US ship unable to get Solomon Islands’ permission to dock, says Washington

A United States coast guard vessel was unable to enter Solomon Islands for a routine port call because its government did not respond to a request to refuel and provision, a US official said.

The Solomons government did not immediately answer a Reuters request for comment. It has had a tense relationship with the US and its allies since striking a security pact with China in May.

The USCGC Oliver Henry was on patrol for illegal fishing in the South Pacific for a regional fisheries agency when it failed to obtain entry to refuel at Honiara, the Solomons’ capital, a US coast guard press officer said in an emailed statement.

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China’s ‘staggering’ military build-up is a wake-up call for US

China is investing heavily in combat drones, including electronic warfare versions that would play a significant role in any attack on Taiwan.

However, more than anything else, the huge inventory of anti-ship ballistic missiles poses the gravest threat to United States aircraft carrier strike groups that represent America’s most potent projection of naval firepower in the Indo-Pacific region.

China has taken giant steps towards its dream of maritime superpower status with a warship-building programme that outmatches the US.

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Adam Zivo: Justin Trudeau’s reprehensible jab at pro-Taiwanese diplomacy

Last Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during a news conference that his government will ensure that Canadian parliamentarians planning to visit Taiwan as part of an upcoming trade mission “reflect” on the “consequences” of their visit. Trudeau’s euphemistic jab at pro-Taiwanese diplomacy was reprehensible, undermining the independence of Canada’s parliamentary associations and tacitly validating China’s threat this week to punish Canadians should the visit occur.

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What China’s worst drought on record looks like

A month-long heatwave and record low rainfall have resulted in an unprecedented drought along the Yangtze, China’s longest river.

Lakes and tributaries have receded as a result of the drought, exposing riverbeds and even a 600-year-old Buddhist stone carving and rocks below the famous Guanyin Pavilion, in Wuhan, Hubei province.

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China punishes 27 people over ‘tragically ugly’ illustrations in maths textbook

Caucasian looking Chinese Commies Kids!

Chinese authorities have punished 27 people over the publication of a maths textbook that went viral over its “tragically ugly” illustrations.

A months-long investigation by a ministry of education working group found the books were “not beautiful”, and some illustrations were “quite ugly” and did not “properly reflect the sunny image of China’s children”.

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China Is Weaponizing Chinese Worldwide to Support the CCP

“Promoting the great unity of the Chinese people is the historic responsibility of China’s patriotic united front work in the new era,” said Chinese ruler Xi Jinping at the end of last month to Communist Party cadres in Beijing. “To do the job well, we must… truly unite all Chinese people in different parties, nationalities, classes, groups, and with different beliefs, and those who are living under different social systems.”

“Different social systems” is Party lingo for “other countries.”

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China Is Preparing To Go To War

China expert Gordon Chang makes the case that China is preparing for armed conflict – and could happen quite soon.

Last month, a Chinese entrepreneur making medical equipment for consumers told me that local officials had demanded he convert his production lines in China so that they could turn out items for the military. Communist Party cadres, he said, were issuing similar orders to other manufacturers.

Moreover, Chinese academics privately say the ongoing expulsion of foreign colleagues from China’s universities appears to be a preparation for hostilities.

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China’s record youth unemployment is a gathering storm for Xi Jinping

A thriving economy blunted desire for political change among the young, but now rampant joblessness has smashed that unofficial pact

They were supposed to be China’s trailblazers — the most educated generation in the country’s history, the foot soldiers building Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” of a strong and prosperous country. Instead, almost one in five young Chinese are jobless. There is little prospect of that improving any time soon, with unpredictable and potentially dangerous consequences for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

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‘Whatever You Need’: How Hunter Biden Helped the CCP’s Premier Influence Group Gain a US Foothold

The Biden administration last month warned of a Chinese Communist Party front group that seeks to “co-opt” state leaders as part of Beijing’s sprawling foreign influence operation. Emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop show the first son and his business partners helped the organization gain a foothold in the United States while his father was vice president.

In 2015, Biden’s partners lobbied the State Department to publicly approve a partnership between the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and State Legislative Leaders Foundation, a nonprofit group that hosts forums for state legislators and corporate leaders. Hunter’s team portrayed the initiative as a boon for U.S.-Chinese relations.

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A Judge Has Ordered NIH to Turn Over Unredacted Docs Showing Why It Deleted Covid-19 Data at Behest of Chinese Researchers

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) deleted COVID-19 gene sequences that may have proven valuable to detecting earlier the probability the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated at the Wuhan lab, as was discovered in June 2021.

Now, U.S. district court judge Leonie Brinkema is ordering the NIH to turn over the missing data related to a probe by the group Empower Oversight. The NIH had earlier submitted a motion for summary judgment, which was denied.

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Security Threat: China’s Interest in US Agriculture

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) recently warned that China’s interest in the agriculture of the United States poses both a serious economic challenge and a security risk to the United States.

China sits on 7-9% percent of the world’s arable land, 294 million acres, but is home to nearly 20% (1.4 billion in 2020) of the global population (nearly 8 billion in 2022). By comparison, the US has more than 375 million acres of arable land and a population of 329.5 million.

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China Is Infiltrating Kids’ Video Games With Propaganda and Spyware

While many are rightfully concerned about the growing influence of video-based social media platform TikTok and the Chinese government’s ability to harvest incredible amounts of user data from it, China’s largest social media and video game studio, Tencent, has quietly been acquiring a commanding stake in the most popular video game companies around the world, and no one has seemed to notice. From Riot Games’ flagship title Valorant to the popular Epic Games-produced Fortnite, Tencent and the Chinese Communist Party are inserting propaganda and influencing a generation of children around the world while their parents aren’t looking.

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Defense, Diversity, and the China Threat

How “woke” experiments endanger our Armed Forces.

The FBI raid on Donald Trump’s estate has temporarily pushed the China threat out of the headlines. But, of course, the threat is still there and so is the question of how to respond to it.

Teddy Roosevelt said that when dealing with hostile foreign powers one should “speak softly and carry a big stick.” In other words, don’t provoke your enemies, but let them know that you possess sufficient fire power and personnel to handle any situation that may arise.

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China Is Winning the Economic Race with the US – The Consequences Will Be Profound

China has closed the gap with the U.S. “in most economic races, even overtaking it in some,” according to a recent report from Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The report, “The Great Economic Rivalry: China Vs. the US,” predicts that at the current rate, China will overtake the US economically within a decade.

Measured by purchasing power parity (PPP) — which compares national economies in terms of how much each nation can buy with its own currency at the prices items sell for in its market — China has already surpassed the US to become the world’s largest economy.

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