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TikTok Admits Its Chinese Staff Can Access User Data in Other Countries

Chinese-owned video app TikTok admitted that its staff in China has the ability to access the private accounts data in the United Kingdom and the European Union.

This comes after years of criticism from around the world, particularly in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States over concerns that personal information could be passed on to the Chinese government.

The app is coming under intense scrutiny by government authorities in the West, as its parent company, ByteDance, repeatedly denies that it is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The social media company released a press statement on Nov. 2, stating that its “privacy policy” was “based on a demonstrated need to do their job.”

TikTok said in its statement that the policy applies to “the European economic area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland.” (Read more from “TikTok Admits Its Chinese Staff Can Access User Data in Other Countries” HERE)

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Former Japanese Navy Commander Calls on Canada and West to Prepare for Chinese Invasion of Taiwan

China is likely to invade Taiwan within five years unless Canada and other Western allies band together to send tough economic and military warnings to Beijing, says the former naval commander of Japan’s Maritime Self Defence Force.

Retired vice-admiral Toshiyuki Ito told The Globe and Mail that he believes President Xi Jinping is determined to gain control of self-governing Taiwan, and he will use the full might of China’s military to do so.

“Within five years, he will do something. He will use force,” Mr. Ito said in an interview Wednesday that was arranged by the Japanese embassy in Ottawa.

He said the democratic world needs to prepare for a Chinese invasion and to use the threat of economic sanctions and military readiness to ward off Beijing, saying he doesn’t want to see Taiwan turn into another Hong Kong. In 2020, China imposed a national-security law on Hong Kong that has effectively criminalized dissent or free speech.

Mr. Ito said he would like to see the Royal Canadian Navy continue military exercises in the Indo-Pacific region and even join an informal four-country defense and security alliance involving the U.S., Japan, Australia and India. (Read more from “Former Japanese Navy Commander Calls on Canada and West to Prepare for Chinese Invasion of Taiwan” HERE)

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Hunter’s Ties That Bind: Chinese Business Partner of President’s Son Is Pictured Raising a Glass With Vladimir Putin

Newly unearthed photos show the Biden family’s Chinese business partner meeting with Vladimir Putin.

Zang Jianjun was executive director of Chinese oil giant CEFC, which partnered with Joe Biden’s brother Jim and son Hunter on a deal that earned the First Family millions of dollars.

Text messages obtained by DailyMail.com reveal Zang was in close contact with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and that the Chinese leader gave the green light for his partnership with the Bidens.

Zang even traveled to Moscow with Xi and met with Putin while brokering a massive $9.1billion deal to buy a share of the Russian state-owned oil firm Rosneft in 2017.

Newly unearthed photos show Zang with Putin in Budapest, Hungary, earlier that year. (Read more from “Hunter’s Ties That Bind: Chinese Business Partner of President’s Son Is Pictured Raising a Glass With Vladimir Putin” HERE)

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Democratic Staffer Fired After Covertly Working With Chinese Embassy

A staffer for Democratic Virginia Rep. Don Beyer was fired this week for allegedly working on behalf of the Chinese Embassy in Washington to set up meetings with other Congressional aides, according to a National Review report.

The staffer, Barbara Hamlett, allegedly reached out to other Congressional staffers and attempted to arrange meetings between them and Chinese Embassy officials for at least several months, National Review reported. Beyer quickly fired Hamlett after he learned of the allegations against her and investigated.

“While Congressman Beyer had no inkling of this staffer’s actions and acted promptly upon learning of them, he understands that his constituents may be shocked to learn of this, just as he was,” Beyer’s deputy chief of staff Aaron Fritschner said. “He pledges to them that he will remain a fierce critic of China’s record, continue to oppose the CCP’s totalitarian repression of its citizens, and hold himself and his staff to the highest professional and ethical standards.” (Read more from “Democratic Staffer Fired After Covertly Working With Chinese Embassy” HERE)

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Lawsuit Reveals Vast Censorship Scheme by Big Tech and the Federal Government

A little noticed federal lawsuit, Missouri v. Biden, is uncovering astonishing evidence of an entrenched censorship scheme cooked up between the federal government and Big Tech that would make Communist China proud.

So far, 67 officials or agencies — including the FBI — have been accused in the lawsuit of violating the First Amendment by pressuring Facebook, Twitter and Google to censor users for alleged misinformation or disinformation.

Victims of the Biden-Big Tech’s “censorship enterprise” include The Post, whose Hunter Biden laptop exposé was suppressed by Facebook and then Twitter in October 2020 after the FBI went to Facebook warning them with great specificity to watch out for a “dump” of Russian disinformation, pertaining to Joe Biden, with an uncanny resemblance to our stories.

“We allege that top-ranking Biden administration officials colluded with those social media companies to suppress speech about the Hunter Biden laptop story, the origins of COVID-19, the efficacy of masks, and election integrity,” is how the lawsuit was summarized by the intrepid Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who is leading the action.

Censorship related to alleged “misinformation” about pandemic lockdowns, vaccines and COVID-19, and included material from the esteemed infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists associated with the Great Barrington Declaration which proved over time to be correct and eventually much of which was adopted as official policy by the CDC. (Read more from “Lawsuit Reveals Vast Censorship Scheme by Big Tech and the Federal Government” HERE)

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U.S. Navy’s Top Officer Says China May Invade Taiwan in Days

China could invade Taiwan as early as this year, speeding up naval experts’ predictions of a 2027 attack, the Navy’s top officer said Wednesday.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said China’s 20-year track record of delivering “every promise they’ve made earlier than they said” indicated the Communist country could try to take Taiwan by force any day now.

“It’s how the Chinese behave and what they do,” Gilday said during an Atlantic Council event. “So when we talk about the 2027 window, in my mind, that has to be a 2022 window or potentially a 2023 window.”

The comments increase what Navy watchers call the “Davidson window,” named for retired Adm. Phil Davidson — who told Congress last year as the military’s Indo-Pacific Command chief that he expected China could invade Taiwan by 2027.

The prediction coincides with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s promise to make 2027 the year to bring China to the forefront of global power, as it will mark the end of what the country considers its “hundred years of humiliation.” (Read more from “U.S. Navy’s Top Officer Says China May Invade Taiwan in Days” HERE)

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US Military Rated as ‘Weak’ With Worries It May Not Be Able to Win a War

The US military may not be able to win one war — let alone two — as the Pentagon struggles to keep its forces equipped against potential threats from China and Russia, according a new report on American military strength.

Years of underfunding and “poorly defined priorities” has led the military to become “weak relative to the force needed to defend national interests on the global stage,” the conservative Heritage Foundation said in its annual “Index of U.S. Military Strength.”

“[T]he current U.S. military force is at significant risk of not being able to meet the demands of a single major regional conflict,” the report said. “The force would probably not be able to do more and is certainly ill-equipped to handle two nearly simultaneous [major conflicts.]”

At the same time, the possibility of two-front fighting has increased as Russia continues to wage war on Ukraine and China grows increasingly aggressive in the Pacific, according to the report.

“In the aggregate, the United States’ military posture can only be rated as ‘weak,’” the report said. (Read more from “US Military Rated as ‘Weak’ With Worries It May Not Be Able to Win a War” HERE)

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Xi Jinping Declares China the Leading World Power at Communist Party Congress

Dictator Xi Jinping opened the 20th Chinese Communist Party National Congress on Sunday with a “report” to the Central Committee, which he nominally serves, that claimed China has ascended to global leadership in economics, diplomacy, clean government, and military power.

Xi’s address was triumphant as expected, with little concern for how it might sound to a world still coping with fallout from the coronavirus pandemic China unleashed. The pandemic was old news for Xi, who had no interest in conceding the smallest error in how China handled the crisis.

Instead, Xi’s theme was China’s overwhelming success at creating a “modern socialist country” with “high-quality development,” a slogan that seems designed to sweep aside concerns that China’s economy is in more trouble than the Communist Party wants to admit.

“We must fully and faithfully apply the new development philosophy on all fronts, continue reforms to develop the socialist market economy, promote high-standard opening-up, and accelerate efforts to foster a new pattern of development that is focused on the domestic economy and features positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows,” the dictator said.

Xi seemed at pains to reassure observers who thought China would use the 20th five-year National Congress, and his own claim of an unprecedented third term in power, to pivot away from growth and modernization to deal with internal issues and intensify its focus on militarization. (Read more from “Xi Jinping Declares China the Leading World Power at Communist Party Congress” HERE)

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Tesla Wins Tax Breaks From China After Elon Musk’s Taiwan Comments: Report

Elon Musk’s electric car maker Tesla has been granted tax exemptions from China just days after the tech mogul was praised by Beijing for saying that Taiwan should become a “special administrative zone” ruled by the Chinese Communist Party.

The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology unveiled its latest list of electric vehicles that are eligible for purchase tax exemption.

The list includes the latest Tesla Model S and Model X units with 100 kWh battery packs, according to the Teslarati news site. The site reported that two Model S variants — the MSP2P and the MSP2LR — as well as the Model X variants MXP2P and MXP2LR were on the list of exempt vehicles.

Their inclusion on the list suggests that Tesla could soon begin delivering the cars to China soon, according to Teslarati.

Last Friday, Musk generated headlines and controversy after he told Financial Times that he thought Taiwan, the self-ruling island and US ally which China sees as a part of its country, should cede control to Beijing to avoid a broader conflict that would have global economic ramifications. (Read more from “Tesla Wins Tax Breaks From China After Elon Musk’s Taiwan Comments: Report” HERE)

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China’s Xi Issues Dark Warning on Taiwan as He Prepares to Consolidate Power Over CCP

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, poised to seize a third term in full control of his nation, signaled a pending move on Taiwan, did a victory lap over Bejing’s defeat of Hong Kong’s democracy aspirations and vowed to defeat COVID in a Sunday speech.

The 69-year-old Xi, who became the head of the Chinese Communist Party 10 years ago, struck a stridently nationalistic tone at the opening of the 20th Party Congress, which appears set to affirm him as its leader for life. He seemed to embrace that his muscular government is on a collision course with the West and intends to take over Taiwan.

Xi referred to “rapid changes in the international situation,” which experts inferred meant China’s increasing alienation from the West and burgeoning alliance with Russia.

Xi claimed victory over both Hong Kong’s stalled independence movement and COVID, crediting his government with having “protected people’s lives and health.” Mentioning Taiwan as the third of three major challenges met by his regime was deemed a signal that Beijing may be closer than ever to make a move on Taiwan, a self-governing democracy Beijing claims as its own.

The speech was delivered inside Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to 2,300 of the CCP’s most powerful members. They cheered wildly when the president mentioned “reunification” with Taiwan. Although he pledged to try to achieve the goal peacefully, he issued a dark warning. (Read more from “China’s Xi Issues Dark Warning on Taiwan as He Prepares to Consolidate Power Over CCP” HERE)

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