Failure at the Wall Street Journal
Friends,
For those of us who depend on high-quality investigative journalism, this was a sad week as the Wall Street Journal axed its entire U.S.-PRC team in Washington. More on that below under article #1.
In recognition of the hard work of these journalists over the years, I asked DALL-E for a painting of journalists who investigate China and here is what I got:
I clearly have not yet mastered how to prompt Generative AI for compelling output.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. Missing Boxes, an Email from China: How a Chip Shipment Sparked a U.S. Probe
Kate O’Keeffe, Heather Somerville, Yang Jie, and Aruna Viswanatha, Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2024
Autonomous-trucking company, facing several federal investigations, was preparing to exit the American market for China when the CEO directed his staff to ship advanced semiconductors out of the U.S.
After weeks of waiting, TuSimple executives learned in early January that the Commerce Department had stopped the shipment while the agency investigates whether the company planned ultimately to send the chips to China in violation of export controls, according to people familiar with the matter.
The probe adds a new dimension to federal authorities’ suspicions about San Diego-based TuSimple’s dealings in China, after the U.S. government previously ordered the company to segregate its American and Chinese businesses.
The A100 chips, which TuSimple planned to use to improve its self-driving technology for semi trucks, are among most powerful processors for high-performance computing and artificial intelligence. While the chips are permitted to be sent to Australia, Biden administration restrictions prohibit their transfer to China as part of an effort to keep American technology from aiding China’s military buildup.
COMMENT – This week, two days after this article was published, the Wall Street Journal fired 20 journalists and staff in Washington. This includes shuttering the team covering U.S.-PRC news, investigative reporters who have published dozens of articles like the one above.
For the last few years, I’ve noticed a qualitative improvement in the reporting on U.S.-PRC issues, particularly around export controls, Intellectual Property theft, investment security risks, and the PRC’s malign influence in the United States. This requires years of research and experience in a variety of fields (technology, finance, government regulatory frameworks), which can only be done by a well-resourced media outlet like the Journal.
The team at the Wall Street Journal, who was just unceremoniously fired on Thursday, led the way in this transformation. Their exclusive reports routinely landed on the paper’s front page and forced officials in the U.S. Government, as well as corporate leaders, to pay far more attention to what Beijing was trying to accomplish and the methods they were using.
Apparently, the Murdoch family wants to sell its flagship newspaper and the Journal’s Editor in Chief, Emma Tucker, has been tasked with improving the paper’s bottom line, so that Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s heir apparent, can maximize the profit he earns off selling the paper.
But I’m scratching my head on why they would get rid of the U.S.-PRC investigative reporting team that has done so much to raise the Journal’s profile as a serious newspaper beyond the narrow confines of cheerleading the financial services industry. Reports like the one above (or the ones below), that this team has produced over the past 2-3 years are likely to become even more important as the rivalry between Beijing and Washington heats up.
Here’s just a few exclusive, investigative reports that this team is responsible for that I think are incredibly significant and would likely not have come about had there not been a team working on them:
The Billionaire Keeping TikTok on Phones in the U.S. – September 20, 2023
Trump’s Businesses Got Millions from Foreign Governments While He Was President – January 4, 2024
China Is Stealing AI Secrets to Turbocharge Spying, U.S. Says – December 25, 2023
Blacklisted Chinese Chip Maker Does a Thriving Business with U.S. – October 5, 2023
Chinese Gate-Crashers at U.S. Bases Spark Espionage Concerns – September 4, 2023
DuPont China Deal Reveals Cracks in U.S. National-Security Screening – August 12, 2023
U.S. Tracked ZTE, Huawei Workers at Suspected Chinese Spy Sites in Cuba – June 21, 2023
Congress Seeks Details on Spying Risks from Chinese Cargo Cranes – April 3, 2023
Leaders of Self-Driving-Truck Company Face Espionage Concerns Over China Ties – February 1, 2023
U.S. Approves Nearly All Tech Exports to China, Data Shows – August 16, 2022
U.S. Companies Aid China’s Bid for Chip Dominance Despite Security Concerns – November 12, 2021
China Stymies Once-United U.N. Panel on North Korea Sanctions – September 15, 2021
How China Targets Scientists via Global Network of Recruiting Stations – August 20, 2020
Qualcomm Lobbies U.S. to Sell Chips for Huawei 5G Phones – August 8, 2020
Each of these, and dozens more, helped the public and Government officials gain a much more detailed understanding of Beijing’s malign activities.
I don’t have any evidence to support this thesis (aside from a hunch), but it wouldn’t surprise me if pressure of some kind had been applied to stop the Journal’s hard-hitting investigative journalism on these topics. I suspect that there are two groups who are extremely happy that Tucker (Murdoch) axed this team: certain corporate executives and investors, who want to conceal their backroom dealings with Beijing, and the Chinese Communist Party, who hate having their activities exposed to the public.
As the Washington Post is fond of saying: Democracy Dies in Darkness.
2. A new diplomatic struggle is unfolding over Taiwan
The Economist, January 25, 2024
The new year has brought no respite from tensions over Taiwan. On January 13th its people elected an independence-minded candidate, William Lai Ching-te, as their next president, infuriating China. Two days later it was China’s turn, with its officials announcing that little Nauru was cutting ties with Taiwan in favour of China. On January 24th the us navy sent a warship through the Taiwan Strait, which China described as a “provocative act”. Amid this drama a new diplomatic battle is intensifying that risks setting the stage for war.
For over 70 years the government in Beijing led by the Communist Party has fought for official recognition from the world. Lately it has opened up a novel front in this campaign. The party wants not only to be the sole representative of China, it also wants countries to adopt its view that Taiwan is an inalienable part of it. Victory in this struggle would give China’s leaders a big diplomatic cudgel—as well as a legal basis for invading the island.
COMMENT – Continued failure by United Nations officials and organizations to resist the Chinese Communist Party and speak truth to power.
3. DOD Releases List of People's Republic of China (PRC) Military Companies in Accordance with Section 1260H of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021
U.S. Department of Defense, January 31, 2024
Today, the Department of Defense released an update to the names of "Chinese military companies" operating directly or indirectly in the United States in accordance with the statutory requirement of Section 1260H of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.
Updating the Section 1260H list of "Chinese military companies" is an important continuing effort in highlighting and countering the PRC's Military-Civil Fusion strategy. The PRC's Military-Civil Fusion strategy supports the modernization goals of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) by ensuring it can acquire advanced technologies and expertise developed by PRC companies, universities, and research programs that appear to be civilian entities. Section 1260H directs the Department to begin identifying, among other things, Military-Civil Fusion contributors operating directly or indirectly in the United States.
The Department will continue to update the list with additional entities as appropriate. The United States Government reserves the right to take additional actions on these entities under authorities other than section 1260H. The list is available here.
COMMENT – I’m proud to have played a small role in ensuring that the Department of Defense routinely publish this legislatively mandated report on the companies that support the Chinese Defense Industrial Base.
The initial requirement to publish a public list of “Chinese Communist Military Companies” was included in the 1999 National Defense Authorization Act (Section 1237). But the Clinton, Bush and Obama Administrations willfully ignored this legislative mandate and refused to publish the list (which would have opened up authorities to sanction these companies).
It was not until June of 2020 that the Trump Administration (Defense Secretary Esper in particular) finally pushed through the bureaucratic resistance and published the first list (more than two decades after Congress required the executive branch to publish it). The publication of the list by the Department of Defense activated the use of IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) sanctions, which the Trump Administration imposed on the first three tranches of these companies in November 2020 with Executive Order 13959 (Executive Order on Addressing the Threat from Securities Investments that Finance Communist Chinese Military Companies).
The Biden Administration continued the practice (by issuing Executive Order 14032, Addressing the Threat from Securities Investments That Finance Certain Companies of the People's Republic of China) and last week’s issuance of the latest list suggests that the Chinese Defense Industrial Base, and its network of civil suppliers through Military-Civil fusion, will face continued costs and restrictions.
However, it does not appear that there is much appetite for expanding the imposition of costs and restrictions on the PRC Defense Industrial Base. One of the changes that the Biden Administration made in implementing its Executive Order was to pass implementation of sanctions and restrictions to the Department of the Treasury. IMO Treasury has been dragging its feet on imposing any serious costs or restrictions on the PRC Defense Industrial Base.
Secretary Yellen and her team seem far more interested in pursuing mutually advantageous economic and financial agreements with Beijing, than in degrading the military capacity of what the Administration and Department of Defense identify as the pacing threat for the nation.
To me, this is yet another example of the gap between the rhetoric of “integrated deterrence” and reality.
If the Administration took its own policy of “integrated deterrence” seriously, then the Treasury Department would be aggressively implementing sanctions and restrictions on the various Chinese Communist Military Companies identified by the Department of Defense.
The refusal by Treasury to use its authorities aggressively creates a perverse outcome: by failing to kneecap the PRC Defense Industrial Base, the Administration simply makes it far more costly from the Department of Defense to maintain a military advantage over the PRC. If the PLA is unhindered in its military modernization, the demands on DoD and allied military expansion only grow. We are being penny-wise and pound-foolish.
What makes this situation even worse is that (as I showed last week) we are shrinking our own defense procurement.
I think the Administration is absolutely right to adopt a strategy based on “integrated deterrence”… now they need to actually execute it!
4. Negative Takes on China’s Economy Are Disappearing from the Internet
Jonathan Cheng, Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2024
Chinese authorities warn against denigrating the economy and urge officials to highlight its ‘bright prospects.’
Several prominent commentaries by economists and journalists in China have vanished from the internet in recent weeks, raising concerns that Beijing is stepping up its censorship efforts as it tries to put a positive spin on a struggling economy.
This month, top lieutenants of Chinese leader Xi Jinping urged officials to “promote the bright prospects of China’s economy.” Those calls came after an unusual warning from China’s top spy agency in December, which cautioned the public to be wary of those who denigrate the economy. “Economic security is a key component of national security,” the Ministry of State Security said.
One recent commentary that disappeared was an editorial published last month by Caixin Media, a Beijing-based business news outlet known for backing pro-market reforms. The editorial called for officials to confront economic challenges directly, harking back to when China’s economy was on the brink of collapse during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The editorial said that, at the time, officials insisted that “the situation is excellent,” but in reality people were destitute.
The article urged officials to “seek truth from facts,” quoting an ancient Chinese aphorism that was frequently invoked by Mao Zedong and especially by his successor Deng Xiaoping, who ushered in four decades of reform and opening.
“One can only correct inappropriate policies in a timely manner if one sticks to seeking truth from facts,” read the unsigned article, which was published on Dec. 25, a day before the 130th anniversary of Mao’s birth.
Within hours, the editorial disappeared from Caixin’s website. A representative for Caixin declined to comment.
COMMENT – There is no way in hell the PRC economy grew by 5.2% last year.
I recommend everyone read Rhodium Group’s excellent analysis at the end of last year.
Through the Looking Glass: China’s 2023 GDP and the Year Ahead – December 29, 2023
Here’s the opening paragraph:
Despite clear evidence that it was slowed down by unexpected economic headwinds this year, China will almost certainly claim to have hit its “around 5%” GDP growth target for 2023. The realities of a still-shrinking property sector, limited consumer spending, falling trade surplus, and battered local government finances mean that actual growth in 2023 was more like 1.5%. Looking ahead, China may see a cyclical recovery to perhaps 3.0-3.5% growth in 2024 as property bottoms out, although structural slowdown will naturally remain the dominant story for years to come.
5. US disabled Chinese hacking network targeting critical infrastructure
Christopher Bing and Karen Freifeld, Reuters, January 31, 2024
The U.S. government in recent months launched an operation to fight a pervasive Chinese hacking operation that compromised thousands of internet-connected devices, two Western security officials and a person familiar with the matter said.
The Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation sought and received legal authorization to remotely disable aspects of the Chinese hacking campaign, the sources told Reuters.
The Biden administration has increasingly focused on hacking, not only for fear nation states may try to disrupt the U.S. election in November, but because ransomware wreaked havoc on Corporate America in 2023.
The hacking group at the center of recent activity, Volt Typhoon, has especially alarmed intelligence officials who say it is part of a larger effort to compromise Western critical infrastructure, including naval ports, internet service providers and utilities.
While the Volt Typhoon campaign initially came to light in May 2023, the hackers expanded the scope of their operations late last year and changed some of their techniques, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The widespread nature of the hacks led to a series of meetings between the White House and private technology industry, including several telecommunications and cloud computing companies, where the U.S. government asked for assistance in tracking the activity.
COMMENT – Hey Biden Administration, you know Executive Order 13694 is still on the books…
Signed by President Obama in April 2015, this executive order (titled Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities), allows you to impose financial sanctions (using IEEPA, International Emergency Economic Powers Act) on those entities waging these harmful cyber campaigns against us. Instead of just disrupting them, you could impose significant costs on the PRC Government, its commercial entities, and persons responsible for these attacks.
Back in late 2015, the Obama Administration used the threat of EO 13694 to compel Beijing to promise that it wouldn’t conducted cyber-enabled economic espionage (a promise Beijing violated almost immediately with no consequences). Given that we have ample evidence that Beijing continues to wage a harmful cyber campaign against is we should be responding.
Now the problem is that the Treasury Department owns these authorities and as I argued above, the Treasury Department appears out of step with the seriousness of national security challenges facing the nation. So, it would likely require White House leadership and direct intervention to force Secretary Yellen and her staff to actually use these authorities to impose costs and re-establish some level of integrated deterrence.
U.S. Department of Justice, January 31, 2024
Four Chinese nationals are charged in an indictment in the District of Columbia with various federal crimes related to a years-long conspiracy to unlawfully export and smuggle U.S.-origin electronic components from the United States to Iran.
According to court documents, Baoxia Liu, aka Emily Liu; Yiu Wa Yung, aka Stephen Yung; Yongxin Li, aka Emma Lee; and Yanlai Zhong, aka Sydney Chung, unlawfully exported and smuggled U.S. export controlled items through China and Hong Kong ultimately for the benefit of entities affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), which supervises Iran’s development and production of missiles, weapons, and military aerial equipment to include Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).
“For more than a decade, the defendants allegedly orchestrated a scheme to smuggle U.S. manufactured parts to the IRGC and the Iranian agency charged with developing ballistic missiles and UAVs,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department's National Security Division. “Such efforts to unlawfully obtain U.S. technology directly threaten our national security, and we will use every tool at our disposal to sever the illicit supply chains that fuel the Iranian regime’s malign activity.”
“Aggressively combating illicit procurement networks that support Iranian military systems like radars and UAVs is essential to U.S. national security,” said Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matthew S. Axelrod of the Department of Commerce. “Today’s indictment, tied to the work of the Disruptive Technology Strike Force, reaffirms that proliferators cannot hide behind front companies in third countries to funnel technology to our adversaries.”
“Our indictment alleges a years-long, complex conspiracy to violate U.S. laws by procuring U.S. technology with military uses for entities in Iran who would do us harm – a serious offense that endangers our national security,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia. “Our office, along with our federal law enforcement partners, will continue to turn over every stone to find those who break our laws and put us at risk. We are committed to making sure that U.S. technology is kept out of the hands of those taking aim at the United States and its citizens through robust enforcement of U.S. sanctions.”
“Our foreign adversaries use many tactics to gain access to critical U.S. technologies and innovation,” said Executive Assistant Director Larissa L. Knapp of the FBI’s National Security Branch. “In this instance, it is alleged that U.S.-origin equipment was smuggled by front companies to the benefit of end users in Iran. Any circumvention of U.S. export control law is simply unacceptable – the FBI will work diligently with its partners across the globe to hold all accountable who jeopardize our national security.”
According to the indictment, beginning as early as May 2007 and continuing until at least July 2020, the defendants utilized an array of front companies in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to funnel dual-use U.S.-origin items, including electronics and components that could be utilized in the production of UAVs, ballistic missile systems, and other military end uses, to sanctioned Iranian entities with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL) such as Shiraz Electronics Industries (SEI), Rayan Roshd Afzar, and their affiliates.
Throughout the course of the conspiracy, the defendants concealed the fact that the goods were destined for Iran and Iranian entities and made material misrepresentations to U.S. companies regarding the end destination and end users. These deceptive practices caused the U.S. companies to export goods to the defendants’ PRC-based front companies under false pretenses and under the guise that the ultimate destination of these products was China as opposed to Iran. As a result, a vast amount of dual-use U.S.-origin commodities with military capabilities were exported from the United States to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions and export control laws and regulations.
The defendants are charged with conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), violating IEEPA, smuggling goods from the United States, and one count of submitting false or misleading export information. If convicted, the defendants face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for violating the IEEPA; up to 10 years in prison for smuggling goods from the United States; and up to five years in prison for each count of conspiracy and submitting false or misleading export information. Arrest warrants have been issued for Liu, Yung, Li and Zhong who all remain fugitives.
COMMENT – Shocking that PRC nationals would be involved in a multi-year conspiracy to aid the Iranians in building out military capabilities.
7. Would a Trump presidency change China's calculations on Taiwan?
Ken Moriyasu, Ryohtaroh Satoh, and Thompson Chau, Nikkei Asia, January 30, 2024
Republican candidate's indifference on island is among 'worst kept secrets in Washington'.
As former President Donald Trump gains momentum in his bid for a return to the White House, observers are examining how a potential Trump presidency affects Taiwan policy and whether it changes Beijing's calculations, including the time line for China's publicly stated desire for unification.
"During the majority of the Trump administration, one of the worst kept secrets in Washington was that Trump didn't care about Taiwan," Evan Medeiros, former National Security Council senior director for Asia under President Barack Obama, told Nikkei Asia. "There were some rumors that, in fact, he even said that during meetings with Chinese officials."
Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his 2020 memoir, "The Room Where It Happened," that one of Trump's favorite comparisons was to point to the tip of one of his Sharpies and say, "This is Taiwan," then point to the historic Resolute desk in the Oval Office and say, "This is China."
Robert Sutter, a former U.S. government official and professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, recently wrote a commentary for the National Bureau of Asian Research noting that President Joe Biden's commitment to defending Taiwan using American forces if it were attacked by China -- he has done so publicly four times -- has served as a strong deterrent to Beijing.
"Biden's extraordinary posture on coming to Taiwan's assistance if it is attacked shows that this administration is more likely than any since the depths of the Cold War to become directly involved in countering an attack by China with military force," he wrote.
Sutter told Nikkei in an interview that Biden's firm stance on Taiwan has affected other American allies and partners, especially Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
"Why does Marcos risk what he's risking vis-a-vis China?" Sutter asked, regarding Manila's shift away from Beijing and tilt toward Washington. "If you're looking at your self-interest, it doesn't make a lot of sense. But if you feel confident [about the U.S. position], then it makes sense."
If there is less clarity under Trump, views toward the U.S. may change.
Medeiros agreed. "Four times Biden has said that he will come to the defense of Taiwan," he said. "One time you can explain away. Maybe two. Not four."
COMMENT – Former President Trump is undermining U.S. deterrence and jeopardizing peace and security in the Western Pacific.
Just as the Biden Administration adopted a more realist view of the PRC espoused by former President Trump during his term in office, candidate Trump would be well served to maintain that continuity.
I fear that in his desire to differentiate himself from Biden, he will sacrifice his own best foreign policy initiatives simply because Biden adopted them.
Authoritarianism
8. China warns citizens against 'exotic beauty' traps of foreign spies
Kelly Ng, BBC, January 25, 2024
9. Spycraft and Statecraft
William J. Burns, Foreign Affairs, January 30, 2024
10. The Story of the Decade
Nicholas Wade, City Journal, January 25, 2024
New documents strengthen—perhaps conclusively—the lab-leak hypothesis of Covid-19’s origins.
The day is growing ever closer when Washington may have to add to its agenda with Beijing a nettlesome item it has long sought to avoid: the increasingly likely fact that China let the SARS2 virus escape from the Wuhan lab where it was concocted, setting off the Covid-19 pandemic that killed some 7 million people globally and wrought untold economic havoc.
New documents may explain why no one has been able to find the SARS2 virus (aka SARS-CoV-2) infesting a colony of bats, from which it might have jumped to people. The reason would be that the virus has never existed in the natural world. Documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know, a health advocacy group, provide a recipe for assembling SARS-type viruses from six synthetic pieces of DNA designed to be a consensus sequence—the genetically most infectious form—of viruses related to SARS1, the bat virus that caused the minor epidemic of 2002. The probative weight of the recipe is that prior independent evidence already pointed to SARS2 having just such a six-section structure.
The documents unearthed by U.S. Right to Know, and analyzed by its reporter Emily Kopp, include drafts and planning materials for the already-known DEFUSE proposal, an application to DARPA, a Pentagon research agency, for a $14 million grant to enhance SARS-like bat viruses.
The new recipe is in striking accord with a theoretical paper published in 2022 that predicted the SARS2 virus had been generated in exactly this way. Three researchers—Valentin Bruttel, Alex Washburne, and Antonius VanDongen—noted that the virus could be cut into six sections if treated with a pair of agents known as restriction enzymes and so had probably been synthesized and assembled in this way.
Restriction enzymes, made naturally by bacteria as a defense against viruses, are an invaluable tool for biologists because they cut DNA at specific points known as recognition sites. These sites occur randomly across the genome, so a natural virus treated with a restriction enzyme will be cut into pieces of different sizes. However, researchers who want to synthesize a virus from scratch in order to manipulate its parts more effectively will often rearrange the recognition sites so that they are evenly spaced. This allows short chunks of DNA, all of roughly equal length, to be synthesized chemically and then strung together in a complete viral genome. Bottom line: if your virus has evenly spaced recognition sites, it’s a pretty good bet that it was made in a laboratory.
Bruttel and his colleagues guessed that a commonly used pair of restriction enzymes, known as BsaI and BsmBI, might have been used to assemble the SARS2 virus’s genome. When they examined the structure of SARS2, they found that the recognition sites used by these enzymes were indeed evenly spaced across the genome, marking it into six sections. “Our findings strongly suggest a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV2,” they wrote.
Their paper did not receive the attention it deserved, in part because of the difficulty of ruling out a natural explanation for the even spacing. The small group of virologists who adamantly oppose the lab-leak hypothesis attacked the paper as “confected nonsense” (Edward Holmes) and “kindergarten molecular biology” (Kristian Andersen).
11. Hong Kong begins work on its own National Security Law, years after a similar law crushed dissent
Kanis Leung and Zen Soo, Associated Press, January 30, 2024
12. China suspends visa issuance to Lithuanian citizens
Augustas Stankevičius, LRT, January 26, 2024
The Chinese mission in Vilnius has suspended the issuance of visas to Lithuanian citizens as of Wednesday, Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has confirmed.
“We have been informed about this. No further information has been provided,” he told Lithuanian journalists in Kyiv on Thursday.
Landsbergis said he was unaware of the reasons for and the duration of the suspension.
The Chinese mission had last temporarily suspended the issuance of visas to Lithuanian citizens in late November 2021.
Beijing then said the move was due to technical reasons, but it came after China had officially downgraded diplomatic ties with Lithuania to the level of chargé d’affaires in response to the opening of the Taiwanese representative office in Vilnius.
COMMENT – Of note, as Beijing was imposing this punishment on Lithuania, Beijing granted visa-free travel to citizens of various European countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Switzerland and the Netherlands) who they believe have “behaved themselves.”
Will other EU member states do anything to demonstrate solidarity with one of their own or will they stand by as Beijing continues its practice of divide-and-conquer?
I suspect the latter, which only reinforces the Chinese Communist Party’s belief that these tactics work.
For all their talk about European values and European unity, EU member states continue to demonstrate that they cannot defend themselves from outside threats and that individual European states are more than happy to sacrifice their neighbors for slight economic advantages.
13. Taiwan Builds Own AI Language Model, Taide, to Counter China’s Tech Influence
Jennifer Creery, Bloomberg, January 25, 2024
14. Top China Political Advisory Body Ousts Senior Rocket Researcher Wang Xiaojun
Bloomberg, January 29, 2024
15. China’s Censorship Dragnet Targets Critics of the Economy
Daisuke Wakabayashi and Claire Fu, New York Times, January 31, 2024
16. China Says Trump Could Abandon Taiwan If He Wins US Election
Bloomberg, January 30, 2024
17. How the US is preparing for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan
Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali, Reuters, January 31, 2024
18. Taiwan angered at 'unilateral' China change to Taiwan Strait flight path
Ben Blanchard, Reuters, January 31, 2024
19. Is the world economy deglobalizing?
Joe Seydl, JP Morgan, January 24, 2024
Environmental Harms
20. Peru’s ports allow entry of Chinese ships tied to illegal fishing & forced labor
Michelle Carrere, Mongabay, December 22, 2023
21. Global coal exports and power generation hit new highs in 2023
Gavin Maguire, Reuters, January 18, 2024
Foreign Interference and Coercion
22. US and China launch talks on fentanyl trafficking in a sign of cooperation amid differences
Ken Moritsugu, Associated Press, January 30, 2024
23. China orders a Japanese fishing boat to leave waters near Japan-held islands claimed by Beijing
Associated Press, January 27, 2024
24. Iran's oil exports reach 5-year high, with China as top buyer
Ryosuke Hanafusa, Shuntaro Fukutomi, and Yuta Koga, Nikkei Asia, January 31, 2024
25. China denies providing weapons to Hamas in Israel-Gaza war
Seong Hyeon Choi, South China Morning Post, January 25, 2024
26. China, Papua New Guinea in talks on policing, security cooperation - minister
Kirsty Needham, Reuters, January 29, 2024
27. Ex-MI6 boss warns UK not equipped to deal with Chinese spies
ITV, January 27, 2024
Human Rights and Religious Persecution
28. Top Hong Kong court overturns Tiananmen activist Chow Hang-tung’s acquittal over 2021 remembrance vigil
James Lee, Hong Kong Free Press, January 25, 2024
29. China says it jailed British national for 5 years in 2022 for spying
AFP, Hong Kong Free Press, January 26, 2024
30. Bishop approved by pope ordained in China in apparent thaw in relations
Philip Pullella, Reuters, January 25, 2024
Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage
31. U.S. and China worked to lower Taiwan election risks, Sullivan says
Ken Moriyasu, Nikkei Asia, January 31, 2024
32. US firms in Taiwan adapt by picking local partners as investments grow: AmCham
Ralph Jennings, South China Morning Post, January 31, 2024
33. Shipbuilders ask for EU help on Chinese subsidies
Varg Folkman, Politico, January 23, 2024
34. China EVs: lithium producers Ganfeng, Tianqi issue profit warnings, blame price plunge for battery material as stocks sink
Eric Ng, South China Morning Post, January 31, 2024
35. ASML China Sales Surged Despite Secret Dutch Deal with US
Cagan Koc, Ian King, and Diederik Baazil, Reuters, January 25, 2024
36. Economics IMF Lifts World GDP Outlook on US Strength, China Fiscal Support
Eric Martin, Bloomberg, January 30, 2024
37. What China’s E.V. City Says About the State of the Economy
Keith Bradsher and Joy Dong, New York Times, January 27, 2024
38. China’s Economic Pain Worsens as Real-Estate Sales Plummet
Stella Yifan Xie and Cao Li, Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2024
39. China’s big airlines set for fourth straight lossmaking year
Chan Ho-him, Financial Times, January 30, 2024
40. Chinese Lithium Producers’ Shares Drop in Wake of Profit Warnings
Jiahui Huang, Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2024
41. China’s manufacturing activity contracts for fourth month as economic recovery lags
Joe Leahy and Hudson Lockett, Financial Times, January 30, 2024
42. China's factory activity shrinks again, weak demand hobbles economy
Reuters, January 30, 2024
43. China's vice premier urges more support for listed firms amid market rout
Reuters, January 29, 2024
44. WuXi Bio Denies Military Ties After Shares Slumped on US Bill
Bloomberg, January 28, 2024
45. Evergrande Was Once China’s Biggest Property Developer. Now, It Has Been Ordered to Liquidate.
Alexander Saeedy and Rebecca Feng, Wall Street Journal, January 29, 2024
Cyber & Information Technology
46. G42’s China Ties Reveal a Broader AI Debate
Katrina Northrop, The Wire China, January 28, 2024
47. What to Do When the Chips Are Down
William Alan Reinsch, CSIS, January 29, 2024
48. Tesla CEO Musk: Chinese EV firms will 'demolish' rivals without trade barriers
Abhirup Roy, Reuters, January 25, 2024
49. White House science chief signals US-China co-operation on AI safety
Madhumita Murgia, Financial Times, January 24, 2024
50. Dell, Micron Backed a Group Raising Alarms on Rivals' China Ties
Brody Ford, Bloomberg, January 25, 2024
51. TikTok Struggles to Protect U.S. Data from Its China Parent
Georgia Wells, Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2024
52. Chinese automakers hit by production issues with Huawei computing unit
Reuters, January 31, 2024
Military and Security Threats
53. US says it disrupted a China cyber threat, but warns hackers could still wreak havoc for Americans
Didi Tang, Eric Tucker, and Frank Bajak, Associated Press, January 31, 2024
54. Taiwan begins extended one-year conscription in response to China threat
Nikkei Asia, January 25, 2024
55. Tracking Tensions at Second Thomas Shoal
Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, January 30, 2024
56. Security recall: The risk of Chinese electric vehicles in Europe
Janka Oertel, European Council on Foreign Relations, January 25, 2024
57. Readout of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s Meeting with Chinese Communist Party Politburo Member, Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi
The White House, January 27, 2024
58. The Geopolitics of World War III
Michael Hochberg and Leonard Hochberg, RealClear Defense, January 27, 2024
59. Raimondo Warns Chinese EVs Pose National, Data Security Risks
Mackenzie Hawkins, Bloomberg, January 30, 2024
60. Chinese Hacking Against U.S. Infrastructure Threatens American Lives, Officials Say
Dustin Volz, Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2024
One Belt, One Road Strategy
61. China’s Belt and Road and Its Alternatives: Competing or Complementary?
Zenel Garcia, The Diplomat, January 20, 2024
62. To challenge China’s influence in Africa, US borrows from belt and road playbook
Jevans Nyabiage, South China Morning Post, January 29, 2024
63. China's Belt and Road in limbo
Nikkei Asia, December 29, 2023
China's Belt and Road Initiative is facing new snags, with Italy announcing its withdrawal from the program while security concerns in Pakistan and elsewhere cloud the prospects for ongoing infrastructure projects.
While China continues to face criticism that it is creating debt traps for financially distressed countries, President Xi Jinping's government is making moves that could potentially benefit the huge infrastructure building drive, such as drawing closer to Afghanistan's Taliban government.
Opinion Pieces
64. The US is failing to quickly field hypersonic missile defense
Mark Montgomery and Bradley Bowman, Defense News, January 19, 2024
The Pentagon warned in its annual report to Congress last year that China already possesses “the world’s leading hypersonic arsenal” and is sprinting to field even more advanced offensive capabilities. These weapons would give Beijing a capability to conduct a prompt strike that paralyzes America’s command-and-control and missile-defense capabilities.
The good news is that the United States is making progress on its own offensive hypersonic weapons. The bad news is that American efforts to develop systems that can defend against Chinese hypersonic capabilities are not keeping pace. If Washington does not act quickly to expedite the Pentagon’s fielding of hypersonic missile defense capabilities, deterrence may fail in the Pacific.
A hypersonic weapon is a missile that travels at speeds above Mach 5, or greater than 1 mile per second. There are many existing ballistic missile systems that travel at hypersonic speeds, but Chinese hypersonic missiles present an additional challenge. In addition to their high speeds, these systems include hypersonic glide vehicles, which maneuver through the atmosphere after an initial ballistic launch phase. To make matters worse, Beijing is also developing hypersonic cruise missiles that use air-breathing engines such as scramjets to reach high speeds and maneuver.
That combination of speed and maneuverability presents a daunting challenge for existing U.S. ballistic and cruise missile defense radars and interceptors, making it difficult to track and destroy the adversary’s incoming glide vehicle or cruise missile. The fact that hypersonic glide vehicles can also operate at unusual altitudes — well above cruise missiles but below ballistic missiles — adds an additional layer of complexity.
China has several hypersonic variants that leverage their extensive work in both intercontinental and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. That includes, for example, the deployed DF-17, a medium-range ballistic missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle that has a reported range of 1,600 kilometers. Beijing could use that system to target American and allied military bases and fleets in the Pacific.
To match China’s effort, the United States has spent more than $8 billion on offensive hypersonic missile development over the past two years alone. Despite delays and challenges, some of these efforts are making headway. The Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, the Air Force’s Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, and the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike and Hypersonic Air-Launched Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare programs could all field weapons this decade.
Unfortunately, America’s hypersonic defense efforts are not nearly as impressive.
The Missile Defense Agency has invested in developing a glide-phase interceptor to destroy adversarial missiles in their vulnerable glide phase, before they start complex maneuvering in the terminal phase. But the Biden administration only asked for $209 million for hypersonic defense programs in its fiscal 2024 budget request, and the Pentagon requested less than $515 million in funding in fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2023 combined.
These requests are a fraction of the funding dedicated to offensive capabilities and well short of what is required. This failure to prioritize hypersonic defense has consequences: The Department of Defense said in April that it did not expect to field a hypersonic defense system until fiscal 2034.
65. Western nations need a plan for when China floods the chip market
Chris Miller, Financial Times, January 28, 2024
66. What Worries Me About War with China After My Visit to Taiwan
Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, January 27, 2024
67. U.S. Technologies and the Emboldening of China
Steve Coonen, Wire China, January 28, 2024
68. Beijing’s Passive-Aggressive Middle East Policy
Michael Singh, Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2024
69. Elizabeth Warren’s iRobot Gift to China
Wall Street Journal, January 29, 2024
One might say Elizabeth Warren got her robot. The Massachusetts Senator has prodded antitrust regulators to block Amazon’s acquisition of Roomba manufacturer iRobot. On Monday the two companies called off their deal amid opposition from competition regulators. What a coup—for the Chinese.
Progressives opposed Amazon’s $1.7 billion bid for iRobot the moment it was announced in August 2022. They claimed without evidence that Amazon would undermine Roomba rivals selling in the company’s online marketplace and use the smart vacuum to spy on American homes. But they mostly worried that the acquisition would make Amazon more powerful.
It wasn’t a secret that Amazon wanted to hoover up iRobot’s engineering talent. Expanding its use of robotics could make Amazon’s retail operations more efficient and help expand in new markets. But progressives want to stop big tech companies from growing.
“Amazon has fully leveraged its monopoly power and is ‘almost universally recognized’ as the leader in warehouse and fulfillment robotics space,” Ms. Warren and other progressives wrote to Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan in September 2022. The deal “would open up a new market to Amazon’s abuses.”
The FTC around that time began reviewing the deal. In July 2023 the European Commission opened its own investigation, focusing on dubious concerns that Amazon would favor iRobot over rivals. Yet the U.K.’s competition regulators cleared the deal last year and said Amazon wouldn’t have an incentive to undercut Roomba competitors.
European law prohibits tech platforms like Amazon from favoring their own products. Yet European regulators refused to consider possible concessions from Amazon to allay their concerns about “self-preferencing.” So Amazon and iRobot scrapped the deal.
COMMENT – Anti-trust regulators in Europe, the United States, and the PRC have one thing in common: each are focused on hindering U.S. technology companies.
70. China Is Trying to Have It Both Ways in the Middle East
Isaac Kardon and Jennifer Kavanagh, New York Times, January 26, 2024