China ready to broker Israel-Palestine peace talks, says foreign minister

China’s foreign minister told his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts his country is ready to help facilitate peace talks, state media reported.

The separate phone calls between Chinese foreign minister, Qin Gang, and the Israeli and Palestinian top diplomats comes amid recent moves by Beijing to position itself as a regional mediator.

Qin encouraged “steps to resume peace talks,” and said that “China is ready to provide convenience for this,” in a Monday phone call with Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen, state media agency Xinhua reported.

Share

No one believed the Covid Wuhan lab leak theory – then the world changed its tune

Claims that Covid leaked from a lab were once roundly dismissed as Trumped-up charges – the ravings of a US president who seemed maliciously hellbent on blaming China for the pandemic.

Now after 18 months of extensive research and analysis, a US Senate Committee has published its full 304 page report into the matter – and it makes for compelling reading.

Share

China’s ‘zero Covid’ policy was a mass imprisonment campaign

In one week last December, five members of Guan Yao’s family in Beijing died, including his father, his father-in-law and his grandmother. In an interview with a journalist, Guan, who lives in California, appeared powerless and dejected. Yet – for reasons that anyone from China understands – he chose his words carefully. Avoiding directly mentioning the Chinese government, he referred only to an ambiguous “them”. “It is difficult to understand,” Guan said, “why they abruptly lifted all restrictions.”

Share

Experts Consulted for Public Health Agency Report Say Capitalism, White Supremacy Partly to Blame for Climate Change

… “It’s really about the foundations of our society, the capitalist system, the culture of extraction, and we need to change that. How do we do that?” one expert asked in the report released on April 17.

“If we don’t address capitalism, if we don’t address colonialism, racism, the patriarchy etcetera we are going to tread water for a long time until we eventually drown,” said another.

The report, titled, “What We Heard: Perspectives On Climate Change And Public Health In Canada,” was commissioned by Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam in order to analyze the impact of climate change on the health and well-being of Canadians, as well as to identify “how public health systems need to be strengthened to undertake this work.”

I have always thought Tam was working for the ChiComs for some reason.

Share

Committee probe into ‘dishonest conduct’ at Trudeau Foundation voted down by Liberals, NDP

OTTAWA – An attempt by the Conservatives to have a parliamentary committee undertake a study aimed at “getting to the bottom of dishonest conduct and attempted foreign interference” of the Trudeau Foundation was voted down by the Liberals and the NDP on Monday.

Share

Covid pandemic sparked by accidental leak from Wuhan lab, US investigation concludes

The 300-page report into Covid origins finds leak was likely ‘unintentional resulting from failures of biosafety containment’

The pandemic was probably the result of a “research-related incident” at a laboratory in Wuhan, China, a lengthy US Senate report concluded.

It said the theory that Covid-19 jumped from animals to humans in a market no longer deserved the “presumption of accuracy”.

The 300-page report, released to Axios, was the full version of a 35-page summary published in October by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Share

FBI finds Canadian link in covert Chinese police station probe

One of two men arrested for allegedly operating a secret police station for China in Manhattan had photographic evidence on his phone of the opening of a similar covert station in Canada, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation says.

Lu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, were arrested Monday on charges of conspiring to act as agents of China’s government without informing U.S. authorities, and obstruction of justice.

Share

Beyond TikTok: Let’s Talk About Another Chinese Trojan Horse

Unless you happen to live under a rock or on an oil rig, you’re no doubt familiar with TikTok, the Chinese-owned video sharing app that has been accused of being a Trojan horse for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The vast majority of Americans, according to recent Pew findings, now support a ban on TikTok. Some Democrats, however, believe a ban would be “racist.”

In truth, banning TikTok has absolutely nothing to do with racism. It is a matter of national security. Beyond the U.S., countries like France, Norway, and The Netherlands are pushing forward with plans to ban the app. In 2020, India imposed a nationwide ban on TikTok (as well as a number of other Chinese apps), citing privacy and security concerns. More recently, Taiwan imposed a public sector ban on the controversial app. 

Share

China’s Stateside ‘Rent-A-Womb’ Industry Poses Yet Another National Security Nightmare

American policymakers need to get serious about countering the threat from communist China. While the House China Select Committee has announced it will be investigating Chinese investment in U.S. research and academia, farmland, entertainment, social media, and defense contracts, it should also examine the Chinese “rent-a-womb” industry in America.

Increasingly, Chinese nationals are using American surrogates to bear their children. Thanks to in vitro fertilization, they don’t even need to leave China.

Share

Biden Is Emboldening China to Invade Taiwan

China just substantially reduced a three-day no-fly zone it had declared northeast of Taiwan. The zone, originally scheduled to run from the 16th to the 18th of this month, was scaled back to just 27 minutes on the 16th.

China’s Maritime Safety Administration said the closure was due to “aerospace activities.” Apparently, the initial stage of a Chinese space launch vehicle will be falling back to earth at that time.

Taiwan said it had objected to the duration of the Chinese zone as initially announced. Others, including aviation authorities, complained to Beijing as well.

Share

U.S. charges two with setting up Chinese ‘secret police station’ in New York

NEW YORK, April 17 (Reuters) – U.S. law enforcement officials have arrested two New York residents for allegedly operating a Chinese “secret police station” in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood, the top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn said in a statement on Monday.

Liu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, face charges of conspiring to act as an agent of China’s government without informing U.S. authorities and obstruction of justice, prosecutors said. They are expected to appear in federal court in Brooklyn federal court later on Monday.

Share

Meet the Chinese billionaire who donated to the Trudeau Foundation

Useful Idiot Justin Trudeau with Zhang Bin.

Zhang Bin, a wealthy Chinese businessman, finds himself in the middle of a controversial 2016 donation to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation that The Globe and Mail has reported was linked to the Chinese government, allegedly part of Beijing’s meddling in Canadian democratic processes.

A Chinese citizen with a home in Quebec, Mr. Zhang is president of the China Cultural Industry Association, a government-backed body that promotes Chinese soft power around the world. He is also a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body, and, according to a now-deleted profile of him on the industry association website, a member of the ruling Communist Party.

More like “Meet the Chinese billionaire who bought Justin Trudeau.”

Share

Grappling with foreign interference allegations at home, MPs look to Taiwan for ideas

As a multi-party delegation of Canadian politicians returns home from Taiwan, MPs say Canada can learn lessons from the island when it comes to dealing with the threat of foreign interference from China.

Speaking to CBC’s The House from Taiwan as they prepared to depart, Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong and Liberal MP John McKay — who chairs the parliamentary committee on national defence — said they had been impressed by the Taiwanese approach to resisting disinformation campaigns.

“I think there’s a lot of lessons that Canada can learn about foreign interference and how society and government should respond to harden Canadian society against this meddling that we’re experiencing from Beijing,” Chong told host Catherine Cullen.

Share

China Trashing the Global Environment: ‘There Is No Fish in the Waters’

China – Steward of the environment

China’s overseas infrastructure projects present high-impact risks to the environment, a new study has found.

The report — conducted by researchers from the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, the University of Queensland, the University of California Santa Barbara, and Colorado State University — focused on the risks to coastal and marine ecological systems posed by 114 of China’s overseas development projects between the years 2008-2019. According to the document, those 114 projects represent only 20% of all Chinese development finance projects in that time period, meaning that the results of the study are probably just the tip of the iceberg.

Share

Leaked Pentagon docs show the shot-down Chinese spy balloon may have had a feature known as ‘synthetic aperture radar’ that can see through certain materials, WaPo reports

In February, a high-altitude balloon with surveillance capabilities connected to China flew over the continental US before being shot down over the Atlantic.

At the time, much about the balloon wasn’t known publicly, but a new trove of Pentagon documents leaked on Discord show it — and up to four other previously unknown spy balloons like it — could have had a feature known as “synthetic aperture radar” that can see through certain objects, the Washington Post reported.

Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old US National Guard airman, was arrested Thursday in connection to the leaks.

h/t DM

Share