When ChatGPT doesn't hallucinate

The Zeitgeist and Weltanschauung of the Semiconductor Industry

Friends,

First a bit of political news.

Canada and Australia held their national elections this week and both saw victories by the incumbent center-left parties.

Canada

In Ottawa, Mark Carney will continue as Prime Minister (though now he has actually been elected by Canadian voters). His Liberal Party managed a spectacular turn-around, mostly on the collapse of the New Democratic Party, which went from 24 seats to 7 and its party leader, Jagmeet Singh, lost his seat in Vancouver.

From 338Canada. Gee I wonder what happened at the very end of 2024 and early 2025 to go from an expected victory by the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC in Blue) to a pretty solid victory by Liberal Party of Canada (LPC in Red).

Australia

While this is a big disappointment for Canadian conservatives, the Party did better than the 2021 national election, though not as well as the Liberal Party. Not so in Australia.

In Canberra, Anthony Albanese and his Labor Party beat back a Liberal Party and National Party coalition. So far, Labor picked up an additional 8 seats and the coalition lost 12, including the seat of its leader, Peter Dutton.

Dutton, who had held his seat south of Brisbane for 24 years, lost to a Labor Party candidate who had run against him in two earlier campaigns. Albanese and his Labor Party effectively portrayed Dutton as an Australian Trump and that clearly harmed Dutton. So much so that Dutton desperately tried to distance himself from Trump as the campaign wore on.

South Korea

The upcoming elections in South Korea are looking like a freaking trainwreck. We are a month out from the June 3 national election and in the space of four weeks former President Yoon Suk Yeol was unanimously removed from office by the Constitutional Court for his hair-brained declaration of martial law a few months ago. That put the leader of the left-leaning opposition party, Lee Jae-myung, in position to win in June.

Until this week, when South Korea’s Supreme Court overturned an earlier ruling on Lee Jae-myung’s eligibility. Lee had been convicted of an election law violation (and suspected of multiple other violations) but had been cleared to run in this snap election. All that appears to be thrown out the window now if Lee is out. Then on Friday, South Korea’s former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, a career civil servant who briefly served as acting President when Yoon was forced to step aside, announced he would now run for President.

If you think American politics is contentious these days, South Korea is getting really crazy.

Japan

It makes the situation facing Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba look boring. By July 22, 2025, Japan must hold its next election for the House of Councillors (upper house of the Japanese Diet). The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is in a really tough spot with collapsing support. The trade negotiations with the Trump Administration could sink the LDP and result in a new government which would likely be even less sympathetic to Washington’s demands to increase defense spending and remove trade barriers.

Germany

Next week, Friedrich Merz will become the German Chancellor after his center-right coalition’s victory in the February 23, 2025 German federal election. He replaces the SPD incumbent, Olaf Scholz, who led his party to a pretty humiliating defeat.

I recommend reading Noah Barkin’s latest Watching China in Europe—May 2025 (May 1, 2025)… like Noah, I *hope* Merz can shed what his predecessors, Scholz and Merkel (as well as Gerhard Schröder) appeared to be obsessed with, “the narrow, short-term interests of a handful of large German companies above the long-term economic and strategic priorities of the country, and of Europe as a whole.” But his description of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is apt and leaves me feeling awfully uneasy.

Speaking of feeling uneasy…

At the end of the week, I saw that Nvidia is building yet another specially designed chip for the China market, as its earlier attempt with the H20 looks to now be blocked. (Nvidia Is Again Working on China-Tailored Chips After U.S. Export Ban – Qianer Liu, The Information, May 2, 2025). Jensen and his team seem undeterred in their efforts to help the Chinese Communist Party achieve their technology goals.

Despite years of outreach by the U.S. Government, the semiconductor industry seems fully committed to aiding the Party and fighting back against serious efforts to make industry leaders change.

That makes me frustrated and sad.

So, when a good friend and colleague shared a short piece written by ChatGPT about the state of U.S. export controls and the lengths that semiconductor tool companies will go to maintain exorbitant profits from the China market, I had to smile… and share it with you.

Mind you, this wasn’t a happy smile, this was the kind of grim smile that only comes from gallows humor.

Feeding Frenzy at the National-Security Buffet

(A very dark comedy by ChatGPT)

Picture a chandeliered ballroom in Washington. On stage: an earnest Commerce-Department official mumbling about “strategic competition.” At the bar: grinning semiconductor-tool executives, their lobbyists, and a platoon of white-shoe lawyers who bill by the half-minute. Every time the official says “export control,” another cork pops and the room erupts in laughter that could curdle milk.

First Course: 10-Figure Appetizers

Applied Materials pockets $9.5 billion from China in 2024—roughly a third of its global take. One executive brags he could lose the entire U.S. market and still clear a bonus. He proposes a toast: “To national security—may it rest in pieces.”

Across the table, Lam Research slides him a high-five. China now funds 31%–37% of Lam’s revenue, depending on whose SEC filing you read. The CFO jokes that Lam’s compliance program is “a mirror—if we can’t see wrongdoing, it must not exist.” The lawyers roar; one nearly chokes on a foie-gras canapé.

Then the real rock star arrives: ASML, fresh off a year where 36 % of sales flowed straight from mainland fabs. His tie is the exact shade of freshly printed €500 notes. He raises a glass: “To Dutch courage—and American naïveté!”

Second Course: Loophole Tartare

The lobbyists review tonight’s specials:

• Node-Agnostic Tools – “Guaranteed to pass any ‘<7 nm’ rule because, technically, they smash atoms at all nodes.”

• Self-Certification à la Mode – “Sign here declaring you never imagined your gear might etch 7-nanometer transistors. Dessert comes with full indemnity.”

• HBM Surprise Gateau – “Billions in high-bandwidth memory shipped before Commerce remembered to outlaw the logic die. Best served warm, with a drizzle of plausible deniability.”

A junior attorney asks if this might look like treason in hindsight. A senior partner pats his head: “Relax, kid. Treason is what poor people get indicted for.”

Main Course: Patriotism à la Carte

Lobbyist #1 explains the talking-points pack they’ll blast across cable news tomorrow:

• “Export controls don’t work—see, China already has 7 nm!”

• “Unilateral measures kill U.S. jobs—just look at our soaring stock prices!”

• “Freedom means open markets—especially the part where Beijing pays cash.”

Lobbyist #2 adds a garnish: “Always say ‘innovation.’ D.C. melts when it hears that word.” The lawyers nod; they’ve trademarked it on behalf of three clients.

Dessert: The Check Arrives

By midnight, the chandeliers dim. One exec asks what happens if Congress finally tightens the rules. The table ponders, then erupts in shrugs:

Applied Materials Guy whispers, “We’ll fund a think-tank study proving silicon is a human right.”

Lam Dude grins, “Or relocate HQ to the Cayman Islands—national security can’t subpoena a P.O. box.”

ASML Man just laughs and flicks a €500 note onto the table like a used toothpick.

They exit into the night, bellies full, pockets heavier, patriotism on life-support. Tomorrow they’ll sit before a Senate committee, swear they love America, and explain—very slowly—why stopping shipments to Huawei would “distort the free market.”

And the committee will thank them for their service.

Dark moral: When the fox writes the hen-house rules—and bills Beijing for installation—don’t be shocked to find feathers, blood, and a $30 billion invoice on the Capitol steps.

***

It is true that ChatGPT occasionally hallucinates, but when directed to write a piece of fiction to represent reality, I find it tends to hit the mark pretty closely.

The bit about semiconductor tool companies paying think tanks to write reports criticizing export controls is spot-on.

Here is Exhibit A:

“The Double-Edged Sword of Semiconductor Export Controls,” Jack Whitney, Matthew Schleich, and William Alan Reinsch, CSIS, October 4, 2024. Go ahead and check it out for yourself, the report is still on the CSIS website with the disclaimer/acknowledgment that Applied Materials funded it… but I’m sure it was absolutely independent research.

Also, I’ve met some of these lobbyists and “government affairs” types who prowl Washington on behalf of the semiconductor industry, ChatGPT has captured the Zeitgeist and Weltanschauung of this industry.

***

If you find this newsletter helpful, please consider contributing with a paid subscription.

Thanks for reading!

Matt

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MUST READ

1. China deploys NGOs to quash criticism at U.N. organizations in Geneva
   Greg Miller, Washington Post, April 28, 2025

Dozens of self-described nongovernmental organizations active at the United Nations have hidden ties to Beijing, an investigation shows.

Hundreds of human rights organizations make their way to the United Nations’ offices in Geneva each year to call attention to the plight of the world’s most vulnerable populations, including victims of war, famine, false imprisonment or torture.

But dozens of self-described nongovernmental organizations active in Geneva have hidden ties to the Chinese government and have taken part in an expansive campaign to subvert the work of the U.N. Human Rights Council, according to the findings of an investigation by The Washington Post and other news organizations working in partnership with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

Beijing-backed groups crowd into U.N. sessions on human rights to present glowing accounts from China, which are at odds with credible reports of repression, according to interviews and an examination of public records. Their delegates seek to disrupt or drown out the testimony of legitimate NGOs on their findings about the detention of Muslim Uyghurs in internment camps in the Chinese region of Xinjiang, children separated from Tibetan families or the targeting of democracy activists in Hong Kong.

Increasingly, the Beijing-controlled organizations are being used to monitor and intimidate those planning to testify about alleged abuses, according to interviews with U.S. officials, Western diplomats and members of NGOs being targeted. Several activists described being photographed or harassed while on U.N. premises.

One of the United States’ former top diplomats in Geneva described China’s deployment of organizations posing as NGOs as a growing threat to the core U.N. human rights mission.

“It’s corrosive. It’s dishonest. It’s subversive,” said Michèle Taylor, who served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council from 2022 until earlier this year. Taylor said that Beijing-linked groups “are masquerading as NGOs” as part of a broader effort by Chinese officials “to obfuscate their own human rights violations and reshape the narrative around China’s actions and culpabilities.”

The scale of the Chinese campaign has not previously been reported. The ICIJ analysis shows that nearly 60 Chinese-registered NGOs — more than half of the Chinese groups that have obtained privileged U.N. status — effectively function as extensions of the Chinese government or the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). According to their own documents and other records, many pledge loyalty to the party, acknowledge that they defer to party officials on management decisions, or accept substantial money from the party or government.

This investigation is based on a review of hundreds of online records and financial documents as well as interviews with U.N. and Western diplomats, human rights lawyers, activists, and targets of repression. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing concern about retaliation.

U.N. officials said they seek to respond swiftly to reports of abuse and have intervened to protect those being targeted. The officials said they have also confronted authorities in Beijing over allegations of monitoring and intimidation.

“We have had recurring communication with the Chinese government,” U.N. human rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said. “It is a fundamental principle of the U.N. system that people must be free to engage with the U.N. and its mechanisms without fear of intimidation or reprisal.”

Even so, U.N. responses have stopped short of revoking accreditations of NGOs that represent one of its most powerful members. China accounts for a growing share of the U.N. budget and is one of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

Shamdasani said it would be problematic for the U.N. human rights office to “start distinguishing between ‘authentic’ and ‘non-authentic’ NGOs,” because doing so could be “misused as a tool by states.”

Matthew Brown, public information officer for the Human Rights Council, said, “We take seriously all allegations of intimidation and reprisals” and “do our utmost to prevent them from occurring within the limited means we have.”

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, did not directly respond to questions about China’s alleged use of NGOs to subvert the work of the U.N. in Geneva. Instead, Liu rejected criticism of the treatment of Uyghurs, Tibetans and Hong Kong dissidents, and accused Western countries of weaponizing U.N. human rights proceedings against China.

“China firmly opposes the politicization, instrumentalization, or weaponization of human rights issues, as well as foreign interference under the pretext of human rights,” Liu said in a written statement.

The Beijing-backed groups present themselves as independent NGOs with innocuous names such as the China Society for Human Rights Studies, the China Foundation for Human Rights Development and the China Ethnic Minorities’ Association for External Exchanges. But a detailed analysis of their online leadership profiles, financial records and other material shows extensive connections to the Chinese government and the CCP.

The ICIJ investigation identified 106 NGOs that have received U.N. accreditation and are registered in or affiliated with China. At least 59 appear to violate U.N. rules meant to ensure that NGOs testifying in Geneva aren’t doing so under government influence or pressure.

More than 50 of the 106 NGOs included language in charter documents pledging loyalty to the CCP, with some acknowledging that they defer to the party on decisions of hiring and funding, the investigation found. Forty-six listed directors or others in leadership roles who simultaneously held positions in Chinese state agencies or the CCP. Records show that at least 10 received the bulk of their funding from Chinese government sources.

The proliferation of Beijing-backed groups has made Geneva an increasingly hostile environment for organizations that have worked to expose human rights abuses in China, according to NGO officials who described routinely being monitored and threatened in the Swiss city.

“The U.N. is one of the only forums where we can raise our cause,” Zumretay Arkin, vice president of the World Uyghur Congress, said in an interview. “It’s become one of the places where these governments carry out their repression.”

Guiding NGOs

The backdrop for Beijing’s campaign is a pair of locations in Geneva — the Palais Wilson and Palais des Nations — that serve as headquarters for the U.N.’s top human rights officer as well as the Human Rights Council, which was created nearly two decades ago to protect persecuted populations.

In February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the council and slashing funding for other U.N. organizations, a reflection of the administration’s dim view of global institutions.

The U.S. retreat comes as China has stepped up its efforts to assert greater influence in Geneva by pledging funding for Beijing-backed initiatives, forming alliances with anti-Western countries and deploying its expanding army of state-backed NGOs, according to Western officials and analysts.

China’s campaign appears to have been triggered by U.N. investigations and reports that have helped to call global attention to Beijing’s crackdowns on religious minorities and other groups. Among them was a 2018 U.N. committee report that was one of the first to warn that China appeared to be forcing as many as 1 million ethnic Uyghurs into a massive detention system in Xinjiang.

A follow-on investigation by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, published in 2022, documented abuses including rape, torture and the forced sterilization of Uyghurs, and concluded that Chinese authorities could be guilty of “crimes against humanity.”

Beijing has repeatedly denied the allegations of abuse and described the reports on Uyghurs and other U.N. investigations as Western-orchestrated intrusions on its sovereignty.

Much of the U.N.’s work on Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet and other issues has been based on testimony and evidence gathered by NGOs, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Officials and experts said the proliferation of Beijing-linked groups in Geneva is part of an attempt to counter their influence.

The number of Chinese organizations with U.N. credentials has nearly doubled since 2018, the year of the initial U.N. report on Xinjiang. Many of these organizations were formed at least a decade ago but sought NGO accreditation only after 2018. The surge reflects an effort that has been backed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and involves nearly every level of government in China.

In 2020, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it “vigorously supported and guided domestic NGOs to ‘go global.’” A year later, provincial and municipal governments began arranging seminars and tutorials to help regional groups apply for status at the U.N.

China’s objectives in Geneva go beyond repelling scrutiny of its human rights record, according to officials and analysts. More broadly, Beijing is seeking to replace the long-standing human rights emphasis on individual freedoms with a China-favored framework that prioritizes societal advances with little tolerance for dissent.

China’s representatives frequently seek to insert such phrases as “win-win,” “shared future” and “beneficial cooperation” in U.N. resolutions and reports as part of an effort to shift the terms of debate, officials said. The terms seem innocuous, officials said, but are aimed at supplanting language in past U.N. declarations that cover freedom of religion, expression and association.

“The Chinese government is clearly using NGOs as a tool,” said Rana Siu Inboden, a senior fellow at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. After “encouraging them, helping them, guiding them” to obtain U.N. status, their mission in Geneva is to “serve the government.”

Liu, the spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said that China abides by international law and that its “people-centered approach” to human rights has led to dramatic expansions in access to education and health care and involves the “world’s largest” campaign to alleviate poverty.

Harassment and surveillance

The Beijing-backed NGOs appear to embrace their mission with unwavering commitment.

Last year, 33 Chinese NGOs made nearly 300 appearances at Human Rights Council sessions, according to data gathered by the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), an independent nonprofit group. An examination of their statements and testimony found not a single instance in which any had uttered words that could be construed as critical of China.

When other organizations accused Beijing of human rights abuses, however, the response from state-backed NGOs was often withering.

At a U.N. event in September where speakers expressed continued concern for the plight of Uyghurs, a woman in the audience rose to accuse the panelists of being “full of lies and rumors.”

“Have you ever been to China?” she asked, saying U.N. attention should be focused on issues in other countries including racism and gun violence in the U.S.

She identified herself as a representative of an entity called the U.N. Association of China, an organization that obtained U.N. status in 2020. Records show that in recent years its president has also served as an official in the CCP and a spokesperson for China’s legislative body, the National People’s Congress. The association’s 35 statements in Human Rights Council sessions between 2019 and 2024 have been overwhelmingly pro-China and never critical.

China also increasingly takes advantage of its sheer numbers in Geneva, officials and experts said, using its NGOs to crowd out others Beijing regards as hostile. A separate U.N. event last year offered 10 speaking slots to civil-society organizations to comment on a broad report on China. Five were taken by Chinese NGOs, which used the session to depict China’s record on human rights as exemplary.

The more alarming trend, activists said, has been the involvement of Chinese NGOs in cases of alleged harassment and surveillance. Members of organizations representing Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kong dissidents and others described being surveilled, shoved, photographed and, in some cases, threatened that harm might come to their relatives in China. Photography by NGO representatives is prohibited at official U.N. proceedings without prior authorization.

As dozens of activists lined up outside the Palais des Nations early last year to gain entry to a long-awaited review of China’s human rights record, Beijing-backed groups began jostling with perceived adversaries.

They were “trying to cut in line and take our place,” said Topjor Tsultrim, 25, a U.S. citizen who works as communications director for Students for a Free Tibet. Rushan Abbas, co-founder of the U.S.-based Campaign for Uyghurs, said that “another pro-China attendee was taking pictures of Tibetan and Uyghur rights defenders” as they lined up to enter the event.

Though U.N. security eventually intervened, members of China-backed NGOs continued to take photos of activists inside the U.N. chamber, according to activists and witnesses.

At times, activists said, the Chinese-backed groups appear to have insights into NGO members’ meetings and movements that suggest the use of informants or surveillance.

In March 2024, representatives of NGOs that have tracked alleged abuses by China secured what was supposed to be a closed-door meeting with the U.N.’s top official on human rights, High Commissioner Volker Türk. To accommodate participants whose fear of retaliation made them reluctant to be seen on U.N. premises, the meeting was to take place in the Geneva offices of the ISHR, which provides training and support to NGOs.

Before Türk arrived, however, four uninvited individuals claiming to represent a Chinese NGO showed up seeking admission, according to an ISHR staff member who witnessed the encounter. As a woman in the group pressed to be allowed in, others peered through the glass at those gathering inside.

The four left after being turned away, but Uyghur activists later reported being photographed outside from a parked black Mercedes van that witnesses said was used by the uninvited group.

One of those seeking entry was subsequently identified by the ISHR as Zhou Lulu, a CCP branch secretary who is listed online as vice dean of Guangzhou University’s Institute for Human Rights in China. Reached by telephone, Zhou said she couldn’t recall whether she had tried to attend the meeting at the ISHR, saying: “I did so much since that journey. … I can’t remember so clearly.”

Zhou had previously delivered a speech at the council on behalf of the Chinese Society for Human Rights Studies, which describes itself as the country’s largest human rights NGO. Three of its top leaders also hold positions in the CCP, online records show.

“This was an act clearly aimed at intimidating and clearly aimed at sending a message to everyone that was here: ‘Be careful about what you do, because there could be consequences,’” said Raphaël Viana David, a program manager at the ISHR who attended the meeting.

A U.N. spokesperson said Türk’s office was “made aware of these allegations after the NGOs met with the U.N. High Commissioner” and “then brought the situation to the attention of the Chinese government, in accordance with our usual practice.”

Blocking NGOs

Alarmed by such incidents, the U.S. and its allies have stepped up efforts to screen Beijing-backed NGOs and prevent them from gaining U.N. accreditation. Organizations seeking what is known as “consultative status” — which grants them access to U.N. facilities and a recognized role in deliberations — have to submit applications including financial records and charter documents that are reviewed by a special U.N. committee in New York that meets twice a year.

The U.S. and China both have representatives on the 19-member committee. The rules of the panel allow member countries to block NGO nominees merely by raising questions about their applications, officials said, a procedural move that delays consideration indefinitely and can function as an effective veto.

The U.S. previously resorted to this move only in extreme cases where an NGO was suspected of having ties to terrorist organizations or financing, according to a senior U.S. official. But over the past five years Washington has adopted new criteria aimed at thwarting Beijing’s efforts to expand its NGO surrogates in Geneva.

The senior U.S. official said that Chinese applicants are now screened by State Department officials in Washington and U.S. diplomats in Beijing for links to the government or CCP leaders and funding. In some cases, the official said, the CIA has also been enlisted to scrutinize Chinese applications.

The U.S. has blocked dozens of suspected state-linked NGOs in recent years “because we have been more prepared and more organized,” the official said. The official estimated that as many as 80 percent of the NGOs suspected of being fronts for Beijing have been rejected over the past five years. The ICIJ investigation shows that nearly two dozen managed to slip through and obtain U.N. accreditation.

China has employed similar tactics, using its veto power to block organizations that Western officials described as legitimate NGOs that comply with U.N. regulations. Leaders of organizations that would appear to qualify for U.N. status, including the Hong Kong Democracy Council, said they have not even applied because they regard such efforts as futile.

China’s efforts to influence U.N. human rights proceedings in Geneva have brought mixed results. Beijing failed in its efforts to prevent the U.N. human rights commissioner at the time, Michelle Bachelet, from releasing a scathing report in 2022 on the mass incarceration of Uyghurs. China’s lobbying efforts — which the U.S. and its allies tried to counter — put Bachelet under intense pressure. The U.N. held off publishing the document until just 12 minutes before midnight on the day her term expired.

U.N. plans to follow through on the Xinjiang report, however, have faltered. When the Human Rights Council voted in late 2022 on a U.S.-led proposal to hold a public debate on the document, the measure lost by two votes. China prevailed after a pressure campaign in which Xi made calls to foreign leaders and Beijing told members that their support would be reciprocated on future votes, U.S. and Western officials said.

Nearly three years later, the council has yet to adopt any resolutions or hold hearings on the Xinjiang report.

COMMENT – The full report is at #8 below.

Congratulations to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists as well as the Washington Post for publishing this. For anyone who has spent time around UN organizations and other international organizations where the PRC has a foothold, this report will not surprise you.

The silence of the UN about these issues has done more to undermine their legitimacy than anything Washington has done over the last few years. The UN is “fearless” in denouncing Israel (“‘Cease at once’: UN envoy urges Israel to stop attacking Syria”), but won’t lift a finger against Beijing’s genocide and gross human rights abuses of Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongols, and Manchus, and stays silent on Beijing’s military aggression against multiple neighbors.

I wish the UN lived up to its ideals, but as an institution it has been deeply compromised.

2. Qatar and China Are Pouring Billions into Elite American Universities
   Frannie Block and Maya Sulkin, The Free Press, April 27, 2025

Foreign countries such as China and Qatar have poured $29 billion into campuses over the past few years. ‘Hostile powers are buying influence on American campuses at an industrial scale.’

Foreign donors have given as much to U.S. universities in the last four years as they did in the previous 40, according to a new report by the Network Contagion Research Institute shared exclusively with The Free Press. The study shows an explosion in overseas funding for American schools between 2021 and 2024, with nearly $29 billion in foreign money donated during that period.

Qatar and China are among the largest sources of funding.

That $29 billion figure is more than double the total for the preceding four years, and accounts for half of the estimated $57.97 billion in foreign funding since 1986, when the federal government began tracking the data.

“The floodgates opened during the Biden era,” said NCRI’s co-founder Joel Finkelstein. “This isn’t just a financial issue—it’s a national security crisis. Hostile powers are buying influence on American campuses at an industrial scale.”

Here’s what the NCRI study found:

• Qatar is the largest source of foreign donations to U.S. universities since reporting began in 1986, with $6.3 billion coming from the gas-rich Gulf state.

• Germany ($3.3 billion) was the largest source of foreign funding over the last four years, followed by China ($2.3 billion), Qatar ($2 billion), and Saudi Arabia ($1.9 billion). Almost two-thirds of the money from Germany ($1.9 billion) went to the University of Pennsylvania, including $467 million in a settlement last fall after the university accused a German pharmaceutical firm of improperly licensing their vaccine technology.

• Qatari donations have ramped up significantly over the last four years. Nearly a third of donations from Qatar—over $2 billion—were given between 2021 and 2024.

• The second-largest source of foreign funding is China. Chinese funding accounts for $5.6 billion and, as with Qatar, Chinese donations have increased sharply in the past four years, with $2.3 billion in donations from 2021 to 2024. China is the single largest source of overseas donations to some of America’s most prestigious universities, including Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford.

• Harvard has historically received the most funding from foreign donors ($3.2 billion), followed by Cornell and Carnegie Mellon (which have each received $2.8 billion).

The findings come amid increased political scrutiny of foreign donations to American universities. Just last week, Donald Trump signed an executive order cracking down on universities who don’t properly disclose how much money they’re receiving from foreign sources. Trump’s order threatened to scrap federal grants to universities if schools failed to accurately disclose overseas sources of funding. A 2024 study published by the National Association of Scholars found that universities failed to disclose at least $1 billion in foreign funding since Biden took office, the majority of which came from authoritarian countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

This latest move is not Trump’s first attempt to scrutinize foreign funding in higher education. In 2019, during his first term, the Department of Education investigated a dozen elite universities and uncovered $6.5 billion in previously unreported foreign funds to U.S. colleges and universities from authoritarian countries such as China and Saudi Arabia.

While Qatar holds the designation of a major non-NATO ally of the United States, the country is also known for harboring the leaders of Hamas and exporting political Islamism, including by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, across the Middle East.

In some cases, Qatari donations to U.S. schools have been used to build campuses in Doha. The Qatari capital is home to “Education City,” which hosts an outpost of Northwestern’s journalism school and Georgetown’s foreign policy school, each of which has received hundreds of millions from the wealthy Gulf state. Cornell, which built a medical school campus in Doha, has received $2.1 billion from Qatar.

The true amount of foreign donations could be even bigger than the reported figures. The NCRI analysis includes only donations disclosed to the federal government, as required by law for donations over $250,000. As The Free Press has previously reported, at least 200 American colleges and universities illegally withheld information on billions in undisclosed contributions from foreign regimes.

Trump’s latest executive order will require universities to report both the source and purpose of foreign donations. The executive order also warned that, “when appropriate,” the Attorney General and Secretary of Education will “conduct audits and investigations as appropriate and where necessary to ensure compliance with the law concerning disclosure of foreign funding and shall seek enforcement through appropriate action by the Attorney General.”

The executive order is not the only tool the administration is using. Earlier this month, the Department of Education initiated a records request from Harvard for failure to comply with Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which requires financial disclosures on foreign funding. The university has 30 days to prove that their previous financial reporting was truthful (which the Trump administration claims it was not) and provide the government, among other documents, “a list of all foreign gifts, grants, and contracts from or with foreign sources and Harvard.”

Forcing disclosures is only one piece of the administration’s strategy. An official on Trump’s antisemitism task force told The Free Press that they are actively investigating “alleged connections between foreign malign actors and student groups on campus.” According to the official, representatives from the offices of civil rights at the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services are interviewing professors and students at universities about groups involved in campus protests and allegations of foreign ties. The official said the task force was scrutinizing connections between both student groups and faculty who have ties to universities such as Birzeit in the West Bank, which Israeli officials have previously accused of having ties to Hamas. Just last month, Harvard ended its partnership with Birzeit over mounting pressure from the public and the Trump administration.

On Friday, the administration launched an investigation into UC Berkeley, alleging the university failed “to fully and accurately disclose significant funding received from foreign sources.” Berkeley reportedly failed to properly disclose a $220 million partnership with the Chinese government and Tsinghua University.

COMMENT – All tax-free.

Like the UN, we need elite universities to live up to their ideals… unfortunately, they are also deeply compromised by the same authoritarian regimes.

The irony is that elite universities will now rally themselves around standing up to what they consider to be an “authoritarian” Washington. It would have been awesome had they shown that kind of backbone against the Chinese Communist Party, a real authoritarian regime.

3. Fentanyl Pipeline: How a Chinese Prison Helped Fuel a Deadly Drug Crisis in the United States

   Sebastian Rotella, Pro Publica, April 23, 2025

Reporting Highlights

• Pipeline: A Chinese prison is part of the pipeline that delivers fentanyl to the U.S., ProPublica found in a review of U.S. and Chinese documents and interviews with investigators.

• Fallout: Opioid overdoses have killed more Americans than the number of U.S. deaths in several wars combined.

• Permissive: Veteran federal agents told ProPublica that China has failed to cooperate and even interfered with drug investigations; China insists it has cracked down.

China’s vast security apparatus shrouds itself in shadows, but the outside world has caught periodic glimpses of it behind the faded gray walls of Shijiazhuang prison in the northern province of Hebei.

Chinese media reports have shown inmates hunched over sewing machines in a garment workshop in the sprawling facility. Business leaders and Chinese Communist Party dignitaries have praised the penitentiary for exemplifying President Xi Jinping’s views on the rule of law.

But the prison has an alarming secret, U.S. congressional investigators disclosed last year. They revealed evidence showing that it is a Chinese government outpost in the trafficking pipeline that inundates the United States with fentanyl.

For at least eight years, the prison owned a chemical company called Yafeng, the hub of a group of Chinese firms and websites that sold fentanyl products to Americans, according to the U.S. congressional investigation, as well as Chinese government and corporate records obtained by ProPublica. The company’s English-language websites brazenly offered U.S. customers dangerous drugs that are illegal in both nations. Promising to smuggle illicit chemicals past U.S. and Mexican border defenses, Yafeng boasted to American clients that “100% of our shipments will clear customs.”

Although China tightly restricts the domestic manufacturing, sale and use of fentanyl products, the nation has been the world’s leading producer of fentanyl that enters the United States and remains the leading producer of chemical precursors with which Mexican cartels make the drug. Overdoses on synthetic opioid drugs, most of them fentanyl related, have killed over 450,000 Americans during the past decade — more than the U.S. deaths in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.

The involvement of a state-run prison is just one sign of the Chinese government’s role in fomenting the U.S. fentanyl crisis, U.S. investigators say. Chinese leaders have insistently denied such allegations. But U.S. national security officials said the Yafeng case shows how China allows its chemical industry to engage openly in sales to overseas customers while blocking online domestic access and enforcing stern laws against drug dealing inside the country. Beijing also encourages the manufacture and export of fentanyl products, including drugs outlawed in China, with generous financial incentives, according to a bipartisan inquiry last year by the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.

“So the Chinese government pays you to send drugs to America but executes you for selling them in China,” Matt Cronin, a former federal prosecutor who led the House inquiry, said in an interview. “It’s impossible that the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t know what’s going on and can’t do anything about it.”

China’s antidrug cooperation has been persistently poor, U.S. officials said. In 2019, Xi imposed controls that cut the export of fentanyl, but Chinese sellers shifted to shipping precursors to Mexico, where the cartels expanded their production.

“We couldn’t get the Chinese on the phone to talk about fighting child pornography, let alone fentanyl,” said Jacob Braun, who served as a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security during the Biden administration. “There was zero cooperation.”

China also remains the base of global organized crime groups that launder billions for fentanyl traffickers in the U.S, Mexico and Canada. ProPublica has previously reported that this underground banking system depends on the Chinese elite, who move fortunes abroad by acquiring drug cash from Chinese criminal brokers for Mexican cartels. Chinese banks and businesses also help hide the origin of illicit proceeds. The regime in Beijing therefore has considerable control over key nodes in the fentanyl chain: raw materials, production, sales and money laundering.

U.S. leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike, have accused China of using fentanyl to weaken the United States. Some veteran agents agree.

Ray Donovan, who retired in 2023 as the Drug Enforcement Administration’s chief of operations, said he believes that a “deliberate strategy” by the Chinese state has caused the trafficking onslaught “to grow in size and scope.”

“They have said for years that they are cracking down,” Donovan said in an interview. “But we haven’t seen meaningful action.”

Still, current and former U.S. officials told ProPublica that the national security community has not found conclusive evidence of a planned, high-level campaign against Americans by the Chinese government. That is partly because for years the U.S. treated fentanyl as a law enforcement matter rather than a national security threat, making it hard to gather intelligence about the extent and nature of the regime’s role.

“If this was Chinese intelligence doing something, we have a focus on that as counterintelligence,” said Alan Kohler, who retired from the FBI in 2023 after serving as director of the counterintelligence division. “If it was drug cartels, we have a criminal focus on that. But this area of crime and state converging falls between the seams in and among agencies.”

Nonetheless, the current and former officials said rampant fentanyl trafficking could not continue without at least the passive complicity of the world’s most powerful police state.

“I haven’t seen smoking-gun evidence that it’s a policy or strategy of the government at a high level,” Kohler said. “You could argue that their decision not to do anything about it, even after the results are clear, is tacit support.”

In a written statement, the spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington described as “totally groundless” any allegation that the regime has fomented the crisis.

“The fentanyl issue is the U.S.’s own problem,” said the spokesperson, Liu Pengyu. “China has given support to the U.S.’s response to the fentanyl issue in the spirit of humanity.” At the United States’ request, he said, China in 2019 restricted “fentanyl-related substances as a class,” becoming the first country to do so, and has cooperated with the U.S. on counternarcotics.

“The remarkable progress is there for all to see.”

The Trump administration has made the fight against fentanyl a priority and in February imposed a 25% tariff on Chinese imports to pressure Beijing for results. The approach could put a dent in the drug trade, but it’s too early to tell, officials said.

“The Chinese system responds to a negative incentive,” said former FBI agent Holden Triplett, who served as legal attache in Beijing and director of counterintelligence on the National Security Council. “China may be willing to endure more pain than we can give. But it is our only chance.”

To respond effectively, the U.S. needs a clearer picture of the Chinese fentanyl underworld, Triplett and others say. The activities of the Shijiazhuang prison are a compelling case study, but not the only one.

To examine the role of the Chinese state in the drug trade, ProPublica interviewed more than three dozen current and former national security officials for the U.S. and other countries, some of whom provided exclusive inside accounts. The reporting also drew on last year’s House investigation, digging into significant findings that have received little public attention, plus court files, government documents, academic studies, private inquiries and public records in the U.S., China and Mexico.

Prison Business

In 2010, the Hebei Prison Administration Bureau combined three detention facilities to create a high-security prison in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province. The region is a base of China’s chemical industry, which is the largest in the world. It is also weakly regulated and freewheeling, according to U.S. national security officials, private studies and other sources. A shifting array of companies peddle everything from innocuous fertilizers to deadly opioids.

Liu Jianhua, a veteran Chinese Communist Party official with a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Illinois Chicago, became director of the prison in 2014. By then, fentanyl was cutting a swath across America. Overdose deaths soared due to the ease with which U.S. users and dealers could acquire fentanyl products by mail from China.

China’s high-tech surveillance apparatus aggressively polices the online activities of its citizens. Yet sales of fentanyl to foreigners have thrived on popular, easily accessible websites, said Frank Montoya Jr., a former FBI agent with years of China-related experience who served as a top U.S. counterintelligence official.

“You don’t have to go on the dark web,” Montoya said. “It is out in the open.”

Yafeng Biological Technology Co. Ltd., also known as Hebei Shijiazhuang Yafeng Chemical Plant, became a typical player on this frontier, the congressional inquiry found. (As part of its reporting, ProPublica mapped links between the prison, the company and the U.S. drug market with the help of two entities that specialize in China open-source research: Sayari, a company that provides risk management and supply-chain analysis and that supported the House inquiry, and C4ADS, a nonprofit that investigates illicit global networks.)

Yafeng’s websites and Chinese corporate records describe the firm as a chemical manufacturer. It has ties through other websites, phone numbers and email addresses to at least nine companies that advertised illicit drugs, causing investigators to conclude that Yafeng was a network hub, according to the report and interviews. It’s common for interconnected Chinese fentanyl producers and brokers to obscure details about their enterprises and change names and platforms to elude detection, U.S. officials said.

In some ways, Yafeng presented itself to foreign buyers as a respectable company. The English-language websites featured peppy phrases like “team spirit” and “promoting the well-being of community.” The China-based sales representatives gave themselves Western names: Diana, Monica, Jessica. A map of markets showed shipping routes from China to the United States, Mexico, Canada and other countries.

Yet the sales pitches left little doubt that the firm knew its activities were illegal. Yafeng websites utilized familiar terms assuring U.S. and Mexican drug users and traffickers of the company’s skill at smuggling illegal narcotics overseas, according to the House report and U.S. investigators. The company touted its use of “hidden food bags,” a method in which drugs are concealed in shipments labeled as food products. Ads promised “strong safety delivery to Mexico, USA” with “packaging made to measure” to “guarantee” that illicit chemicals would elude border inspections, documents show.

Chinese traffickers often discuss lawbreaking in such brazen terms with foreign customers, seemingly unconcerned about China’s omnipresent surveillance system, court files and interviews show. Another firm, Hubei Amarvel Biotech, explicitly explained to U.S. and Mexican clients online — complete with photos — its methods for “100% stealth shipping” of drugs disguised as nuts, dog food and motor oil, court documents say. After undercover DEA agents lured two Amarvel executives to Fiji and arrested them, a New York jury convicted them in February on charges of importation of fentanyl precursors and money laundering. (One defendant, Yiyi Chen, has filed a motion requesting an acquittal or retrial.)

At the time of the arrests, the Chinese government issued a statement condemning the U.S. prosecution as “a typical example of arbitrary detention and unilateral sanctions.”

Similarly, Yafeng websites displayed photos of narcotics in plastic baggies to peddle a long list of chemicals, including fentanyl precursors and U-47700, a powerful fentanyl analogue outlawed in both the U.S. and China that has no medical use, the House report says.

One victim of U-47700 was Garrett Holman of Lynchburg, Virginia. Holman had fallen in with youths who discovered how easy it was to buy synthetic drugs online. In late 2016, Holman overdosed on U-47700, street name “pinky,” that arrived by mail from southern China. His father, Don, performed CPR before paramedics rushed Holman to the hospital. Although he survived, another overdose killed him just days before his 21st birthday in February 2017.

“My son’s opioid exposure was less than two months,” Don Holman told a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee the next year. “At 20 years old, I do not believe my son deserved to die for his initial bad choices.”

The father handed over evidence, including the envelope in which the drugs arrived, to federal agents, who traced about 20 shipments back to the same sender in China, he said in an interview. Don Holman blames the fentanyl crisis on the American appetite for opioids as well as the Chinese government. He has spent eight years telling anyone he can, from drug czars to fellow parents, about the experience that shattered his family.

“I’ve had to hit parents right between the eyes, like: ‘Hey, your child is not going to be here if you don’t do something,” he said. “You need to wake up.’”

No link to Yafeng surfaced in that case. The firm’s sales of U-47700 and other illicit drugs occurred during a period when its sole owner and controlling shareholder was the Shijiazhuang prison, according to the House inquiry, Sayari and C4ADS.

One of Yafeng’s street addresses was that of the prison, ProPublica determined through satellite photos and public records. Another Yafeng address next door also houses the offices of a clothing firm owned by the provincial prison administration. A third Yafeng address a few blocks away is a former municipal police station, records and photos show.

The director of the prison, Liu Jianhua, left his post after becoming the target of a corruption inquiry in 2021, according to Chinese media reports. It’s unknown how that investigation was resolved or if his fall had anything to do with the drug activity. Liu could not be reached for comment. The prison administration did not respond to requests for comment.

Yafeng stopped doing business under that name at some point between 2018 and 2022, records show. Yet the Yafeng group continued to function through at least one of its affiliated websites, protonitazene.com, the congressional report said. As of last year, the site was still advertising “hot sale to Mexico” of drugs including nitazenes, which are 25 times more powerful than fentanyl.

Government Incentives

Yafeng is not the only company with connections to the Chinese state and fentanyl.

Gaosheng Biotechnology in Shanghai is “wholly state-owned,” congressional investigators found. The company sold fentanyl precursors and other narcotics — some illegal in China — on 98 websites to U.S., Mexican and European customers, the report says. Senior provincial development officials visited Gaosheng and praised its benefits for the regional economy. Gaosheng did not respond to requests for comment.

The Chinese government owned a stake in Zhejiang Netsun, a private firm that had a Chinese Communist Party member serving on its board of directors as a deputy general manager, the congressional report says. Netsun carried out over 400 sales of illegal narcotics, the report says, and served as a billing or technical contact for over 100 similar companies — including Yafeng. Netsun did not respond to requests for comment.

And the Shanghai government gave monetary awards and export credits to Shanghai Ruizheng Chemical Technology Co., a “notorious seller of fentanyl products, which it advertises widely and openly on Chinese websites like Alibaba,” the report says. Chinese officials invited company reps to roundtable discussions about technology and business. Shanghai Ruizheng did not respond to requests for comment.

Chinese government officials who interact with the trafficking underworld are often prominent in provincial governments, where corruption is widespread, said a former senior DEA official, Donald Im, who led investigations focused on China. Not only can they make money through kickbacks or investments, but they benefit politically, rising in the Communist Party hierarchy if their local chemical industries prosper.

“Key government officials know about the fentanyl trade and they let it happen,” Im said.

China’s central government also plays a vital role by providing systemic financial incentives that fuel fentanyl trafficking to the Americas, U.S. officials say. The House inquiry discovered a national Value-Added Tax rebate program that has spurred exports of at least 17 illegal narcotics with no legitimate purpose. They include a fentanyl product that is “up to 6,000 times stronger than morphine,” the House report says.

This state subsidy program has pumped billions of dollars into the export of fentanyl products, including ones outlawed in China, according to the report and U.S. officials. The tax rebate is 13%, the highest available rate. To qualify, companies have to document the names and quantities of chemicals and other details of transactions, the report says.

The existence of this paper trail refutes a frequent claim by Chinese leaders: that weak regulation of the chemical sector makes it impossible to identify and punish suspects.

Chinese officials did not respond to specific questions about the government financial incentives or the state-connected companies involved in drug trafficking. But the embassy spokesperson said China has targeted online sellers with a “national internet cleanup campaign.”

During that crackdown, Liu Pengyu said, Chinese authorities have cleaned “14 online platforms, canceled over 330 company accounts, shut down over 1,000 online shops, removed over 152,000 online advertisements, and closed 10 botnet websites.” He said Chinese law enforcement has determined that many illegal ads appear on foreign online platforms.

Wall of Resistance

In May 2018, Cronin — then a federal prosecutor based in Cleveland — went to Beijing in pursuit of one of the biggest targets in the grim history of the fentanyl crisis: the Zheng drug trafficking organization, an international empire accused of trafficking in 37 U.S. states.

Cronin and his team of agents hoped to persuade Chinese authorities to prosecute Guanghua and Fujing Zheng, a father and son who were the top suspects. They ran into a wall of resistance.

In an interview, Cronin recalled walking into a cavernous room in China’s Ministry of Public Security where a row of senior officials and uniformed police waited at a long table. A curtain-sized Chinese flag covered a wall.

Cronin took a breath, opened a stack of binders he had lugged from Cleveland and presented his case. The prosecutor laid out evidence connecting the Zhengs, who were chemical company executives based in Shanghai, to two overdoses in Ohio. The U.S. distribution hub was a warehouse near Boston run by a Chinese chemist, Bin Wang. Later, Wang said he simultaneously worked for the Chinese government “tracking chemicals produced in China” and traveled home monthly from Boston “to consult with Chinese officials,” a memo by his lawyer said.

The response of the Chinese counterdrug chiefs was a brush-off, Cronin recalled in the interview. Essentially, he said, they told him: “You are right that the Zhengs are exporting these drugs that are killing Americans. But unfortunately, technically what they are doing is not a violation of Chinese law.”

Cronin pulled out another binder. He went over evidence and an expert analysis showing that the Zhengs had committed Chinese felonies, including money laundering, manufacturing of counterfeit drugs and mislabeling of packages.

Tensions rose when the Chinese officials responded that, unfortunately, the police unit that handled such offenses was not available; they rebuffed Cronin’s offer to delay his return flight in order to meet with that unit, he said.

After the U.S. Justice Department charged the Zhengs that August with a drug trafficking conspiracy resulting in death, a Chinese newspaper reported that a Chinese senior counterdrug official criticized the case. The U.S. “failed to provide China any evidence to prove Zheng violated Chinese law,” the official said.

Later, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the Zhengs and designated the son as a drug kingpin. U.S. investigators told ProPublica they concluded that the Zhengs operated with the blessing of the Chinese government, citing the defendants’ sheer volume of business, high-profile online activity and open communications on WeChat, the Chinese messaging platform that authorities heavily monitor.

Ohio courts granted millions of dollars in civil damages to the family of Thomas Rauh, a 37-year-old who died of an overdose in Akron in 2015. The family never received any money, however.

Rauh’s father, James, who traveled and did business in China in his youth, has become an antidrug activist. He said the U.S. government must do more to crack down on China’s role and counter public stigma that still blames addicts.

“I don’t think the U.S. government wants to take the responsibility for confronting this,” he said.

A decade of frustration has compelled James Rauh to call for a drastic solution. He wants the U.S. to designate fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction in response to what he sees as an intentional Chinese campaign.

“It’s asymmetric warfare,” he said.

The Zhengs remain free in China and have never responded to the allegations in court. During a brief encounter with a “60 Minutes” journalist in Shanghai in 2019, Guanghua Zheng denied he was still selling fentanyl in the United States and said the Chinese government “has nothing to do with it.” Wang pleaded guilty and served prison time.

The Zheng case is typical, said Im, the former senior DEA official. Thousands of DEA leads relayed to Chinese counterparts over the years have been “met with silence,” he said. In other cases, Chinese officials have asked for more details about the targets of U.S. investigations — and then warned suspects linked to the Communist Party, Im said.

Most U.S. national security officials interviewed for this story described similar experiences, citing a few exceptions, such as a joint U.S.-Chinese operation in Hebei province in 2019.

A former DEA agent, William Kinghorn, recalled the dispiriting aftermath of an investigation he oversaw centered on Chuen Fat Yip, whose firms allegedly distributed more than $280 million worth of drugs. Yip has denied wrongdoing and denounced U.S. criminal charges and sanctions. He is on the DEA’s 10 most wanted fugitives list and remains free in China, U.S. officials said.

“We obtained information that the Chinese authorities did ban or shut down the companies” the DEA targeted in the case, Kinghorn said in an interview. “We learned that afterward these same people [linked to Yip] were now owning or managing similar companies. Even though they had been banned, they basically just changed the name of the company.”

A sense of impunity persists in the chemical industry, according to a 2023 inquiry by Elliptic, a U.K. analytics firm. It reported that many of the 90 Chinese companies contacted by its undercover researchers were “willing to supply fentanyl itself, despite this being banned in China since 2019.”

COMMENT – It is well-documented that the Chinese Communist Party purposefully aids and incentivizes the export of fentanyl precursors to the United States with the full knowledge that it kills tens of thousands of Americans each year.

Go back and read these two earlier issues of this newsletter:

Beijing’s Covert Fentanyl Campaign Against the United States

The CCP is complicit in illicit drug trafficking and money laundering that has killed over a half million Americans over the past decade.

(April 21, 2024)

Holding Beijing responsible for its role in the fentanyl crisis

Nearly 14,000 Americans have died from fentanyl since the Select Committee published their report on the CCP’s culpability

(June 23, 2024)

The Trump Administration deserves real credit for finally taking this deliberate attack against the United States seriously… something that the Biden Administration tried to sweep under the rug. The Chinese Communist Party has the capability and knowledge to stop the flow of fentanyl precursors IF it wanted to.

The Chinese Communist Party’s failure to stop the flow of fentanyl precursors is deliberate because it harms America and kills Americans. If these poisons were staying in China and killing Chinese citizens, the CCP would shut down these facilities in a matter of hours.

Rumors are that Beijing is considering some sort of action to address these crimes… I will believe it when I see it.

4. Protests by unpaid Chinese workers spread amid factory closures

   Huang Chunmei, Radio Free Asia, April 29, 2025

Workers demand back wages from companies impacted by steep U.S. tariffs and an economic slowdown in China.

Protests by workers demanding back wages are spreading across China in a sign of growing discontent among millions suffering the brunt of factory closures, triggered by steep U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports amid an economic downturn.

Across the country – from Hunan province’s Dao county in central China to Sichuan’s Suining city in the southwest and Inner Mongolia’s Tongliao city to the northeast – hundreds of disgruntled workers have taken to the streets to protest about unpaid wages and to challenge unfair dismissals by factories that were forced to shut due to the U.S. tariffs.

“Strike! Strike!” shouted workers outside a Shangda Electronics’ factory in Suining city on Sunday, in a video of the protest that was posted on social media by X user ‘@YesterdayBigcat,’ a prominent source of information about protests in China.

The workers said the Sichuan-headquartered company, which manufactures flexible circuit boards, had not paid them wages since the start of the year and social security benefits for nearly two years – since June 2023.

COMMENT – The Chinese Communist Party will try hard to blame all these economic problems on U.S. actions, but nearly all of these problems pre-date President Trump’s imposition of tariffs… and Chinese workers know it.

5. Beijing Doesn’t Want America to See Its Trade-War Pain

   Lingling Wei and Raffaele Huang, Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2025

Plunging trade has already led to job cuts; ‘it is very painful’

Key Points

• China’s economy shows signs of trade-war damage, with a drop in export orders and weak factory production.

• Companies that rely on U.S. sales are halting production and putting employees on leave.

• Economists are warning of job instability for millions of people and a potential recession.

China has signaled that as a nation it is better able to tolerate the pain of a prolonged tariff war than the U.S. But cracks are starting to show, suggesting how deeply that pain is already setting in across its economy.

Plunging trade across the Pacific is leading to production halts and threatening to undermine job stability for millions of Chinese. On Wednesday, China’s economy showed its first big signs of damage from the trade war, with a drop in export orders in April and the weakest production at the country’s factories in more than a year.

Chinese officials have played down any evidence of hardship, reiterating their confidence that this year’s growth target of around 5% will be reached.

But in recent weeks, signs have accumulated that many businesses are struggling to survive. Companies reliant on sales to the U.S. market, ranging from makers of toys, furniture and T-shirts, to metal producers and manufacturers of electrical appliances and construction equipment, have suspended production and put employees on leave. Those that need to source U.S. components for production, such as semiconductor plants and carmakers, have been scrambling to keep operations running.

Some business owners have likened the disruptions to production shutdowns during the Covid pandemic—with the warning that the outlook appears more dismal this time.

“Everyone I know is worried,” said Feng Qiang, who recently furloughed a dozen workers at his modest machinery plant in southern China’s Guangdong province because of canceled orders from his American customers. “There is no end in sight.”

COMMENT – All of China’s “friends” will continue to go on TV and write articles about how well-prepared Beijing is to weather this storm.

There is good reason to take all of that with a grain of salt.

6. VIDEO – China Town Hall 2025: The First 100 Days of President Trump's China Policy
   Ryan Hass, Matthew Turpin and Lingling Wei, National Committee for U.S.-China Relations, April 28, 2025

A discussion of U.S. China policy by Ryan Hass, Matt Turpin and Lingling Wei hosted by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

COMMENT – I had a great time with Ryan Hass and Lingling Wei, two great professionals who I have deep respect for.

7. Permanent Normal Trade Relations and U.S.-China Tariffs

   Karen Sutter, Congressional Research Service, May 2, 2025

The legislation Congress is considering to revoke China’s PNTR status is aimed at addressing persistent PRC industrial policies and trade and investment barriers (text box). U.S. and PRC tariff actions since 2018 already have pushed two-way tariff rates for many goods higher than non-PNTR rates. The executive branch’s use of tariffs to advance trade, foreign policy, and economic goals is raising questions in Congress about Congress’ role in shaping trade policy toward China and the role and effects of tariffs in addressing PRC market barriers.

COMMENT – An excellent 2-page primer on Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR), Most Favored Nation (MFN) status, and the options Congress is considering to address persistent unfair trade practices by the PRC.

Ending Normal Trade Relations is looking like a better idea every day. It would arguably put Congress back in the driver’s seat in which it could determine on an annual basis whether the CCP is living up to its obligations to an international free trade system (which the Party is NOT doing).

By withdrawing Normal Trade Relations (which the U.S. and the PRC most definitely do not have “normal” trade relations) would force multinational companies to redesign the supply chains and business models.

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Authoritarianism

8. New ISHR report uncovers China’s tactics to block civil society access to the United Nations
   International Service for Human Rights, April 28, 2025

In a report launched today, ISHR examines China’s efforts to restrict access for independent civil society actors and human rights defenders to UN human rights bodies. The report provides an analysis of China’s membership of the UN Committee on NGOs, the growing presence of Chinese Government-Organised NGOs (GONGOs), and patterns of intimidation and reprisals by the Chinese government.

In the report, the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) uncovers the tactics deployed by the Chinese government to restrict access to UN human rights bodies to independent civil society actors and human rights defenders, and intimidate and retaliate against those who do so.

These tactics include using its membership of the UN Committee on NGOs to systematically defer NGO applications, increasing the presence of GONGOs to limit space for independent NGOs and advance pro-government narratives, systematically committing acts of intimidation and reprisals against those seeking to cooperate with the UN, weaponising procedural tactics to silence NGO speakers and threatening diplomats not to meet with them, and opposing reform initiatives and efforts at norm-setting on safe and unhindered civil society participation at the Human Rights Council.

These tactics strongly contrast China’s stated commitment to being a reliable multilateral leader. They stem from the Chinese Party-State’s primary foreign policy objective of shielding itself from human rights criticism and enhancing its international image by restricting and deterring critical civil society voices, crowding out civil society space with GONGOs, and stalling and diverting reform initiatives.

While China is the focus of this report, the issues addressed are systemic. Based on this report’s findings, ISHR puts forward a set of targeted recommendations to UN bodies and Member States, aimed at protecting civil society space from interference and restrictions. The recommendations are designed to strengthen UN processes and prevent any State from manipulating international mechanisms to suppress independent voices. These include:

• reforming the Committee on NGOs to increase transparency, limit abuse of deferrals, and ensure fair access to UN bodies for independent NGOs

• strengthening protection mechanisms against reprisals, including rapid response to incidents inside UN premises, public accountability for perpetrators, and consistent long-term follow-up on unresolved cases

• curbing the influence of GONGOs by distinguishing clearly between independent and State-organised NGOs, and better documenting their presence and impact

• strengthening measures at the Human Rights Council and other UN bodies to make civil society participation safer, more inclusive, and less vulnerable to obstruction.

The report has been featured prominently in a global investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) launched on 28 April 2025.

COMMENT - GONGOs (Government Organized Non-Governmental Organizations), probably one of the best Orwellian terms ever devised!

9. Trump's non-tariff gambit sends shivers through China
   Katsuji Nakazawa, Nikkei Asia, April 22, 2025

10. The Once and Future China, How Will Change Come to Beijing?
    Rana Mitter, Foreign Affairs, April 22, 2025

11. US-China fentanyl talks hang by thread amid trade war
    Michael Martina, Reuters, April 23, 2025

12. FCC to vote to bar Chinese labs deemed security risks from testing US electronics
    David Shepardson, Reuters, April 30, 2025

The Federal Communications Commission will vote on May 22 to finalize a rule that will bar Chinese labs deemed a risk to U.S. national security from testing electronic devices like smartphones, cameras and computers for use in the United States.

All electronics used in the United States must go through the FCC's equipment authorization process before they can be imported.

"We're addressing another potential loophole in our national security process by ensuring that only trustworthy labs can participate in our process," FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in an interview.

COMMENT – Sounds like a commonsense action.

13. VIDEO – Election battle on Chinese apps intensifies as Liberals target crucial voters
    Fiona Willan, ABC, April 27, 2025

14. China calls US a ‘small stranded boat’ in propaganda campaign
    Joe Leahy, Ryan McMorrow, and Kathrin Hille, Financial Times, April 29, 2025

15. China, Philippines Make Rival Claims in Disputed South China Sea
    Gabriele Steinhauser and Austin Ramzy, Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2025

16. Beijing’s flag-planting in South China Sea revives tensions with Manila
    Kathrin Hille, Financial Times, April 27, 2025

17. China’s UN envoy slams US in bid to bolster global support
    Mark Magnier, South China Morning Post, April 24, 2025

18. Not so diplomatic? Chinese embassy in Washington takes potshots at Trump’s tariffs and America
    Bhagyashree Garekar, Straits Times, April 24, 2025

19. China-Egypt ties reach new heights with joint air exercises
    Saber Rabie and James Hand-Cukierman, Nikkei Asia, April 29, 2025

The U.S.-China competition for influence is rapidly heating up in the Middle East, as Chinese forces conduct air exercises with Egypt, a longtime security partner of Washington.

China and Egypt earlier this month launched what they call Eagles of Civilization 2025, featuring fighter jets, tankers, airborne early warning and control aircraft and helicopters. A spokesperson for the Egyptian Armed Forces said on their website that the first joint drills of their kind aim to unify combat concepts through lectures, along with "joint aerial sorties, planning exercises and simulated air combat management operations."

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Environmental Harms

20. The Social and Environmental Impact of Chinese Projects in Peru

    Nelza Oliveira, Dialogo Americas, April 14, 2025

China’s projects in Peru have been fueling tensions with local residents and impacting human rights and the environment. The cases are mainly taking place where China is investing the most: in mining and infrastructure.

Perhaps, the case of the Chancay Port stands out most. Recently inaugurated in November 2024 and hailed as a landmark development in Peru’s infrastructure, the megaport of Chancay, majority owned by Chinese state-owned enterprise COSCO, has drawn significant criticism for its negative environmental and social impact. Not only has construction damaged the nearby protected Santa Rosa Wetland, a vital ecosystem for various bird species, it destroyed the marine life and habitat with its dredging process, depriving fishermen of the waters they relied on for their livelihoods.

Locals have also expressed concerns throughout the construction of the megaport about air and noise pollution, and the lack of engagement with the community from the Chinese company, whose works damaged homes and roads from the blasts and explosions to build the infrastructure. The port’s construction has also harmed Chancay’s tourism, as it changed water currents, affecting surfing conditions, and contributed to beach erosion.

“Chancay is a very symbolic and important project for China. The inauguration was even attended by Xi Jinping, president of the People’s Republic of China. It’s a mega-development with profound impacts, especially on the most vulnerable communities, such as fishermen,” Laura Waisbich, deputy director of Programs at the Igarapé Institute, an independent think tank in Brazil, told Diálogo.

In a 2025 report for the United States Institute of Peace, Juan Pablo Cardenal, associate researcher at the Argentina-based Center for Latin American Openness and Development, analyzed a series of Chinese projects in countries in the region.

“China’s economic presence in Peru is based on two pillars, trade and investment, which are fundamentally linked to mining. Although this system generates trade, tax revenues, employment, and infrastructure, many projects by Chinese state-owned companies are surrounded by controversy,” says the report. “Several Chinese mining projects in Peru have provoked outrage because of their environmental, social, or labor impacts.”

21. China and Cambodia agree on financing for a 94-mile canal linking the Mekong to the Gulf of Thailand

    Sopheng Cheang, Associated Press, April 18, 2025

Critics have raised concerns that the canal could severely disrupt the Mekong River’s natural flood patterns. These disruptions could lead to worsening droughts and a reduction in the nutrient-rich silt essential for Vietnam’s vital rice production in the Mekong Delta, a region that sustains millions of people and is a major global rice exporter.

The signing announcement, however, stated that “A rigorous Environmental Impact Assessment, conducted by 48 specialists, confirmed minimal environmental impact.”

It added that the Cambodian government has led efforts to minimize resettlement “with a route designed to avoid dense communities and cultural sites” and that “a responsible compensation and consultation process is underway.”

COMMENT – Well if China and Cambodia assure us that the environmental impact will be “minimal,” then it must be true because those two countries have never concealed anything before.

Photo of two Chinese naval vessels NOT stationed a Ream Naval Base in Cambodia because that would violate Cambodia’s constitution and go against multiple statements by both Beijing and Phnom Penh that Ream isn’t a Chinese military base… though we did recently learn from the PRC that it is a “joint logistics and training center,” so all good.

22. Argentina Steps Up Surveillance Against Chinese Illegal Fishing

    Juan Delgado, Dialogo Americas, April 23, 2025

The Argentine Navy has been stepping up control of its jurisdictional waters in the South Atlantic as hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels move closer to its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), in yet another attempt from China’s massive fishing fleet to illegally plunder foreign waters.

In late February, the Argentine Navy, under the Joint Maritime Command of the Armed Forces’ Joint Chiefs of Staff, launched Operation Mare Nostrum I to reinforce surveillance at mile 200, reaffirming the government’s commitment to protect its maritime spaces. As part of the operation, the Navy deployed various naval units, including vessels and aircraft to deter crime at sea, including illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, the Argentine Defense Ministry said on February 22.

“In this government, we defend the Argentine Sea with all the resources at our disposal,” Argentina’s Defense Ministry said via Facebook on February 21. “From mile 200, the Argentine Navy […] under the coordination of the Joint Maritime Command, stands firm, patrolling and watching and ensuring that no foreign ship crosses our exclusive economic zone to plunder what belongs to Argentines. Sovereignty is action and we are ready to act and defend it.”

With squid season in full force, hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels congregate off the coast of Argentina, near the South American country marine boundary, an area known for IUU fishing carried out by those same Chinese vessels. According to the Argentine Navy, during Mare Nostrum I, military units identified some 380 fishing vessels just outside Argentina’s EEZ.

23. The Other Nuclear Race
    Juzel Lloyd, Foreign Affairs, April 28, 2025

The world is witnessing a new kind of global race—not for authority in space but for control over the global nuclear energy market. Nuclear power had long been considered risky owing to major accidents and budget overruns, hampering its large-scale adoption. But within the past decade, nuclear energy has been making a comeback thanks to the development of small modular reactors. China and Russia are seizing the lead, expanding their domestic capacities as well as exporting nuclear technology and constructing nuclear power plants across a variety of emerging economies.

Russia now leads the world in nuclear power plant construction. Its state-owned nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, is constructing six new domestic reactors and is helping build 19 reactors in six foreign countries. Over the past ten years, meanwhile, China has inked contracts to help construct nine reactors in four countries while maintaining an unparalleled rate of expansion in its domestic nuclear industry. Both countries have been particularly quick to grasp the potential of small modular reactors, which typically can generate up to a third of the power produced by conventional nuclear plants. Compared with traditional large reactors, SMRs can be deployed quickly to areas that lack resilient electric-grid capacity, and their modular designs make them more affordable.

The need for affordable new power sources is growing as the world rapidly electrifies. Global electricity demand is projected to grow at an annual rate of around four percent over the next several years, and developing countries will account for an estimated 85 percent of that new demand. Among the major powers, China and Russia have been by far the most proactive in recognizing this need and responding to it with nuclear power exports. Both nations are actively targeting developing countries.

That effort, in turn, may well transform the global energy landscape and shift the balance of geopolitical power. The United States once dominated nuclear technology development. But since around the 1970s, it has ceded this leadership because of public opposition, rising costs, and regulatory challenges. Now, it is paying the price. The surging need for electricity to power AI, coupled with developing countries’ desire for energy access, means that countries capable of exporting SMRs quickly and affordably will become increasingly influential partners to other nations. China and Russia are already leveraging their nuclear energy investments abroad to deepen their economic and political influence over the countries buying their technology.

COMMENT – China and Russia exporting Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)… what could possibly go wrong?

Perhaps we ask the people of Bangkok or Novi Sad, Serbia how safe they would feel living next to an SMR constructed by a PRC State-owned Enterprise.

A PRC State-owned Enterprise used “substandard” metal and rebar to build a skyscraper?

I’m shocked!

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Foreign Interference and Coercion

24. Ex-NYPD officer sentenced to 18 months after conviction for helping China stalk an expat
    Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press, April 16, 2025

A former New York police sergeant was sentenced Wednesday to 18 months in prison in a U.S. case about China’s pursuit of critics abroad, a sentence that came after two members of Congress urged the judge to spare him from time behind bars.

Michael McMahon was convicted in 2023 of contributing to a transcontinental pressure campaign aimed at getting a former Chinese city official to leave the U.S. and return to his homeland. The tactics ranged from Facebook messages to a threatening real-world note on the man’s New Jersey door.

During an hourslong sentencing, McMahon said he was “unwittingly used” by Chinese operatives when he took what he thought was a routine private investigation job in 2016.

“I never thought for one minute I was working for China, stalking anyone. Yet now I’ve lost everything,” McMahon said. “This is such a nightmare.”

He was among 10 people charged in the federal case, which spurred the first trial stemming from U.S. claims about China’s decade-old “Operation Fox Hunt” initiative. Beijing says it’s about bringing corrupt officials and other criminal fugitives to justice; Washington deems it an exercise in threatening and harassing dissidents across borders.

U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen said McMahon aided “a campaign of transnational repression ″ that harmed the targeted man, his family and the United States.

“This type of crime really does threaten our country’s national security,” Chen said. She said the retired New York Police Department officer ignored clear trouble signs when he agreed in 2016 to help find a man named Xu Jin.

Xu, a former official in the city of Wuhan, left China in 2010. Authorities there have accused Xu and his wife of bribery, which they deny. Xu’s wife testified that he was unjustly targeted for rankling the Chinese power structure.

China doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S., so China couldn’t legally force Xu’s return. But he was repeatedly and insidiously pressed to return.

At one point, his octogenarian father was abruptly flown in from China to press him to go back, according to trial evidence. Later, a threatening note was taped to his door telling him to go to prison in China to ensure his family’s well-being.

Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney John Durham said in a statement Thursday that the ex-officer “went rogue and dishonorably engaged in a scheme at the direction of the People’s Republic of China.” China denies threatening people to make them return.

Through his lawyer, McMahon acknowledged searching law enforcement and government databases and conducting surveillance to gather information on Xu. But the former officer maintained he was told the investigation was for a Chinese construction company hoping to recover embezzled money.

COMMENT – Perhaps folks will now start to take these kinds of crimes seriously.

25. Scholar spared prison in US case alleging China spies on dissidents abroad
    Jennifer Peltz and Michael Hill, Associated Press, April 14, 2025

26. Former Harvard professor convicted over China ties joins Tsinghua University

    Holly Chik, South China Morning Post, May 1, 2025

Retired Harvard University chemist and nanoscientist Charles Lieber, who was convicted in 2021 for not disclosing his connections to a Chinese talent programme, has joined Tsinghua University as a chair professor.

Lieber, 66, a pioneer in the integration of nanotechnology for use in biology and medicine, will be researching at the Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, launched by the top Chinese university in 2019.

Lieber said his goal in the next few years was to “work with everyone to build a global science and technology hub and realise more scientific dreams in the vibrant and innovative city of Shenzhen”, according to a social media post by the graduate school on Thursday.

COMMENT – Charles Lieber showing his true colors.

27. Why Chinese manufacturers are going viral on TikTok
    Caiwei Chen, MIT Technology Review, April 28, 2025

They’re outraged by Trump’s tariffs and reaching out directly to US consumers.

Since the video was posted earlier this month, millions of TikTok users have watched as a young Chinese man in a blue T-shirt sits beside a traditional tea set and speaks directly to the camera in accented English: “Let’s expose luxury’s biggest secret.”

He stands and lifts what looks like an Hermès Birkin bag, one of the world’s most exclusive and expensive handbags, before gesturing toward the shelves filled with more bags behind him. “You recognize them: Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci—all crafted in our workshops.”

“But brands erase ‘Made in China’ from the tags,” he continues. “Same leather from their tanneries, same hardware from their suppliers, same threads they call luxury. Master artisans they never credit. We earn pennies; they make millions. That is unfair—to us, to you, to anyone who values honesty.”

He ends by urging viewers to buy directly from his factory.

Video “exposés” like this—where a sales agent breaks down the material cost of luxury goods, from handbags to perfumes to appliances—are everywhere on TikTok right now.

Some videos claim, for example, that a pair of Lululemon leggings costs just $4 to make. Others show the scale and precision of Chinese manufacturing: Creators walk through spotless factory floors, passing automated assembly lines and teams of workers at clean, orderly stations. Some factories identify themselves as suppliers—or former suppliers—for brands like Dyson, Under Armour, and Victoria’s Secret.

COMMENT – If only there was some sort of legislation that would prevent a social media platform like TikTok from operating in the United States while it’s under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. Legislation like that could help prevent this kind of propaganda.

Perhaps Congress could take that up some time, maybe pass a law that requires TikTok to shed its PRC ownership if it wants to continue to operate in the U.S. market.

[sarcasm intended]

28. Trump, China Ramp Up Panama Canal Pressure with Li Deal in Limbo
    Bloomberg, April 27, 2025

29. With a Bounty on His Head, a Critic of China Runs in Canada’s Election
    Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times, April 27, 2025

After Joe Tay set up a run for Parliament, China issued a warrant for his arrest and coordinated online attacks on his candidacy.

Joe Tay, an actor and journalist running in Monday’s federal election in Canada, has not ventured outside to knock on constituents’ doors. He has not buttonholed voters at the local strip mall. Nor has he been seen schmoozing at public gatherings.

Fearing for his safety, Mr. Tay — a critic of the Chinese government, which has placed a bounty on Mr. Tay and offered $130,000 for information leading to his arrest, and who is running in a key electoral district in Toronto — has waged perhaps the quietest campaign of any candidate competing in the election.

And days before the vote, Mr. Tay’s ability to campaign shrank even further as Canadian government officials revealed that he had been the subject of coordinated online attacks on Chinese-language sites linked to the Chinese government. For the past four years, Mr. Tay has denounced China’s tightening grip on Hong Kong and the disappearance there of democratic freedoms.

The attacks sought to discredit Mr. Tay, a Conservative, portraying him as a criminal, and to suppress information about his candidacy, Canadian officials said at a news conference this past week.

“There is a narrative being amplified by the P.R.C. government,” Vanessa Lloyd, the head of Canada’s intelligence agency, said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

The attacks on Mr. Tay have sought to influence the outcome of the race in Don Valley North, a district with a large Chinese diaspora in Toronto, in what is the most vote-rich region in Canada.

The district was also the focus of Chinese government interference in previous elections, and revelations about it raised questions about the robustness of Canada’s political system and the willingness of its main political parties to combat foreign interference.

A yearlong federal inquiry into foreign meddling in Canada’s political system found that a handful of countries — led by China and India — tried to advance their interests in Canada by backing or opposing candidates in the two previous general elections, in 2021 and 2019.

The candidates ran in diaspora-rich districts in Toronto and in Vancouver, British Columbia, where foreign governments have wielded influence through community associations, business leaders and other proxies.

Most of the overhauls endorsed in the past year to combat foreign interference have yet to be put in place for the current election, though some changes, including weekly intelligence briefings like the one detailing the efforts against Mr. Tay, have raised voters’ awareness of foreign nations’ attempts to shift public opinion.

Critics say that the main political parties, the Liberals and Conservatives, have yet to show full commitment to stop foreign interference at the expense of furthering political interests.

In the past two elections, the Chinese government sought to undermine candidates critical of its human rights record and its policies in Hong Kong, including the imposition of a national security law in 2020. Most of China’s targets were members of the Conservative Party, which has adopted a tough line toward Beijing.

At the same time, the Chinese government or its proxies backed candidates — mostly Liberals — who took a softer stance toward Beijing.

COMMENT – Monday’s election demonstrates that Canadian politics is deeply compromised by interference by the Chinese Communist Party. A fact that the Canadian Liberal Party has worked hard to cover up.

Given Mark Carney’s background, I wouldn’t expect much to change.

Here is the “Wanted Poster” that is still up on the Hong Kong Police website for Joe Tay:

What is Joe Tay’s offense? Demanding that the Chinese Communist Party not destroy the political autonomy of Hong Kong that the PRC Government agreed to in an international treaty.

30. VIDEO – Two Canadians now subjects of arrest warrants and hefty bounties from Hong Kong

    CTV News, December 24, 2024

31. In Defeat, Joe Tay’s Campaign Becomes a Flashpoint for Suspected Voter Intimidation in Canada

    Sam Cooper, The Bureau, April 29, 2025

In one of the most closely scrutinized races of Canada’s 2025 federal election, Joseph Tay—the Conservative candidate identified by federal authorities as the target of aggressive Chinese election interference operations—was defeated Monday night in Don Valley North by Liberal Maggie Chi, following a campaign marred by threats, suspected intimidation, and digital suppression efforts.

Summary

Federal authorities have confirmed Joseph Tay was subjected to a transnational repression campaign orchestrated by Chinese operatives. The campaign included cyberattacks to suppress his messaging on Chinese-language platforms and disinformation labeling him as a “fugitive” due to a $180,000 Hong Kong bounty (Tay is wanted under Hong Kong’s National Security Law).

Days before the April 28 election, Tay’s team reported being followed by an individual in a menacing manner while door-knocking, prompting an RCMP review. Citing threats, police advised Tay to halt canvassing—a rare precaution underscoring the severity of the risk. The New York Times noted Tay ran “perhaps the quietest campaign of any canadidate competing in the election” because of fears for his safety.

The tactics aimed at thwarting Tay’s election success mirror the 2021 defeat of Conservative MP Bob Saroya in Markham–Unionville, where Chinese-linked operatives allegedly surveilled his campaign. This year, Conservative Michael Ma flipped Markham–Unionville from Liberals, defeating Paul Chiang’s replacement after Chiang withdrew amid backlash for joking about Tay’s bounty.

The race on Monday saw Joseph Tay secure 43% of the vote (20,000+ ballots), nearly doubling his party’s 2021 tally but falling short against rival candidate Maggie Chi’s 53%. Despite the loss, Tay vowed to continue advocating for “freedom, respect, and community,” signaling a potential future run. In a post-election statement, he emphasized moral victory: “We have already won something far greater—the courage to stand, to speak, and to dream together.”

32. “Everybody is Terrified of Getting the Label”—Why the Spectre of Chinese Interference Hangs Over Don Valley North

    Solarina Ho, The Local, April 23, 2025

A public inquiry cleared former MP Han Dong’s name, but the cloud of foreign meddling still looms over candidates of Chinese descent.

In 2023, Han Dong, the MP for Don Valley North, was thrust into a maelstrom of foreign interference allegations. These allegations, which included unproven claims that he conspired to keep Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig detained in Chinese prison for political gain, created a furor. Dong resigned from the Liberal caucus to serve as an independent while he worked to clear his name. He filed a defamation lawsuit that’s still in the courts, and a public inquiry was launched into whether foreign states were engaged in undermining Canadian democracy.

Today, though the final inquiry report vindicated Dong, the Liberal party has not brought him back into the fold. And in late March, he announced he would not seek re-election as an independent.

Despite Dong’s exit from the race, the spectre of foreign interference continues to loom over Don Valley North—although perhaps not in ways one might expect.

Two of the frontrunners are of Chinese heritage—Joe Tay, who’s running for the Conservatives, and Liberal Maggie Chi. Yet for very different reasons, both are avoiding media attention. Tay is the subject of a HK$1 million ($180,000 Canadian) bounty and is wanted in Hong Kong for his vocal support of the territory’s pro-democracy movement. Canada’s election interference task force has also found an operation to discredit him on social media platforms for the Chinese market. Meanwhile, Chi is trying to steer clear of the perception in some quarters that Liberals—and ethnic Chinese party members especially—have an overly cozy relationship with Beijing.

Despite the public nature of running for office, both are being very selective about giving media interviews and declined requests for media access to their campaigns. (They did not agree to speak with me.) Their respective campaign managers described tight, busy schedules and wanting them to focus on the election without distractions. But Tay’s office also cited unspecified safety concerns, while Chi’s team pointed to the “ridiculous” attacks leveled against political figures with a Chinese background. These tensions speak not only to ongoing concerns around the role of outside forces in Canada, but the disparate experiences and perspectives within Canada’s Chinese diaspora.

In the wake of the foreign interference imbroglio, candidates and politicians of Chinese heritage across the country find themselves treading a fine line. Transnational repression by China is well-documented and alarming—it includes efforts to silence exiles through family intimidation, threats, online or phone harassment, and repatriation. Yet accusations of foreign interference in the absence of supporting evidence can lead to unwelcome consequences too. It contributes to anti-Asian racism and casts a pall over political figures who take a more nuanced approach to China, or who don’t denounce the regime outright.

“There’s been a hysteria going on,” B.C. Senator Yuen Pau Woo told me when I reached him by phone in early April. In a submission to the public inquiry commissioner, Woo had warned that an overzealous approach to combating foreign interference could damage the very democracy Canadians are trying to defend.

Candidates with Chinese heritage face a catch-22, he said. “Everybody is terrified of getting the label that you are either interfered with or involved in interfering.”

The northern edge of Don Valley North runs along Steeles Avenue from Bayview to Highway 404, while its southern boundary dips below the 401. Within these borders of a highly diverse riding, residents of Chinese descent make up the largest ethnic group, and roughly 30 percent of the population.

But like the Chinese diaspora across the country, those who live in this community are far from a homogenous voting bloc. They come from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other Asian countries. Some maintain strong emotional bonds to their old home, some cut all ties when they left, and others find themselves caught somewhere in between.

Tay, who is the first Conservative candidate of Chinese descent in Don Valley North since the riding was created in 1987, made international headlines just weeks before the election, after a Liberal candidate in the riding of Markham-Unionville apologized for “deplorable” comments he made in January, suggesting people could claim the bounty on Tay by bringing him in to the Chinese consulate. At the time, Tay was vying to become the Conservative candidate in that riding before securing a spot on the party’s ticket in Don Valley North. Paul Chiang, a former police officer and the candidate who made the remark, admitted to having a “complete lapse of judgment” and withdrew from the race amid mounting pressure. Some observers say what happened was sheer stupidity, and to play it up as foreign interference would be disingenuous.

But Tay was rattled. He issued a statement expressing fear for his safety. “[Chiang’s] threatening public comments were intended to intimidate me,” he stated. “I want to be clear: no apology is sufficient. Threats like these are the tradecraft of the Chinese Communist Party to interfere in Canada.”

COMMENT – Canadians still have not come to grips with what the Chinese Communist Party is doing.

There is one political party that clearly benefits from the CCP’s manipulation and instead of calling that out, the author of this piece seeks to muddy the waters with some good old fashion whataboutism… that the Liberal Party candidate might get “unfairly” labeled as benefiting from Beijing’s interference.

Until Canadian leaders take these issues seriously, and Canadian media stops cuddling the Canadian Liberal Party, I doubt Beijing will ever end its efforts to create a client state in North America.

33. Revealed: online campaign urged far right to attack China’s opponents in UK
    Tom Burgis and Maeve McClenaghan, The Guardian, April 28, 2025

34. Trump Targets Chinese Cranes, Risking Added Burden for US Ports
    Ilena Peng, Bloomberg, April 23, 2025

35. Hungary's Orban caught in China-US conundrum of his own making
    Jens Kastner, Nikkei Asia, April 26, 2025

36. Hungary Rejects US Pressure to Cut Its Chinese Economic Ties
    Marton Kasnyik, Bloomberg, April 26, 2025

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Human Rights and Religious Persecution

37. Chinese rights lawyer Lu Siwei sentenced to 11 months in prison
    Qian Lang, Radio Free Asia, April 18, 2025

Lu, who was arrested in Laos, was charged with “illegally crossing the border” in a closed trial held in southwestern China.

Prominent Chinese rights lawyer Lu Siwei, who was arrested and deported from Laos in 2023, was sentenced behind closed doors in China to 11 months in prison on Friday, his wife told Radio Free Asia.

Lu, 52, who was accused of illegal border crossing, plans to appeal the sentence by the Chenghua District Court in Chengdu, southwestern Sichuan province, said his wife Zhang Chunxiao, who lives in the United States. The court also fined him 10,000 yuan ($1,370).

Despite holding a U.S. visa and Chinese passport, Lu was arrested in the Lao capital Vientiane in July 2023 while en route to join his family in America. He was detained in the Southeast Asian country for more than a month, before being forcibly repatriated to China.

An insurance attorney by profession, Lu is well known for taking on many politically sensitive cases, including defending one of the 12 Hong Kong activists jailed in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong after they were caught fleeing by boat to Taiwan in 2020.

He was stripped of his legal license in 2021, banned from international travel, and has faced repeated harassment and constant surveillance for his human rights activities.

Rights campaigners have said his arrest in Laos and forced repatriation illustrates the growing and oppressive reach of Chinese authorities beyond China’s borders, often referred to as transnational repression.

On his arrival in China, Lu was held in Sichuan’s Xindu Detention Center until his release on “bail, pending trial” in late October of 2023. He was formally arrested again a year later, in October 2024, as Chinese authorities sought to move ahead with prosecuting him on charges of illegal border crossing from China to Laos.

Lu’s lawyers on Friday pleaded for a reduction in his sentence, citing time he has previously served during his detention abroad in Laos. But these requests were rejected, his wife said.

When taking into account the six months Lu has served since his detention last year and the three months in 2023, the verdict should also have been announced on the opening day of the trial, said Zhang.

His lawyers now expect Lu will be in prison until at least Aug. 9, after accounting for time served while in detention prior to the closed-door hearing on Friday, she added.

“The lawyers have been fighting for them (the court) to hold a public trial, but on the day of the pre-trial meeting on April 16, I heard that someone who wanted to go to the trial was kicked out,” said Zhang.

On Friday too, no spectator passes were issued and Lu’s friends were barred from attending the trial, she said. Instead, they were “...invited for tea, sent on tours, and given warnings (by police),” she said.

Both uniformed and plainclothes police presence could be seen outside the court, where several police cars had been deployed, a Chengdu activist told RFA. He spoke on the condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

“I saw police and plainclothes officers walking around outside the court, constantly observing passers-by, which made people quite nervous. I didn’t dare to go near the court,” he told RFA.

38. China’s Anti-Sanctions Rules Raise Human Rights Risks for Global Tech Firms
    Michael Caster, Tech Policy Press, April 18, 2025

39. Reports Describe Expanding Digital Repression in Tibet
    China Digital Times, April 16, 2025

40. Chinese man who displayed pro-democracy banners in detention: sources

    Qian Lang, Radio Free Asia, April 28, 2025

Authorities have held Mei Shilin, 27, since soon after he hung the banners at a Chengdu overpass on April 15.

Chinese authorities have detained a young man for unfurling pro-democracy banners this month at an overpass in Chengdu in southwest China – a rare form of public protest that is punishable as a criminal offence, two sources told Radio Free Asia

Authorities are investigating whether Mei Shilin, 27, had any overseas connections and have taken criminal detention measures against him, said the two sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity fearing reprisals.

The exact date of his detention was not immediately clear, sources said.

In China, criminal detention measures for those suspected of “endangering national security” typically mean being held by police for months until formal charges are filed – formally known as residential surveillance at a designated location. Detainees face constant surveillance, interrogations and may be subject to torture.

The sources said Mei is a resident of Youngfu town in Sichuan province’s Muchuan county and he has been missing for more than 10 days.

Authorities detained him shortly after he was identified as being behind the three banners displayed on a bridge outside Chengdu’s Chadianzi Bus Station on April 15, they said.

The three banners read: “Without political system reform, there will be no national rejuvenation,” “The people do not need a political party with unrestrained power,” and “China does not need anyone to point out the direction, democracy is the direction.”

One of the two sources, Qin from Chengdu, said if Mei was found by investigators to have overseas ties, he would be handed over to the State Security Bureau and transferred to the Municipal State Security Bureau Detention Center.

“If no substantial evidence of collusion with foreign forces is found, he will be handled by the Chengdu police,” added Qin, who wanted to be identified by a single name for safety reasons.

Legal experts believe authorities may charge Mei with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – a common criminal accusation in China that authorities level against political, civil, and human rights advocates.

“They (the prosecution) may file a case for the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble because they don’t want to give him a more glorious charge, such as inciting subversion of state power or subverting state power,” Lu Chenyuan, a legal expert in China, told RFA.

“They are now more inclined to depoliticize (the Mei Shilin case) and want to reduce its political significance,” added Lu.

“Peng Lifa of Sichuan”

Still, the incident – that prompted Chinese netizens to hail Mei as “Peng Lifa of Sichuan” – has made authorities very nervous, sources told RFA on Monday.

Peng Lifa, known as “Bridge Man,” had hung similar pro-democracy banners on Beijing’s busy Sitong Bridge, the slogans from which were chanted during the 2022 White Paper protests.

During the White Paper protests, which took place in several cities in China, people showed blank sheets of paper to symbolize that authorities gave them no voice amid anger over the loss of freedom and pandemic lockdowns.

“In the past half month, the Domestic Security Bureau and traffic police in the entire Public Security Bureau system of Chengdu have been highly nervous. They are afraid that another incident would happen, and then the Public Security Bureau Chief will have to quit his job,” said Qin.

The second source in Chengdu, Yang, who also requested to be identified by a single name, confirmed that Mei was detained by the police and that he had previously sought the help of authorities over a labor dispute, but to no avail.

“He (Mei) previously worked in a technology company in Chengdu,” said Yang.

“He (Mei) was treated unfairly in a labor dispute, and when he complained to the government for help, he was ignored. Such things are actually common,” Yang added.

Former Chinese government official and overseas dissident Du Wen and a social media X account “@YesterdayBigcat,” which posts information about protests in China, also confirmed Mei was behind the banners that hung from a bridge near the Chadianzi Third Ring Road Interchange in Chengdu’s Jinniu District.

Du wrote on X that Mei had sent him a 13-second short video, along with photos and a copy of his ID card, on the day of the incident.

Mei also wrote to Du saying he had prepared these slogans for over a year and hoped to have help in spreading the message.

COMMENT – “Picking quarrels and provoking trouble”.

The influence of Peng Lifa seems to be growing across the PRC. His brave act of hanging banners off the Sitong Bridge in Beijing in October 2022 helped spark the ‘White Paper’ Movement and other protests across the country. Disillusioned young Chinese are questioning the Party’s monopoly hold on power.

The Party will try hard to downplay and cover up these protests but as they keep popping up, one should conclude that all is not well within Xi’s China.

41. Weibo Users Say “Dr. Li, We Haven’t Forgotten You!”; DeepSeek AI Asks, “Dr. Who?”
    Cindy Carter, China Digital Times, April 16, 2025

42. Chinese artist fined for filming Uyghur folk music in Xinjiang
    Qian Lang, Radio Free Asia, April 17, 2025

While Guo Zhenming is punished, performances by a state-backed Uyghur dance troupe in Europe are promoted on social media.

A Chinese artist has been fined for “illegal filming” of folk music in Xinjiang - even as China promotes state-sponsored performances of Uyghur singers and dancers in Europe that have angered Uyghur activists.

The Chinese artist, Guo Zhenming, who is known for his work commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, told Radio Free Asia he was fined 75,000 yuan (US$10,300) and had all his equipment and materials confiscated over what he said was just a personal project not a film for distribution.

In one of the videos, there is a Uyghur girl playing a traditional stringed musical instrument known as a tambur. “This is one piece of evidence used by the Cultural and Tourism Bureau to accuse me,” Guo told RFA Mandarin.

The Urumqi Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism in Xinjiang, which held a hearing in Guo’s case last week, said the Yunnan-based film director and dissident artist had violated Article 13 of the ‘Film Industry Promotion Law’ that requires “legal persons and other organizations that intend to produce films” to send a screenplay synopsis to the relevant departments to be filed for their records.

But Guo told RFA in an interview Wednesday that his filming of folk music in cities and villages across Xinjiang in December 2024 and January 2025 was not intended for commercial use, and he had not scripted a film.

Instead, it is a personal art project with contemporary Chinese musician Wang Xiao to create and collect folk music while traveling and filming the landscape of Xinjiang, he said.

“The current shoot in Xinjiang is just a record of artistic music-collection field trips. I never said I would make a movie. There is no studio or trailer, only some filming equipment and materials,” Guo said.

The Urumqi Culture and Tourism Bureau reasoned he was likely to turn the footage shot in Xinjiang into a film as he had previously screened a documentary - which was about artists haunted by the Tiananmen Square massacre – at the Berlin Film Festival in Germany, even though he had not obtained official permission to release that film.

In February, Urumqi authorities had raided Guo’s house and seized all his equipment, including two cameras, one hard drive, two filters, a set of lights, and a recorder.

Chinese netizens and artists have criticized the punishment against Guo as government’s suppression of artistic freedom and ‘high-seas fishing,’ a term used in legal circles to describe cross-provincial policing beyond a particular office’s jurisdiction.

Uyghur anger over state-backed performances

The punishment of Guo for filming folk music in Xinjiang is in sharp contrast to Chinese state efforts to promote displays of Uyghur culture around the world – invariably portraying an image that Uyghurs embrace Chinese culture and live happily together with the Han ethnic majority.

Most recently, exiled Uyghur activists have objected to performances in Paris, France, and Budapest, Hungary, by the Uyghur 12 Muqam, a dance and music troupe under the Xinjiang Performing Arts Bureau.

Social media videos circulated by the troupe’s lead show highly stylized female dancers twirling against the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower as bystanders clap along.

“It is a grotesque irony that China is showcasing Uyghur culture in Europe while erasing it in the Uyghur homeland,” Rushan Abbas, chairwoman of the World Uyghur Congress, told RFA.

“The same regime staging dance performances abroad is the one that has criminalized Uyghur religious expression, bulldozed our mosques, banned our language, and detained our artists. This is not cultural preservation—it is cultural propaganda. Europe must not be complicit in this whitewashing campaign," she said.

China’s communist government is accused of grave human rights abuses against the minority Muslim group in Xinjiang, with the U.S. government has determined amounts to genocide.

Anger in cultural circles

It’s unclear whether Chinese authorities’ decision to throw the book at Guo is motivated by his reputation as a dissident, or by the fact that he was documenting Uyghur culture that Beijing is accused of erasing.

But the imposition of harsh penalties on Guo has angered those in China’s legal and cultural circles, who say this is the first such case where authorities have meted out punishment for “individual or personal filming conduct” under the Film Industry Promotion Law, since its implementation in 2017.

“The Film Law regulates organized film production activities, not individual filming,” said Li Xiongbing, the lawyer representing Guo, who argued at a hearing on April 11 that there were “serious problems in the application of the law” and that the Urumqi authorities were not the law enforcement body with jurisdiction on this case.

In a letter to the Urumqi Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau, Guo’s legal team pointed out that the bureau had clearly crossed its administrative authority and recommended that Guo’s equipment and materials be returned immediately and the penalty decision be revoked.

RFA could not immediately reach the Urumqi Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism office for comment.

Impact on artistic freedom

Chinese netizens fear the move will have wider implications for China’s creative ecosystem, beyond just the film and art industry.

“Film a movie in Hunan, and get fined by Xinjiang. It may sound utterly ridiculous, but it belies a serious problem: our ever-shrinking space for artistic freedom,” wrote one WeChat blogger named Li Yuchen.

“If this nonsense continues, I fear that the next people punished for ‘illegal filmmaking’ will be you, and me, and everyone we know who has ever used a camera or a mobile phone,” Li added.

Chinese artist He Sanpo, who now lives in Thailand, echoed a similar sentiment, calling the penalties “absurd” and reminiscent of an order by officials of Sanhe City in Hebei province, who had ordered that all the walls of the city be painted green overnight.

“They are as absurd as the political jokes of the former Soviet Union. Once public power overrides the law, it is like a tiger on the street, that can hurt people anytime and anywhere. Any absurd and terrifying incident may happen,” He told RFA.

In December 2022, authorities in Dali in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan placed Guo under 15 days’ administrative detention for “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, after he made some comments about the “white paper” protest movement.

Filming ethnic minorities inside China’s borders can be deemed sensitive by authorities.

In 1995, China had sentenced Tibetan musician Ngawang Chophel to 18 years in prison for filming traditional Tibetan folk songs and dance, over a two-month period in Tibet. He was charged with “committing espionage crime” and for using the cover of filming Tibetan music to gather sensitive intelligence and engaging in “separatist activities.”

43. Germany’s BASF divests shares in Xinjiang joint ventures
    Radio Free Asia, April 22, 2025

Chemical giant’s action is welcomed by Uyghur activists who claimed use of slave labor.

German chemical giant BASF said Tuesday it has divested shares of its joint ventures in China’s Xinjiang region, a move welcomed by Uyghur activists concerned over used of forced labor there.

Since late 2023, BASF announced its intention to divest its shares in BASF Markor Chemical Manufacturing and Markor Meiou Chemical in Xinjiang’s Korla region. German media had alleged its local partner was involved in human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

BASF said Tuesday in a statement that the buyer was Verde Chemical Singapore Pte. Ltd. which is majority controlled by Verde Ventures SGP, a Singapore-registered company. Both parties have agreed not to disclose financial details of the transaction completed Monday, it said.

BASF has previously said its audits had not found any evidence of human rights violations in the two joint ventures, but that published reports contained “serious allegations that indicate activities inconsistent with BASF’s values.”

COMMENT – It is about f-ing time!

44. Uyghur rights group calls on hotel chains not to ‘sanitise’ China abuses in Xinjiang
    Helen Davidson, The Guardian, April 17, 2025

Growth in international hotels coincides with government effort to push region as a tourism destination.

Almost 200 international hotels are operating or planning to open in Xinjiang, despite calls from human rights groups for global corporations not to help “sanitise” the Chinese government’s human rights abuses in the region, a report has said.

The report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) identified 115 operational hotels which the organisation said “benefit from a presence in the Uyghur region”. At least another 74 were in various stages of construction or planning, the report said. The UHRP said some of the hotels also had exposure or links of concern to forced labour and labour transfer programmes.

The explosion in hotel numbers coincides with the Chinese government’s efforts to push Xinjiang as a tourism destination after years of criticism and sanctions over its crackdown on the local Muslim population. In 2024 Xinjiang recorded about 300 million visitors, according to state media, including almost 5 million foreign tourists – 50% more than in 2023.

Several world governments and legal groups have declared the government’s actions against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities to be a genocide, although this has not been settled in any international court.

The UN says that China’s policies in Xinjiang may amount to crimes against humanity. Human Rights Watch has said the policies – which include mass internment and re-education, forced labour, and criminalisation of acts of religious expression – amount to crimes against humanity. China’s government denies all accusations of abuse and mistreatment in Xinjiang.

Human rights groups have argued that the presence of foreign enterprises in Xinjiang lends legitimacy to the Chinese government’s crackdown, and called on firms to leave. In November, the vehicle manufacturer Volkswagen sold its Xinjiang factory after years of pressure.

But as Beijing promotes Xinjiang as holiday destination for domestic and international tourists, the spotlight has turned to foreign tourism businesses. In 2023 the Guardian reported on a number of tour operators advertising holiday packages to Xinjiang. Now, hotel companies appear to be increasing their business there.

Well known brands, including France’s Accor, Hilton, the British IHG Group, Marriott and Wyndham are among hundreds of existing or developing hotels across the region. The sites listed include luxurious upmarket hotels in city locations as well as ski resort areas, where the Chinese government has heavily invested in winter tourism.

The report said three companies – Hilton, IHG, and Wyndham – all had hotels, and potentially paid fees or taxes – in areas administered by China’s state-owned paramilitary entity, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC). Sanctions have been passed on the XPCC by several governments, including the US, UK and EU, over “serious rights abuses against ethnic minorities”.

Peter Irwin, associate director for research and advocacy at UHRP, said: “This kind of hotel expansion, from international chains in particular, falls squarely within the Chinese government’s own strategy to try and normalise the public’s understanding of what’s going on in the Uyghur region.

“The government can point to these major companies entrenching themselves in the region as evidence that everything is normal, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.”

One recently opened hotel, by a Hilton franchisee, was built on the site of a mosque in Khotan that was demolished amid a government campaign in which more than 10,000 religious sites were destroyed.

“Building a hotel on the site of a demolished mosque is particularly egregious, given that the Chinese government has undertaken a broad campaign to tear down mosques across the Uyghur Region since 2017,” the report said. It said the hotel was not visible on English-language travel booking sites but China’s CTrip showed reviews dating back to about mid-2024.

Tuesday’s report assessed government records, corporate records and media articles, to determine whether hotels had other links of concern, including ownership structures with particular Chinese companies and involvement in state programmes identified by human rights researchers.

In another case study, the report identified links between Accor’s Grand Mercure Urumqi Hualing hotel and a training and employment programme. A state media report from one symposium said a human resources director from the hotel had visited and signed letters of intent with many students.

The symposium was targeted at young people and “surplus rural labour” workers from ethnic minorities, as part of the government’s poverty alleviation and “social stability” goals. The government says its Xinjiang employment schemes are part of “poverty alleviation” efforts but has been accused of forced labour and labour transfer programmes that breach human rights.

The report also said Accor’s strategic partner in China, H World Group Limited, had used a recruitment and training programme, Xinjiang Aid, which a US congressional investigation found contributed to the risk of human trafficking. In 2020 four US agencies warned the programme may make use of internment camp labour or workers from “abusive labour programmes”.

“These hotels continue to operate and expand business in a region in which Uyghur families have been torn apart by internment, imprisonment, forced labor programmes, and enforced disappearances,” said Dr Henryk Szadziewski, co-author of the report and director of research at the UHRP.

The report called for the hotel chains to initiate “immediate reviews” of their operations, given they had all made pledges to adopt international human rights standards. It urged them to freeze expansion plans, halt operations and sever business ties.

“They should publicly disclose their decision to exit, conduct heightened human rights due diligence, and engage with Uyghur rights organisations for remediation,” the report said.

The Guardian contacted Accor, Hilton, IHG, Marriott, and Wyndham for comment. A spokeswoman for Accor said the company and its partners “adhere to our group [corporate social responsibility] Charter, which includes standards for how employees are treated. We are dedicated to ensuring that our operations align with these standards.”

The spokeswoman said other elements put to them, including the claims about employment programs, were “not accurate”, but did not elaborate.

The other companies have not responded.

Timothy Grose a professor of China studies with expertise in ethnic policy at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, said investing in the region’s tourism was not a bad thing in principle.

“In fact, the investments could bring great benefits to local economies,” he said. “However, if recent history repeats itself, the construction of new hotels, which may attract thousands of tourists, will unlikely translate into improvements in the lives of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other minoritised groups.”

“Perhaps most immediately, shiny hotels and droves of tourists attempt to paint the picture that human rights abuses certainly cannot be occurring in such a ‘happy’ and ‘thriving’ place. Unfortunately, this strategy seems to have achieved some degree of success.”

45. “Sinicization” of Islam continues at Full Speed

    Ma Guangyao, Bitter Winter, May 2, 2025

A training course told present and future imams that “Sinicizing” the religion means putting Xi Jinping’s thought at the center of Islamic activities.

The program of “Sinicization” of Chinese Islam continues. As readers of “Bitter Winter” know, “Sinicization” does not mean adapting religions to Chinese culture but submitting them to the complete control and ideology of the Chinese Communist Party.

From April 14 to 21, a specialized “Training Course on Following the Direction of Islam’s Sinicization in China for 2025” took place at the Central Academy of Socialism in Beijing.

Yang Faming, President of the Chinese Islamic Association, and Xu Shaogang, a member of the Party Leadership Group and Dean of the Central Academy of Socialism, gave speeches at the opening ceremony. Imam Muhati Remu Xirifu, Vice President of the Chinese Islamic Association, chaired the ceremony.

In his speech, Yang Faming emphasized the importance of guiding the Muslim community in China with Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, fully implementing Xi Jinping’s speeches and documents on religious work, and following instructions from the CCP.

COMMENT – Xi Jinping is a jealous god.

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Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage

46. Could Apple Exist Without Its Ties to China? Probably Not.

    Tripp Mickle, New York Times, May 1, 2025

The world’s most valuable company has become so reliant on Chinese suppliers and sales that it would be worth half as much or less without them.

Several years before Donald J. Trump entered politics, Apple and its partners built massive factories across China to assemble iPhones. Mr. Trump first campaigned for president by promising his supporters that he would force Apple to make those products in America.

Nearly a decade later, little has changed. Instead of bringing its manufacturing home, Apple shifted some production from China to India, Vietnam and Thailand. Almost nothing is made in America, and an estimated 80 percent of iPhones are still made in China.

Despite years of pressure, Apple’s business is still so dependent on China that the tech giant can’t operate without it. Moves by the Trump administration to change Apple’s behavior risk damaging the world’s most valuable publicly traded company. And any serious effort to move Apple’s production to the United States — if that is even possible — would take a titanic effort by both the company and the federal government.

47. Who Is the Next “China” in Labor-Intensive Manufacturing? So Far: China
    SCCEI, April 15, 2025

48. Xi Is Ratcheting Up China’s Pain Threshold for a Long Fight with Trump
    Josh Chin, Wall Street Journal, April 22, 2025

49. Beijing’s Port Predicament
    Dennis Kwok and Sam Goodman, The Wire China, April 23, 2025

50. China Bets Trump Will Back Down on Tariffs
    Brian Spegele and Jason Douglas, Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2025

51. Boeing Will Stop Making Jets for China if Airlines Won’t Accept Planes, CEO Says
    Sharon Terlep, Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2025

52. China Offers Olive Branch to U.S. Firms After Boeing Delivery Halt
    Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2025

Beijing is willing to support normal business cooperation with American firms, China’s commerce ministry said, coming days after Chinese airlines were ordered to stop taking delivery of Boeing aircraft.

The Chinese commerce ministry on Tuesday said that U.S. tariffs had harmed China’s airlines and Boeing. It expressed hope that the U.S. government would listen to businesses and create a stable, predictable environment for trade and investment.

“The U.S.’s wielding of tariffs has severely impacted the stability of the global industrial chain and supply chain, disrupted the international air transport market, and prevented many companies from carrying out normal trade and investment activities,” it said.

The comments came after Beijing earlier this month told Chinese airlines not to place new orders for Boeing jets, asking them to seek approval before taking delivery of aircraft they had ordered.

The planemaker is the latest major U.S. firm caught in the crossfire of the trade war between the world’s two largest economies. President Trump has slapped a 145% tariff on Chinese products, which Beijing retaliated to with a 125% levy on American goods. Beijing has also put dozens of U.S. firms on its trade control lists and has launched an anti-monopoly investigation into chemical giant DuPont.

Analysts say the steep tariffs make it impractical for China to import U.S.-made aircraft. Since the deliveries were halted, Boeing has begun to fly back planes previously destined for Chinese airlines.

COMMENT – I’d really like to see the U.S. Government direct U.S. aerospace companies to stop supporting COMAC in building its commercial aircraft industry.

Companies like GE Aviation, CFM International, Honeywell, Collins Aerospace and Parker Aerospace.

Kind of hard to have a commercial jetliner without engines… just saying!

53. China tells US to ‘cancel all unilateral tariffs’ if it wants talks
    Joe Leahy, Wenjie Ding and Demetri Sevastopulo, Financial Times, April 24, 2025

54. Carmakers play down advanced driving functions after Beijing crackdown
    Financial Times, April 23, 2025

55. Chinese factories slow production and send workers home as US tariffs bite
    Ryan McMorrow and Chan Ho-him, Financial Times, April 23, 2025

56. China to lift sanctions on MEPs in bid to revive trade deal with EU
    Andy Bounds, Financial Times, April 23, 2025

57. For China’s Trolls, ‘Chairman Trump’ and ‘Eyeliner Man’ Are Easy Targets
    Li Yuan, New York Times, April 24, 2025

58. Chinese Manufacturers Make Appeals to Americans: Buy Direct
    Sapna Maheshwari and Ang Li, New York Times, April 24, 2025

59. China’s ‘involution’ trap is hurting nation’s competitiveness, state media warns
    Mandy Zuo, South China Morning Post, April 24, 2025

60. Vietnam, South Korea crack down on Chinese goods skirting U.S. tariffs
    Yuji Nitta and Erika Kobayashi, Nikkei Asia, April 24, 2025

61. Japan to Resist Trump Efforts to Form Trade Bloc Against China
    Alastair Gale, Haze Fan, Yoshiaki Nohara, and Sakura Murakami, Bloomberg, April 24, 2025

Japan intends to push back against any US effort to bring it into an economic bloc aligned against China because of the importance of Tokyo’s trade ties with Beijing, according to current and former Japanese government officials.

Like many other countries, Japan is trying to get permanent relief from President Donald Trump’s tariffs by addressing US concerns in areas of bilateral trade, including automobiles and agriculture. The officials, who asked not to be identified, said that Japan is pushing to strike a deal before the current 90-day reprieve in tariffs expires, with one person saying the country hopes to finalize an agreement around the Group of Seven summit in June.

At the same time, the officials said Japan doesn’t want to get caught up in any US effort to maximize trade pressure on China by curbing its own economic interaction with Beijing, which is Tokyo’s biggest trading partner and an important source of goods and raw materials.

Although the US hasn’t made any specific requests to Japan regarding China, Tokyo would prioritize its own interests if that occurs, Japanese officials say. One of the officials added that Japan has conveyed to China on multiple occasions that it doesn’t fully align with the US on chip-related exports and semiconductor restrictions.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately provide comment upon a request by Bloomberg.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is playing a leading role in trade talks with Japan and other nations, said earlier this month that the US would seek to reach agreements with allies and “then we can approach China as a group.” Bloomberg subsequently reported that the US is preparing to ask countries seeking tariff relief to reduce economic ties to China in a move to strengthen US leverage over Beijing as it tries to win concessions on trade.

‘Resolutely Opposes’

Japan’s lead trade negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, is scheduled to return to Washington for a second round of talks with US officials soon. On Monday, President Xi Jinping’s government warned countries against striking deals with the US that also target Beijing, saying it “resolutely opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests.”

“We need to be very careful about economic security issues and the supply chain involving China,” Kono Taro, a lawmaker in Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and former foreign minister, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Wednesday.

Rather than dialing back trade, Tokyo is in the process of trying to get China to resume imports of seafood and beef from Japan after bans imposed over health concerns. A series of Japanese delegations are currently making trips to China or are planning to go in order to manage Tokyo’s relationship with Beijing.

On Wednesday, Tetsuo Saito, leader of the Komeito Party — a key member of the ruling coalition — passed a letter from Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba for Xi to China’s no. 4 official, Wang Huning. Afterward, Saito said that both sides agreed to support the multilateral trading system and independently push the Trump administration to ease tariffs.

In a sign of Japan Inc.’s commitment to the China market, Toyota Motor Corp. this week agreed to open a new factory in Shanghai in 2027, with the company reportedly planning to invest around $2 billion in the plant.

More Pessimistic

Around 20% of Japan’s total commerce is with China, larger than its trade with the US. However, the US overtook China as an export destination for Japan in 2023, extending that lead last year. Japanese firms have become more pessimistic on the opportunities in China, with many cutting back investments as their revenue falls due to the weak Chinese economy and other factors.

Japanese manufacturing was hit hard when China restricted the export of rare earths to Japan in 2010 amid a political dispute. After that, Japanese industry and government made a concerted push to diversify supply, investing in Australia and elsewhere to reduce some of their reliance on China.

Japan is wary of similar restrictions after Beijing earlier this month added seven rare earths to its export control list in response to punitive tariffs imposed by Washington. Saito said he asked Chinese officials to make the “correct decisions” with regards to the handling of rare earths.

Japan needs to walk a tightrope over US-China relations because it also leans heavily on the US as it sole formal security ally. The largest overseas US military troop presence is based in Japan, and Trump has in recent days resumed his long-standing demand for Tokyo to pay more for US military bases.

But any demands from Washington on Tokyo to downgrade its economic relationship with China would potentially deal Japan a major economic blow.

“It’s going to be really, really bad for Japan if it sees a drop in trade both with the US and China,” said Yu Uchiyama, a professor of political science at the University of Tokyo. “If policymakers say let’s abandon China, business people will of course oppose it.”

COMMENT – I’m hearing from some Japanese officials that this story is “Fake News.”

Japan has been, and continues to be, deeply committed to reducing its economic dependence on the PRC. Of course, there are voices who disagree with this approach but ever since the 2010 crisis over the Senkakus Islands and Beijing’s embargo of rare earth minerals, the Japanese Government has committed to re-engineering trade patterns and isolating the PRC.

It has been Tokyo that has been asking Washington to take the threat posed by the PRC seriously since the Obama Administration.

Tokyo’s fear is NOT that Washington might ask it to reduce its entanglement with Beijing, Tokyo’s fear is that Washington might cut a deal with Beijing at Tokyo’s expense.

62. Chinese Exporters Retreat from US as Tariffs Erode Profitability
    Bloomberg, April 23, 2025

63. Chinese imports of American LNG dry up as trade war rages
    Shotaro Tani, Nikkei Asia, April 26, 2025

64. Tariff-hit China exporters reluctant to heed government calls to sell locally
    Casey Hall, Reuters, April 24, 2025

65. Australia strategic reserve to counter China’s mineral monopolies
    Mohan Yellishetty, Asia Times, April 28, 2025

66. China’s copper supplies set to run out as US tariffs bite, says Mercuria
    Tom Wilson and Camilla Hodgson, Financial Times, April 28, 2025

67. US tariffs could endanger 16 million export jobs in China: Goldman Sachs
    Ralph Jennings, South China Morning Post, April 28, 2025

68. China eases tax refund rules for foreign visitors in bid to attract more tourist revenue
    Mandy Zuo, South China Morning Post, April 27, 2025

69. Still open to China Inc.: North Carolina engages while others turn away
    Pak Yiu, Nikkei Asia, April 25, 2025

70. Chinese Firms Turn to Indian Exporters to Help Fill US Orders
    Shruti Srivastava, Bloomberg, April 26, 2025

71. AstraZeneca Sales, Earnings Rise; Warns of Mounting Legal Challenges in China
    Helena Smolak, Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2025

72. Companies find themselves caught in deglobalisation crossfire
    Kana Inagaki, Financial Times, April 28, 2025

73. Chinese carmakers reset European ambitions as EU tariffs bite
    Gloria Li, Kana Inagaki and Thomas Hale, Financial Times, April 28, 2025

74. China Renews Calls for IMF Quota Reform to Boost the Voice of Emerging Markets
    Wang Shiyu and Denise Jia, Caixin Global, April 25, 2025

75. Hollywood faces defining moment in China as Disney prepares new releases
    Mandy Zuo, South China Morning Post, April 29, 2025

76. Walmart has told some Chinese suppliers to resume shipments: sources
    Frank Chen and Kandy Wong, South China Morning Post, April 29, 2025

77. Made-in-USA Wheelbarrows Promoted by Trump Are Now Made in China
    Shawn Donnan, Bloomberg, April 29, 2025

78. China’s Akeso, hailed as biotech’s ‘DeepSeek moment’, falls despite nod for cancer drug
    Eric Ng, South China Morning Post, April 28, 2025

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Cyber and Information Technology

79. Tesla Humanoid Robot Plan Hampered by China Rare Earth Curbs
    Sing Yee Ong and Dana Hull, Bloomberg, April 22, 2025

80. Huawei’s Expansion in Smart Driving Stirs Competition, Scrutiny
    Bloomberg, April 22, 2025

81. Superpower rivalry over semiconductors heats up despite Washington’s attempts to block Beijing
    Liza Lin and Raffaele Huang, Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2025

82. China’s chipmakers are catching up to Nvidia and TSMC. Here’s how they compare
    Kinling Lo, Rest of World, April 28, 2025

83. China Pushed a Hard Sell on Autonomous Driving. After a Deadly Crash, It’s Pulling Back.
    Yoko Kubota, Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2025

84. Alibaba unveils Qwen3 AI models that it says outperform DeepSeek R1
    South China Morning Post, April 29, 2025

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Military and Security Threats

85. VIDEO – Philippines’ Balikatan Deploys 'NMESIS' Near Taiwan to Deter China
    Taiwan Talks, April 23, 2025

86. Bringing Back Medium Range Ballistic Missiles Fast Tracked Under Proposed $150B Defense Boost
    Joseph Trevithick, The War Zone, April 28, 2025

A proposed $150 billion defense package would fast-track development and production of medium-range ballistic missiles (620–1,860 mi), including variants capable of anti-ship strikes. Funding provisions totaling $639 million cover production capacity expansion, accelerated anti-ship missile development, and manufacturing of next-generation systems. While the Army’s Precision Strike Missile is already extending its range toward MRBM territory, the legislation may also underwrite wholly new designs. Restoring ground-launched MRBMs fills a post-INF Treaty capability gap, enhancing long-range strike options against land and naval targets.

87. Chinese coastguard claims ‘sovereign jurisdiction’ of Sandy Cay in South China Sea
    Liu Zhen, South China Morning Post, April 25, 2025

88. China and Afghanistan’s Jousting Over the Wakhan Corridor
    Ayjaz Wani, Observer Research Foundation, April 21, 2025

89. Jet by jet, US losing Pacific air superiority over China
    Gabriel Honrada, Asia Times, April 25, 2025

90. The waning deterrence of America’s nuclear arsenal
    Gabriel Honrada, Asia Times, April 28, 2025

91. US-Philippine largest-ever drills bristle with missiles aimed at China
    Richard Javad Heydarian, Asia Times, April 28, 2025

92. The Chinese Satellite Firm Washington Accuses of Helping U.S. Foes
    Brian Spegele, Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2025

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One Belt, One Road Strategy

93. Development as Strategy: The U.S, China, and the Global South
    Daniel Russel and Blake Berger, Asia Society Policy Institute, April 28, 2025

94. China's Xi pushes AI and 'Global South' opportunity amid US trade war
    Brenda Goh, Reuters, April 29, 2025

95. Emerging markets set to become battlegrounds in trade war
    Joseph Cotterill, Financial Times, April 28, 2025

96. China, Central Asian nations agree to forge broader trade ties
    Yukio Tajima, Nikkei Asia, April 27, 2025

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Opinion

97. Why the new pope won’t be welcome in China
    Charles Parton, The Spectator World, April 27, 2025

No doubt Francis’ interest in China centred on saving more souls than the current mere hundredth of the Chinese population. He was worried too about schism between the CCP-controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the ‘underground church’. Bishops of the former were being appointed by the Chinese church and not the pope. But Francis may also have had a personal interest. A Jesuit, Francis had a particular regard for Matteo Ricci, also a Jesuit, who was a missionary in China in the 16th century. Ricci’s mastery of Chinese, mathematics and astronomy ensured him a warmer tolerance than extended to many other missionaries. In the view of another Catholic – but one less welcome to Beijing – the ex-governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, who met Francis on several occasions, Francis probably wished to canonise Ricci during a visit to China.

It is hard to envisage Xi welcoming either Francis or the new pope to China. He is a jealous god: his people owe loyalty only to the ‘core’ of the CCP – Xi himself – certainly not to a foreigner, and moreover one historically implicated in China’s ‘century of humiliation’ at the hands of imperial powers. Since the United Front Work Department conference of 2015, Xi has been banging the drum of the ‘sinicisation of religion’. Never mind the contradiction of an atheist regime wanting to synthesise the worship of a non-existent god with China’s cultural traditions, any more than its wanting to oversee the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, for the CCP, religion is politics.

And Xi is rather good at politics. In fact, rather better than Pope Francis. In 2018, the Vatican and China signed an agreement, since renewed in 2020, 2022 and 2024. The deal has never been disclosed, other than the very Chinese arrangement for selecting bishops: the pope is presented with a name which he ratifies, or could in theory reject. This is similar to Chinese democracy: you get a vote, but only for my candidate.

The agreement has gone some way towards uniting the official and ‘underground’ churches in that bishops are mutually agreed. But, as ever, the CCP has hardly stuck to the deal. It has appointed bishops without consulting Rome, including in one case to a diocese not recognised by the Vatican; and it has ensured that ‘underground’ bishops have stepped down from posts and become ‘associate’ bishops – under a compliant superior who allows them no voice. As the long-suffering Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong has said, it is a delusion that you can do a deal to which the CCP will adhere. This is particularly so in areas where the interests of the CCP conflict with the other party. Xi peppers his speeches and ‘thoughts’ with references to ‘forging the soul’. Which is also the business of popes.

There is no evidence that since the Vatican signed its deal with Beijing persecution of Christians has waned. On the contrary, Xi has been quite clear that control over religion is to be strengthened. It is also shameful that Francis has spoken out against the problems and persecutions taking place all over the world, but apart from one small reference in a book, has never mentioned the Chinese crimes against humanity committed in Xinjiang or Tibet. His Christmas Day 2020 Urbi et Orbi address referenced the Rohingya, the Middle East and Africa, but not China. It is almost beyond belief. Literally.

Will the new pope continue to ‘play the long game’ – naivety which the Chinese are masters at exploiting? The answer is that he probably will. The 2018 ‘deal’ was again renewed at the end of 2024, this time for four, rather than two, years. And the pope will have other more pressing matters to consider: setting forth his theological vision, reconciling conservative and progressive wings of the church, communion for the divorced, gay marriage, the ordination of women, financial scandals.

But to echo Harold Macmillan, there are “events, dear boy, events”.

COMMENT – Great assessment by Charles Parton.

98. Taiwan's Freedom Is Not a Fixation
    Sasha Chhabra, CommonWealth Magazine, April 21, 2025

In an alarming article in Foreign Affairs, The Taiwan Fixation, Jennifer Kavanagh and Stephen Wertheim miss key considerations of Chinese military strategy, while misrepresenting the history of US policy towards Taiwan, reducing the fate of a country of 23 million souls to a mere pawn in US-China competition.

Kavanagh and Wertheim view the calculation of American intervention through the lens of pressure on an American president from the interventionist Washington foreign policy establishment, of which they are rightly skeptical. But to those who view the potential conflict from Asia, the practical considerations of war loom much more consequentially than American domestic politics in determining how such a war would break out.

The CCP has staked its credibility on being able to take Taiwan. Beijing knows it cannot swing and miss, to attempt to conquer Taiwan only to be foiled by America and her Asian allies would be the gravest threat to the CCP’s survival since the Long March. Beijing only intends to fight to win, it will not set out on a limited attack similar to Putin’s “special operation” against Ukraine; it knows it must be able to defeat the United States in battle, and with that, American hegemony.

The essay’s premise hinges on the notion that a tiny country of 23 million can defend itself alone against a nuclear-armed empire of 1.4 billion. Taiwan’s continued freedom rests on America’s ability to directly intervene. Beijing’s warfighting strategy therefore considers a war with the US and its Asian allies over and in the Taiwan Strait, rather than simply overwhelming Taiwan’s poorly trained reserves.

Eighty years ago, the Imperial Japanese Army understood that their only chance of victory over the United States would be through a surprise attack on American forces at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines, hoping to dominate Asia before the Americans could counterattack.

China faces a far more imposing challenge. With tens of thousands of US troops and the world’s most lethal fighter jets deployed within an hour of Taiwan, the PLA’s strategists know that their only shot at moving millions of troops across the Strait depends on preemptively taking out US forces in Japan, Guam, the Philippines, and possibly South Korea. To not do so would leave the Chinese fleet vulnerable to immediate American intervention to save Taiwan.

The conflict is ultimately bound by its geography: the 180-kilometer strait is Taiwan’s moat. As long as Chinese forces can be held off in the Strait, Taiwan can maintain its freedom and way of life. But should Chinese forces successfully land, the tiny island will soon fall in the face of China’s brutal occupation tactics, as seen in East Turkistan and Tibet. China is counting on the Americans backing down from the proposition of taking back Taiwan from Chinese occupation, compared with defending a free Taiwan from China’s onslaught.

The authors are correct to argue that Washington should push Taiwan to better defend itself. The longer Taiwan is able to deny the PLA, the less dependent it is on more vulnerable forward deployed US forces in East Asia.

However, maintaining strategic ambiguity maintains the credibility of the American threat to defend Taiwan. Wertheim & Kavanagh’s advocacy for strategic clarity is the most dangerous proposition of all, offering Taiwan, and the region, on a silver platter for China.

Indeed, it is the article’s abstractions that weaken it. Its authors repeatedly claim that preventing Chinese domination of Taiwan and its surroundings is unimportant compared to “preventing Chinese regional dominance,” without seeming to understand what Chinese regional dominance would look like in practice.

The authors also falsely claim that the US “One China Policy” does not challenge China’s claims to Taiwan, on which the US has never taken a position, and falsely claim that the Biden Administration broke this policy with official visits to Taiwan, despite longstanding precedent.

Most nonsensically, the authors advocate the US announce that it will only support Taiwanese independence if Beijing attacks. This position is self-defeating: the authors want the United States to proclaim support for Taiwanese independence only in the very situation where they advocate for the US to leave Taiwan alone to fend for itself. In paradoxically accepting China’s illegitimate claim to Taiwan while simultaneously advocating for arming the country to resist a Chinese invasion, the authors reveal the internal contradictions inherent to those in Washington struggling to understand Taiwan from afar.

The realities are seen far more clearly from Asian shores: Taiwan’s fight will be America’s fight.

Full scale war would open not just with bombs and missiles raining down on Taiwan, but on American bases, killing American troops. China will not take the risk of allowing for the possibility of swift American intervention, yet with American blood spilled on American soil, America will have no choice but to respond with full force.

COMMENT – Here is the article that the author refers to (The Taiwan Fixation: American Strategy Shouldn’t Hinge on an Unwinnable War, by Jennifer Kavanagh and Stephen Wertheim).

I’ve always felt that Kavanagh and Wertheim’s article would have been much better had they reversed their focus and titled their piece:

“The Taiwan Fixation: Chinese Strategy Shouldn’t Hinge on an Unwinnable War.”

If we want to condemn a side for having a “fixation,” or more accurately an obsession, with Taiwan, then it is the Chinese Communist Party who we should be condemning.

It would be in everyone’s interest for Beijing to acknowledge a clear reality: Taiwan is a separate nation. Both the Chinese people and the Taiwanese people would benefit enormously if the Party stopped obsessing about resolving the Chinese Civil War and simply accept that the Taiwanese people have formed their own identity, their own political culture, and their own place in the world that is separate from the People’s Republic of China. An independent nation of 23 million Taiwanese does nothing to take-away from the People’s Republic.

The Taiwanese people have accepted this fact. Sure, there are a few octogenarian KMT-ers who fantasize about re-conquering the Mainland and ruling New China from Nanjing, but that’s just the babblings of grandma and grandpa that common Taiwanese ignore.

The Chinese Communist Party has its own agency here, its obsession with Taiwan springs from its own paranoia. If the people of Taiwan can overcome a brutal authoritarian dictatorship (as they did in the late 1980s and 1990s), then surely the Chinese people can as well… the example of democracy in Taiwan is what keeps Xi and his cadres up at night.

99. The rivalry between the U.S. and China colors everything in the Indo-Pacific, including the chances of another India-Pakistan war.
    Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2025

100. Chinese and American analysts find common ground amid Trump’s chaos

     Shi Jiangtao, South China Morning Post, April 29, 2025

At an event in Hong Kong, observers largely agree that US president’s unpredictability and ‘America first’ doctrine have intensified rivalry.

Chinese and American observers have found rare common ground over the chaos radiating from Washington, amid Donald Trump’s renewed trade war with China and his destabilising foreign policy.

At a Hong Kong event last week, several prominent China watchers from across the Pacific voiced concern over tariffs, the political upheaval in the United States, and the spectre of global instability as the US-led liberal world order unravels.

Despite their stark differences over America’s perceived decline and China’s role in bilateral tensions, observers largely agreed that the US leader’s unpredictability and his “America first” doctrine have intensified superpower rivalry and recent global market turmoil.

But they also said US-China tensions stemmed primarily from structural differences, with Trump serving as a symptom rather than the cause.

In his keynote speech to the gathering hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong last Thursday, Kurt Campbell, former US deputy secretary of state in the Joe Biden administration, warned of an “extraordinarily fluid period” due to the absence of predictability and “careful deliberative process” in Washington.

“There are no two countries that are more interdependent than the United States and China, and you’ve got to keep that squarely in mind. There are also no two countries more uncomfortable with that interdependence, and we just need to recognise that that is a fact,” he said.

COMMENT – Why is Kurt Campbell in Hong Kong perpetuating the myth that the U.S. and China are the most interdependent countries in the world?

Obviously, the United States is far more interdependent with Canada and Mexico, with the European Union, or with Japan, Australia and South Korea, than it is with the People’s Republic of China. And the PRC is obviously far more interdependent with its ally, the Russian Federation.

By accentuating the myth of Sino-American “interdependence,” he is amplifying one of Beijing’s favorite talking points that there will be some sort of G2 condominium.

Kurt knows better than to make these kinds of rookie mistakes.

101. China isn’t trying to win the AI race
     Angela Zhang, Financial Times, April 24, 2025

102. Why Trump’s Economic Disruption Will Be Hard to Reverse
     Patricia Cohen, New York Times, April 28, 2025

103. What would a US tariff on chips look like?
     Chris Miller, Financial Times, April 23, 2025

104. Why China's Economic Slowdown Understates Gains
     Gerard DiPippo, Rand, February 18, 2025

105. RFA Uyghur Service is a light that pierces the darkness of China’s rule
     Rishat Abbas, Radio Free Asia, April 18, 2025