Tag: China

Ukraine Crisis Will Accelerate China’s Push for the Yuan as an International Currency

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Xi Jinping

For years, Beijing has pushed to have the Chinese yuan accepted as an international currency, while countries unfriendly to the U.S. such as Venezuela, Iran, Russia, and North Korea have been looking for a dollar alternative for international trade. Western economic sanctions against Russia are now accelerating talks between Moscow and Beijing about finding “workaround” solutions, as Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell is warning the invasion of Ukraine may step up Beijing’s efforts to cut its dependency on the dollar.

Over the past decade, it has irked Beijing that, in spite of being the number two economic power, China’s currency has never become truly international. Technically, the yuan’s admission to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Special Drawing Rights currencies (SDR) in 2016 makes the yuan an international currency. In practice, however, the yuan has very limited internationalization. Only 10.9% of the SDR is comprised of yuan. The only country which recognizes the yuan as an official currency is China, whereas about 15 countries use the U.S. dollar as their only official currency or an additional official currency.

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The Star News Network Interviews Author Peter Schweizer About Biden’s Ties to China

Julie Carr

McCabe: Investigative journalist Peter Schweizer in his new book Red Handed documents the financial ties between the Chinese communist party and President Joe Biden. He told The Star News Network that Biden and his family have blended public service and private gain.

Schweizer: The Biden family has collected some $31 million dollars from deals in China. You’ve got intelligence officials involved or at least indirectly involved which raises I think very troubling questions about whether the Biden family is compromised.

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The Star News Network Interviews Author Peter Schweizer About Mitch McConnell’s Links to China

Julie Carr

  TRANSCRIPT: McCabe: In his new book Red-Handed, investigative journalist Peter Schweizer documents how the senate’s top republican, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, is tied through his wife to the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. He also told The Star News Network that his wife, Elaine Chao, as transportation secretary, used her official position to help the shipping business of her father, James Chao. Schweizer: So when Mitch McConnell married Elaine Chao, he married into a family that had very substantial connections on Mainland China with the Chinese Communist Party. James Chao, who was Elaine’s father, that would be Senator Mitch McConnell’s father-in-law, grew up with Jiāng Zémín, who was the premier of China in the 1990s. McCabe: Schweizer said McConnell, in addition to receiving millions of dollars in political contributions from members of the Chao family, also received a massive gift from his billionaire father-in-law. Schweizer: When it comes to Mitch McConnell, it’s pretty clear his financial fortunes are fused with those of the Chao family. In fact, James Chao gave him a gift more than a decade ago of between $5 and $25 million dollars, and that, you know, basically quadrupled his net worth overnight. And when…

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DeSantis Responds to Disney CEO; Cites China Connections, Woke Corporations

Steve Stewart
Ron DeSantis

One day after the Disney CEO came against the Parental Rights in Education bill, Gov. Ron DeSantis responded with references to China and Woke corporations.

On Wednesday, Disney CEO Bob Chapek addressed the parental rights legislation at a shareholders meeting by saying,  “I know that many are upset that we did not speak out against the bill. We were opposed to the bill from the outset, but we chose not to take a public position on it because we felt we could be more effective working behind the scenes. …”

Chapek said in a call to Governor DeSantis he expressed his disappointment and “concern that if the legislation becomes law it could be used to target LGBTQ+ kids and families. 

Chapek also noted that Disney is “reassessing our approach to advocacy, including political giving in Florida and beyond.”

Late Thursday Gov. DeSantis told supporters in Boca Raton there is “zero” chance he’s going to reverse his position on disallowing the instruction of “transgenderism in kindergarten classrooms.”

And then DeSantis responded to Chapek’s comments

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Schweizer: U.S. Institutions of Higher Learning Fail to Report Millions of Dollars from China

Julie Carr

TRANSCRIPT: McCabe: Investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, in his new book Red-Handed, reports how the Chinese Communist Party has targeted American institutions of higher learning. Schweizer told The Star News Network how these institutions, after receiving funds from communist China, have worked to suppress criticism of the communist regime there and also have misreported or even failed to report millions of dollars received from China. Schweizer: Section 117 of the Education Act in 1965 is very explicit. It says that if U.S. colleges and universities take in foreign donations, substantial foreign donations, they are required to report those to the federal government. McCabe: Many American colleges fail to report any or all of their Chinese cash haul, Schweizer said. Such as Yale University and the millions of dollars it received from Joseph Tsai, co-founder of Alibaba and owner of the Brooklyn Nets. Schweizer: This is particularly applicable to China today, because hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing to American colleges and universities from Chinese nationals, many of them linked to the Chinese Communist Party and to the Chinese state. He’s donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Yale. He says that they come from his foundation based in California. The…

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Commentary: We Have to Be Strategic About Strategic Material Production

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The most important duty of government is to provide for the security of its citizens. Providing that security is a complex enterprise. Its most obvious feature is military power: providing the surface naval, air, and space forces necessary to protect national interests. Of course, military power depends on economic power. In today’s security environment, that means maintaining the capability to provide for both the prosperity of American citizens as well the high tech weaponry necessary for modern warfare.

While the world’s attention is focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we need to keep in mind that the People’s Republic of China is America’s foremost adversary. While the United States dominated the “third industrial revolution” based on computation and communications, China seeks to lead the “fourth industrial revolution” based on metadata and artificial intelligence. China’s grand strategy is focused on achieving that goal. For example, Beijing has employed its Belt and Road Initiative in combination with digital technology in order to integrate billions of people into China’s economic sphere.

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Analysis: China Will Learn from Russia’s Invasion That ‘Decisive, Overwhelming Force’ Is the Surest Path to Victory

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In light of the West’s united front against Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine, China will likely be forced to reexamine its plans for making Taiwan a part of the communist country, experts on the region told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I think that the military planners in Beijing, as well as politicians in Beijing, have to be very concerned at a deeper level about their assumptions and plans regarding Taiwan,” David Sacks, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the DCNF. “The democratic world has really come together behind this and … the narrative would be very similar with a Chinese attack.”

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Dr. Oz’s Ties to Pharma, Tech Complicate Anti-Corporate Campaign Claims

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While Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz has billed himself as a staunch opponent of big corporations, his ties to major technology and pharmaceutical corporations complicate his campaign rhetoric.

Oz, who announced his candidacy in late November, is running for the empty Senate seat left by retiring Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey. The celebrity doctor has made opposition to major technology and pharmaceutical companies a hallmark of his campaign, pitching his experience working in television and exposing scams as an example of his anti-corporate positions.

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Report: Fauci Knew of COVID Information Being Withheld by China in January 2020

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Anthony Fauci, longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), was apparently well aware that the Chinese government was withholding crucial information about the coronavirus as far back as January 2020.

The Epoch Times reports that new documents uncovered by Judicial Watch reveal communications between NIAID and their Chinese counterparts which signal that the American agency actively coordinated with the Chinese leading up to the pandemic, and subsequently covered up the fact that China was withholding information.

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Oversight Organization Battling National Institute of Health in Court over Chinese Involvement in COVID-19

Peter D'Abrosca

A government watchdog Tuesday took the next step in its battle to expose Chinese connections to the National Institute of Health (NIH).

“Empower Oversight filed an amended complaint today against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation for documents related to a request by Chinese researchers to remove genetic sequences related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus from a database controlled by NIH,” that group said in a press release. 

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DOJ Kills the China Initiative, Kowtowing to a Chinese-American Group with Documented Chinese Communist Party Ties

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Matt Olsen

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the termination of the China Initiative Wednesday citing agreement with Asian-American groups critical of the anti-espionage strategy.

While announcing the termination of the China Initiative Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen launched the Strategy for Countering Nation-State Threats, a program aimed to counter espionage stemming from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In addition to the high-profile December 2021 conviction of Harvard nanotechnology professor Charles Lieber, the Department of Justice website lists eight examples of successful 2021 China Initiative cases, which include crimes such as the theft of GE trade secrets, misleading global financial institutions, lying on government grant applications, illegally exporting $100,000 of U.S. goods to a Chinese military university, economic espionage against Coca-Cola, two cases involving the theft of trade secrets related to pediatric medical conditions and the illegal exportation of cesium atomic clocks.

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Commentary: Russian’s Invasion of Ukraine Has the Potential to Embolden China

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With a reconnaissance plane in tow Thursday, a small fleet of eight fighters deliberately probed disputed airspace before scrambled jets scared them away, an air-to-air episode that may be part of the larger international epoch which President Biden frequently describes as one of “democracy versus autocracy.” But these weren’t Russian fighters. They were Chinese.

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Professor’s Race-Based Class Participation Policy Inspired by Chairman Mao

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The “Class Discussion Guidelines” section of Ana Maria Candela’s “Social Change -Introduction to Sociology” syllabus, which instructs white male students to wait their turn to speak after “non-white folks” talk, opens with a quotation about speaking from Mao Zedong, the communist Chinese dictator who killed 45 million people.

“No investigation, no right to speak,” the quote reads in the document for the Binghamton University class.

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Students Launch Bipartisan Protest Against University’s China Investments

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George Washington University (GWU) students held a bipartisan protest Tuesday, urging the Washington D.C. institution to divest its endowment from companies that are complicit in China’s human rights abuses.

The demonstration, which involved both of the university’s College Republicans and College Democrats chapters, comes one week after university President Mark S. Wrighton rescinded his criticism of on-campus artwork that critiqued China’s abuses against its Uyghur population.

“We’ve all banded together,” activist and GWU alum Juan Carlos Mora told Campus Reform during the protest.

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Genocide Games: China’s Human Rights Abuses Went from Unthinkable to Undeniable

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Eight countries and hundreds of human rights organizations have condemned China for committing human rights violations against minorities.

Yet NBC’s coverage of the 2022 Winter Olympics has minimized the Uyghur genocide, despite 200 human rights organizations and eight governmental bodies, including Canada, the U.S., Holland, the U.K., Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and France, declaring that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has committed atrocities against ethnic Uyghurs and other minority groups.

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Senator Warner Heads to Munich Security Conference Where Potential Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is Top Concern

Eric Burk

Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) is participating in the Munich Security Conference amid a tense moment between Russia and Ukraine. On Thursday, Warner said on a call with reporters that the situation would be one of the main topics at the annual conference, which wasn’t held during the past two years due to COVID-19.

“The challenging thing is that we have seen no real de-escalation efforts by Putin and the Russian forces. There may have been some forces that have moved around a bit, but no indications of de-escalation,” said Warner, who is chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

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Commentary: American Business Dealings in China Show Stakeholder Capitalist Commitments Are Hollow

RealClearWire

This is a bad year to have paid the International Olympic Committee $100 million for the right to put its iconic rings on your soda cans or shampoo bottles. But this is what the rarefied air of being a top Olympic sponsor buys you in 2022: The Winter Games are being played in an authoritarian state with an atrocious human rights record, and none of its underwriters are eager to play up their association in the important American market.

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Time to Scrap One-China Policy, Recognize Independent Taiwan, Trump Security Adviser Says

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Keith Kellogg

The United States should abandon its policy that China is one country and instead acknowledge Taiwan as an independent nation, according to Army Lt. Gen. (Ret) Keith Kellogg, a former Trump administration national security adviser.

“Taiwan is an independent country, and we need to support them,” said Kellogg, national security advisor to Vice President Mike Pence and chief of staff of the National Security Council in the Trump administration. “The rest of the world should support them as well, their democratically elected leadership.”

Kellogg made his remarks this week on the John Solomon Reports Podcast, hosted by Just the News.

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Bill Gates’ ‘Deeply Troubling’ Ties to China: Excerpt from ‘Red-Handed’ by Peter Schweizer

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Bill Gates is one of the world’s richest men, rightly recognized as a visionary who helped build a massive technology industry. He has moved into the world of philanthropy to pursue support for some notable causes. He also has a deeply troubling relationship with the Chinese regime.

No one can blame a corporate executive for being enticed by the Chinese market’s opportunities. From the earliest days of the internet, China, with approximately four times the population of the United States, has been seen as a lucrative market for the tech industry. You can bet Bill Gates saw it, too.

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Authorities Charge Chinese Telecom Company with Stealing Trade Secrets

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Federal authorities charged China-based telecommunications firm Hytera Communications with conspiring to steal trade secrets from a U.S. company, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Monday.

Hytera allegedly recruited employees from U.S. telecommunications company Motorola to steal digital mobile radio (DMR) technology, according to an indictment unsealed Monday. The Chinese company then allegedly used Motorola’s technology to accelerate the development of its own DMR products, the DOJ announced.

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Commentary: Don’t Watch the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

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In December, the United States, United Kingdom and Australia all announced diplomatic boycotts against the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, and since then, several other nations around the world have joined the boycott.

A diplomatic boycott means that government officials from those nations will not attend the Olympic Games. This sent an important message to the citizens of those countries that attending the games even as spectators is immoral and at odds with the spirit of their own nation.

The Chinese Communist Party knew this, and in a preemptive attempt to avoid the embarrassment of empty bleachers, it made a decision on Jan. 17 not to sell spectator tickets to people from outside China’s mainland, and invite in controlled groups instead.

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Schweizer: Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Husband Co-Owned Chinese Computer Company That Sent Bugged Laptops to U.S. Military

Neil W. McCabe

The author of “Red-Handed How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win” told The Star News Network that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and her investor husband Richard C. Blum, have financially benefited from their ties to senior leaders in the Chinese Communist Party.

“Dianne Feinstein’s ties to Chinese Communist Party officials goes way back to when she was the mayor of San Francisco in the late 1970s,” said investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, the host of “The Drill Down” podcast and the founder and president of The Government Accountability Institute.

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FBI Director Says China Is Bigger Threat to U.S. Than Any Other Nation

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On Monday, FBI Director Christopher Wray declared that the greatest foreign threat to the United States is the country of China, adding that the nation’s recent escalation of tensions regarding the country of Taiwan are “more brazen” and “more damaging” than anything seen in recent history.

The New York Post reports that Wray made his remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. Just days before the start of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Wray said that China poses a threat “to our economic security and to our freedoms: Our freedom of speech, of conscience, our freedom to elect and be served by our representatives without foreign meddling, our freedom to prosper when we toil and invent.”

“I’ve spoken a lot about this threat since I became FBI director,” Wray continued. “But I want to focus on it here tonight because in many ways it’s reached a new level — more brazen, more damaging than ever before, and it’s vital, vital, that all of us focus on that threat together.”

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Commentary: The Russia Time Bomb

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President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin participate in a tete-a-tete during a U.S.-Russia Summit on Wednesday, June 16, 2021, at the Villa La Grange in Geneva. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

The crisis on the Russian-Ukrainian border has been a surreal spectacle for some weeks. This is not how invasions occur and wars begin. The potential aggressor does not mass large forces on the border of a possible target country before full international view and issue continuous statements to the international media about its intentions. And the senior military officials of great powers do not—as Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley ( leading man of the Afghan debacle) and some of his colleagues have done—publicly speculate on the psychology and likely intentions of the leader of the country implicitly threatening to start a war. Whatever Milley’s talents may be, there is no reason to believe that mind-reading is among them. It is, in any case, not part of his brief to give regular bulletins on what he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions may be.

This is Gilbert and Sullivan warmongering. 

If Putin intended to invade Ukraine he would do so as he did with Crimea in 2008 and attempt to achieve some element of surprise. Instead he has made an international public spectacle of amassing six to 10 divisions on the Ukraine border, which every informed person in the world knows is inadequate to defeat and dominate a resistant country of 40 million people. This is theater: Russia pretends to threaten to be going to war; America pretends to react strongly, the NATO allies send forces to neighboring countries that are not under threat while asserting that they will on no account deploy forces into Ukraine, but will apply sanctions to Russia; some even propose preemptive sanctions against Russia although it has not actually done anything objectionable. (Russia could never be more than moderately inconvenienced by sanctions, especially if China and Germany ignore them.) 

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Amazon Whistleblower Who Was Imprisoned and Beaten in China Asks Company for Apology

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A Chinese man alleging that he was imprisoned and tortured after he revealed substandard working conditions in factories making Amazon products is asking the company for an apology.

Tang Mingfang spent two years in prison after he shed a light on working conditions inside Foxconn factories manufacturing Amazon Echo, Echo Dot and Kindle devices, he told The Guardian. Tang said he was beaten and tortured by Chinese authorities during his internment.

“I think Amazon should give me an explanation, tell me if I really deserve to be sent to jail?” Tang said. “If not, Amazon should give me an apology, along with its partner, Foxconn, to assist me to appeal for a redress, and provide compensation.”

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Republicans Staunchly Opposed to House Democrats’ China Bill, Potentially Delaying Its Passage

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US Capitol Infrastructure

House Republicans are staunchly opposed to Democrats’ proposed bill to bolster American competitiveness against China, potentially complicating their goal of passing legislation by the beginning of March.

White House officials have said that passing the bill before President Joe Biden’s March 1 State of the Union is a top priority, but the House bill is a stark departure from the Senate’s legislation that sailed through on a bipartisan vote in June 2021. And while House Democrats can pass their version without Republican support if nearly all of them vote in favor, there is no guarantee that their bill would reach the 60 votes necessary to pass the Senate.

Further, any House-passed bill would likely head to a conference, where House and Senate leaders would privately meet in an attempt to work out their differences and compromise on a bill that can pass both chambers. Not only would that process require additional time, but Senate Republicans would have great leverage given the chamber’s 60-vote threshold.

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Democrats’ ‘America Competes’ Act Allocates Millions for ‘Diversity’ Programs

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Legislation designed to make the U.S. more competitive with China includes millions in appropriations for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

The America COMPETES Act, introduced by House Democrats late Tuesday, is a companion to a bipartisan bill that passed the Senate in June 2021, though the House version lacks Republican support. The bill is designed to increase domestic technological advancement and innovation in order to make the U.S. more competitive with China, and includes $45 billion to ease supply chain disruptions and $52 billion for domestic semiconductor fabrication.

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International Monetary Fund Projects Weaker Than Expected 2022 Economic Growth for U.S. and China

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its global economic growth forecast for 2022 on Tuesday, citing growing COVID-19 cases, supply chain bottlenecks and soaring inflation.

The IMF now projects global gross domestic (GDP) product to grow 4.4% in 2022, down from 5.9% growth in 2021, according to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook report published Tuesday. The IMF projected global GDP would reach 4.9% in its Fall report.

“The global economy enters 2022 in a weaker position than previously expected,” the report said, blaming “downside surprises,” including soaring COVID-19 cases and turbulent markets.

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Department of Energy to Release Millions of Barrels of Oil From Reserve to Combat Surging Gas Prices

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The Department of Energy (DOE) announced Tuesday the release of millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to combat soaring gas prices.

The DOE approved the release of 13.4 million barrels from its SPR, marking the second-largest exchange from the reserve and bringing the total amount of oil released from the cache to almost 40 million barrels.

Exchange contracts for the released oil have were awarded to seven companies. President Joe Biden authorized a plan in November 2021 to release 50 million barrels of crude oil from the SPR in a coordinated effort with China, India, Japan, South Korea and the U.K. to combat surging gas prices and assist in the COVID-19 pandemic recovery.

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State Rep. Wilmeth Sponsors Bill to Block Public Entities in Arizona from Contracting with Companies That Used Forced Labor from Uyghurs

Rachel Alexander

State Rep. Justin Wilmeth (R-Phoenix) is sponsoring legislation to block state and other public entities in Arizona from contracting for services or products from companies that use forced labor from the ethnic Uyghurs in China. Under HB 2488, companies that do business with the state will be required to certify in writing that they do not use that labor.

“As a student of history, I know what happens when good people remain silent,” said Wilmeth. “The Chinese Communist Party keeping millions of people locked in internment camps, which harkens back to the darkest chapters of the 20th century. HB 2488 sends a strong message that the State of Arizona won’t do business with anyone that turns a blind eye to this horrible human rights abuse.”

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Commentary: Biden’s Ukraine Scramble

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President Joe Biden talks on the phone with Senator Rob Portman, R-Ohio, following the Senate vote to pass the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, Tuesday, August 10, 2021, in the Oval Office Dining Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

As usual, the media coverage on the Ukraine crisis is largely inadequate. Perversely, most of the aggressive left-wing media want to escalate the feud with Russian President Vladimir Putin to the point of driving Russia into the arms of China. This is the only way Russia (whose GDP is smaller than Canada’s) could seriously damage the West. 

At the same time, some conservative commentators, including some of the stars at Fox News, are unreasonably accusing those who favor resisting Russian aggression in Ukraine of being warmongers and trying to propel America into endless, useless war. Again. 

There is a legitimate American and Western interest in not allowing Russia to trample an independent nation of 40 million underfoot in the middle of Europe to the embarrassment of the Western alliance, and it is not a difficult scenario to avoid.

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Chinese Tech Firm Takes Over, Shuts Down World Leader’s Personal Social Media Account

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WeChat social media app open on phone

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has had his personal account on Chinese-owned social messaging service WeChat taken over by a Chinese tech company and shut down Monday, Reuters reported.

Fuzhou 985 Technology, a China-based technology firm, managed to take control of Morrison’s WeChat account, which currently has 76,000 followers, several months ago, Reuters reported. Morrison reportedly used the account to communicate with Australians of Chinese origin.

Fuzhou rebranded the account as “Australian Chinese New Life” and redirected users visiting the account to Fuzhou’s website, according to a CNN translation.

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U.S. Suspends Over 40 International Flights from Chinese Airlines over COVID Concerns

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On Friday, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that it would be suspending at least 44 flights bound for China and operated by Chinese airlines over the course of the next few months.

CNN reports that the ban will last from late January to the end of March. The airlines affected are Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, and Xiamen Airlines. The ban is a response to a previous similar ban on flights from China by American airline companies. China’s Civil Aviation Administration justified this ban by claiming that such flights violated a newly-enacted “circuit breaker” rule which bans any flight for at least two weeks if five or more passengers on the plane test positive for the Chinese coronavirus.

The American companies affected by China’s ban include American Airlines, United Airlines, and Delta Airlines. Previous reporting has determined that it is nearly impossible to find any remaining flights between China and the United States due to the two governments’ back-and-forth bans.

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Tony Podesta Has Now Earned $1 Million Lobbying Biden White House for Blacklisted Chinese Tech Giant

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Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta has earned at least $1 million to lobby the White House on behalf of Huawei, a Chinese technology and telecommunications company blacklisted under the Trump administration.

Podesta, brother of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign chairman John Podesta, received $500,000 from Huawei to lobby the Executive Office of the President between October and December of 2021, according to lobbying disclosures filed late Thursday. Huawei first hired Podesta in July 2021 and paid the long-time Democrat operative $500,000 to lobby the White House from July to September 2021.

Podesta lobbied on “issues related to telecommunication services and impacted trade issues,” according to disclosure forms.

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FBI Investigating Chinese Funding of California Plane Maker: Report

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Federal authorities are investigating Chinese investment in a California-based plane maker after shareholders alleged that the firm’s technology was being transferred to China, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The FBI and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) have launched separate reviews of Chinese investment in small plane manufacturer Icon Aircraft Inc., according to the WSJ, which cited company documents and people familiar with the matter. The authorities are investigating allegations that technology from the company with military applications was transferred to China.

The investigation follows a lawsuit filed in June 2021 by a group of minority shareholders, including former Boeing CEO and chairman Phil Condit, who alleged that Pudong Science and Technology Investment Co. (PDSTI), a Chinese firm which owns 47% of Icon’s shares, was exploiting the company for its technology’s military applications to the detriment of the firm’s bottom line.

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China Says It Will Not Sell Olympic Tickets to the General Public Citing COVID-19 Concerns

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The Organizing Committee of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which are just days away from starting, has announced that it will not be selling tickets to the general public due to COVID-19 concerns.

Initially, individuals living on mainland China were the only people allowed to purchase tickets for the event, but the committee has now revoked that plan, citing “the current grave and complicated situation of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In a statement, the committee wrote that the new policy is being put in effect to “ensure the safety of all participants and spectators.”

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Chinese Officials Call to End Overseas Deliveries Because of Omicron Variant

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A ship arriving at the Hamburg harbor.

Officials in Beijing have urged for an end to overseas deliveries, saying that the Omicron coronavirus variant can spread by opening packages that originate in other countries, BBC News reported.

The officials calling to end overseas deliveries cited the case of a woman who contracted the Omicron variant after opening a parcel later found to have traces of the variant on it, BBC News reported. The officials noted that the woman had no prior travel history.

The virus was discovered on the surface of a letter the woman received from Canada as well as on the inside of an unopened letter, health official Pang Xinghuo told reporters on Monday, BBC News reported. Dozens of letters from the same batch were tested, with five reportedly containing traces of COVID-19.

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Commentary: Pro-Government Zealots Remove Statues on Campus – Just Like China in Hong Kong

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When students, faculty, and university administrations pull down statues on campus in an effort to censor history, they are engaging in the same authoritarian politics that characterize China’s control over Hong Kong.

Within 48 hours, Hong Kong University (HKU), the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), and Lingan University witnessed the removal of artwork commemorating the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square.

At HKU, “the Pillar of Shame” was an apt name for the monument that memorialized the atrocity as an example of Chinese government oppression that the communist regime is now trying to whitewash.

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Senators Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to End U.S. Reliance on Chinese Minerals

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Mark Kelly and Tom Cotton

A Republican and Democratic senator introduced legislation Friday that aims to end U.S. reliance on rare-earth metals sourced from and produced in China.

The Restoring Essential Energy and Security Holdings Onshore for Rare Earths (REEShore) Act would prevent supply disruptions and bolster domestic production of the minerals, according to Sens. Tom Cotton and Mark Kelly, the bill’s sponsors. They said the legislation is important for American national security and development of advanced technologies.

“The Chinese Communist Party has a chokehold on global rare-earth element supplies, which are used in everything from batteries to fighter jets,” Cotton said in a statement. “Ending America’s dependence on the CCP for extraction and processing of these elements is critical to winning the strategic competition against China and protecting our national security.”

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