Free Republic

The growth of space and cyber technologies worldwide is raising the likelihood that war — or at least its ripple effects — will crash onto America's doorstep.Why it matters: Centuries of national security strategy, relying on protection provided by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, are being rattled by these weapons that conquer vast distances.America has long had the edge in space and cyberspace, but China and other powers are closing the gap. A global surveillance showdown is underway.Hackers tied to the People's Liberation Army abscond with countless files detailing stateside arsenals. That theft propels its modernization.Other saboteurs stalk critical infrastructure,...

Former President Donald Trump said Thursday he would “never ban TikTok,” making his firmest statement in support of the Chinese government-linked social media app that he said he would ban during his term in office. **/ “Well, the big message is vote for Trump. We’re going to make our country greater than ever before,” Trump said, before calling President Biden is the “worst president in history.” Kirk then pressed Trump on whether he would ban TikTok, as the 45th president had come back to the app this past weekend in a video about his UFC 302 appearance that has now...

Chinese bosses have apologised after a hiker found a secret waterpipe which fuels the country’s tallest waterfall. A video shows a water main attached to the top of Yuntai Mountain Waterfall - China's tallest uninterrupted waterfall.

Brazil imposes tariffs on Chinese imports Brazil is now fighting back against cheap Chinese imports by imposing a 20% tax. This affects goods valued under $50 (€46) which are bought via international shopping websites. According to Brazilian media, Chinese online retail platform AliExpress was "surprised" by the decision, as the tax would primarily hit the poorest and discourage foreign investment in the country. In the textile industry, considerable anger has been directed at Chinese suppliers, because conglomerates such as Shein, which don't produce their goods under the same conditions and general framework as small Brazilian firms, are pushing thousands of...

China’s Chang’e-6 Moon mission was launched on May 3. It reached lunar orbit a few days later and began waiting for sunrise over its landing site on the Moon’s far side. Chang’e-6 is named after the Chinese goddess of the Moon and it will land on Sunday in a crater called Apollo — an ancient double-ringed walled plain caused by an asteroid smashing into the young Moon. Apollo has been heavily damaged by subsequent impacts and in many places covered with lava flows and sprinkled with particles from newer impacts. It is as Buzz Aldrin said, a magnificent desolation. It...

(1) “The SARS-like virus that caused the pandemic emerged in Wuhan, the city where the world’s foremost research lab for SARS-like viruses is located.” the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been hunting for SARS-like viruses for more than 10 years, led by Dr. Shi Zhengli ... (2) part of it comes down to a leaked 2018 grant proposal for a research project called Defuse, which aimed to create a SARS-like virus with a unique feature called a furin cleavage site that would enhance its infectiousness in humans. The SARS-CoV-2 virus has that feature, she says, and genetic data suggest it...

To start the week, a few thoughts on the passing scene: ~So what else is going on? Oh, look... China's Chang'e-6 mission lander made a successful soft landing on the far side of the moon late Saturday and will soon begin collecting unique lunar samples. Has the moon signed up for Peking's Belt & Road Initiative yet? Give it another three months. ~Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth: Officials with the US Central Command first brought up the option of building a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza in late October, the senior administration official told CNN. The risks however...

China says its uncrewed craft has successfully landed on the far side of the Moon - an unexplored place almost no-one tries to go. The Chang'e 6 touched down in the South Pole-Aitken Basin at 06:23 Beijing time on Sunday morning (22:23 GMT Saturday), the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said. Launched on 3 May, the mission aims to collect precious rock and soil from this region for the first time in history. The probe could extract some of the Moon's oldest rocks from a huge crater on its South Pole.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused China on Sunday of helping Russia to disrupt an upcoming Swiss-organized peace conference on the war in Ukraine. Speaking at Asia’s premier security conference, Zelenskyy said that China is pressuring other countries and their leaders not to attend the upcoming talks. He did not say which ones. ... The Swiss had been hoping China would attend the peace conference in mid-June, but Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning signaled on Friday that that was unlikely. China has been calling for a peace conference with equal participation of all sides, including Russia, which has not been...

Every year ahead of the June 4 commemoration of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese government tightens online censorship to suppress domestic discussion of the event. Critics, dissidents and international groups anticipate an uptick in cyber activity ranging from emails with malicious links to network attacks in the days and weeks leading up to the anniversary.Much of this cyber activity by Beijing is done covertly. But a recent restructuring of China’s cyberforce and a document leak exposing the activities of Chinese tech firm i-Soon have shed some light on how Beijing goes about the business of hacking.As a China expert...

Most states spy. In principle there’s nothing to stop them. But China’s demand for intelligence on the rest of the world goes far beyond anything western intelligence agencies would typically gather. It encompasses masses of commercial data and intellectual property and has been described by Keith Alexander, a former head of the National Security Agency, as “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.” As well as collecting data from government websites, politicians, universities, think tanks and human rights organizations, China also targets Chinese diaspora groups and individuals. Congress has just cracked down on the Chinese-owned TikTok, which has admitted that...

China’s top-secret spaceplane has released a mysterious object into Earth’s orbit just 372 miles above the surface. The US Space Force is monitoring the situation, but the purpose of the object ejected on May 24 is unknown. A Harvard astrophysicist first spotted the object, speculating it could be a subsatellite deployment, or a piece of hardware ejected before the spaceplane ends its mission and deorbits.

Over the last few weeks, a Russian blitz has claimed more than a dozen villages in northeast Ukraine, near the country’s second-largest city. This summer, Russia will likely continue its offensive push... Russia’s ability to carry out these attacks is in some ways surprising. War is expensive...Yet Moscow has managed to keep paying for its war machine.... to China, the benefits of a Russian victory in Ukraine may outweigh the costs. Among those benefits: The war has entangled the U.S. and its allies in a faraway conflict, straining the U.S. military’s ammunition stockpiles. It has made Russia, a big military...

Commander Daryl Caudle said breaches are seen every week amid an 8,000% surge in Chinese migrants at the southern border...Commander Caudle said attempted infiltrations are happening 'two or three times a week' - at Navy bases alone....the perpetrators often claiming to be innocent tourists when caught...A lot of times they have passports, they have papers, but they are in no way shape or form authorized to be on our base. Operatives from Communist China have been caught scuba diving close to Cape Canaveral, wandered on to a missile launch site in New Mexico, and claimed to be looking for Holiday...

Late last year, a CNA crew travelled to North and South America to document the journeys of Chinese citizens crossing borders as illegal immigrants. The team behind Walk The Line now shares how the series was made.In Ecuador’s capital city, Quito, there can be found a guest house catering almost exclusively for Chinese travellers. Last December, when it also accommodated a film crew from CNA, the usual suspects were rather concerned. “As soon as we checked in and the people in the guest house knew that we were journalists, … people were tense. They’re like, ‘Why are there journalists here?’”...

A man killed eight people and wounded one more with a knife in central China, state media reported on Friday (May 24), citing local authorities. The stabbing took place on Thursday morning in the city of Xiaogan in Hubei province, state broadcaster CCTV said. The 53-year-old attacker surnamed Lu had previously been treated for mental illness, it added. He is being held by police, who are investigating the attack.

In mid-2022, Gazprom restricted gas flows to Europe in what was seen as a move by Putin to get both leverage against Kyiv's allies ahead of the winter season and retaliate against Western sanctions and support of Ukraine. But the EU managed to find alternative long-term sources of gas imports and free itself from most Russian piped-gas imports ... Gazprom's revenue fell by 41 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2023, while sales profits dropped 71 percent and gas production by 25 percent... The report said the company's upstream gas-production base is now isolated because infrastructure connecting its main...

Where did China get the idea to dominate specific sectors of the tech industry by pushing out US competitors? The plan, known as "Made in China 2025," was at least partly inspired by a 300-page book written for them by McKinsey and Company, an American strategy and management consulting firm. The Financial Times was the first to report on McKinsey's contribution to China's 13th five-year plan back in February.A McKinsey-led think-tank advised China to deepen co-operation between business and the military and push foreign companies out of sensitive industries as part of a project for the central government in 2015.The...

* Chipmakers ASML and TSMC can disable advanced chipmaking machines remotely, Bloomberg reports. * The move addresses growing fears of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a key semiconductor producer. * A China-Taiwan conflict could severely impact the global economy. Two of the world's most important chip companies can flip a "kill switch" remotely on their most advanced chipmaking machines should China invade Taiwan, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The Netherlands' ASML — Europe's top tech company by market value — supplies advanced machines to chipmaking companies. They include Taiwan's TSMC, which produces, by some estimates,...

A fascinating video that draws all of the parts of the India/China/Regional disputes into focus, and the consequences of each outcome.