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U.S. Says ‘Within International Law’ to Sail Near Taiwan Amid China Warning

The Pentagon is defending its recent operation near Taiwan as compliant with international law in the face of Chinese protests that the U.S. deliberately was aggravating the geopolitically sensitive situation in the disputed waterway.

Senior Colonel Zhang Chunhui, spokesperson for China’s People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command, said Thursday that warships and warplanes were dispatched Thursday to monitor U.S. Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Barry as it sailed near the Taiwan Strait, where Zhang accused the Navy of “seriously undermining the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait.”

Zhang said his forces were “always on high alert” and accused the U.S. of “sending the wrong messages” to those in Taiwan who would seek to officially separate the self-ruling island from the mainland that claims it. . .

Challenging Chinese claims to the Taiwan Strait, the spokesperson said all U.S. operations “were within international waters, within international law.” (Read more from “U.S. Says ‘Within International Law’ to Sail Near Taiwan Amid China Warning” HERE)

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China Has Deployed 60,000 Soldiers on India’s Northern Border

China has amassed more than 60,000 troops on India’s northern border, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said as he hit out at Beijing for its “bad behavior” and the threats it poses to the Quad countries.

The Foreign Ministers from the Indo-Pacific nations known as the Quad group — the US, Japan, India and Australia — met in Tokyo on Tuesday in what was their first in-person talks since the coronavirus pandemic began.

The meeting took place in the backdrop of China’s aggressive military behaviour in the Indo-Pacific, South China Sea and along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

“The Indians are seeing 60,000 Chinese soldiers on their northern border, Mr. Pompeo told The Guy Benson Show in an interview on Friday after his return from Tokyo wherein he attended the second Quad ministerial with his counterparts from India, Japan and Australia.

“I was with my foreign minister counterparts from India, Australia, and Japan — a format that we call the Quad, four big democracies, four powerful economies, four nations, each of whom has real risk associated with the threats imposed — attempting to be imposed by the Chinese Communist Party. And they see it in their home countries too,” he said. (Read more from “China Has Deployed 60,000 Soldiers on India’s Northern Border” HERE)

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China Intensifies Propaganda to Include Simulated Strike on American Soil; U.S. Preps for ‘Irregular Warfare’ With China, Russia

By Washington Free Beacon. China has intensified its propaganda to feature militarist displays, including footage of a simulated airstrike on American territory, the New York Times reported Monday.

Propaganda from Chinese Communist Party-affiliated outlets has increasingly showcased Chinese military strength, featuring footage manipulated from Hollywood movies like The Rock and The Hurt Locker.

“If war breaks out,” one video of Chinese soldiers charging through a forest said, “this is my answer.”

Another video featured a Chinese aircraft attacking Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. That video was soon removed from Chinese social media without explanation after quickly going viral. China’s latest propaganda videos have been viewed millions of times.

In recent months, the growing relationship between the United States and Taiwan, which China views as its sovereign territory, has led to unprecedented Chinese propaganda efforts and military showmanship aimed at both countries. In September, China flew more than a dozen fighter jets near Taiwanese airspace during Taiwan’s reception of Undersecretary of State Keith Krach. (Read more from “China Intensifies Propaganda to Include Simulated Strike on American Soil” HERE)

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U.S. Preps for ‘Irregular Warfare’ With China, Russia

By Asia Times. The US Defense Department says the entire military must get better at “Irregular Warfare” to fend off the rise of not just nonstate terror groups and cyber attackers, but to stymie Russia and China as well.

The National Defense Strategy pivots the Pentagon to focus on potential conflict with those countries and other advanced militaries instead of lower-tech militants in the Middle East and Africa, according to a report by Rachel S. Cohen at Air Force Magazine.

To put it succinctly, “irregular warfare” isn’t just for special operations forces.

A newly published summary of an annex to the 2018 National Defense Strategy argues despite decades of asymmetric conflict — wars where enemies have exploited weaknesses in U.S. technology and tactics — the Pentagon is still underprepared for that kind of combat, the report said. . .

Those types of fights don’t fit neatly into the physical “great power competition” the US expects to wage with fighter jets, hypersonic weapons and other advanced assets, the report said. (Read more from “U.S. Preps for ‘Irregular Warfare’ With China, Russia” HERE)

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WATCH: Biden Lies Again About Trump’s Push for Coronavirus Inspectors in China; Next Debates Will Have ‘Additional Structure,’ Commission Says After First Trump-Biden Face-Off

By Washington Free Beacon. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden repeated a debunked claim that the Trump administration did not push the Chinese government to allow U.S. experts to enter Wuhan, China, during the early days of the pandemic in Tuesday night’s debate. In fact, the U.S. government repeatedly asked the Chinese government to permit Centers for Disease Control experts to enter the country and assist with the pandemic response in January.

(Read more from “Biden Lies Again About Trump’s Push for Coronavirus Inspectors in China” HERE)

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Next Debates Will Have ‘Additional Structure,’ Commission Says After First Trump-Biden Face-Off

By Market Watch. The remaining presidential debates will have “additional structure,” the Commission on Presidential Debates said Wednesday, following Tuesday’s first debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden. The debate, held in Cleveland, was widely criticized as chaotic, with the two candidates frequently interrupting each other. (Read more from “Next Debates Will Have ‘Additional Structure,’ Commission Says After First Trump-Biden Face-Off” HERE)

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China’s Sadistic ‘One-Child Policy’ Inflicted Billions With Unspeakable Suffering

From the start, especially in rural China, the policy was deeply unpopular. As traditional Chinese culture regards more children as indications of further blessings from heaven, even an authoritarian regime had to bow to pressure from time to time. The CCP made several exceptions over the years. For example, if one of the parents belonged to an ethnic minority, the couple could have two children; if the couple’s first child had disabilities, the couple could have another child.

To implement the one-child policy, Deng established a new bureaucracy called the National Population and Family Planning Commission. Unsurprisingly, in the ensuing years, the NPFPC grew into a giant bureaucracy with half a million full-time employees and 85 million part-time employees.

The NPFPC enforced the one-child policy through several means, including “birth permits” requiring married couples to apply for authorization before they could have a child. Children born without a birth permit couldn’t enter the household registration system, meaning they wouldn’t receive food rations and would face challenges enrolling in schools and finding regular employment later in life. . .

Couples violating the “one-child” policy were punished in numerous ways. The most “humane” punishment was a heavy fine that ranged between two to ten times the couple’s annual income. The wide range of fines reflected the fact that local NPFPCs had a great deal of latitude to decide the severity of punishment based on local culture, economic conditions, and most importantly, the zeal for the policy held by a given NPFPC enforcer. When dealing with poorer couples who couldn’t afford the fine, NPFPC enforcers would barge into homes, search for the couple’s most valuable possessions, and haul them away.

The cruelest punishment, however, was forced abortion. The last time I visited China, a friend told me that her neighbor was eight-months pregnant with her second child when the local NPFPC enforcers came to her house, dragged her into a car, and drove her to a local hospital to have an abortion. The nurses had to sedate the mother to perform the procedure. When the poor mother woke up and learned her baby had been murdered, she suffered a mental breakdown. She never recovered. (Read more from “China’s Sadistic ‘One-Child Policy’ Inflicted Billions With Unspeakable Suffering” HERE)

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Chinese State Media: World Rejects ‘American Values’ Like Freedom and Democracy

China’s state-run Global Times cited a few polls and Western op-ed pieces on Sunday to argue the world has rejected “American values” like freedom and democracy.

In the Chinese Communist paper’s view, the U.S. response to China’s coronavirus pandemic, unrest in the streets, and “division and confrontation between political parties” prove the U.S. system does not work and America’s “global leadership is declining.” . . .

The Global Times blamed much of America’s supposed decline on President Donald Trump but then argued that if he had not been elected in 2016, “another similar politician would assume high office sooner or later” because America’s selfish, chaotic, stubbornly individualistic society simply cannot handle the challenges of globalization.

“With globalization worsening various woes in American society, the U.S. will eventually take off its hypocritical moral mask and reveal its true nature. The U.S. does not want to spend a relatively long time to adapt to globalization. It hopes to adopt direct and rampant measures to prevent other countries from making progress and taking the lead,” the Global Times concluded, seemingly predicting the United States will abandon its “hypocritical” concerns about human rights and become more like China. (Read more from “Chinese State Media: World Rejects ‘American Values’ Like Freedom and Democracy” HERE)

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Mother’s Milk Could Help Fight Coronavirus, Study Finds

Mother’s milk could prevent or treat COVID-19, according to a new study by Chinese scientists.

A research team in Beijing tested the effect of human breast milk on cells exposed to the Sars-CoV-2 virus. The milk was collected in 2017, well before the start of the pandemic, and the cell types tested varied from animal kidney cells to young human lung and gut cells.

The results were the same: most living virus strains were killed by the milk.

The breast milk was “blocking viral attachment, entry and even post-entry viral replication,” the team led by Professor Tong Yigang from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology wrote in two non-peer-reviewed papers posted on biorxiv.org on Friday.

Breastfeeding has previously been seen as increasing the risk of viral transmission. (Read more from “Mother’s Milk Could Help Fight Coronavirus, Study Finds” HERE)

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Senate Report: Hunter Biden’s Law Firm Took Nearly $6M From Chinese Oligarch

Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son’s law firm received nearly six million from a Chinese oligarch who sought power and influence in Washington, D.C.

A bombshell report by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and Senate Finance Committee details numerous cases in which Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and family members have deep ties to the Chinese communist government, Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.

One such case notes Hunter Biden’s law firm, Owasco, seemingly accepting nearly six million in consulting fees and legal representation from Chinese oligarch Ye Jianming.

The report details:

On Aug. 8, 2017, CEFC Infrastructure Investment wired $5 million to the bank account for Hudson West III. These funds may have originated from a loan issued from the account of a company called Northern International Capital Holdings, a Hong Kong-based investment company identified at one time as a “substantial shareholder” in CEFC International Limited along with Ye. It is unclear whether Hunter Biden was half-owner of Hudson West III at that time. However, starting on Aug. 8, the same day the $5 million was received, and continuing through Sept. 25, 2018, Hudson West III sent frequent payments to Owasco, Hunter Biden’s firm. These payments, which were described as consulting fees, reached $4,790,375.25 in just over a year. [Emphasis added]

(Read more from “Senate Report: Hunter Biden’s Law Firm Took Nearly $6M From Chinese Oligarch” HERE)

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Mike Pompeo Warns U.S. Politicians to Be Alert to Chinese ‘Influence and Espionage’

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday (Sept 23) warned US politicians at the state and local level to be vigilant around Chinese diplomats who he said could be trying to woo them as part of Beijing’s propaganda and espionage campaign.

Speaking in the Wisconsin state capitol, Pompeo said the State Department was reviewing the activities of the US-China Friendship Association and the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification over suspicions they are trying to influence US schools, business groups and local politicians.

The two groups are linked to China’s United Front Work Department, an organ of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, he said.

“Know that when you are approached by a Chinese diplomat, it is likely not in the spirit of cooperation or friendship,” Pompeo said, warning of the Chinese Communist Party’s “influence and espionage campaigns” even at the municipal level.

“The federal government can’t police every bit of this predatory and coercive behaviour. We need your help… Protecting American interests requires vigilance, vigilance that starts with you – and all state legislators, regardless of party,” he said. (Read more from “Mike Pompeo Warns U.S. Politicians to Be Alert to Chinese ‘Influence and Espionage'” HERE)

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‘Beyond a Doubt’: COVID-19 Pandemic Could Have Been Prevented If China, WHO Acted

The coronavirus pandemic likely “could have been prevented” if the Chinese government acted more transparently and the World Health Organization wasn’t “complicit in the spread and normalization” of their propaganda during the outbreak’s early days, an audit from the House Foreign Affairs Committee reportedly says.

The 96-page document authored by Republicans in the committee — which the New York Post says it exclusively obtained Monday before its planned release — also reportedly calls for the resignation of WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom over his “detrimental impact on the COVID-19 response.”

“It is beyond doubt that the Chinese Communist Party actively engaged in a cover-up designed to obfuscate data, hide relevant public health information, and suppress doctors and journalists who attempted to warn the world,” it said, according to the New York Post.

“Research shows the CCP could have reduced the number of cases in China by up to 95 percent had it fulfilled its obligations under international law and responded to the outbreak in a manner consistent with best practices,” it added, while also saying “it is highly likely the ongoing pandemic could have been prevented.” . . .

The document also accuses WHO of ignoring warnings from Taiwan and Hong Kong about the risk of human-to-human transmission and then falsely claiming for weeks that Chinese researchers found “no evidence” of that happening, the New York Post reported. (Read more from “‘Beyond a Doubt’: COVID-19 Pandemic Could Have Been Prevented If China, WHO Acted” HERE)

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