China has invented a mosquito-sized spy drone, and now I can’t wait for Trump to come up with a flyswatter. If a Democrat were in the White House, they’d probably be considering introducing a mandate to wear full-body-sized masks to protect against spy mosquitoes. But I know Trump wouldn’t do that. Trump would rather blast Chinese flies with a cannon than further erode individual freedoms. And so would I.
Senators met yesterday for a subcommittee hearing to discuss claims that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), foreign donors, and leftist legal activism are behind a “systematic campaign” to dismantle American energy dominance.
Throughout the hearing, Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, emphasized how foreign funding and activist litigation are undermining U.S. energy infrastructure, posing a national security threat. His four Democrat colleagues repeatedly dismissed the concerns as a “conspiracy theory,” instead focusing on energy costs and “global warming.”
Federal infrastructure bank provided $1-billion in financing for BC Ferries purchase of four new Chinese-made ships
The federal government’s Canada Infrastructure Bank provided $1-billion in financing for BC Ferries’ plan to buy four new ships from a Chinese state-owned shipyard, a fact that Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland did not mention last week when she sharply criticized the purchase.
Ms. Freeland sent a strongly worded letter last week to B.C. Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth expressing her “great consternation and disappointment” with the planned purchase.
The letter referenced a previous $75-million loan by the CIB for four other ferries and Ottawa’s annual grant for ferry operations, but did not mention that the bank is also providing $1-billion in low-interest loans for the specific purchase she was criticizing.
In May 2025, China announced a new list of renamed places in Arunachal Pradesh, India’s northeastern state that Beijing insists on calling “Zangnan.” It is the fifth such list since 2017, and not just symbolic. These cartographic aggressions of renaming places seem to be part of a long-running strategy to undermine territorial norms and chip away at international boundaries using lawfare, infrastructure and semantics (the branch of linguistics concerned with meaning).
In geopolitics, names matter. They signal claims, establish narratives and lay the groundwork for future confrontations. China’s repeated renaming of places it does not control represents not only a challenge to India, it is an affront to the principles of the rules-based international order that the US and the West designed after World War II.
In December, a man considered by U.S. officials to be among Asia’s most powerful crime bosses gathered friends and allies in the Chinese casino city of Macao. Videos from the event show Wan Kuok Koi belting out Cantonese songs and smiling broadly for the cameras, seemingly unbothered by investigations across multiple countries into his alleged role in large-scale scams, fraud and money laundering.
The 69-year-old Wan — widely known by his nickname, “Broken Tooth” — presided over the celebration as chairman of the World Hongmen History and Culture Association, which describes itself as an ethnic Chinese fraternal organization devoted to promoting Chinese culture abroad. According to the U.S. Treasury, however, the association serves as a front for the 14K triad, one of China’s largest organized crime groups with involvement in “drug trafficking, illegal gambling, racketeering, human trafficking, and a range of other criminal activities.”
China apparently tried to protect Iran, its client state, with a threat against Taiwan in the days preceding America’s destruction of Iranian nuclear sites on June 21.
Beijing’s gambit failed. President Donald Trump, from all indications, stared down Xi Jinping.
Nonetheless, expect Xi to up the pressure on Taiwan and others in coming weeks.
Canada’s cybersecurity agency said Chinese-backed hackers were likely behind recent malicious activity targeting domestic telecommunications infrastructure, warning that three network devices registered to a Canadian company were compromised in the attacks.
The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation urged Canadian organizations to take steps to harden their networks against the threat posed by Salt Typhoon, a group linked to the Chinese government, in a bulletin issued late on Friday.
B.C. Ferries has drawn the ire of federal Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland for its decision to contract a Chinese state-owned shipyard to build four new vessels for its passenger fleet.
Freeland also expressed concerns about security risks related to the contract.
In a letter to B.C.’s Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth released Friday afternoon, Freeland expressed her “great consternation and disappointment” with the ferry operator.
Guess she didn’t get her cut.
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday criticized CBC News for changing its description of Taiwan from a country to a “self-ruled island.”
On June 14, Canada’s largest news broadcaster posted an article on the alleged ties between Bliss and Wisdom, a Buddhist group with operations on Prince Edward Island, and the CCP. The piece originally described a high-ranking monk from Taiwan as traveling “between his home country, Prince Edward Island, and China” in 2023 at the invitation of a Buddhist group that reports to the United Front Work Department.
h/t HS
As the U.S. trade war drags, calls grow for Canada to cautiously improve ties with China
As Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government works to reshape its economic policies amid an unpredictable administration south of the border, Canadian businesses that trade with China say Ottawa needs to find ways to expand exports there — and fast.
While the Canada-China relationship has been stymied in recent years, there are signals of relations improving.
Policy for profit every time.
Well, at least he didn’t walk out. While U.S. President Donald Trump left the G7 meeting in Kananaskis Monday night, it wasn’t in the huff the world witnessed at Charlevoix in 2018. This time, after a day of huddles and the signing of a U.K.–U.S. mini-deal that slashed auto tariffs, Trump hurried back to the White House because of “what’s going on in the Middle East.” His exit left Prime Minister Mark Carney and the remaining five leaders to hammer out the rest of the agenda, from trade to security to artificial intelligence, while keeping a nervous eye on the Iran-Israel war.
FBI Director Kash Patel dropped a bombshell Monday evening, handing Congress an intelligence report that raises serious questions about China’s role in the 2020 election. According to the report, Chinese operatives mass-produced counterfeit U.S. driver’s licenses as part of a broader scheme to flood the system with fake mail-in ballots—benefiting… you guessed it… Joe Biden.
h/t XC
Israeli air and drone strikes during the early hours of June 13th crippled Iran — and severely set back Tehran’s regional ambitions. The Israel Defense Forces hit nuclear weapons development facilities and ballistic missile sites, and killed senior military officers, including Major General Mohammad Bagheri, the armed forces chief of staff, and Major General Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Iranian media announced the death of Ali Shamkhani, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s top adviser.
British Columbia’s transportation minister claimed Friday that buying new ferries from European shipyards would have cost roughly $1.2 billion more than buying them from a Chinese government-owned shipyard in Weihai, Shandong province, which is a city roughly the size of Montreal that I had never heard of until this week. China knows how to build cities. They burst into existence from nothing, like popcorn. China also knows how to build ships, and highways, and high-speed rail, and just about anything else you would care to name, better and more efficiently than the Canadian public service can realistically comprehend.
Someone’s gettin paid.
Former MP Han Dong has settled his defamation lawsuit against Global News, according to a statement posted to the news organization’s website, closing a two-year legal battle that came after the outlet published an article alleging he advised a Chinese diplomat to hold off on freeing two Canadians who were detained in China at the time.
On Sunday morning, Global published a statement on its website that said it and “former MP Han Dong have settled Mr. Dong’s lawsuit concerning Global News stories that reported on allegations about Mr. Dong.”
