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Trump Tweets an Ultimatum to the World Health Organization

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By The Blaze. President Donald Trump sent a letter to the World Health Organization laying out their failures in the response to the coronavirus pandemic, and giving them an ultimatum. . .

The letter accuses the WHO of downplaying the pandemic and echoing propaganda from the communist Chinese government.

“You also strongly praised China’s strict domestic travel restrictions, but were inexplicably against my closing of the United States border, or the ban, with respect to people coming from China,” the letter read.

“I put the ban in place regardless of your wishes. Your political gamesmanship on this issue was deadly, as other governments, relying on your comments, delaying imposing life-saving restrictions on travel to and from China,” the letter claimed.

The president says that unless the WHO makes substantive changes, the U.S. may leave the organization and take away its funding permanently. (Read more from “Trump Tweets an Ultimatum to the World Health Organization Over Coronavirus and China” HERE)

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Trump Threatens to Keep WHO Funding Freeze in Place After WH Investigation

By Fox News. . .The White House has insisted that Beijing downplayed the virus’ threat in December, which led to the subsequent outbreak. China has denied the charge.

Trump announced in April that the U.S. would halt funding to the organization. He said at the time that his administration would undertake a 60-to-90 day investigation into why the “China-centric” WHO had caused “so much death” by “severely mismanaging and covering up” the coronavirus’ spread, including by making the “disastrous” decision to oppose travel restrictions on China.

The U.S. was the WHO’s largest single donor. Trump said the United States contributes roughly $400 to $500 million per year to WHO, while China offers only about $40 million.

The WHO “consistently ignored credible reports of the virus” in December 2019. By the end of that month, it was clear at the organization that the virus was a “major health concern.” Taiwanese authorities told health officials at the organization about human-to-human transmission, but that revelation was not shared with the international community. . .

Dr. Rick Bright, a whistleblower who ran the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, blamed the Trump administration for its own slow response to the pandemic and said the administration was instead worried about politics instead of science. (Read more from “Trump Threatens to Keep WHO Funding Freeze in Place After WH Investigation” HERE)

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Chinese Ambassador to Israel Found Dead at Home; China Emerges as Potential Strain on U.S.-Israel Relationship

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By Fox News. China’s ambassador to Israel was found dead inside his home north of Tel Aviv on Sunday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.

Du Wei, 57, arrived in Israel in mid-February amid the coronavirus outbreak and was living in the coastal city of Herzliya on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. He previously served as China’s envoy to Ukraine.

Staff found Du unresponsive in his bed with no signs of violence to his body, the Haaretz daily reported. Initial media reports said Du’s cause of death appeared to be from a cardiac incident. (Read more from “Chinese Ambassador to Israel Found Dead at Home” HERE)

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China Emerges as Potential Strain on U.S.-Israel Relationship

By The Hill. Increasingly close ties between China and Israel risk straining the special relationship Israel has with the U.S., especially as Washington ramps up its feud with Beijing over the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The historic alliance narrowly avoided a diplomatic fallout this week with Israel relenting to U.S. concerns and delaying a Chinese infrastructure project in the country, coinciding with a whirlwind visit by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Jerusalem.

While the U.S. has long expressed concern to Israel over its ties with China, Israeli officials have signaled they are not stepping back from relations with Beijing entirely.

Pompeo used his latest visit to highlight the risk of doing business with the Communist Party.

“We do not want the Chinese Communist Party to have access to Israeli infrastructure, Israeli communication systems, all of the things that put Israeli citizens at risk,” Pompeo said in an interview Thursday with an Israeli news channel, “and in turn put the capacity for America to work alongside Israel on important projects at risk as well.” (Read more from “China Emerges as Potential Strain on U.S.-Israel Relationship” HERE)

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WH Trade Adviser: China Deliberately Allowed Coronavirus to Spread Outside Its Borders; Navarro Ties Obama, Biden and China Together in Coronavirus Attack

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By Breitbart. During an interview broadcast on Friday’s edition of the Fox Business Network’s “WSJ at Large,” White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro stated that China deliberately allowed the coronavirus to spread to the rest of the world and that the virus “could have been contained in Wuhan.”

Navarro said, “China hid the virus behind the shield of the World Health Organization, and that was a time, Gerry, when that virus could have been contained in Wuhan. Instead, what China did was put hundreds of thousands of Wuhanians and Chinese on planes that were allowed to go to Milan and New York and elsewhere, but not to Beijing and Shanghai.” (Read more from “WH Trade Adviser: China Deliberately Allowed Coronavirus to Spread Outside Its Borders” HERE)

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Navarro Ties Obama, Biden and China Together in Coronavirus Attack

By Politico. White House adviser Peter Navarro came out swinging against former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden and China in a vigorous defense of the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.

On Sunday morning, Navarro started off by calling Obama’s administration a “kumbaya of incompetence.”

“I’m glad Mr. Obama has a new job as Joe Biden’s press secretary,” Navarro responded on ABC’s “This Week.” “As far as I’m concerned, his administration was a kumbaya of incompetence in which we saw millions of manufacturing jobs go off to China.” . . .

That statement led Navarro to his next target: Using the term “China virus,” he said it could have been contained in Wuhan, where it was thought to have originated. However, he said, the Chinese government intentionally hid information and sent its citizens to other countries to “seed” the virus. (Read more from “Navarro Ties Obama, Biden and China Together in Coronavirus Attack” HERE)

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Senate Republicans Mobilizing to Confront China; China Acknowledges Destroying Early Coronavirus Samples

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By Daily Caller. Several Senate Republicans are mobilizing plans to confront China for its delay, cover up and suppression of critical information in the lead up to the global coronavirus pandemic, the Daily Caller has learned. Options on the table even include “authorizing U.S. courts to seize Chinese government assets” once an investigation “determine[s] the damages China owes the US — and the world.”

Chinese leader Xi Jinping personally asked the World Health Organization (WHO) to delay the release of information regarding its coronavirus outbreak, German intelligence reported. Xi met with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Jan. 21 to request that he withhold information and delay the declaration of a global pandemic, according to German magazine Der Spiegel’s report, published May 8.

“We now know that leaders at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party actively hid the coronavirus outbreak from the world, silencing those who tried to sound the alarm, prevent a global pandemic, and save lives,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told the Daily Caller. “Next week, I will introduce the Ending Chinese Medical Censorship and Cover Ups Act of 2020, just one of the legislative steps I am taking to hold the Chinese officials involved in medical censorship directly accountable.” (Read more from “Senate Republicans Mobilizing to Confront China” HERE)

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China Acknowledges Destroying Early Coronavirus Samples, Confirming U.S. Accusation

By Newsweek. China has acknowledged it destroyed some samples of the novel coronavirus in the early stages of the outbreak, but challenged U.S. allegations that this was conducted as part of a cover-up.

Liu Dengfeng, a supervisor at the science and education division of China’s National Health Commission, said at a news conference Friday in Beijing that the Chinese government issued an order on January 3 to dispose of novel coronavirus samples at certain facilities not qualified to handle such highly infectious diseases as a measure to “prevent the risk to laboratory biological safety and prevent secondary disasters caused by unidentified pathogens.”

The move came after the novel coronavirus, known now officially as SARS-CoV-2, was classified as Class II or “highly pathogenic” based on research and expert recommendations, Liu said. This decision necessitated “clear requirements on the collection, transportation, experimental use and destruction of the pathogen” in order to avoid a potential mishap or leakage, he said. (Read more from “China Acknowledges Destroying Early Coronavirus Samples, Confirming U.S. Accusation” HERE)

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China: Trump ‘Like a Giant Baby on the Brink of a Meltdown’

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Chinese state media ridiculed U.S. allegations of wrongdoing in the coronavirus pandemic in a spate of editorials on Thursday and Friday, mocking U.S. President Donald Trump as a baby throwing a temper tantrum and repeating the Communist Party’s standard line that all questions about China’s conduct are merely attempts by other nations to distract from their own purportedly inferior responses to the coronavirus.

China’s Global Times claimed people around the world think Trump is “insane” for threatening to disengage economically from China in the wake of the pandemic. . .

The threats advanced by the CCP through its Global Times included ominous warnings about invading Taiwan, as well as confident predictions that American consumers would suffer more than the CCP from disengagement, which sound very similar to the entirely incorrect predictions CCP mouthpieces made before the pre-coronavirus trade war:

China has nothing to be afraid of as “in the past, we didn’t solve the Taiwan question because we wanted to maintain the China-US relationship, and if the US unilaterally cuts it off, we can just reunify Taiwan immediately since the Chinese mainland has an overwhelming advantage to solve this long-standing problem.”

“Trump is like a giant baby on the brink of a meltdown as he faces tremendous pressure due to massive failures that caused such a high death toll,” Shen Yi, an expert from Fudan University, told the Global Times. “It’s like someone who wants to show his guts when he passes by a cemetery in midnight. He needs to shout to give himself the courage,” he said.

(Read more from “China: Trump ‘Like a Giant Baby on the Brink of a Meltdown’” HERE)

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China Is Now a Dangerous Adversary of the United States

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Thursday’s breaking news regarding the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to pull approvals for dozens of mask makers in China proves the point: China must now be seen as an adversary.

For half a century, the American establishment has seen China as a partner on the international stage. Some Americans looked at China and saw only the size of its potential market for American goods; others looked at China and saw it as a strategic linchpin in the Cold War against the Soviet Union; still others saw a vast manufacturing plant with a low-paid workforce that could be used to produce “American” goods inexpensively.

Presidents and administrations both Democratic and Republican saw China as a partner, and worked regularly to deepen the ties that bound the two countries, even as a relatively small number of us voiced concerns over what we saw as the clear national security threat posed by the relationship. . .

The Chinese Communist Party’s behavior in the coronavirus crisis has made clear that China is no “partner” to the United States. China, clearly, is an adversary— and, going forward, the United States must treat it as such, across the entire spectrum of policy.

For now, though, let’s just focus on one aspect of the relationship — the threat posed by China’s virtual chokehold on American medical supplies. Once we opened up free trade with China in the early 2000s, we began shifting production from the United States to China. Our last aspirin manufacturing facility closed down in 2002, as did our last vitamin C plant. Our last penicillin plant closed in 2004. Chinese manufacturers, subsidized by their government, picked up the slack. (Read more from “China Is Now a Dangerous Adversary of the United States” HERE)

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Pompeo Condemns China’s Attempts to Steal Coronavirus Research Data; U.S. to Israel: No More Chinese Deals

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By Newsweek. The U.S. State Department released a statement Thursday denouncing attempts to infiltrate systems involved in U.S. COVID-19 research that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has attributed to China.

“The United States condemns attempts by cyber actors and non-traditional collectors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to steal U.S. intellectual property and data related to COVID-19 research,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

Pompeo’s remarks follow an announcement by the FBI on Wednesday that the bureau is investigating “the targeting and compromise” of organizations conducting research to develop vaccines and other treatments for COVID-19. The efforts were attributed to China-affiliated actors. . .

According to the FBI, digital intruders are seeking to pilfer valuable intellectual property related to this research, jeopardizing “the delivery of secure, effective, and efficient treatment options.” (Read more from “Pompeo Condemns China’s Attempts to Steal Coronavirus Research Data” HERE)

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U.S. to Israel: No More Chinese Deals; Pompeo’s Flying Visit

By Breaking Defense. The United States delivered a clear message to Jerusalem today – avoid further involvement of China in the Israeli economy. The message was one of the main reasons for the very short visit of American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Jerusalem — one day before the new cabinet is sworn in.

“The fact that the visit takes place in these problematic times proves its urgency ” an Israeli source said. Pompeo came to Israel with a very strict message – stop all Chinese investment in Israel, either in high tech companies or infrastructure.

Israeli officials said the message relayed during Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s hours-long visit included a very specific political warning – Israel must stop any action that strengthens the Chinese Communist Party, even if that means canceling projects already planned. (Read more from “U.S. to Israel: No More Chinese Deals; Pompeo’s Flying Visit” HERE)

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In a Retaliatory Move, the U.S. Shortens Visas for Chinese Journalists

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The Department of Homeland Security is throwing the next punch in the escalating journalism battle between the U.S. and China.

The U.S. is shortening the validity period of visas for Chinese journalists to a maximum of 90 days to reciprocate for China’s recent expulsion of American journalists and nonrenewal of visas.

This journalism visa tit-for-tat is just one facet of rising U.S.-China tensions related to Beijing’s mishandling of the coronavirus, which has infected the world.

In March, China expelled American journalists from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post after writers criticized the Chinese government’s mismanagement of the coronavirus outbreak.

Beijing also demanded that those outlets—as well as Voice of America and Time magazine—give the Chinese government detailed information about their operations. The expulsion included Hong Kong and Macau, in addition to the People’s Republic of China itself.

Beijing argued the move was in retaliation for the U.S. limiting five state-run Chinese news organizations to 100 Chinese citizen employees who could work in the U.S.

The U.S. was set on May 11 to make the next move, by changing the terms of media visas for Chinese journalists.

The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes “I” temporary visas for aliens visiting the U.S. as representatives of foreign information media.

To qualify, the alien must be a bona fide representative of foreign press, radio, film, or other foreign information media having its home office in a foreign country. This type of visa is also statutorily required to be provided “upon a basis of reciprocity” with a foreign country’s media visa terms and conditions.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has, per regulation, been admitting foreign media traveling with “I” visas into the U.S. for a “duration of status,” as opposed to issuing a specific “admit until” date on the visitor’s entry record.

Duration of status is a much more flexible and generous term of admission that, in the context of foreign press, has been interpreted by Customs and Border Protection as the duration of the journalist’s employment.

In the Department of Homeland Security’s new rule published May 11, the department changes the term of admission for Chinese journalists from duration of status to a period not to exceed 90 days. The new rule does allow for extensions of stay, also for periods no greater than 90 days.

The DHS explains it is making this regulatory change toward China to achieve greater reciprocity between the U.S.’ and China’s treatment of foreign press seeking entry into the other country.

Unlike China’s journalist clampdown, however, the DHS rule change does not apply to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) or Macau SAR passport holders.

The DHS states in its rule change that “[i]nformation received from the Department of State, as well as open source information, demonstrates a suppression of independent journalism in [China], including an increasing lack of transparency and consistency in the admission periods granted to foreign journalists, including U.S. journalists.”

Notably, the reporters that the Chinese government expelled have reported on issues of interest to international audiences, but which are embarrassing to the Chinese Communist Party, such as its use of indoctrination camps, mass incarceration, forced labor, and corruption among the party’s leaders.

In addition, China has been shortening the media visas it issues to foreign press to periods of six months or less, as opposed to China’s prior 12-month validity period.

China has long used its foreign press to echo the Communist Party’s propaganda abroad, but those tactics have reached a crescendo following the coronavirus outbreak, which originated in Wuhan, China.

The Chinese Communist Party has used its money and threats to influence public statements made by others, such as international organizations like the World Health Organization, to initially downplay the severity of the infectious virus, followed by blaming the United States for the global outbreak.

The United States was founded on the principle of a free press and free speech. Given Beijing’s treatment of foreign press, and American journalists in particular, the DHS is right to reciprocally shorten “I” visas for Chinese media.

Further, the U.S. and all other countries need to strongly combat the Chinese Communist Party’s false coronavirus propaganda. After infecting more than 4.2 million people and instantaneously destroying economies globally, China owes it to the world to be open and transparent with scientific information about the virus.

Until China changes its ways, the Chinese Communist Party should not be rewarded with lengthy visas to spread its misinformation using American media. (For more from the author of “In a Retaliatory Move, the U.S. Shortens Visas for Chinese Journalists” please click HERE)

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Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Continues to Urge Bringing Supply Chain Home

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Peter Navarro, the director of President Donald Trump’s Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, has been repeatedly pushing for the U.S. to bring more of its supply chain home as concerns about dependence on China have mounted amid the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.

As the U.S. has dealt with the public health and economic fall out of the global outbreak of COVID-19, Trump administration officials and some top Republicans have been increasingly critical of China, the country where the novel virus first arose. Chinese officials initially covered up the outbreak in Wuhan, and China has faced mounting international criticism for lacking transparency amid the pandemic. Meanwhile, the U.S. has struggled to build up essential medical supplies, with much of the supply chain relying on products manufactured in China or elsewhere.

“If we don’t learn from this crisis that the only way this great country is going to prosper is by making the stuff we need as much as possible then we will have learned nothing and we will sink into the abyss,” Navarro said Monday in an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box. . .

“The structural pillars going forward are going to be [to] buy American–and that is bringing our supply chains and production home, deregulation to make that possible, and innovation to stay ahead of the competition,” he said. Navrro noted that Trump has been meeting with business leaders to discuss how the supply chain could be brought back to the U.S. (Read more from “Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Continues to Urge Bringing Supply Chain Home” HERE)

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China: “Prepare for Armed Confrontation Between the Two Global Powers”

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Amid the deepest economic contraction in nearly a century, President Xi Jinping had already made it very clear, last month, that China should be ready for unprecedented, relentless foreign challenges.

He was not referring only to the possible decoupling of global supply chains and the non-stop demonization of every project related to the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative.

An allegedly leaked internal document, secret and invisible inside China, but nonetheless obtained by some obscure Western-connected source, even stated, essentially, that the blame game against China over the virus is like the backlash over Tiananmen all over again.

According to the secret, invisible document, China would have to “prepare for armed confrontation between the two global powers” – a reference to the US. It’s as if this was an aggressive strategy deployed by the Chinese state in the first place, and not in response to the massive escalation of hybrid warfare 2.0 by the United States government. . .

What Beijing used to define as a “period of strategic opportunity” is over. There were rumblings in intel circles that the CCP leadership believed this strategic window of opportunity would last unimpeded until the key date, 2049 – when “national rejuvenation” should have been fully accomplished. (Read more from “China: “Prepare for Armed Confrontation Between the Two Global Powers” HERE)

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