Posts

FCC Orders China-Owned Phoenix TV to Cease Us-Mexico Broadcasts Within 48 Hours; China’s Warning After U.S. Labels 4 Media Firms as “Propaganda Outlets”

/0 Comments/in , /by

By Washington Examiner. The Federal Communications Commission gave a Chinese government-linked Phoenix Radio, which broadcasts from Mexico into the United States, just 48 hours to cease its cross-border operations after it concealed the company’s ties to Beijing.

The FCC’s International Bureau announced Monday that it dismissed a broadcast application to deliver Mandarin Chinese programming from a studio located in California to XEWW-AM in Mexico for rebroadcast back over the border into the U.S. The FCC said the application was dismissed “because the parties failed to include in their application a key participant” — Phoenix TV — “which produces the Mandarin programming in its studio.”

Phoenix Radio is partially owned by two Chinese government-owned groups, Extra Steps Investment Limited and China Wise International Limited. The FCC said, “The parties have 48 hours to cease broadcast operations related to this application.” A 10-page order laid out the FCC’s reasoning.

”Given Phoenix Radio’s extensive role in the operation of the California studio at issue, it was a violation of the Communications Act for that company, which has ties to the Chinese government, not to be included on the application filed with the Commission,” an FCC spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “Therefore, the application was deficient and was dismissed.”

The Phoenix TV radio station owned by China used a tower in Mexico to broadcast into Southern California. The Free Beacon reported the Mexican station was bought by a China-linked investment group in 2018. Phoenix TV came under scrutiny earlier this year when a journalist from the outlet questioned President Trump during a White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing. (Read more from “FCC Orders China-Owned Phoenix TV to Cease Us-Mexico Broadcasts Within 48 Hours” HERE)

_______________________________________________________

China’s Warning After U.S. Labels 4 Media Firms as “Propaganda Outlets”

By NDTV. China threatened Tuesday to retaliate against new US restrictions on Chinese state media, escalating tensions between the two superpowers as they crack down on each other’s news outlets.

The US State Department said Monday it was reclassifying four organisations — China Central Television, China News Service, the People’s Daily and the Global Times — as foreign missions rather than media outlets in the United States, adding to five others designated in February.

China has already expelled more than a dozen American journalists as part of the row.

On Tuesday Beijing decried the latest US move as “bare-faced political suppression of Chinese media” that “further exposes the hypocrisy of the so-called freedom of speech and press which the US likes to flaunt”.

“We strongly urge the US to reject this Cold War mindset and ideological bias… otherwise China will have no choice but to make an appropriate response,” said foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian at a routine briefing. (Read more from “China’s Warning After U.S. Labels 4 Media Firms as “Propaganda Outlets” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Russia: Trump Has Sanctioned Us More in Three Years Than Obama in Eight

/0 Comments/in , /by

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference on Tuesday that the Trump administration has made more sanctions decisions against Russia in three years than the Obama administration did in eight.

“I’ve lost count already, trying to sum up the number of decisions made by both the Obama and the Trump Administrations. The Trump Administration, by the way, has already long surpassed Obama’s by the sheer amount of persons and legal entities covered by these decisions,” said Lavrov, as quoted by Russia’s state-run Tass news agency.

Of course, Lavrov did not render this verdict in an approving manner. He grumbled that the United States has grown less interested in resolving international disputes through negotiations than Russia or China.

“Our American colleagues have basically long ago embarked on abandoning diplomacy as a method of conducting business at the international arena. Unless it is a very exotic diplomacy, comprised of primitive simple moves: a demand is put forth, and, unless the demand meets total capitulation, then sanctions are threatened, complete with an ultimatum terms, and, if there is again no capitulation, the US imposes those sanctions,” he complained. (Read more from “Russia: Trump Has Sanctioned Us More in Three Years Than Obama in Eight” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

China Develops Weapons to Fry U.S. Electric Grid, Eyes High-Tech ‘Pearl Harbor’ Attack

/1 Comment/in , , /by

With the help of stolen U.S. technology, China has developed at least three types of high-tech weapons to attack the electric grid and key technologies in a “surprise Pearl Harbor” assault that could send America into a deadly blackout, according to a new analysis.

According to the report from the independent EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security, China has built a network of satellites, high-speed missiles, and “super-electromagnetic pulse” weapons that could melt down the U.S. electric network, fry critical communications, and stifle aircraft carrier groups.

According to the report, written by the task force’s executive director, Peter Pry, long an expert on EMP warfare, China developed the weapons as part of its “Total Information Warfare” that includes hacking raids on computers.

What’s more, despite China’s promises to attack only after being attacked, Pry revealed new data to show that the communist nation is lying and eager to shoot first with “high-altitude electromagnetic pulse,” or HEMP, weapons launched from satellites, ships, and land.

“China’s military doctrine — including numerous examples presented here of using HEMP attack to win on the battlefield, defeat U.S. aircraft carriers, and achieve against the U.S. homeland a surprise ‘Pearl Harbor’ writ large — is replete with technical and operational planning consistent with a nuclear first-strike,” said Pry in his report provided to Secrets. (Read more from “China Develops Weapons to Fry U.S. Electric Grid, Eyes High-Tech ‘Pearl Harbor’ Attack” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

China Creep on Campus: Dozens of Colleges Fail to Disclose Millions in Chinese Donations

/0 Comments/in , /by

Dozens of top American universities that received funding from the Chinese government failed to disclose those donations to the Department of Education, prompting concerns from education watchdogs about Beijing’s growing influence on campuses.

More than 100 U.S. universities host or once hosted Confucius Institutes, programs underwritten by the Chinese government that teach Chinese language and culture to American college students. The Department of Education requires all credentialed universities to disclose foreign gifts of more than $250,000, but only about 30 percent of institutions with Confucius Institutes have disclosed their financial ties to Beijing, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of federal records.

The Free Beacon reached out to all 75 institutions that did not report their funding to the federal government; 22 of them responded. A common theme of the responses was that the colleges did not disclose their donations because their annual receipts did not meet the $250,000 threshold. For example, a spokesman from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville said the college declined to disclose its 2019 Confucius Institute donations because it received only $246,711.

Rachelle Peterson, director of policy at the National Association of Scholars, called the lack of accountability at prestigious universities “alarming.”

“It is extremely alarming how little transparency there is,” she said. “$250,000 is much too high of a threshold. Gifts of money at much smaller amounts can be very swaying over a college or university, especially the humanities [departments] which traditionally have lower funding.” (Read more from “China Creep on Campus: Dozens of Colleges Fail to Disclose Millions in Chinese Donations” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Chinese Military Officer Arrested While Allegedly Trying to Steal U.S. Medical Research

/0 Comments/in , /by

A Chinese military officer was caught trying to leave California with university research materials this week, after allegedly lying on an application to obtain a visitor visa for a work-study exchange program, the Justice Department announced.

Xin Wang, a scientific researcher and officer with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), was arrested at LAX as he was attempting to board his flight to Tianjin, China, according to court documents unsealed this week. He faces visa fraud charges.

Wang entered the U.S. on March 26, 2019, to conduct scientific research at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), according to his J1 non-immigrant visa application. The application, however, is said to have contained fraudulent statements — including claims that his service with the PLA had ended in 2016 — that were made to increase the chances that he would receive visa approval.

Officials claim Wang revealed that he had instructions from the director of his military lab to observe the layout of the UCSF lab with the understanding that they wanted to try to replicate it in China. He was also accused of attempting to bring materials to China with him and had already emailed research. (Read more from “Chinese Military Officer Arrested While Allegedly Trying to Steal U.S. Medical Research” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

‘Determined for War’: China Orders Fighter Jets

/0 Comments/in , /by

Several Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fighter jets and a U.S. military transport plane flew in Taiwan’s airspace Tuesday morning, Focus Taiwan reported.

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) confirmed the activity in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, saying: “[S]everal Chinese Su-30s briefly entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone southwest of Taiwan, and Taiwan’s Air Force responded with radio warnings and monitored their movements until they flew off.”

Focus Taiwan described China’s fighter jet activity as an “intrusion” into Taiwan’s airspace, while the U.S. C-40A transport plane that flew through Taiwan’s airspace earlier on Tuesday was described by the MND as having done so with Taiwan’s permission. . .

Chinese military “experts” commented on the PLA fighter jets’ flight through Taiwan’s airspace Tuesday in an article published by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspaper Global Times on Wednesday:

The U.S. warplane’s rare flight over Taiwan showed the increasing collaboration between the U.S. military and Taiwan secessionists, and the Chinese mainland’s fighter jet sorties and approaches sent them a powerful warning and demonstrated how much the PLA was determined and prepared for war.

(Read more from “‘Determined for War’: China Orders Fighter Jets” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

China’s Exports and Imports Fall Amid Coronavirus

/0 Comments/in , /by

China’s exports and imports both fell in May as the coronavirus and trade tensions with the U.S. weighed on demand at home and abroad.

Exports fell 3.3 percent compared to a year earlier to $206.8 billion and imports dropped 16.7 percent to $143.9 billion, the Chinese customs agency said Sunday. . .

The fall in exports came after a surprise 3.5 percent rise the previous month. Analysts were expecting the decline, attributing April’s rise to orders placed before virus restrictions hit overseas economies and predicting that American and European customers would also cancel other orders. (Read more from “China’s Exports and Imports Fall Amid Coronavirus” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Google Pulls ‘Remove China Apps’ From Play Store

/0 Comments/in , /by

Remove China Apps, an app that gained popularity in India in recent weeks and did exactly what its name suggests, has been pulled from the Play Store.

The top trending app in India, which was downloaded more than 5 million times since late May and enabled users to detect and easily delete apps developed by Chinese firms, was pulled from Android’s marquee app store for violating Google Play Store’s Deceptive Behavior Policy, TechCrunch has learned.

Under this policy an app on Google Play Store cannot make changes to a user’s device settings, or features outside of the app, without the user’s knowledge and consent, and it cannot encourage or incentivize users into removing or disabling third-party apps.

The app, developed by Indian firm OneTouch AppLabs, gained popularity in India in part because of a growing anti-China sentiment among many citizens as tension between the world’s two most populous nations has escalated in recent days over a Himalayan border dispute.

Several Indian celebrities in recent days have backed the idea of deleting Chinese apps. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev tweeted a video over the weekend that showed him deleting several apps that had affiliation with China. (Read more from “Google Pulls ‘Remove China Apps’ From Play Store” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

China Threatens the UK After Boris Johnson Offers 3 Million Hong Kong Citizens Refuge

/0 Comments/in , /by

China on Wednesday told Britain to “step back from the brink” and “stop interfering” in China’s affairs after Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would offer 3 million Hong Kong citizens the right to come live in the UK. . .

“Today about 350,000 people hold British Nationals (Overseas) passports and another 2.5 million people would be eligible to apply for them. At present these passports allow for visa-free access for up to six months,” Johnson said.

“If China imposes its national security law, the British government will change its immigration rules and allow any holder of these passports from Hong Kong to come to the UK for a renewable period of 12 months and be given further immigration rights including the right to work which would place them on the route to citizenship.” . . .

China hit back, telling Johnson that his intervention would “backfire.”

“We advise the UK to step back from the brink, abandon their Cold War mentality and colonial mindset, and recognise and respect the fact that Hong Kong has returned” to China, Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said at a briefing, according to Agence France-Presse. (Read more from “China Threatens the UK After Boris Johnson Offers 3 Million Hong Kong Citizens Refuge” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Leaked Documents Reveal China Withheld Crucial Information About the Coronavirus at the Start of the Outbreak

/0 Comments/in , /by

China withheld key information about the coronavirus for weeks after it first emerged in January, delaying the international response to the outbreak, a new investigation has revealed.

Chinese officials failed to share the genetic map, or genome, of the virus for over a week after first decoding it and failed to reveal that the virus could be transmitted between humans for a further two weeks, according to internal World Health Organization documents and testimony obtained by the Associated Press.

The AP reported on Tuesday that while scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology decoded the virus on January 2, Chinese health officials did not publish the details of their findings until over a week later, on January 12.

It wasn’t until January 20 that the Chinese state alerted the World Health Organization and other governments that the virus could pass between people, according to the Associated Press investigation.

This was only after a laboratory in Shanghai led by scientist Zhang Yongzhen published the information a day earlier. (Read more from “Leaked Documents Reveal China Withheld Crucial Information About the Coronavirus at the Start of the Outbreak” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE