Top Gun: Maverick is giving star Tom Cruise his biggest opening weekend of all time as the unofficial start to summer and the blockbuster movie season begins. The film has already grossed $150 million domestically and promises to do boffo business in the coming weeks.
Assuming this is real (and it appears to be), there has been what’s being described as an unprecedented leak of a recording of a top-secret meeting of China’s People’s Liberation Army leadership. During the meeting, senior military and CCP officials are heard discussing detailed plans to “smash” the military forces of Taiwan. There are also detailed discussions of logistical support for the invasion involving various companies that will provide needed supplies.
Russia’s war on Ukraine has brought renewed attention to Russia’s nuclear arsenal and the risk of nuclear war, especially after Russian President Vladimir Putin placed his country’s nuclear forces on high alert shortly after invading Ukraine on February 24. Close to half of Americans are very concerned that Russia would directly target the U.S. with nuclear weapons, and an additional 3 in 10 are somewhat concerned about that, according to a recent poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The highly coercive and potentially lethal systems of control used against minority groups in China’s internment camps have been revealed in a giant cache of secret documents shared with the BBC.
China insists the network of secure facilities built across its far western region of Xinjiang are simply “schools” for combatting extremism to which “students” sign up willingly. But the contents of the leaked Xinjiang Police Files suggest a different story.
President Joe Biden said the US military would intervene to defend Taiwan in any attack from China, comments that appeared to break from the longstanding US policy of “strategic ambiguity” before they were walked back by White House officials.
Asked during a press briefing on Monday in Tokyo whether the US would be willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan after not doing so in Ukraine, Biden said “yes — it’s a commitment we made.”
“We agree with the One China policy, we signed onto it and all the attendant agreements made from there,” Biden added. “But the idea that — that it can be taken by force, just taken by force, is just not — it’s just not appropriate. It will dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine.”
Last October, China convened, via video link, the first foreign ministerial conference with nine Pacific Island states: Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu.
The Chinese quickly followed up this initiative on December 3, 2021, by establishing “The China-Pacific Island Countries Reserve of Emergency Supplies” — an arrangement that the Chinese Provincial Government of Guangdong has with the Pacific Island countries that in the event of a public health emergency or natural disaster, China will provide needed medical supplies.
The only Covid narrative that doesn’t directly aim to control people has to do with determining the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Discovering the origin of the virus should have been a top priority, but it was not. Why? Perhaps, instead of controlling people, the goal in this case was to cover for complicit behavior.
Among the many circumlocutions and outright non-answers to straightforward questions about what the federal government announced Thursday, in relation to restraints Canada might place on the ability of China’s multinational telecommunications giants to hack, spy and hold Canada’s critical telecommunications infrastructure to ransom, it isn’t easy to pick one that stands out in its absurdity. That’s because there were so many of them.
Xi Jinping is making it increasingly difficult for citizens to leave the country
Life for ordinary Chinese people like me is changing fast — both in and outside of the mainland. As restrictions grow ever tighter across the country, people are beginning to question if they are really about Covid. Take, for instance, the latest announcement by China’s National Immigration Authority (NIA), that they intend to ‘strictly restrict non-essential outbound activities of Chinese citizens’.
On May 12, India confirmed that it would provide a desperate Sri Lankan government 65,000 metric tons of urea, pursuant to an existing $1 billion credit line. The sale, which overrides New Delhi’s ban on the exports of the commodity, relieves severe pressure on the government of Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Sri Lanka since the end of March has been wracked by violent protests. “Shoot-on-sight” orders have for the most part restored order, but the unrest has led to the replacement of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, once the country’s dominate political figure. His brother, the president, is unlikely to survive the tumult. The ongoing economic and financial crisis is Sri Lanka’s worst since independence from Britain in 1948.
China has been unabashed about making its intentions known. Already in 1999, two colonels in China’s People’s Liberation Army, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiansui, wrote, “Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America.” In it, the authors “suggest the significance of alternatives to direct military confrontation, including international policy, economic warfare, attacks on digital infrastructure and networks, and terrorism. Even a relatively insignificant state can incapacitate a far more powerful enemy by applying pressure to their economic and political systems.” Ideally, “one might not even know that one is the target.”
Canada’s decision to ban Huawei and ZTE from the country’s 5G telecommunications network will be a blow to an already tense relationship with China, experts warn.
Although it’s not yet clear if China will retaliate beyond strong condemnation of Canada’s decision, experts say the possibility exists that the risk has increased for Canadian travellers and businesses in China.
Too bad, maybe don’t play ball with commie slavers?
Like clockwork … China accuses Canada of ‘political manipulation’ over 5G ban of Huawei, ZTE
Beijing has accused Ottawa of “political manipulation” after it moved to ban Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE from Canada’s 5G networks.
Speaking at a regular press conference on Friday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Canada’s decision “runs counter to market economy principles and free trade rules and has seriously damaged the rights and interests of Chinese companies.”
“China will make comprehensive and serious assessment of the situation and take all necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies,” he told reporters in Beijing.
Canada is set to announce it will ban China’s Huawei from participating in the country’s 5G wireless network, CTV News has confirmed.
As U.S. baby formula shortage spills into Canada, questions arise over why our biggest producer doesn’t sell to Canadians
… Canada Royal Milk is a Kingston-based plant owned by a Chinese multinational company, which has received government funding through Ontario’s jobs and prosperity fund for the food and beverage sector. The plant, construction for which began in 2017, makes formula with Canadian cow and goat milk, and ships its products to China, said Charlebois.
Canadians essentially subsidize the dairy industry through the supply-management system, argued Charlebois. He thinks that if the company isn’t making products to be sold in Canada, it should have to buy its milk from outside the supply-management chain.
“That would be acceptable because it would no longer be supply-managed, it would no longer be subsidized,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Canadian Dairy Commission said it is very common for processing companies in Canada to buy Canadian supply-managed dairy and use it for products that are then exported.
Our China class at work.
Analysis by US officials of the black box flight recorders found amid the wreckage suggests deliberate input from the cockpit forced the Boeing 737-800 plane into its catastrophic dive.
The Wall Street Journal quoted an unnamed source who said: “The plane did what it was told to do by someone in the cockpit.”
A China Eastern Airlines plane that crashed in March, killing 132 people, appears to have been intentionally flown into the mountainside below by someone at the controls, according to reports.
