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Potential Biden NASA Pick Has Ties to Chinese Company Blacklisted by Pentagon

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President Joe Biden’s potential pick to lead NASA has a history of investments tied to a Chinese technology giant and has advocated for cooperating with China in space.

Former senator Bill Nelson (D., Fla.) is reportedly jockeying to lead America’s space agency under Biden. Sources close to Nelson say that his closed-door campaign for the position is more than a rumor. As a former career astronaut, Nelson would seem a natural to lead the agency, but Nelson’s financial and political ties to China could complicate his potential confirmation.

Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) criticized Nelson on the campaign trail for holding between $3,003 and $45,000 in a mutual fund invested in China Mobile, a Chinese state-owned telecommunications company. At the time, Nelson dismissed the revelation as unimportant compared with Scott’s own investments. China Mobile is China’s largest telecommunications provider, and the Department of Defense in November blacklisted the company, along with 19 other major Chinese companies, for its ties to the Chinese military. Adjacent state-owned Chinese businesses have developed 5G satellite technology that NASA may need to make note of in its daily operations. . .

Beyond financial interests, Nelson touts a long track record of championing closer ties with China in space. In 2004, Nelson met with both the Chinese ambassador and Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei in an intimate meeting to discuss space issues and the potential for Sino-American cooperation in space. Nelson was among the first Americans to congratulate Yang on his successful launch, saying that he hoped China could emerge as a key partner in American space initiatives, while some Republicans remained troubled by China’s growing space ambitions. Nelson told the Chinese ambassador that he wanted closer ties with Beijing in space efforts, even going as far as supporting a joint mission to Mars with China in their 2004 meeting. (Read more from “Potential Biden NASA Pick Has Ties to Chinese Company Blacklisted by Pentagon” HERE)

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China, World Champion of Forced Abortion, Worries Pfizer Vaccine May Hurt Pregnant Women

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. . .China’s harsh population control policies made it the world champion of forced abortions for four decades running, and it is currently working overtime to reduce the birth rates for racial minorities with forced sterilization and abortion. The Chinese Communist Party’s recent effort to look on the bright side of ethnic cleansing by noting the lack of children gives women more free time to pursue their dreams was not well received.

The Global Times nevertheless claimed to be deeply concerned about pregnant women signing up for trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine:

Some Chinese health experts believe it’s too risky and pregnant women should not get any vaccination for trials, while some said the health risks of pregnant women getting vaccinated are much lower than after contracting the virus.

In China, pregnant women are not recommended to receive COVID-19 vaccines, and other vaccines are also generally not recommended for them due to limited research data, Wang Huaqing, the chief immunologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a press conference in December 2020.

Pfizer’s clinical trials for pregnant women gained much attention from Chinese netizens. Many of them questioned whether it’s ethical to run tests on pregnant women especially when the death incidents in some Western countries involving elderly people have raised wide concern on the safety of the Pfizer vaccine.

(Read more from “China, World Champion of Forced Abortion, Worries Pfizer Vaccine May Hurt Pregnant Women” HERE)

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China Warns Biden After Dual Aircraft Carrier Drill

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China has delivered a warning to the new U.S. administration not to meddle in the sensitive South China Sea region, where President Joe Biden has ordered his first naval moves since assuming the commander-in-chief title just weeks ago.

The U.S. Navy’s Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group joined the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group on Tuesday for rare dual aircraft carrier exercises involving the massive Nimitz-class warships alongside accompanying vessels and aircraft. . .

“The United States frequently sent vessels and aircraft to the South China Sea to flex its muscles,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters. “This is not conducive to peace and stability in the region.”

“The US move is a repeat of its old trick to manipulate the cross-Strait situation in mixed ways, which has seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, gravely undermined regional peace and stability, and deliberately disrupted the good atmosphere of peace, friendship and cooperation in the South China Sea,” Tian said in a statement published Friday by the Chinese Defense Ministry. (Read more from “China Warns Biden After Dual Aircraft Carrier Drill” HERE)

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U.S. Admiral Warns of ‘Real Possibility’ of Nuclear War

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The admiral who heads the US Strategic Command — which is responsible for nuclear deterrence — is calling on the nation’s military and civilian leaders to seek new ways to face threats by Russia and China, including the “real possibility” of nuclear conflict.

Adm. Charles Richard warned that Moscow and Beijing have “begun to aggressively challenge international norms” in “ways not seen since the height of the Cold War.”

“There is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons, if they perceived a conventional loss would threaten the regime or state,” he wrote in the February issue of Proceedings, the US Naval Institute’s monthly magazine.

“Consequently, the U.S. military must shift its principal assumption from ‘nuclear employment is not possible’ to ‘nuclear employment is a very real possibility,’ and act to meet and deter that reality.”

He added: “We cannot approach nuclear deterrence the same way. It must be tailored and evolved for the dynamic environment we face.” (Read more from “U.S. Admiral Warns of ‘Real Possibility’ of Nuclear War” HERE)

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China Explores Anuses for COVID-19 Testing

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Chinese authorities have used coronavirus tests that rely on anal swabs as the country reports an uptick in COVID-19 cases.

The tests are typically reserved by health care professionals for high-risk cases, such as those in quarantine sites, according to multiple reports citing state-run channel CCTV.

However, the method was also used in a group of schoolchildren and teachers in Beijing last week, according to multiple reports. Throat and nose swabs were also used in the group.

Nose and anal swabs were also taken from a group of passengers on a flight from Changchun, China, to Beijing on Monday.

Others travelers arriving in Beijing have also been asked to use anal swabs. One woman, who was not identified by name, was asked to use an anal swab in a mandatory hotel quarantine in Beijing alongside several nose and throat tests and a blood test, Bloomberg News reported. (Read more from “China Explores Anuses for COVID-19 Testing” HERE)

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China Is Rehearsing for When It Overtakes America; More Evidence of ‘Suspicious Activity’ at the Wuhan Institute of Virology Emerges

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By CNN. China wants to lead the global recovery from the pandemic and become more influential on the world stage than ever before. It might just have the momentum — and the confidence — to pull that plan off.

The world’s second largest economy shrugged off much of the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic last year, and its ability to keep growing while the world crashed into recession could mean its GDP exceeds that of the United States later this decade, years earlier than expected.

“China emerged from the Covid-19 shock earlier than the rest of the world and authorities are already planning for the long term,” wrote Françoise Huang, senior economist for Asia-Pacific at Euler Hermes, in a report last week titled, “The world is moving East, fast.”

China just outpaced the United States in attracting foreign direct investment for the first time. And as 2020 was drawing to a close, it signed a trade agreement with the European Union with the aim of boosting growth and giving European companies greater access to its 1.4 billion consumers. Now, Beijing is starting the new year without one of its most aggressive political adversaries, former US President Donald Trump, breathing down its neck. (Read more from “China Is Rehearsing for When It Overtakes America” HERE)

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More Evidence of ‘Suspicious Activity’ at the Wuhan Institute of Virology Emerges

By Sky News. “More and more evidence” is emerging that there was “suspicious activity” at the Wuhan Institute of Virology prior to the pandemic outbreak, according to Sky News host Sharri Markson.

“Some of this evidence points to the fact that this laboratory had workers who fell ill … around August of 2019”.

Ms Markson said the US State Department has released a fact sheet which says for more than a year, the Chinese Communist Party has systematically prevented a transparent and thorough investigation of the origin of the pandemic.

Instead choosing to devote enormous resources to deceit and disinformation, while nearly two million people have died, Ms Markson said.

The fact sheet was released by the US State Department on January 16. (Read more from “More Evidence of ‘Suspicious Activity’ at the Wuhan Institute of Virology Emerges” HERE)

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Report: Foreign Companies Are Giving up on the United States and Betting Big on China

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Foreign companies are turning their backs on the United States, taking advantage of China’s booming economy and superior management of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Direct investment in the US by foreign companies plummeted 49% to $134 billion last year, according to a report released Sunday by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. By contrast, foreign direct investment in China grew by 4% to $163 billion in 2020.

2020 marked the first year in history that foreign direct investment in China overtook that of the US, according to the UN. China is now the world’s largest recipient of foreign companies’ investments. . .

After hitting a high of $440 billion in 2015, according to the US Commerce Department, foreign investment in the US has been on a sharp downward slide. Former President Donald Trump’s go-it-alone trade policies hurt foreign investment — particularly from China, which represented the sharpest drop in US investment over the past several years. Growing economic uncertainty around the globe also contributed to the decline. (Read more from “Report: Foreign Companies Are Giving up on the United States and Betting Big on China” HERE)

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China’s Gift for the Biden Inauguration Is a Conspiracy Theory About COVID-19’s U.S. Origins

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A conspiracy theory that links the origins of Covid-19 to a US military lab is trending on Chinese social media on Wednesday (Jan. 20), after a spokesperson from the country’s foreign ministry redirected the public’s focus to the lab this week.

The fresh attention being drawn by a Chinese official to the theory just ahead of the inauguration of Joe Biden today (Jan. 20) as president, could indicate that the new administration will face an uphill battle when it comes to US-China relationship, and a continuation of the blame game between the two countries over the pandemic.

Hua Chunying, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, said on Monday (Jan. 18) at a press conference that the US should open Fort Detrick, a military medical research base in Maryland, for further investigation as a possible origin of Covid-19. “I’d like to stress that if the United States truly respects facts, it should open the biological lab at Fort Detrick, give more transparency to issues like its 200-plus overseas bio-labs, invite WHO [the World Health Organization] experts to conduct origin-tracing in the United States, and respond to the concerns from the international community with real actions,” she said. (Read more from “China’s Gift for the Biden Inauguration Is a Conspiracy Theory About COVID-19’s U.S. Origins” HERE)

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China Ties Raise Questions for Biden’s Pick for Top Defense Post

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Joe Biden’s pick for a top Pentagon post works at a research center partnered with China’s Peking University, a school that has long been eyed as a security risk by western intelligence.

Colin Kahl, whom Biden tapped for undersecretary of defense for policy, has served as a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University since the beginning of 2018. The institute oversees the Stanford Center at Peking University in northern Beijing, which opened in 2012.

Peking University, which is run by former Beijing spy chief Qiu Shuiping and has been linked to multiple espionage cases in the United States, recently updated its charter to require loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, according to an NPR report. The school has also been ramping up its student and faculty surveillance system in what China watchers see as part of the government’s broader crackdown on independent scholarship.

Kahl is not the first Biden nominee whose employer has business entanglements in China. Biden’s pick for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, cofounded the consulting firm WestExec, which helped U.S. universities raise money from China without running afoul of Pentagon grant requirements, the Washington Free Beacon reported last month. WestExec scrubbed the details of this work from its website over the summer. (Read more from “China Ties Raise Questions for Biden’s Pick for Top Defense Post” HERE)

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DNI: China ‘Sought To Influence’ 2020 US Election

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Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe assessed that China interfered in the 2020 federal elections, according to a letter transmitted to Congress.

In the letter (pdf), Ratcliffe alleges that intelligence about China’s election interference was suppressed by management at the CIA, which pressured analysts to withdraw their support for the view.

Citing a report by the Intelligence Community’s analytic ombudsman Barry Zulauf, the director of national intelligence said that some analysts were reluctant to describe China’s actions as election interference because they disagreed with the policies of President Donald Trump.

The Washington Examiner published Ratcliffe’s letter and the ombudsman report on Jan. 17, 10 days after publishing an original report on the documents. The ODNI didn’t immediately respond to requests from The Epoch Times to authenticate the documents.

“Based on all available sources of intelligence, with definitions consistently applied, and reached independent of political considerations or undue pressure—that the People’s Republic of China sought to influence the 2020 U.S. federal elections,” Ratcliffe wrote. (Read more from “DNI: China ‘Sought To Influence’ 2020 US Election” HERE)

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