Tag Archives: China

DeSantis Vows To Revoke China’s Trade Relations Status

The Guardian reports: The Republican presidential candidate and Florida governor Ron DeSantis said on Sunday he would aim to revoke China’s permanent normal trade relations status if he wins the White House next year. “I favor doing that,” DeSantis told Fox News. “I think we probably need Congress but I would take executive action as appropriate to be able to …

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Tesla Signs Chinese Pledge On “Core Socialist Values”

The financial news site Benzinga reports: Tesla, Inc. achieved record-breaking second-quarter deliveries in China on the back of price cuts and promotional efforts implemented earlier this year. But the Elon Musk-led EV maker’s cutthroat methods have seemed to irk Xi Jinping‘s government in one way. In response to this price war initiated by major electric vehicle manufacturers, including Tesla, a …

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State Dept: “Reconsider Travel To Mainland China”

Via press release from the State Department: Reconsider travel to mainland China due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, including in relation to exit bans, and the risk of wrongful detentions. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) government arbitrarily enforces local laws, including issuing exit bans on U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries, without fair and transparent process …

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Vietnam Bans “Barbie” Film For Scene With Ocean Map

Variety reports: Authorities in Vietnam have banned commercial screenings of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.” The Warner Bros. film starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, one of the most anticipated movies of the summer, was set to have been released in the country on July 21. The film contains a scene that depicts a map with the “nine dash line,” a representation …

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Miami Mayor Flubs China Question: “What’s A Uyghur?”

CNN reports: Miami mayor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Francis Suarez indicated in an interview on Tuesday that he was unfamiliar with the plight of Uyghur Muslims, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority in China whose treatment has been the subject of worldwide condemnation for years. In an interview on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, the Republican presidential candidate was asked, “Will …

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China’s Xi Hails “Progress” After Meeting With Blinken

Reuters reports: China’s Xi Jinping hailed “progress” in talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Beijing on Monday, the final engagement of a closely-watched trip aimed at ensuring the superpower’s disputes do not spiral into conflict. Blinken, the first holder of his post to meet the Chinese leader since 2018, strode towards Xi with his hand outstretched at …

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Blinken Arrives In Beijing On Mission To Sooth Tensions

The Associated Press reports: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Beijing early Sunday on a high-stakes diplomatic mission to try to cool exploding U.S.-China tensions that have set many around the world on edge. Blinken was to begin two days of talks with senior Chinese officials in the afternoon. He is the highest-level American official to visit China …

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Chinese LGBTQ Center Closes Amid Govt Clampdown

Bloomberg News reports: A prominent LGBTQ+ center in China is closing down after 15 years, another sign of the tightening of space for sexual orientation-focused organizations under President Xi Jinping. In a statement on its WeChat account on Monday, the Beijing LGBT Center said it was terminating its operations effective immediately, saying only that the closing was due to a …

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India Passes China As World’s Most Populous Nation

The Guardian reports: India has overtaken China as the world’s most populous country, according to UN population estimates, the most significant shift in global demographics since records began. According to the UN’s projections, which are calculated through a variety of factors including census data and birth and death rates, India now has a population of 1,425,775,850, surpassing China for the …

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McCarthy To Meet With Taiwan President In California

Politico reports: China won’t be happy, but that is kind of the point. The relationship between China and the U.S. is delicate, fraught and has become increasingly agitated in recent years. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is meeting today with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that has enraged the Chinese government, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory. The …

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Study Points To “Raccoon Dogs” As Origin Of COVID

The Atlantic reports: Many scientists have stood by the notion that this outbreak—like most others—had purely natural roots. But that hypothesis has been missing a key piece of proof: genetic evidence from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, showing that the virus had infected creatures for sale there. This week, an international team of virologists, genomicists, and evolutionary …

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WH Tells TikTok To Sell Chinese Stake Or Face US Ban

NBC News reports: The Biden administration is threatening a potential ban on TikTok in the United States if the video sharing app’s Chinese owners refuse to sell their stakes in it, a source close to the company told NBC News on Thursday. The source, however, cautioned that the company did not see the administration’s move as a final order. Talks …

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China To US: Stop “Smearing” Us With Lab Leak Claims

Axios reports: China’s Foreign Ministry claimed on Tuesday that the country has been “open and transparent” about its efforts to trace the origins of COVID-19 and accused the U.S. of politicizing the issue. The U.S. Department of Energy concluded in a “low confidence” assessment that the pandemic most likely started from a laboratory leak. China has repeatedly dismissed the lab …

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Mike Pence Lies About Chinese Balloons During Trump

CNN’s fact-checker Daniel Dale writes:  Fox host Martha MacCallum told Pence that, in the wake of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, in early February, “They’re blaming the Trump administration. They say it’s the regulations that you peeled back that led to this lack of safety.” Pence replied: “Yeah, same crowd that said that Chinese balloons floated over our …

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Pentagon Releases US Pilot’s Photo Of Chinese Balloon

ABC News reports: A close-up photo of the Chinese spy balloon, taken mid-air from a U-2 spy plane, has been released by the U.S. military The photo was taken on Friday, Feb. 3 as the balloon flew over the American Midwest at an altitude of 60,000 feet — as the U-2 spy plane trailed it flew across the continental United …

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WSJ: Pentagon Knew About Balloons During Trump

The Wall Street Journal reports: A small circle of intelligence officials at the Pentagon during the Trump administration monitored a series of mysterious objects—now suspected to be balloons—but the incidents were never reported to the White House because it wasn’t clear what they were, former U.S. officials said. Following the shootdown earlier this month of a Chinese high-altitude balloon, the …

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China Threatens Unnamed US Entities Over Balloon

The Associated Press reports: China said Wednesday it will take measures against U.S. entities related to the downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the American East Coast. At a daily briefing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin gave no details and did not identify the targets of the measures. China says the balloon was a unmanned weather airship that …

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US Warns It Will Defend Philippines Against China

The Hill reports: The United States is warning it will stand with and defend the Philippines after reports that Beijing’s Coast Guard used laser devices to temporarily blind the crew of a Philippine Coast Guard ship, according to the State Department. State Department spokesperson Ned Price called China’s conduct “provocative and unsafe” and said it interfered with the Philippines’ “lawful …

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US Recovers “Critical Electronics” From Downed Balloon

Reuters reports: The U.S. military said on Monday it had recovered critical electronics from the suspected Chinese spy balloon downed by a U.S. fighter jet off South Carolina’s coast on Feb. 4, including key sensors presumably used for intelligence gathering. “Crews have been able to recover significant debris from the site, including all of the priority sensor and electronics pieces …

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Pentagon: Michigan Object Was “Metallic Balloon”

CNN reports: The unidentified flying object shot down in Canadian airspace on Saturday appeared to be a “small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it,” according to a Pentagon memo sent to lawmakers on Monday and obtained by CNN. The memo offers the first official details of one of the three objects shot down in recent days that was …

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