revoking existing authorizations for DJI drones.

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Pentagon doesn’t know if it funds dangerous biological research in China, new audit reveals

Despite years of warnings that China operates an illicit biological weapons program, the U.S. military remains unable to determine whether it sends American tax dollars to Beijing for research that could make pathogens more dangerous or deadly, the Pentagon’s chief watchdog declared in a stunning new warning to policymakers.

“The DoD did not track funding at the level of detail necessary to determine whether the DoD provided funding to Chinese research laboratories or other foreign countries for research related to enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential,” the Pentagon inspector general concluded in a report released this month.

You can read that report here.

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The findings show the Pentagon has done little to improve transparency on a critical security issue in the two years since the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, first raised concerns that defense officials could not account for how biological research funds sent to China were being used. You can read that GAO report here.

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The latest inspector general report also adds to momentum in Congress to formally ban the Pentagon from funding “gain-of-function” research in foreign countries, a goal that has increased in priority now that some members of the U.S. intelligence community like the FBI believe the COVID-19 pandemic began with a virus leak  inside a Wuhan lab doing research funded by U.S. tax dollars. Gain-of-research refers to the serial passaging of microorganisms to increase their transmissibility and virulence among other things.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa., has been leading the effort to force the Department of Defense to account for money it sends to China and to formally ban spending on research that makes viruses and bacteria more contagious or lethal. She got a provision added to the National Defense Authorization Act last year that required the inspector general review.

“The Department of Defense should defend the nation, not support research with the potential to do us harm,” Ernst said recently. “While bureaucrats are blindly giving away taxpayer funds, China doesn’t even have to steal our research.

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A Real-Life Psyop: How the U.S. Military Spread Anti-Vax Conspiracy Theories

A government agency was spreading dangerous rumors about the coronavirus vaccine, playing on people’s religious beliefs to sow chaos, Reuters revealed last week. Was it Russia? China? Iran, perhaps? The culprit turned out to be someone closer to home: The U.S. military.

Both the Trump and Biden administrations signed off on a psychological operation aimed at discrediting Chinese-made vaccines, using fake social media accounts to target foreign countries, Reuters reported. The program ended in late 2021, after executives at Facebook and officials from other U.S. government agencies raised concerns about the content.

It’s far from the only time Washington spread dodgy rumors and straight-up lies through fake online accounts. The anti-vax campaign is the latest in a series of pro-American disinformation campaigns that have been exposed over the past few years. While the U.S. government warns about the use of “fake or misleading personas” to “amplify conspiracy theories,” it also uses the exact same tactics to sow distrust against China, Russia, and Iran.

A 2023 strategy document by the U.S. military, for example, calls on U.S. forces to “weaponize information to manipulate an adversary’s perception of reality by influencing and disrupting social systems and technical connections that are foundational to a modern society. Disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda can trigger a chain of events in an adversary’s society that gradually degrades its domestic unity, undermines societal trust in its government and institutions, and diminishes its international stature.”

Such chaos is an opportunity “to prevent [enemies] from opposing U.S. actions, or to better position U.S. joint forces in the event of armed conflict,” the document states.

But the anti-vax campaign stands out because of the subject matter. The U.S. government has long been worried about “vaccine hesitancy” and people’s mistrust of medical authorities at home. But they encouraged vaccine hesitancy and sowed doubt about medical authorities abroad—as if foreigners’ reactions to the pandemic would not have an effect on America.

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Pacific on the Edge of War as Chinese Naval Forces Board and Seize Military Boats of Philippine Navy

The Pacific appears increasingly nearer to war as Chinese vessels encircled and boarded military resupply boats belonging to a key American ally.

Tensions erupted as the Chinese Coast Guard seized ships of a Philippine Navy resupply mission that was underway near the Second Thomas Shoal. The Armed Forces of the Philippines revealed pictures of the Monday confrontation in a social media post, calling the attack “coercive, aggressive, and barbaric.”

The shallow reef, also known as Ayungin Shoal, is part of the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands, one of the many areas in the region claimed by Beijing.

The Philippine military was resupplying a tank landing ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, which was intentionally run aground on a reef just off the disputed shoal in 1999 to bolster the country’s claim on the island.

Although likely not even remotely seaworthy at this point, the Sierra Madre remains an actively crewed commissioned vessel of the Philippine Navy.

China has similarly fortified its claims on the area, deploying missiles to some of the islands in 2018.

Videos show the resupply mission turning to blows as China became involved. In one clip, Chinese sailors could be seen waving and swinging axes, machetes and other melee weapons as the boats closed in to become a chaotic mass.

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Defense Department Lost Track of Millions Sent to Chinese Labs For Gain of Function Research, Bombshell Gov’t Report Finds

The Pentagon sent millions of dollars of taxpayer funding to numerous Chinese research labs and then lost track of how it was being used, according to a government report.

“Due to limitations in the DoD’s tracking systems, the full extent of DoD funds provided to Chinese research laboratories for research related to enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential is unknown,” the DoD’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) wrote in its 26-page report released Tuesday.

The audit conducted in compliance with the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) looked into where the funds were sent, including whether money was sent to the Chinese Communist Party, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and other CCP-controlled research labs.

DoD OIG investigators also looked into whether the funds could be used to spark a new pandemic through gain of function research or other methods that “could have reasonably resulted in the enhancement of any coronavirus, influenza, Nipah, Ebola, or other pathogen of pandemic potential or chimeric versions of such a virus or pathogen in the People’s Republic of China or any other foreign country.”

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DOD Inspector General Not Sure If We Spent $50 Million in Chinese Labs for Gain-of-Function Research

The Department of Defense Inspector General’s Office has found that the US military can’t tell how much money it gave to Chinese bio labs or what research it funded. More troubling is that the only evidence that US funds were not involved in gain-of-function-type research are the representations by military officials that it did not happen…and that is totally reliable.

Under the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2024, the DODIG was required to “report on the amount of Federal funds awarded by the DoD, directly or indirectly, through grants, contracts, subgrants, subcontracts, or any other type of agreement or collaboration, to Chinese research labs or to fund research or experiments in China or other foreign countries that could have reasonably resulted in the enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential, from 2014 through 2023.”

This audit was driven by information provided by Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) showing that some $50 million in US funds had found its way to Chinese biolabs.

The audit covers any US taxpayer funding “used to fund research or experiments that could have reasonably resulted in the enhancement of any coronavirus, influenza, Nipah, Ebola, or other pathogen of pandemic potential or chimeric versions of such a virus or pathogen in the People’s Republic of China or any other foreign country” — money which Ernst accused the Pentagon of “blindly giving away.”

“The Department of Defense should defend the nation, not support research with the potential to do us harm,” she told The Post in a statement.

“While bureaucrats are blindly giving away taxpayer funds, China doesn’t even have to steal our research,” Ernst added. “It’s clear Americans deserve a detailed inventory of all the dangerous dollars sent overseas, which is why I’ve launched an investigation to track down every cent.”

The Pentagon announced the results on Thursday. (Read the whole report.)

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Washington Approves $360 Million Arms Sale to Taiwan

The State Department said on Tuesday that it has green-lit a $360 million arms sale to Taipei, including hundreds of armed drones, missile equipment, and other support material. China views Taiwan as part of its territory, and while it prefers to reclaim the de facto independent island peacefully, it has not ruled out using force if its “red lines” are crossed.

The latest sale comprises 291 Altius-600M systems, which are drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), armed with warheads. The State Department release notes 720 Switchblade drones, described as “extended-range loitering munitions,” are also included with the package.

The statement went on to claim that the sale “serves U.S. national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability.” Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te thanked Washington for the new hardware, insisting they will increase regional stability. “In the future, we will continue to strengthen Taiwan’s national defense strength, whether through … military purchases or our own efforts,” he said.

Wednesday’s announcement follows reports this week that Chinese President Xi Jinping told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last year that he believes the hawkish US posture in the region and its increased military support for the island constitute an attempt to provoke an invasion by Beijing.

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Campaigners Decry ‘Dangerous Escalation’ as NATO Chief Floats Nuclear Deployment

Nuclear disarmament campaigners on Monday implored NATO and Russia to step back from the brink after the head of the Western military alliance said its members are considering deploying additional atomic weapons to counter Moscow and Beijing.

“This is the dangerous escalation inherent to the deterrence doctrine,” the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) wrote on social media, referring to the notion that the threat of catastrophic nuclear retaliation prevents nations from using atomic weaponry.

The U.S., which spent more on its atomic weapons arsenal than every other nuclear-armed nation combined last year, currently has nukes deployed in five NATO countries—Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Russia, meanwhile, recently deployed nuclear weapons to Belarus, which said earlier this month that it would join Moscow’s nuclear exercises.

ICAN said Monday that “it’s time for both to reverse course.”

“NATO countries hosting U.S. nuclear weapons should admit to their citizens they have weapons of mass destruction on their soil with no public say,” ICAN added. “But neither Belarus nor NATO allies should flaunt being prepared to indiscriminately kill millions of people.”

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Counterfeit Chinese Titanium Discovered In Some Boeing Jets, Per FAA

On Friday, the Financial Times reported that Boeing acknowledged some parts of their jets contain counterfeit titanium from China.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that Boeing had told officials they had received titanium parts containing counterfeit documentation.

Boeing bought the counterfeit components from Kansas-based aerostructure manufacturer Spirit AeroSystems.

In the past, Spirit AeroSystems has had problems with quality issues.

The Financial Times reported Spirit AeroSystems received the titanium from China, where its documentation was reportedly falsified.

The FAA said in a statement, “Once we realized the counterfeit titanium made its way into the supply chain, we immediately contained all suspected parts to determine the scope of the issues.”

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