Tag: china

China On Cusp Of Commercializing US-Pioneered ‘Holy Grail’ Fusion Energy

China has spent up to $13 billion developing fusion energy since 2023 and could commercially replicate star power to generate electricity by 2030, becoming the first nation to master what’s commonly dubbed “the holy grail of energy solutions.”

Doing so would give the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “the potential to reshape global geopolitics” and “dominate a new energy era,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicists warn.

This cannot happen, said Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas), who chairs the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s Energy Subcommittee.

“Fusion energy technologies must be developed and deployed by nations that uphold democratic values, transparency, and international cooperation—not by authoritarian regimes that might exploit energy dominance as a weapon,” he said in opening remarks of a Sept. 18 hearing on the nation’s fusion programs.

“The U.S. must prioritize fusion energy development to outpace the CCP’s aggressive timelines,” Weber added, or China will dominate “the most consequential breakthrough of the century.”

Four fusion experts told the subcommittee during the two-hour hearing that the CCP doesn’t have to win what they see as an existential race, calling on the Trump administration to boost funding to match China’s investment, coordinate research and development with allies, and establish fusion demonstration programs using the same “playbook” that spearheaded breakthroughs in other technologies.

Unlike fission, nuclear fusion replicates the reaction produced by firing atoms, which is the power emitted by stars, and has the potential to provide limitless, clean energy. It is often referred to as “the holy grail of energy solutions.”

Fusion has been researched by academic institutions and government laboratories since the 1950s, with significant breakthroughs in 2022—including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility completing a nuclear fusion reaction that produced more energy than used to power the experiment—spurring rapid, exponential advancements since.

“This is our ‘Kitty Hawk’ moment, ushering in a new era of virtually unlimited fusion power,” Commonwealth Fusion Systems Co-Founder/CEO Bob Mumgaard said, calling for a $10 billion one-time “kick” in Department of Energy (DOE) funding.

Keep reading

China’s internet ID push signals a new era of digital control

On July 15, China passed new legislation known as the National Network Identity Authentication, also called Internet ID.

Under this new law, Chinese citizens would voluntarily enroll via a government app, submitting their true name and a facial scan, after which they would be issued a unique ID code used for all online accounts. As of May, approximately 6 million individuals had already obtained IDs during the pilot phase.

Based upon the nature of the control the Chinese Communist Party has over media and censorship, it is not surprising the Chinese government desires the ability to track its population during their internet sessions, especially those citizens who would be critical of the current regime or dissidents that are living outside mainland China.

The new Internet ID law expands on an ongoing digital authoritarianism agenda pursued by China in recent years. Already, the Chinese government has demonstrated its growing capacity and willingness to monitor its citizens’ online activities. 

From the widespread usage of internet backbone filtering through the “Great Firewall” to the mandatory real-name registration implemented since 2010, Beijing has increasingly restricted avenues for anonymous speech online. The new ID system is designed to further tighten the government’s grip on cyberspace at an individual level.

This law would enable the Chinese government, enabled by the new digital ID system, to centralize user identities in a government-controlled database, allowing authorities to track which user fronts which online account, even if platforms only see the anonymized token. 

This approach applies nation-state censorship in a more individualized way and introduces the possibility that content may be filtered or platforms blocked for certain users, both within China, where the government manages internet access, and potentially on a broader scale. 

It could allow the Chinese government to use filters and blocking mechanisms within a platform to limit access to certain services associated with a personalized digital ID for specific individuals.

While the legislation claims to be voluntary at launch, many fear that adoption could gradually become mandatory. In China’s regulatory environment, the “voluntary” label has frequently functioned as a transitional stage before compulsory enforcement. 

Authorities have encouraged social media giants, e-commerce platforms and even payment providers to begin integrating the Internet ID into their user authentication flows. If access to essential digital services becomes dependent on possession of this ID, individuals may find their ability to function online is effectively contingent upon submitting their biometric and personal data to the state.

This law is just the next step in China’s desire for digital authoritarianism, enhancing the government’s ability to surveil, monitor, shape and control a population down to the individual citizen level. 

Keep reading

Chinese propaganda has even infiltrated the halls of Congress

On my very first day as a US congressman in January, I walked into my office on Capitol Hill and learned a startling lesson.

There among the array of American newspapers delivered free to every member of Congress was a copy of China Daily — a state-run propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party.

That’s when I knew my first piece of legislation needed to send a clear message: America is not for sale.

For too long, Washington has looked the other way as foreign adversaries have bought influence, shaped narratives and quietly infiltrated the institutions that are supposed to safeguard our democracy.

The bill I introduced to halt unsolicited delivery of China Daily to Capitol Hill was a necessary act of defense against information warfare being waged on our own soil.

China Daily is not journalism, but the voice of the Chinese Communist Party, registered as a foreign agent under US law.

By allowing it to be distributed through our internal mail systems — with taxpayer resources covering that cost — Congress was effectively endorsing foreign propaganda.

Keep reading

Trump Says He Is Trying to Get Bagram Air Base Back from the Taliban

President Donald Trump said he was working to reestablish America’s largest military base in Afghanistan. While Trump negotiated an agreement with the Taliban to end the Afghan War, he has argued that President Joe Biden made a mistake by withdrawing from the Bagram Air Base. 

While discussing Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, Trump explained that the US made a mistake by withdrawing from the Bagram Air Base, and he had planned to keep the facility. However, Trump signed an agreement with the Taliban to end the Afghan War and withdraw from the country. 

Trump says he is now working to establish the military facility. “We gave it to them for nothing. We’re trying to get it back, by the way. That could be a little breaking news, we’re trying to get it back because they need things from us,” The President said Thursday.

While Trump did not elaborate on what he may offer the Taliban, the US maintains crippling economic sanctions on Afghanistan, and the country faces intense poverty. 

The President went on to say that the base will give the US a military position near China’s nuclear weapons facility. “We want that base back but one of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” he added.

It’s unclear how the Taliban will respond to Trump’s proposal to reoccupy part of Afghanistan. Last week, Washington made a prisoner exchange deal with the Taliban that is part of a larger effort to normalize US-Afghan relations. 

Keep reading

Lawmakers Debate Whether Marijuana Legalization Helps Or Hurts Organized Crime At Hearing On Chinese-Linked Illicit Grows

A GOP-led House committee held a hearing on Thursday focused on Chinese criminal organizations behind large-scale illicit marijuana grows, taking testimony from a group of law enforcement officials and a researcher who each attempted to link the issue to state-level legalization.

But one Democratic lawmaker took the opportunity to make the case for cannabis rescheduling and broader federal reform to mitigate the issue.

The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, & Accountability hearing was titled “Invasion of the Homeland: How China is Using Illegal Marijuana to Build a Criminal Network Across America.”

While there was some talk among experts and lawmakers about differentiating state-sanctioned cannabis cultivation from the illicit market, the conversation largely skewed prohibitionist. Witnesses included a former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent, top Oklahoma law enforcement official and a researcher with the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

The subcommittee chairman, Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK) said in his opening remarks that “we’ve enabled these foreign organizations with potential links to the [Chinese Community Party, or CCP] to build up a sophisticated network throughout the United States, which facilitates a wide range of other criminal activity and presents a national security threat.”

“This is a convergence of organized crime, human drug trafficking, public health risks—all operating at scale and sophistication crossing the state national lines beyond the normal capabilities of state and local law enforcement to combat,” he said. “These agencies need the help of federal law enforcement to unravel these criminal networks.”

Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA), however, spoke about the collateral consequences of prohibition, saying the “federal government’s decision to criminalize marijuana has been nothing short of disastrous for our communities, for our economy and for justice in America.”

“The failed war against cannabis has especially devastated Black and brown communities. Arrest and incarceration rates for marijuana offenses have been wildly disproportionate,” he said. “Today, with most Americans supporting legalization, it is past time that we acknowledge the truth: Marijuana prohibition has failed.”

“If we want to dismantle foreign criminal networks and protect American communities, then we need to strengthen, not weaken, regulated markets,” Carter said.

Keep reading

Founder of NYC Pro-Democracy Group Pleads Guilty to Spying for China

A Chinese man living in New York City has pleaded guilty to spying on his fellow activists on behalf of the Chinese regime’s intelligence agency, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced on Sept. 16.

Tang Yuanjun, 68, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was a prominent figure in New York City’s Chinese dissident community, having participated in protests outside the Chinese Consulate in the New York City borough of Manhattan and founded a pro-democracy group, the Chinese Democracy Party Eastern U.S. Headquarters Inc., based in the Flushing neighborhood of the borough of Queens.

Despite his public advocacy against Beijing, Tang was secretly working under the direction of the Chinese intelligence service to collect information on his fellow Chinese American dissidents, according to a guilty plea entered on Sept. 16.

As part of the plea, Tang admitted to one count of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the attorney general, which is punishable by up to five years in prison.

“For years, Yuanjun Tang abused the trust he had gained among pro-democracy activists in New York City and around the United States by secretly accepting tasks from Chinese intelligence officers and reporting on persons of interest to the [People’s Republic of China] and events conducted in support of democracy,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.

“Tang’s covert operations violated our nation’s sovereignty and threatened the security of New Yorkers exercising their fundamental rights to free speech and free association. Tang’s plea … illustrates our profound commitment to protecting American ideals from malign foreign influence.”

Keep reading

Australian cyber warfare expert makes a chilling claim about Chinese EVs that every driver should read

China could detonate or disable electric vehicles sold in Australia, a top cybersecurity expert has warned. 

Alastair MacGibbon, former cybersecurity adviser to then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, sounded the alarm at the Financial Review’s Cyber Summit on Tuesday.

He depicted Australia’s policy towards Chinese EV’s as a security failure, adding the situation was so dire public officials ought to be banned from riding in them. 

‘The last decision of the National Security Committee of the Turnbull government was to take high-risk vendors out of 5G networks,’ he said. 

‘Fast-forward seven years and… potentially millions of [the Internet of Things] or connected devices – not made in China, but controlled by China – are all through our systems.

‘Those cars that we talk about, whether they’re electric or not, are listening devices, and they’re surveillance devices in terms of cameras.’

Mr MacGibbon, who now serves as the chief strategy officer at CyberCX, said the risks went beyond just EV’s to smart devices made or controlled in China.

‘Let’s talk potential scenarios, take off the safety features of household batteries so that they overcharge. Take off those same safety features for electric vehicles,’ he said. 

Keep reading

Did China just shoot down a UFO with a missile? Bright flash over Shandong deepens the mystery after authorities deny knowledge

A fireball-like luminous event was reported over eastern China on September 12, 2025. Witnesses in Weifang and Rizhao, Shandong Province, observed a bright aerial object followed by a strong flash, with videos of the incident quickly spreading across Chinese social media platforms.

According to The Watchers, several posts and local headlines described the event as a possible intercept or shoot-down, suggesting a second rising light was visible before the flash. The claims fueled speculation online of a potential military action. An X user, ‘jacksonhinklle,’ also posted the video.

Keep reading

US Official Warns Of New Deadly Synthetic Opioid From China

U.S. authorities are warning of a new synthetic opioid from China that can be up to 50 times more potent than fentanyl.

Nitazenes pose an emerging threat as they are more resistant to naloxone, a medication that can reverse opioid overdoses. They are often mixed with other drugs and delivered in the form of counterfeit pills mimicking drugs such as Xanax or Percocet, according to authorities.

Frank Tarentino, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) New York Division, said that the presence of nitazenes coming from China has been increasingly prevalent on the illicit drug scene.

“Here in the United States, we have found it in heroin, methamphetamine, in some cases fentanyl, and more alarmingly, we have now seen it pressed into pills,” he said in a Sept. 10 interview with NTD, The Epoch Times’ sister media outlet.

“What we have seen is that these cartels, these transnational criminal organizations that are operating on a global scale, are intentionally lacing their drugs with fentanyl and now nitazenes to increase the high, to increase the addiction, to make more money.”

Tarantino said that traffickers are selling counterfeit prescription drugs such as oxycodone on the streets, online, or on social media. He warned that the only safe place to buy prescription drugs is through a legitimate pharmacy.

Keep reading

NASA Bans Chinese Nationals From Working on Agency Programs

NASA has barred Chinese nationals holding U.S. visas from its facilities and networks, the latest move by Washington to safeguard the space agency as its space race with Beijing intensifies.

Chinese nationals, who until now could work at NASA as contractors or contribute to its research, were informed on Sept. 5 that their access to the agency’s systems and facilities had been revoked. Bloomberg first reported that many suddenly found themselves locked out of NASA data systems and excluded from both in-person and virtual meetings related to their work.

NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens confirmed the decision, stating that the agency had taken “internal action pertaining to Chinese nationals—including restricting physical and cybersecurity access to our facilities, materials, and network to ensure the security of our work.”

The move comes amid heightened scrutiny of Chinese nationals working in sensitive U.S. technology sectors, as in recent years, a growing number of individuals have been accused of conducting espionage on behalf of the Chinese communist regime. In August, the Department of War—then called the Department of Defense—ordered Microsoft to stop using China-based engineers to support the military agency’s cloud computing systems.

It remains unclear if a specific incident triggered NASA’s action. In response to a request for comment, the agency’s press office referred The Epoch Times to a post on X featuring acting administrator Sean Duffy’s appearance on Fox Business.

In that interview, Duffy said the United States must lead what he described as a “second space race,” warning that the Chinese regime is not advancing its lunar agenda “with good intentions.”

Keep reading