Category: China

The details of why the U.S. government has black listed Chinese owned Huawei telecom equipment has finally leaked out and it worse than I expected it to be:

On paper, it looked like a fantastic deal. In 2017, the Chinese government was offering to spend $100 million to build an ornate Chinese garden at the National Arboretum in Washington DC. Complete with temples, pavilions and a 70-foot white pagoda, the project thrilled local officials, who hoped it would attract thousands of tourists every year.      

But when US counterintelligence officials began digging into the details, they found numerous red flags. The pagoda, they noted, would have been strategically placed on one of the highest points in Washington DC, just two miles from the US Capitol, a perfect spot for signals intelligence collection, multiple sources familiar with the episode told CNN.  

Also alarming was that Chinese officials wanted to build the pagoda with materials shipped to the US in diplomatic pouches, which US Customs officials are barred from examining, the sources said.     

Federal officials quietly killed the project before construction was underway.       

The canceled garden is part of a frenzy of counterintelligence activity by the FBI and other federal agencies focused on what career US security officials say has been a dramatic escalation of Chinese espionage on US soil over the past decade.         

Since at least 2017, federal officials have investigated Chinese land purchases near critical infrastructure, shut down a high-profile regional consulate believed by the US government to be a hotbed of Chinese spies and stonewalled what they saw as clear efforts to plant listening devices near sensitive military and government facilities.    

CNN

You can read more at the link, but the Chinese government is blatantly trying to stop the U.S. military’s ability to respond to a nuclear attack. The obvious conclusion is that the Chinese government must be considering a first strike option with nuclear weapons to put this much effort into preventing a U.S. response. According to the article the Chinese government is playing the race card and blaming all this on xenophobia.

Reading the article had me thinking of the book Ghost Fleet and wondering what other Chinese made technology is out there that could interfere with U.S. military operations during a contingency?

This is not good for South Korea’s economy by becoming increasingly dependent on Chinese imports, especially semiconductors:

U.S. high-tech restrictions on China are taking a toll on Korea’s trade balance.  
   
For the first time in 30 years, Korea has recorded a trade deficit with China, its biggest trading partner.   

Exports to the country totaled $13.4 billion in May and imports $14.6 billion, resulting in a $1.1 billion deficit, according to the Korea Custom Service. This month, a $690 million shortfall is forecast.    
   
The government is concerned about the growing trade deficit with China, and the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) Beijing office has started to work on damage assessment.    
   
According to a KITA study, 16.5 percent of Korea’s imports from China were semiconductors, 10.3 percent fine chemicals for batteries and 5.5 percent computers.    
   
Last month, Korea imported $2.4 billion of Chinese semiconductors, a 40.9 percent increase year-on-year. Korea’s No.1 export to China was semiconductors. On year, semiconductor exports to China were up 11 percent.    
   
China has been speeding up its semiconductor localization after efforts by the United States to cut it off from certain key technologies.  
   
The development of semiconductors in China is being pursued much as the country pursued the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb and the satellite.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

According to the article half of the items in the exchanges are from China. I am actually surprised that number is that low. I try to buy things not manufactured in China and often time every brand of the product I am looking for is made in China. It would be interesting to see what the exchanges would look like without made in China products:

Some military resale experts are warning that a proposal to ban the sale of Chinese-made products in military exchanges and commissaries would be “devastating,” especially to exchanges.

The proposal, an amendment introduced by Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., was approved by the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday.

“We cannot in good conscience fill post exchanges with products created with slave labor and sponsored by and benefiting financially the authoritarian regime of the Chinese Communist Party,” Green said during the markup of fiscal 2023 defense policy bill. In addition, he said, “The Chinese Communist Party believes they can steal our military technology without consequence. We need to show them that isn’t the case.

“The last thing we want to do is financially contribute to their tyranny. They’re laughing at the idea of American soldiers funding their schemes by filling the shelves of our PXs and BXs with their products.”

Army Times

You can read more at the link.

I hope they throw this guy in jail for the rest of his life. A message needs to be sent to these people who so easily sell out their country like this:

A retired U.S. Army helicopter pilot pleaded guilty Thursday in San Diego for selling sensitive aviation-related information to China, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.

Shapour Moinian, 67, admitted in federal court to acting as an agent of a foreign government, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and a $250,000 fine, according to the Thursday news release.

He also pleaded guilty to making false statements during national security background checks, which carries a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 29. As part of the plea agreement, federal prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence of no more than 20 months.

“The defendant admitted to being an unregistered agent of a foreign power, lying on his background check paperwork to obtain his security clearance, knowingly providing proprietary information to people controlled by the Chinese government, and willingly receiving payments from them,” Stacey Moy, the FBI agent in charge of the case, said in the news release.

“This is another example of how the Chinese government enhances its defense capabilities through the illicit exploitation of U.S. technology,” Moy said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but of interest is that this guy was using a South Korean bank that the Chinese agents would put the money in. His stepdaughter would then take out the money from the bank for her dad.

Typical communist tactic of blaming someone else for your own internal problems:

According to the local pro-government outlet Global Times, Dandong is currently facing a spike in daily coronavirus cases, and the border city has periodically locked down residential complexes since April.

However, city officials have been unable to establish a chain of transmission for the spread, nor have they determined how the virus is entering the city, Bloomberg first reported.

One potential answer they’ve reached is that the wind may be blowing the virus into residents’ homes from epidemic-stricken North Korea. According to NK News, Kim Jong Un’s regime has recorded more than 4.2 million “fever cases” — likely to be COVID-19 cases that the country can’t confirm due to a lack of testing kits,

Insider

You can read more at the link.