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China Tests New Space Capability With Hypersonic Missile, Surprises U.S.

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China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August that circled the globe before speeding towards its target, demonstrating an advanced space capability that caught US intelligence by surprise.

Five people familiar with the test said the Chinese military launched a rocket that carried a hypersonic glide vehicle which flew through low-orbit space before cruising down towards its target.

The missile missed its target by about two-dozen miles, according to three people briefed on the intelligence. But two said the test showed that China had made astounding progress on hypersonic weapons and was far more advanced than US officials realized.

The test has raised new questions about why the US often underestimated China’s military modernization.

“We have no idea how they did this,” said a fourth person. (Read more from “China Tests New Space Capability With Hypersonic Missile, Surprises U.S. ” HERE)

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Report: Hunter Biden Said Offer From Powerful Chinese Investor Had ‘Everything To Do With My Last Name’; John Kerry Has $1 Million Invested in Chinese Fund Supporting Black-Listed Company

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By Breitbart. Newly-unveiled emails reveal Hunter Biden admitted a Chinese businessman was solely interested in a business deal due to his “last name” — or his association with his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden.

The Washington Free Beacon reported Wednesday on emails dated 2010-2011 between Hunter Biden and his business partner Devon Archer regarding Che Fung — head of the Chinese investment company Ever Union Capital — several years before Che was arrested on money laundering charges in Beijing. These emails were discovered on the infamous laptop Biden abandoned in a Delaware repair shop.

Reporter Chuck Ross says Hunter wrote in September 2011 that his business deal with Che — nicknamed “Super Chairman” and “Mr. Che” in other emails — had “everything to do with my last name.” The emails reveal Hunter met with Che in April of 2010 to negotiate a deal with Ever Union Capital to invest nearly $150 million in the Communist regime’s sovereign wealth fund. It is unclear whether this potential deal was ever completed.

The revealed emails also reportedly indicate Hunter and business partner Archer saw the business connection to Che as an opportunity to make connections with large financial institutions, such as Blackstone and Carlyle Group, which reportedly sought business deals in China.

“I dont [sic] believe in lottery tickets anymore, but I do believe in the super chairman,” Hunter wrote on September 23, 2011, according to the report. “Things are moving rapidly and the percentage he is offering me is much larger than I at first thought.” (Read more from “Report: Hunter Biden Said Offer From Powerful Chinese Investor Had ‘Everything To Do With My Last Name’” HERE)

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John Kerry Has $1 Million Invested in Chinese Fund Supporting Black-Listed Company

By WND. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and his wife hold at least $1 million in a Chinese investment fund that owns a significant stake in a Chinese technology company that aided China’s human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims, records show.

Kerry reported holding an “over $1,000,000” stake in the investment fund, Hillhouse China Value Fund L.P., in his financial disclosure submitted in February. The fund is a part of the Hillhouse Capital Group, a private equity firm operated by Chinese billionaire Zhang Lei and known for its early investments in some of China’s top technology companies.

Hillhouse invested $55 million in the Chinese surveillance firm Yitu Technology in 2017, a company that was later placed on the U.S. government’s “entity list” in 2019 for developing facial recognition software specifically designed to detect Uyghurs. Being on the entity list, U.S. companies must obtain a special license before doing business with Yitu, according to the Center for Strategic & International Studies. . .

Kerry owns his stake in the investment fund through a trust, whose beneficiary is his wife, the Free Beacon reported. Kerry reported in his financial disclosure that he and his wife have no involvement in managing the investments in the trust. (Read more from “Report: John Kerry Has $1 Million Invested in Chinese Fund Supporting Black-Listed Company” HERE)

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White House ‘Cannot Guarantee’ Anyone’s Christmas Packages Will Arrive on Time

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The White House admitted Wednesday they were unable to guarantee packages would arrive on time this Christmas.

“We are not the postal service, or UPS, or FedEx,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “We cannot guarantee. What we can do is use every lever at the federal government’s disposal to reduce delays.”

Psaki repeatedly posited that the government would work to solve supply chain issues, especially at American ports where ships are forced to wait in offshore traffic before they can get unloaded.

She did not offer many specific actions the government planned to take, but admitted there were challenges facing the supply chain.

Psaki also could not offer a timeline for when the supply chains would get resolved or if shipping disruptions would get worse before it got better. (Read more from “White House ‘Cannot Guarantee’ Anyone’s Christmas Packages Will Arrive on Time” HERE)

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Pentagon Tech Chief Quits in Frustration, Says U.S. Has No “Fighting Chance” Against China; Ex-Pentagon Official: U.S. Has Lost the Technology Battle to China

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By Futurism. In a blistering new interview with the Financial Times, the Pentagon’s former chief software officer said that he resigned in protest of slow technological innovation in the United States — and, in a provocative twist, opined that China is dominating in the space, particularly at developing advanced artificial intelligence.

“We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years,” Nicolas Chaillan, who quit the Defense Department in September, told the newspaper in his first interview since leaving the post. “Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion.”

Chaillan’s complaints are numerous. He blasted cybersecurity in some parts of the US government as “kindergarten level,” decried lack of cooperation between the US military and its tech sector, and said that he had wasted his time “fixing basic cloud things and laptops.”

Most of all, though, he seems furious that China is pulling ahead in the realms of artificial intelligence, machine learning and cyberattack capability. In a particularly grim critique, he complained that US tech giants like Google have been hesitant to dive into particularly controversial AI research, whereas Beijing isn’t held back by those pesky ethical debates. (Read more from “Pentagon Tech Chief Quits in Frustration, Says U.S. Has No “Fighting Chance” Against China” HERE)

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Ex-Pentagon Official: U.S. Has Lost the Technology Battle to China

By Washington Examiner. The former inaugural chief software officer at the Pentagon said he believes the United States has already lost the technological battle against China.

Nicolas Chaillan, 37, who worked for three years on a Department of Defense-wide effort to enhance cybersecurity and became the first chief software officer of the Air Force , resigned last month in part due to his belief that the U.S. is getting outmaneuvered by foreign powers.

“We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion,” he told the Financial Times in an article published on Sunday, adding there was “good reason to be angry.”

Chaillan argued that the emerging technological advances and developments pose a much more important aspect to defense than commonly thought of military hardware, such as fighter jets.

Some of the U.S. cyberdefense systems are at a “kindergarten level,” he said, later noting that China is angling to dominate the military sphere in the future. Even though the U.S. still spends more than three times on defense as the Chinese do, Chaillan said much of that funding is being spent on the wrong things and that bureaucracy and regulations play a role in it, too. (Read more from “Ex-Pentagon Official: U.S. Has Lost the Technology Battle to China” HERE)

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Chinese President on Taiwan ‘Reunification’: Those ‘Who Betray Their Motherland’ ‘Will Come To No Good End’

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On Saturday, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a speech at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing during which he pushed for “reunification” with democratically-governed Taiwan.

“National reunification by peaceful means best serves the interests of the Chinese nation as a whole, including our compatriots in Taiwan,” Xi stated.

“Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should stand on the right side of history and join hands to achieve China’s complete reunification, and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Xi continued, later adding, “Those who forget their heritage, betray their motherland, and seek to split the country will come to no good end; they will be disdained by the people and condemned by history.”

In response to Xi’s latest remarks, Taiwan’s China-policy-making Mainland Affairs Council issued a statement asking that China “abandon its provocative steps of intrusion, harassment and destruction.”

The communist dictatorship has recently ratcheted up its intimidation of Taiwan, sending nearly 150 military jets into Taiwanese airspace over the course of several days at the beginning of October. The island nation responded by scrambling jets “to warn away the Chinese planes, while missile systems were deployed to monitor them,” according to Reuters. (Read more from “Chinese President on Taiwan ‘Reunification’: Those ‘Who Betray Their Motherland’ ‘Will Come To No Good End’” HERE)

Photo credit: UN Photo/Pierre Albouy https://www.flickr.com/photos/unisgeneva/32240314252

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New Virus Poses ‘An Existential Threat to Life as We Know It on This Planet’

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The Biden administration’s apparent unwillingness to conduct a serious official investigation of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 that holds China accountable for its actions and lack of cooperation could result in a pandemic much more lethal that the current one, warns a leading researcher.

Dr. Steven Quay, whose research became part of a State Department probe of the origin of COVID-19 under President Trump, told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum on Friday that “all of the evidence points toward the lab theory.” . . .

But it’s more vital than ever to stop the dangerous “gain-of-function” research going on at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he said.

Raw data from patient specimens posted in the National Institutes of Health’s gene bank showed researchers at the Wuhan lab in December 2019 were manipulating genes from the highly lethal Nipah virus, Quay said.

The Nipah virus, which causes severe inflammation of the brain or encephalitis, has a death rate of about 80%, Quay warned. (Read more from “New Virus Poses ‘An Existential Threat to Life as We Know It on This Planet'” HERE)

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/governortomwolf/49628500797

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Taiwan President Says Country ‘Will Do Whatever It Takes To Defend Itself’ Against China

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Taiwan will not bend the knee to an increasingly aggressive communist China, the country’s president says, warning that the defeat of the island nation would signal that “authoritarianism has the upper hand over democracy” in today’s “global contest of values.”

Writing in the November-December edition of Foreign Affairs, President Tsai Ing-wen stated that while Taiwan does not seek military confrontation with China, it “will do whatever it takes to defend itself.”

“Amid almost daily intrusions by the People’s Liberation Army, our position on cross-strait relations remains constant: Taiwan will not bend to pressure, but nor will it turn adventurist, even when it accumulates support from the international community,” she wrote. “In other words, the maintenance of regional security will remain a significant part of Taiwan’s overall government policy.”

“Yet we will also continue to express our openness to dialogue with Beijing, as the current administration has repeatedly done since 2016, as long as this dialogue proceeds in a spirit of equality and without political preconditions,” she added. (Read more from “Taiwan President Says Country ‘Will Do Whatever It Takes To Defend Itself’ Against China” HERE)

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U.S. ‘Very Concerned’ About China’s ‘Provocative Military Activity Near Taiwan’

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The State Department said on Sunday that the U.S. is “very concerned” about China’s “provocative military activity near Taiwan” following Beijing’s most recent show of air power near the self-governing island.

“The United States is very concerned by the People’s Republic of China’s provocative military activity near Taiwan, which is destabilizing, risks miscalculations, and undermines regional peace and stability. We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement.

On Friday, China flew 38 military aircraft into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, believed to be Beijing’s largest military provocation seen yet. . .

Since the beginning of the year, China has continuously flown military aircrafts into Taiwanese airspace as part of its ramped-up efforts to strengthen its territorial claim over the island. (Read more from “U.S. ‘Very Concerned’ About China’s ‘Provocative Military Activity Near Taiwan'” HERE)

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Record 38 Chinese Aircraft Enter Taiwan’s Air Defense Zone

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A record-breaking 38 Chinese military aircraft penetrated Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on Friday, forcing the island to deploy its air defense missile system to monitor the incursion, Taiwan News reported.

China’s People’s Liberation Army Airforce (PLAAF) ordered two separate incursions into Taiwan’s airspace on October 1. The PLAAF deployed a total of 38 aircraft to violate Taiwan’s ADIZ on Friday, which is the highest-ever such figure recorded in a single day.

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) published two reports on October 1 documenting the twin PLAAF intrusions, which took place hours apart. According to the first report, the Chinese Air Force first deployed “18 Shenyang J-16 fighter jets, four SU-30 jets, two Xian H-6 bombers, and one Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine warfare (Y-8 ASW) plane” to enter the southwest corner of Taiwan’s ADIZ.

A short time later, the PLAAF sent another detachment to fly through “a much larger swathe of the southwestern section of the ADIZ,” according to Taiwan News. This unit included “10 Shenyang J-16 fighter jets, two Xian H-6 bombers, and one KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft.”

Taiwan’s Air Force responded to both ADIZ violations by dispatching air patrol aircraft to monitor the activity, broadcasting radio warnings to the Chinese planes, and deploying its anti-aircraft missile system to track and monitor the incursions. (Read more from “Record 38 Chinese Aircraft Enter Taiwan’s Air Defense Zone” HERE)

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Was a Chinese Army Sergeant a Casualty of a COVID-19 Test Release?

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Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been numerous and persistent reports from athletes of influenza-like symptoms either during or soon after attending the Wuhan World Military Games, October 18-27, 2019.

Among other efforts to counter such evidence and avoid responsibility for the global pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party, through its propaganda outlet the Global Times, made the highly suspect claim on February 24, 2020, that five athletes hospitalized during the competition did not have COVID-19, but malaria.

So far, China has not revealed either the names of those athletes or their nationalities.

According to the World Health Organization, there has not been a single indigenous case of malaria in China since 2017 and 95% of malaria cases in the world occur in a relatively small group of Sub-Saharan African countries.

There were no more than 280 athletes from Sub-Saharan countries attending the 2019 Wuhan World Military Games from which five cases of malaria were diagnosed, a very high percentage indeed.

Medical records for the years 2011 to 2018 published by Wuhan physicians list a total of 296 malaria cases, 96% of which were from those arriving in Wuhan from Africa.

It stretches credulity to claim there were five cases of malaria within a narrow nine-day period and among a group of highly fit and medically screened young people.

Was it COVID-19?

Perhaps not coincidentally, a 23-year-old Chinese Army Sergeant, Fu Sen, died of malaria on November 26, 2019, after being unsuccessfully treated in China for over 400 days.

Fu Sen reportedly contracted the disease while serving as a medical worker during a Chinese military deployment to South Sudan. He was assigned to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Hospital in the Wuchang District of Wuhan, the epicenter of the initial COVID-19 outbreak.

Oddly, as if trying to make a point, the death of this one PLA sergeant, allegedly from easily treatable malaria, made national headlines in China and his story was distributed internationally in English.

Based on a source in Wuhan, China, present during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and familiar with PLA operations, a[n] article reported that a test release of COVID-19 was conducted by the PLA during the Wuhan World Military Games.

The source explained that the subsequent outbreak in Wuhan was entirely unexpected. That is, there was no laboratory leak, but the unintended spread among the Chinese population of Wuhan of a virus for which the PLA had underestimated its transmissibility.

Was Fu Sen part of the PLA team conducting that test and was his death the result of exposure to COVID-19?

The reports of influenza-like symptoms from athletes and the death of Fu Sen both fit the timeline for the onset of the pandemic.

Chinese defector Wei Jingsheng also claimed recently that COVID-19 was deliberately released during the Wuhan World Military Games.

A critical question remaining is why are the U.S. and Canadian governments withholding information about the dozens of their military athletes who experienced symptoms identical to COVID-19 either during or soon after attending the Wuhan Games?

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Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. He had a civilian career in international business and medical research. His email address is [email protected].

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