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U.S. For Sale: Obama Lets China Gobble Up U.S. Energy

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Photo Credit: abangbay @ MalaysiaOil And Politics: Beijing plays the debt card as the Obama administration quietly lets China acquire major ownership interests in oil and natural gas resources across the U.S. at the same time it blocks the Keystone pipeline.

Normally, foreign investment in the U.S. is to be welcomed. It creates jobs, boosts economic growth and promotes trade and exports.

But when that investor is an ambitious and increasingly belligerent China to whom we owe over a trillion dollars, eyebrows and concerns need to be raised.

Reversing a Bush administration policy, the Obama administration is encouraging Beijing to acquire equity interests in U.S. energy. In 2005, the Bush administration blocked China on grounds of national security from buying California-based Unocal Corp. for $18.4 billion.

That was then, and this is now.

Read more on this story HERE.

Obama Admin Approves Sale of Sensitive Military Technology to China

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A Chinese company will take charge of sensitive military and battery technology following the Treasury Department’s decision on Tuesday to permit the sale of a U.S. company that was bankrolled with tax dollars to the Shanghai-based Wanxiang firm.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved the $256 million sale of A123 Systems’ operation, despite warnings from military insiders and lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the sale presents a danger to national security.

A123 Systems, which went bankrupt despite the Obama administrations’ $249 million in green energy funding to produce advanced lithium ion batteries, controls 91 patents for the sensitive technology.

“The approved sale marks yet another step in the coordinated strategy by foreign countries to acquire leading U.S. companies who are researching, developing and producing critical technologies,” said Dean Popps, co-chairman of the Strategic Materials Advisory Council. “CFIUS itself has recognized this strategy but continues to fail to do anything to prevent it.” The committee has not made public its rationale for the decision.

Read more from this story HERE.

China and North Korea Assisting Egypt in Modernization of Missile Systems

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China is covertly working with North Koreans to modernize Egypt’s short-range missile systems, raising new concerns among United States intelligence officials about the arms programs of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated government in Egypt.

A group of technicians from China’s premier missile manufacturer that was previously sanctioned by the U.S. government for illicit arms transfers are working in Egypt with North Koreans to modernize Cairo’s Scud missile force.

According to U.S. intelligence officials, reports of the missile technicians from the Beijing-based China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corp. (CPMIEC) are raising new concerns about U.S. plans to sell arms to the government of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

The missile activities were detected in connection with Egypt’s Sakr Factory, the main missile production facility that makes Egypt’s Scud-Bs and extended-range Scud Cs.

An Egyptian military official had no immediate comment on the missile support from China and North Korea. A State Department spokesman declined to comment.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Wants 100,000 American Students to Study in Communist China

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(CNSNews.com) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday will celebrate the launch of a newly rebranded organization called the “100,000 Strong Foundation,” which aims to have 100,000 American students studying in China by 2014.

Thursday’s event will “underscore the importance of study abroad in China and the benefits to our strategic relationship with China as well as the personal benefits individuals receive through these exciting experiences,” the news release said.

Until now, the 100,000 Strong Initiative — announced by President Obama on his trip to China in 2009 — has operated inside the State Department. Thursday’s 1 p.m. ceremony marks its transition to a non-profit, nongovernmental organization operating independently.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially launched the Obama initiative in May 2010 in Beijing. “China has established dozens of Confucius Institutes across the United States that offer Chinese language instruction and cultural programs to help Americans better understand China,” Clinton said at the time. “We would like to see similar American language and culture centers on the campuses of Chinese universities.”

According to State Department statistics, in the 2010/11 academic year, 14,596 U.S. students were studying in China, which was number five on the list of study-abroad destinations, behind the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and France.

Read more from this story HERE.

Manila Challenges Beijing’s South China Sea Hegemony

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photo credit: jun acullador

The Philippines said Tuesday that it is taking its feud with China over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea to an international tribunal.

Philippines Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario’s office summoned Chinese Ambassador Ma Keqing in Manila and challenged the assertion that China’s sovereignty extends over “virtually the entire South China Sea.”

Manila says China seized control of the Scarborough Shoal, a rocky outcrop, last year and then illegally barred the Philippines from the area. China calls the shoal Huangyan Island.

Manila wants a tribunal operating under the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea to declare as “unlawful” Beijing’s actions in the disputed waters.

“The Philippines has exhausted almost all political and diplomatic avenues for a peaceful, negotiated settlement of its maritime disputes with China,” Mr. del Rosario said at a news conference in Manila, according to a report by The Associated Press. “To this day, a solution is still elusive.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Tiananmen Square Survivor Says 2nd Amendment is Key to Replacing Criminal Government

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Last year, Kathleen and I visited China for three weeks. We spent time in Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing, and other Chinese cities.

One of the highlights of the trip was Tiananmen Square. The area was fenced off with a number of other security measures in place including numerous police, surveillance cameras, and checkpoints.

Despite this corridor of security, Kathleen and I were identified as westerners and almost immediately waived in. The hundreds of Chinese awaiting entrance, however, were forced to undergo intrusive security screening, similar to what one could expect from overzealous TSA agents in the US.

While there, a man told us that during the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, the communist government had killed literally thousands of protesters, identified virtually every surviving participant, and incarcerated most of those survivors.

One of them, however, apparently made it out and became a US citizen in 2007. According to Townhall.com, this protester then recorded the following video regarding the incredible importance of the Second Amendment:

In this Tea Party speech, the naturalized Chinese-American citizen demonstrated an exceptional understanding of the Constitution and the Second Amendment. Among other things, he noted that

•”The power of the government is derived from the consent of the governed.”

•Chinese patriots in Tiananmen were crushed by “AK-47’s” because they could “not fight back” as they “were not armed.”

•The argument “that a man with a rifle has no standing against the military technology and machine of today” is ridiculous. 20,000,000 residents of Beijing would have quickly proved that wrong had they been armed in 1989.

•”When a government turns criminal, when a government turns deranged, the body count will not be 5, 10, or even 20. It will be in hundreds like Tiananmen Square, it will be in the millions…

•”When a government has a monopoly on guns, it has absolute power.”

•”When a government has all the guns, it has all the rights.”

•”To me, a rifle is not for sporting or hunting. It is an instrument of freedom. It guarantees that I cannot be coerced, that I have free will, that I am a free man.”

The Tiananmen survivor also weighed in on firearm magazine restrictions, like those proposed by a number of bills pending before the US Congress: “Now suppose the 20 million Beijing citizens had had a few million rifles, how many rounds should they have been ALLOWED to load into their magazines? Ten rounds? [crowd: No!] Seven rounds? [crowd: No!] How about three rounds? [crowd: No!]”

The naturalized US citizen continued,

Do not give up the fight, my friends. It may be a small step that you give up your rifle, or a 30 round magazine.

But it will be a giant leap toward the destruction of this republic.

Now, in closing, I will quote the words of Captain John Parker: ‘Stand your ground. Do not fire until fired upon. But if they want a war, let it start here!

China Poised to Play Debt Card – for U.S. Land

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NEW YORK – Could real estate on American soil owned by China be set up as “development zones” in which the communist nation could establish Chinese-owned businesses and bring in its citizens to the U.S. to work?

That’s part of an evolving proposal Beijing has been developing quietly since 2009 to convert more than $1 trillion of U.S debt it owns into equity.

Under the plan, China would own U.S. businesses, U.S. infrastructure and U.S. high-value land, all with a U.S. government guarantee against loss.

Yu Qiao, a professor of economics in the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsighua University in Beijing, proposed in 2009 a plan for the U.S. government to guarantee foreign investments in the United States.

WND has reliable information that the Bank of China, China’s central bank, has continued to advance the plan to convert China’s holdings of U.S. debt into equity owned by China in the U.S.

Read more from this story HERE.

Jackie Chan Slams America As “the Most Corrupt [Country] in the World”

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Action star Jackie Chan has once again sparked controversy by branding America the world’s “most corrupt” country in a TV interview . . .

Chan told Phoenix TV that China has been bullied by international powers for a long time and only began making progress in recent years.

Chan added that while China has a corruption problem, so do other nations, including America.

“If you talk about corruption, the entire world – America – has no corruption?” said the actor.

He went on to say America is “the most corrupt [country] in the world” – not China. “Where does this great breakdown [of corruption] come from? It started exactly from the [rest of the] world, the United States … If our own countrymen don’t support our country, who will?” he said.

Read full story HERE.

Inside the Ring: Chinese Missile Defense Test?

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U.S. intelligence agencies are closely monitoring China’s missile facilities in anticipation of a test of China’s missile defense interceptor, which also doubled in the past as an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile.

The officials commented in response to reports that China is set to conduct another potentially destabilizing anti-satellite missile test in space. In 2007, China fired a missile that destroyed a weather satellite and resulted in tens of thousands of dangerous pieces of debris that threaten manned and unmanned spacecraft.

The Washington Free Beacon reported in September on new intelligence reports that indicate China is preparing to fire its Dong Ning-2 missile into space, this time at a high-earth orbit target.

Then last week Gregary Kulacki, a specialist with the Union of Concerned Scientist, reported on his blog, “All Things Nuclear,” that Chinese officials recently circulated an internal notice of an upcoming anti-satellite missile test in space.

A U.S. official said a test at this point does not appear imminent. However there are signs an interceptor flight test is being prepared.

Read more from this story HERE.

China Mysteriously Quadruples Rice Imports, Continues to Stockpile Commodities

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Yesterday, it was reported that China – not currently suffering from any food shortages – is amassing rice stockpiles. This past year, the country mysteriously imported four times the rice over 2011 purchases:

United Nations agricultural experts are reporting confusion, after figures show that China imported 2.6 million tons of rice in 2012, substantially more than a four-fold increase over the 575,000 tons imported in 2011. The confusion stems from the fact that there is no obvious reason for vastly increased imports, since there has been no rice shortage in China. The speculation is that Chinese importers are taking advantage of low international prices, but all that means is that China’s own vast supplies of domestically grown rice are being stockpiled. Why would China suddenly be stockpiling millions of tons of rice for no apparent reason? Perhaps it’s related to China’s aggressive military buildup and war preparations in the Pacific and in central Asia.

Yesterday’s revelation follows reports over the past several years of the Chinese amassing commodities in warehouses through out the nation.

For example, Reuters reported last year that

At Qingdao Port, home to one of China’s largest iron ore terminals, hundreds of mounds of iron ore, each as tall as a three-storey building, spill over into an area signposted “grains storage” and almost to the street.

Further south, some bonded warehouses in Shanghai are using carparks to store swollen copper stockpiles – another unusual phenomenon that bodes ill for global metal prices and raises questions about China’s ability to sustain its economic growth as the rest of the world falters.

Several months ago, at least one analyst speculated that a commodities buying spree involving 300,000 tons of metals in another Chinese province was motivated by an attempt to keep local smelters running, thereby ensuring continued tax revenues to government. But that doesn’t explain the rice-buying.

What we do know is that the world may be headed – led by the United States – toward a period of significant inflation if sovereign debt crises lead to additional “quantitative easing” and other expansions of the monetary supply.

In other words, China may be hedging its bets. Better to buy commodities than U.S. Treasuries that may ultimately be worth pennies on the dollar.