Tag: china

Banning TikTok isn’t the flex proponents think it is

TikTok and its parent company ByteDance this week sued to block a new law banning the social media app, claiming it is unconstitutional because it infringes upon Americans’ right to free speech and prevents access to lawful information.

The law, passed in April, would ban TikTok in the U.S. if ByteDance does not liquidate its American assets within nine to 12 months — citing national security concerns about the app. National security has been at the forefront of U.S. bans on Chinese tech, such as the ban on selling telecom equipment and services from Huawei, ZTE, and other Chinese providers.

Another concern about TikTok — data privacy and security — is not entirely unfounded, as about 150 million Americans use it. However, China does not need apps like TikTok to collect that data. U.S. consumer data can be bought on the open market from data brokers, including precise location and financial transaction data. Even the U.S. National Security Agency has leveraged data brokers to collect Americans’ data. Anonymized data is also not the fail-safe measure that it is touted to be, as it can be de-anonymized using data that is not considered personally identifiable, like sex, ZIP code, and birthdate. In some ways, TikTok even collects less private information than Meta. In short, TikTok is no more a unique threat to data privacy and security than are data brokers and other American social media sites.

Banning TikTok or any other Chinese business in the U.S. won’t protect U.S. citizens’ data from exploitation. The sheer profitability of U.S. citizens’ data for businesses — both buyers and sellers – is undergirded by the lack of protections for collecting data or compensating individuals for their data. Solving this problem eventually would require federal-level, comprehensive data privacy and protection regulations. Without such regulation, there is little incentive for social media companies — Chinese or not — to responsibly buy, sell, collect, or otherwise exploit user data. If the U.S. government’s goal is to protect private American citizens’ data to enhance national security, then it must legislate acceptable limits on the exploitation of Americans’ data, perhaps even following a framework like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Some believe that banning TikTok and other Chinese apps in the United States could force China to provide more equitable access to the Chinese market and put pressure on China to change unfair business practices towards foreign firms, like intellectual property theft, opaque subsidization and preferential treatment, raids, and fines. These inequities have long been a major concern and subject of high-level conversations between U.S. and Chinese officials. However, the U.S. bans on Chinese businesses so far appear to have neither compelled Chinese businesses nor the Chinese government to change their behaviors, instead spurring them to reduce reliance on the U.S. market and focus on exploring alternative markets.

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Border Reporter Schools NGO Director Who Claims Chinese Migrants Are ‘Asylum Seekers’

After reporter Bill Melugin noted that record numbers of Chinese nationals continue to be encountered crossing the southern US border, an immigration NGO director claimed that they are merely asylum seekers, and was immediately proven wrong.

Melugin shared the latest CBP stats showing that over a thousand Chinese illegals were apprehended in just the last week.

Cue one Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a policy director at the ‘American Immigration Council’ who claimed that Melugin was reviving xenophobic “yellow peril” propaganda and that the migrants are just “trying to seek freedom.”

Melugin quickly exposed this outright lie by posting one of many interviews he personally conducted with a Chinese man who admitted to flying to Mexico from Turkey and entering the US purely for economic reasons.

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Syrian Hamsters Dead After Chinese Scientists Engineer Horrific Ebola-Enhanced Virus

A group of Chinese scientists have engineered a new virus in which they took a common animal disease (vesicular stomatitis virus, or VSV) and added parts of Ebola in order to mimic Ebola symptoms in a lab setting using animals.

The result? A group of Syrian hamsters that received the lethal injection “developed severe systemic diseases similar to those observed in human Ebola patients, including multi-organ failure, the Daily Mail reports, citing the team’s study.

The team studied five female and five male hamsters that were three weeks old – all but two of which died between two and three days. The females – all of which died, showed decreased rectal temperature and up to 18% weight loss, the males lost 15% of their weight and died – except two, which survived and gained 20% more weight than they started with.

Some of the infected hamsters developed disgusting secretions in their eyes, which impaired vision and resulted in scabs on the surface of their eyeballs.

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Documents Reveal US State Department Officials Knew COVID Leaked From a Wuhan Lab and CCP Covered It Up Back in July 2020 – Then They Lied to the American Public for Years!

The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released shocking statements and documents on Tuesday night that reveal that the U.S. State Department knew COVID leaked from a Wuhan Biolab and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) covered it up.

The documents reveal that the State Department knew this since July 2020.

The highly redacted documents show enough proof to see the US Government has been lying to the American public since at least July 2020. They knew all along it was a leak from a bio lab.

“These classified documents were previously released in an unclassified and highly redacted FOIA production to US Right To Know. Today, Chairman RepBradWenstrup requested StateDept rapidly declassify the documents and share the truth about the origins of COVID-19 with the American people,” the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic wrote on X.

The letter, addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, reads:

The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (Select Subcommittee) is investigating the origins of COVID-19. Since April 2, 2020, Committee on Oversight and Accountability Republicans have investigated the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) role in obscuring the truth regarding the initial outbreak, and whether any U.S. taxpayer dollars funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s (WIV) dangerous gain-of-function research.’ On February 27, 2023 we wrote to the Department requesting information pertinent to this investigation.’

Pursuant to that letter, the Department recently produced classified documents to the Select Subcommittee that were previously released in an unclassified and highly redacted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) production to U.S. Right to Know.? These documents contain highly pertinent information that credibly suggests:

  1. COVID-19 originated from a lab-related accident in Wuhan, China;
  2. The CCP acted to prevent, and in fact obstructed, a fulsome investigation into these matters; and
  3. A seamless relationship between the WIV and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

The American people deserve to see the information that is hidden under these redactions.

We write to you today to request that you immediately take steps to declassify this information such that the American people have a more complete picture of the government’s evidence regarding the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To ensure that these documents are expeditiously reviewed for declassification, the highly redacted FOIA versions are enclosed. In addition to the rapid commencement of a declassification review, the Select Subcommittee requests a staff level briefing to occur before May 14, 2024.

This briefing was previously requested on April 24, 2024 with the goal of it occurring prior to the Select Subcommittee’s hearing with the President of EcoHealth Alliance, Inc.—and known WIV collaborator—Dr. Peter Daszak. However, the Department responded that it could not support a briefing on that timeline.

The Select Subcommittee is authorized to investigate “the origins of the Coronavirus pandemic, including but not limited to the Federal Government’s funding of gain-of function research” and “executive branch policies, deliberations, decisions, activities, and internal and external communications related to the coronavirus pandemic” under H. Res. 5.

The US and CCP hid this from the public.

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How China’s Naval Strategy Exposes Decades of America’s Sinophobic Lies

The history of thalassocracies has always been one of sea dominance, as the name itself implies. However, whenever they become too powerful, they all seem to make one persistent mistake – trying to go against tellurocracies or land powers on their home turf. Even then, thalassocracies usually realize just how hopelessly outclassed they are in such a fight, so they resort to cunning strategies of pushing one tellurocracy against another, an approach that sometimes results in conflicts of global proportions, with devastating consequences for anyone but the sea powers themselves.

So far, land powers have been the most unfortunate in this regard, bearing the brunt of the damage while gaining very little for such a massive sacrifice. A good example is Germany, which foolishly tried to implement its “Drang nach Osten” strategy not once, but twice, thus playing right into the hands of the likes of the United Kingdom, United States and their allies.

And indeed, the latter two (particularly the US) profited immensely from both world wars, drastically expanding their colonial empires and exploiting the world to the fullest, even to this very day.

The UK, although unable to maintain its direct colonial power during the (First) Cold War, still kept much of it indirectly, both through the British Crown and organizations such as the Commonwealth.

Thanks to the Soviet Union, this extremely exploitative neocolonialist system largely crumbled, although it did come back after the USSR’s unfortunate dismantling. Nowadays, both Russia and China are working virtually in lockstep to ensure that the system is defeated once again.

Cooperation between the two superpowers is a massive problem for the political West

The US and its vassals and satellite states once employed actual diplomacy to undermine such an alliance and it worked to a large degree, freezing the Soviet-Chinese relations for decades.

However, there has been a 180-degree turn in Washington DC since then (or 360, as Annalena Baerbock once “wisely” said). World-class diplomats were replaced by bureaucratic yes-men who go to other countries and engage in what can only be described as arm-twisting. Now, that might work against helpless opponents, but the leadership of the political West has become so hopelessly delusional, that it now thinks this could work against actual superpowers. And not just one, mind you, but two. Recent visits of top-ranking American officials to China serve as a testament to that, when Beijing promptly sent them back after they tried masking literal threats as “diplomacy”. A year earlier, the troubled Biden administration even tried sending Henry Kissinger to China in order to play into his Sino-Soviet split legacy. Obviously, it failed, but it certainly demonstrates how desperate the US is. Meanwhile, Moscow and Beijing keep breaking one record after another.

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New documents reveal details of coordination between Fauci and other supporters of controversial ‘gain of function’ coronavirus research in China

The watchdog group Empower Oversight has released new documents related to the ongoing controversy over US taxpayer-funded research for ‘gain of function’ studies at the Wuhan, China lab that many experts believe was the source of Covid-19.

According to Empower Oversight, the National Institutes of Health “resisted transparency and delayed releasing document on the research, the subsequent spread of the disease, the role of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and failures to properly oversee EcoHealth Alliance.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci led NIAID at the time. EcoHealth Alliance is a controversial nonprofit that received large amounts of US government funding and partnered in controversial bat coronavirus research with a goal of developing a vaccine to use if Covid ever jumped from bats to people.

Fauci seemed to work diligently to make the public believe the idea of a “lab leak” was not very credible. Instead, he argued, it was likely that Covid jumped from bats to people through an unidentified natural route.

At the time, he didn’t disclose his own role in approving the controversial research and funding for it.

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How to Deter a War with China Over Taiwan

Europe is suffering its largest land conflict since the Second World War in Ukraine. This fight could turn out to be a mere overture if war breaks out in the Taiwan Strait. Tensions are high: Congress recently approved $8.1 billion for Taipei and elsewhere in the Pacific, while the president has repeatedly said that he would defend Taiwan. That would put the United States into a conflict potentially like no other, with nuclear weapons at 10 paces.

Yet those most determined to escalate America’s involvement in the Russo–Ukrainian war insist that there is nothing to worry about. If only the U.S. holds firm in Ukraine, the Chinese will run for cover over Taiwan. Yet the claim that Beijing would fear Washington when the latter refuses to intervene on Kiev’s behalf, allowing Moscow’s aggression to advance, seems illogical at best. Indeed, Johns Hopkins’s Hal Brands warned that this stance may “have convinced Beijing that the United States just won’t fight a conventional war against a nuclear-armed rival.” Hence China’s ongoing nuclear build-up.

Worse, American policy seems more likely to encourage than discourage such a conflict. Rather than reassure the People’s Republic of China that its red lines won’t be crossed, the administration is stationing American forces in Taiwan, emphasizing that nation’s value in constraining China, and saying little as congressional leaders flaunt ties with Taipei. Leading Republicans, including a former secretary of state and national security adviser, advocate recognizing Taiwan as the Republic of China. It is almost as if Washington’s policy elite wants war with the PRC.

They shouldn’t. 

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“Remarkable Turn Of Events” – Alleged Chinese Spy Working For AfD MP Was Informant For German Intelligence For Years

The news about Alternative for Germany (AfD) MEP Maximilian Krah’s assistant and his arrest for suspected espionage on behalf of China continues to make national headlines, but as more information comes out, the more German intelligence and the political establishment continue to look worse and worse.

Now, news reports have revealed that Krah’s employee, Chinese-German national Jian G., worked for the German domestic intelligence service for years before joining the AfD politician.

Krah has since commented on the new bombshell information, writing on X:

“Remarkable turn of events!”

Much is at stake, as Krah is the top candidate for the AfD in the run-up to the EU parliamentary elections in June. The latest report shows that the powerful Office for the Protection of Constitution (BfV) not only recruited Jian G. as a spy, but also dropped him as an informant because there were concerns he was a double agent for China.

However, despite these suspicions, Jian G. gained German citizenship, became a member of the Social Democrats (SPD), and even passed the EU parliament’s security clearance.

Former minister Mathias Brodkorb questioned the story on X, writing:

They are really funny. Let’s assume the story is true:

1. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is working with the man.

2. Then, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution ends the collaboration because the man could be a double agent.

3. Then the German state naturalizes this agent.

Intermediate question: Where was the Office for the Protection of the Constitution at that time?

4. Then, Krah wants to hire the man as an employee of the EU parliament. That cannot be done without a security check. So the EU parliament should actually have asked the German security authorities whether there was anything against the man. But apparently they didn’t. Otherwise, the man would not have been cleared and could not have been hired.

Intermediate question: Where was the Office for the Protection of the Constitution at that time? And you are now seriously asking what the problem is? Seriously?

One of the main questions is why the Office for the Protection of the Constitution never informed Krah or the AfD about their suspicions, which is standard operating procedure, and one designed to protect the country’s parties from foreign infiltration. Notably, allowing Jian G. to work for Krah created a favorable political scenario for the establishment to later arrest him in order to smear the AfD. Notably, Jian G. was arrested right before EU parliamentary elections.

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TikTok Measure Passed by House Is Unconstitutional in Multiple Ways

Is TikTok’s time finally up? On Saturday, the House of Representatives passed a measure that would require a change in the app’s ownership or ban it if that doesn’t happen.

Called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, it’s essentially the same divestiture-or-ban bill I wrote about in this newsletter back in March, now tucked into a larger bill (H.R. 8038, the insanely named 21st Century Peace through Strength Act) that deals with everything from fentanyl trafficking to Russian sanctions, Iranian petroleum, Hamas, and boatloads of foreign aid.

The most talked-about part of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act would ban TikTok unless it completely breaks ties with its Chinese parent-company, ByteDance, within 270 days.

But the bill goes far beyond TikTok, and could be used to justify a ban on all sorts of popular apps tied to China, Russia, Iran, or any other country that gets deemed a foreign adversary.

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NASA warns China is conducting military programs in space under the guise of civilian exploration

NASA has warned that China could be preparing for a lunar takeover in the coming years, using its civilian space program as guise for military operations.

Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, fears the Asian nation’s ‘extraordinary strides’ in the last decade are more than just for science, but to exert dominance over the moon.

China has launched a craft to the moon and brought samples back to Earth, has its own space station circling the planet and is eyeing 2030 for when it will send humans to the natural satellite.

While NASA is set to land humans on the lunar South Pole in 2026, Nelson has raised concerns that China has the capabilities to beat them there.  

‘China has made extraordinary strides, especially in the last 10 years, but they are very, very secretive,’ Nelson told members of the House Appropriations Committee at a 2024 budget hearing. 

‘We believe that a lot of their, so-called civilian space programs is a military program,’ Nelson continued. ‘And I think, in effect, we are in a race.’

Nelson made the statements to a committee this week as support for why NASA needs a $25.4 billion budget for 2025.

The country plans to establish a landing base on the moon’s surface within the next five years, making it all the more necessary for the US to ramp up its efforts and investments to send astronauts to space. 

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