Nothing to see here.

That's what Trump wants you to think. Nothing here, just Russia helping him, ANTIFA not a threat at all, Barr and Trump election meddling with post office and scaring people about mail in voting. Nothing to see here, just fascism on the rise...

I disagree given from what I have read. But again, I am not the political expert you are and not as objective as you are.

I think China has their hands in almost every thing we do. I think we owe them untold dollars. I think they are probably the most exploitative nation in the world. Folks in Hong Kong might agree.

I have a sneaking feeling that the spotlight on Russia instead of China as our most dangerous enemy has a lot to do w/the liberal media and the Democratic party.

Gee, I wish I could be more like you, because you know, you never play "blame the GOP game."

China is a much bigger enemy of the United States than Russia, but you keep drinking the Democratic cool aide.

I disagree given from what I have read. But again, I am not the political expert you are and not as objective as you are.

I think China has their hands in almost every thing we do. I think we owe them untold dollars. I think they are probably the most exploitative nation in the world. Folks in Hong Kong might agree.

I have a sneaking feeling that the spotlight on Russia instead of China as our most dangerous enemy has a lot to do w/the liberal media and the Democratic party.

You have no authority to tell me what to do. And, I'm not surprised that you don't want the ugly truth about China.

Love how the gang sticks together. You can't discuss topics rationally. You insult, name call, and gang-up on anyone who doesn't follow along w/your BS. Y'all are classic bullies. Big mouths and no backbone.

You're the butt of all the jokes.

As a former teacher, I was taught how to identify bullying behavior and even witnessed students who would bully others. One of the classic examples of it is when bullies attack another student and then assign even more labels to that student if that student points out the bullying.

I find it comical that those who constantly practice middle school bullying techniques think that they are the ones who have a "higher emotional intelligence."

This crap has been going on in this forum for a long time. There are a group of bullies in this forum who immediately start insulting, using name calling, and ganging up on anyone who dares to speak out in opposition to their one-sided beliefs. Higher emotional intelligence, my ass!

China has us by the balls economically.

That's because they're smarter bout business and trade.

They are close to having us by the nads because they pay their workers next to nothing. AND can sell their products cheaper. And what do too many Americans do? Demand higher wages, more vacation, etc, so that they can buy the cheaper products.

The problem for China is, they can't feed their people, so the U.S. hit them where it hurt: Food.

Many on here went ballistic on this......"it's going to hurt our farmers....etc etc" And yes, short term it has, and will. But, long term, it should work, according to the Ag industry.

Remember China deciding to not buy our soybeans? But with in a couple of weeks, they were buying our soybeans from S. America? And within months started buying soy beans from us again?

That is how a new trade deal is worked. They use their power (cheap products because they don't pay workers for crap), and we use our ag. power, because they can't feed their people.

I've explained it at least twice on here. I've spoken personally to a gentleman that is on a couple of Ag commissions - fed. - and what he said would happen has, in fact, happened.

The World Is Falling for China’s Hong Kong Trap

With the national security law, the CCP created for itself the perfect opportunity to pit China against “foreign hostile forces.”

By Andrei Lungu
July 18, 2020

The World Is Falling for China’s Hong Kong Trap
Credit: Flickr/ Studio Incendo

The Chinese leadership’s decision to introduce national security legislation in Hong Kong has attracted global attention and condemnation. This move was unsurprising, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been trying to tighten control of the autonomous city over the past years and the lack of a national security law has been a sore spot for almost two decades. Yet it was also unexpected – it came at a moment when, as the report of a well-known think tank with ties to the country’s Ministry of State Security described, China faces the most difficult geopolitical environment since 1989, with anti-China sentiment at its highest.

Introducing national security legislation in Hong Kong less than a year after massive protests and a resounding electoral defeat, just four months before Legislative Council elections — all while the COVID-19 pandemic has focused the world’s attention and criticism on China, countries everywhere are rethinking their China policies and exploring how to shorten supply chains, and the United States government is hitting China in almost every way it can — makes no sense. Chinese leaders certainly understood that such a move would be bad for their country from a diplomatic, geopolitical, or economic point of view. Yet they did it anyway. Why?

Because, while bad for China, it makes a lot of sense politically for the CCP, Xi Jinping and the current leadership. For example, Party leaders have already been warned, sometimes publicly, by prominent Chinese international relations experts about the risks and dangers of the rising trend of aggressive diplomacy. Yet even when they saw the negative consequences unfolding before their eyes, they still didn’t abandon this aggressive style. The general view outside of China is that this policy has been adopted largely to stoke Chinese nationalism and shore up support for the party, regardless of its damage to China. Unfortunately, other Chinese actions are judged strictly from a realist foreign policy perspective, without paying enough attention to domestic pressures, party dynamics and political motivations, which are sometimes more prominent in Beijing than in other democratic capitals.

This raises the worrying possibility that introducing the national security law now (as opposed to sometime later) isn’t so much about Hong Kong, but about Beijing. If we accept that Xi and CCP leaders were aware of the blowback their Hong Kong decision would generate, then one of their main reasons for taking this decision now could have been specifically to strengthen the party’s domestic image and popularity, while generating foreign attacks on China, which will increase nationalism.

Even though China successfully managed to deal with the COVID-19 epidemic and later contrasted this approach to the situation in western Europe and the United States, improving its domestic image in some segments of the population, there are still internal risks, especially economic ones. The impact of the shutdown in China and the possible return of the coronavirus, combined with the economic downturn in export markets and trade and economic tensions with the U.S., might spell trouble later this year.



China’s GDP already suffered a 6.8 percent contraction in the first quarter, something unprecedented in the reform and opening-up period. Unofficial figures estimated the real unemployment rate after the shutdown at almost 10 percent. Premier Li Keqiang’s candid admission that 600 million Chinese citizens still have monthly incomes under 1,000 renminbi speaks to the economic problems the government faces, as does the attempt to boost employment through the “street-stall economy.” Yet the debates and contradicting messages from different parts of the government and the CCP regarding street stalls hint at the fact that there isn’t unity within the Party leadership on how to tackle the economic issues China faces. And all these economic issues could one day translate into political issues. Aware of this fact, in June, the CCP established a task force to boost political security. Considering the economic outlook and the general political climate, combined with the difficult international environment, Xi might be feeling pressure and seeing potential risks from both the Party leadership and the wider public.

What better way to preempt such political risks than shoring up support for the Party by portraying it as the defender and savior of China’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, and dignity? While over the two months before the Hong Kong legislation was announced, there were growing calls in China for a military takeover of Taiwan, such an action would be extremely risky and costly. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is an easier target, but no less fruitful when it comes to playing to nationalist sentiment among the Chinese public. The nationalist bent among Chinese citizens has already reached such heights that authorities had to shut down numerous social media accounts that went too far, including by claiming that some neighboring countries, such as Kazakhstan, are eager to “return” to China.

It was very predictable that the United States, the United Kingdom, and others would criticize the law and might even impose sanctions. Protests in Hong Kong, including violent ones, were also predictable. But, while costly, there is no reaction that the Party cannot manage, as it is clear there’s no appetite in Washington, London, or Brussels for a huge fight over Hong Kong, with all the inevitable economic consequences. The external criticism would only strengthen the CCP, which could depict it as foreign interference in Hong Kong, one of its main arguments for the national security legislation.

And so things fell into place. All over the world, there has been an uproar. The U.S. secretary of state announced that Washington no longer considers Hong Kong autonomous, setting the stage for imposing economic costs. Members of the U.S. Congress have proposed bills to punish China and its leadership; one that proposes recognizing Hong Kong as a country is especially far-fetched (and short-sighted, as it plays right into the CCP’s hands, lending credence to the theory that the United States’ ultimate goal is Hong Kong independence). London criticized the “serious breach” of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and announced measures of its own. The U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia issued a joint statement condemning the move. The G-7 followed suit. The EU issued its own statement. A U.N. Security Council meeting on Hong Kong was unsuccessfully called. The Party created for itself the perfect opportunity to pit China against “foreign hostile forces.”

Even if many foreign critics are placing the blame on the Party, picturing the situation in Hong Kong as a struggle for freedom, in China, over the past year, the extensive propaganda apparatus has painted it as a struggle for China’s sovereignty against Hong Kong “rioters” and “separatists.” At home, the CCP can present its decision as perfectly legal and even a responsibility that fell on the Chinese leadership, because of Hong Kong’s failure to enact national security legislation. Meanwhile, the United States is portrayed as the “black hand” sowing chaos in Hong Kong.

While there is no clear data from public surveys, the general impression is that there is only limited sympathy in mainland China for Hong Kong’s struggle. As calls for independence in Hong Kong are intensifying, while foreign powers are becoming more critical about Beijing’s actions, fanning nationalism in China with become ever simpler. And as long as the CCP holds tight and doesn’t appear weak in the face of foreign pressure, it can strengthen its public support.

Throughout the years, there have been worries that the Chinese leadership might one day adopt an aggressive foreign policy, or even start a war, just to distract from domestic problems and rally public support. Hong Kong offers an opportunity for the same positive results for the leadership, but without the risks and costs of a war.
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It is difficult to say whether the Chinese leadership decided to introduce the national security law in Hong Kong now specifically to pit China against foreign critics and inflame nationalist sentiments, or whether the main driver was simply to deal with the situation in Hong Kong, with the timing being coincidental and inflamed nationalism being just a beneficial side-effect. Whatever the reason, their decision clearly illustrates how little Chinese leaders care about geopolitical or economic costs when compared to political imperatives of strengthening internal control. Thus, the hard reality is that foreign pressure on China regarding on Hong Kong will only strengthen the CCP’s domestic position, if it isn’t well thought-out.

What does this mean for U.S. and Western policymakers? First of all, a thorough examination of Chinese public opinion, either through surveys or social media analysis, is vital in charting the right path and should be used to generate ideas about how to engage with the Chinese public. The obsession with imposing costs and “not letting China get away with it easily” ignores the entire domestic political landscape and simply assumes that the CCP leadership is driven by a combination of ideology (regarding the desire for stronger control) and realpolitik (regarding the use of a simple cost-benefit analysis of economic and diplomatic consequences). It ignores any political motivations driving the Chinese leadership’s decisions.

Unless the United States is willing to impose devastating costs on China or even go to war, this move cannot be undone. Meanwhile, all these measures to punish China and drive up the costs of this decision aren’t helping Hong Kong, but they are strengthening the CCP’s narrative of “foreign hostile forces” trying to split Hong Kong and create chaos in China. If U.S. policymakers are honest when they claim that the Party, not the Chinese people, is their real enemy, then strengthening its domestic position by driving the Chinese people and the CCP closer together is a huge mistake. Right now, the United States is focusing too much on measures that would punish China (or even worse, Hong Kong) and too little on how to engage Chinese citizens and win them over. Rhetoric is also important – how many statements critical of the national security legislation began by stating, “We believe Hong Kong is and must always remain a part of China.”

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Because of the Great Firewall, but also because of neglect, the Chinese public has largely been abandoned to CCP propaganda. The U.S. and its allies are thus caught between a rock and a very hard place: Do nothing and the Party leadership gets its way; attack “China” and it might drive up nationalism and strengthen support for the CCP. This dilemma pertains to more issues than simply Hong Kong. Some in China undoubtedly see beyond the propaganda and understand that Hong Kong’s struggle is about freedom, not separatism. Others might not necessarily trust the official narrative, but still worry about Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong and how the United States might have malign intentions. Yet many who simply do not have access to fair, unbiased information have been influenced by Party propaganda, and believe that Hong Kong “separatists” and “foreign hostile forces” need to be dealt with, which the CCP is now doing. This is a reality that the United States and many other countries seem to have almost no interest in addressing. Yet simply ignoring it will not make it go away.

Fighting for freedom is important in this struggle for global supremacy between the United States and China, but if the Chinese people end up seeing Hong Kong through a purely nationalist lens, it will only sabotage the larger fight for freedom in China. Foreign governments, and even Hong Kong protesters, have to take all these nuances into account when deciding the next steps. They must think carefully about how to counter CCP propaganda and break its monopoly on shaping the domestic narrative. If not, the United States and the West might end up unintentionally helping Xi and the Party, while still losing Hong Kong.

Andrei Lungu is president of The Romanian Institute for the Study of the Asia-Pacific (RISAP).

https://thediplomat.com/2020/07/the-world-is-falling-for-chinas-hong-kong-trap/

China Is a Dangerous Rival, and America Should Treat It Like One

Enough with the endless talks and handshakes. We need to untie the American economy from China.

By Derek Scissors and Daniel Blumenthal

Mr. Scissors and Mr. Blumenthal are experts on China at the American Enterprise Institute.

Jan. 14, 2019

Under President Xi Jinping, China has moved to a defense industrial policy that translates in English to “civil-military fusion.”


The Trump administration has been clear about its view of China. A 2017 national security strategy document called China a “revisionist” power attempting to reorder international politics to suit its interests. It’s difficult to think otherwise given Beijing’s military buildup, its attempts to undermine American influence and power, its retaliations against American allies such as Canada, and its economic actions.

How to respond is more controversial. After years of unsuccessful talks and handshake deals with Beijing, the United States should change course and begin cutting some of its economic ties with China. Such a separation would stop intellectual property theft, cut off an important source of support to the People’s Liberation Army and hold companies that are involved in Chinese human rights abuses accountable.

This will be no easy task. Some industries will have problems finding new suppliers or buyers, and there are entrenched constituencies that support doing business with China. They argue that any pullback could threaten economic growth. But even if American exports to China fell by half, it would be the equivalent of less than one-half of 1 percent of gross domestic product. The cost of reducing Chinese imports is harder to assess, but there are multiple countries that can substitute for China-based production, none of them strategic rivals and trade predators.

The United States economy and its national security have been harmed by China’s rampant theft of intellectual property and the requirement that American companies that want to do business in the country hand over their technology. These actions threaten America’s comparative advantage in innovation and its military edge.



Even uncoerced foreign investment in technology can strengthen the Chinese military-industrial complex, especially since the Communist Party has moved, since President Xi Jinping took office in 2012, to a defense industrial policy that translates in English to “civil-military fusion.” In practice, many Chinese and foreign “civilian” companies serve as de facto suppliers for the Chinese Army and its technological-industrial base. Residents and visitors are subject to constant visual surveillance, and a nascent “social credit program” in which disobedience to party dictates is reflected in credit scores, which could affect everything from home purchases to job opportunities. These forms of social control often use technology developed by Western companies.

The United States should make major adjustments to its economic relationship with China. Comprehensive tariffs, which harm American consumers and workers unnecessarily, are not the right reaction. But neither are admonishments to “just let the market work.”



The scale of China’s industrial-policy distortions, technology thievery and efforts to modernize its army are too significant for such superficial responses. The American government must intervene in the market when it comes to China, although that intervention should be limited to areas that are genuinely vital to national security, prosperity and democratic values.

For example, the United States government should impose sanctions on the Chinese beneficiaries of intellectual property theft and coercion, in cooperation with our allies. This was the legitimate target of the United States trade representative’s original inquiry in August 2017 under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, but the policy steps chosen — tariffs — focus on the trade deficit instead of loss of intellectual property.

Rather than across-the-board tariffs, Chinese companies receiving stolen or coerced intellectual property should not be allowed to do business with firms in America or, with our allies’ cooperation, in Europe and Japan. The United States should also intervene to halt foreign investment in any technology that assists the Chinese Army or contributes to internal repression and limit the access to global markets of any Chinese company that is tied to human rights abuses and army modernization.


Taking these actions would require an enormous amount of intelligence collection by American security agencies as well as crucial information from American companies. The latter is difficult to obtain: Out of fear of Chinese retribution, the foreign business community will cooperate only if there is a clear, bipartisan and long-term commitment by the American government.


While the United States must act unilaterally if necessary, the cooperation of allies such as Japan, Germany and Britain would make these steps more effective. Such countries have their own interests in China. Imposing sanctions in the name of national security on the European Union and China, as the Trump administration has threatened, would unwisely give them common cause.

Previous efforts to assert America’s influence against China, such as the discarded Trans-Pacific Partnership, did not push back effectively on Chinese economic aggression. Working with allies to directly address China’s malfeasance would.

All this means putting China at the top of American international economic priorities and keeping it there for years, without overstating or overreacting to trade disputes with our allies.

The administration has demonstrated some good instincts on China, but it must not be distracted by the next round of Beijing’s false economic promises. Protecting innovation from Chinese attack makes the United States stronger. Hindering the Chinese security apparatus makes external aggression and internal repression more costly for Beijing.

China is our only major trade partner that is also a strategic rival, and we should treat it differently from friendly countries with whom we have disputes. If Washington wants the global free market to work, it must intervene to blunt Beijing’s belligerence.

Derek Scissors (@DerekScissors1) is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where Daniel Blumenthal (@DAlexBlumenthal) is the director of Asian studies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/opinion/us-china-trade.html

China’s interference in U.S. politics is just beginning

Josh Rogin
Columnist
September 20, 2018 at 6:35 p.m. EDT

The Trump administration is publicly calling out China for attempting to influence U.S. politics ahead of the midterm elections. Privately, the U.S. government is looking past November as Beijing expands its already significant capability to interfere in American democracy over the long term. The United States must be aware of the growing threat and mount a response.

As the trade war between Washington and Beijing escalates, China is using economic leverage to exert pressure on the U.S. political system. Tactics already deployed include pressuring U.S. companies trying to do business with China and punishing U.S. exporters, especially in locations where President Trump’s political base resides.

Trump, taking this activity personally, tweeted this week that China is “actively trying to impact and change our election by attacking our farmers, ranchers and industrial workers because of their loyalty to me.” Trump threatened unspecified retaliation and escalated the trade dispute by announcing additional tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods.


While the trade war rages in public, behind the scenes the U.S. government is preparing for the possibility that the Chinese government will decide to weaponize the influence network inside the United States that it has been building for years. Although Beijing has not yet employed Russian-style “active measures,” it has these capabilities at the ready.

“We’ve seen a lot of preparatory work by the Chinese, and we understand what the realm of possibilities would be,” an administration official told me. “Our position now is to make folks aware of the danger that exists. These Chinese activities are all about influencing our democratic processes.”

The Chinese government denies all accusations of political interference abroad and typically paints such reporting as anti-Chinese, Cold War thinking. The Chinese government complained after national security adviser John Bolton listed China as one of four countries that interfere in our political processes on ABC News on Aug. 19. The Trump administration responded to the complaints by asking Beijing to confirm that it does not engage in such activities. The Chinese government changed the subject.


Economic coercion is only one Chinese interference tactic. Another is propaganda through media manipulation. This week, the Justice Department ordered two Chinese state-owned media outlets operating in Washington to register as foreign agents. This recalls action taken against Russian state-owned media outlets after the U.S. intelligence community reported that Moscow used them in its 2016 interference campaign.

The Chinese Communist Party and its allies have also bought up several Chinese-language media outlets inside the United States as part of an effort to influence overseas Chinese. That effort includes government officials building relationships with Chinese Students and Scholars Associations to help snuff out criticism of China on campuses.

Finally, Beijing interferes through co-opting American elites and persuading them to push Chinese Communist Party messages. Under President Xi Jinping, the party has been ramping up its comprehensive foreign influence operations strategy, known as “united front” work. Still described in Maoist terms — to mobilize the party’s friends to strike at the party’s enemies — the system is overseen by the party’s United Front Work Department.


“The UFWD directs ‘overseas Chinese work,’ which seeks to co-opt ethnic Chinese individuals and communities living outside China, while a number of other key affiliated organizations guided by China’s broader United Front strategy conduct influence operations targeting foreign actors and states,” says a report released last month by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

The report reveals the internal structure of Beijing’s foreign influence machine, the web of foreign organizations tied to the united front system and their extensive financial relationships with U.S. organizations, academic institutions and think tanks.

In March, the United Front Work Department largely absorbed three other Communist Party departments, including the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, the State Administration for Religious Affairs and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council. That synergy allows the party to seamlessly repress Uighurs inside China while threatening their family members abroad. For Beijing, it’s all one strategy.


Add to that China’s traditional espionage and hacking, which FBI Director Christopher A. Wray called the “broadest, most pervasive, most threatening challenge” our country faces in counterintelligence. The potential for Beijing to disrupt American politics is far beyond what we are prepared to deal with.

Looking at Russia’s situation, Beijing may calculate that the costs of a massive, obvious political interference campaign are too high. But as tensions continue to rise, Beijing’s cost-benefit analysis may change. Meanwhile, the ongoing, quieter Chinese interference continues largely unaddressed.

The U.S. government should communicate clearly to Beijing that political interference won’t be tolerated, while raising the costs higher, inoculating our systems and preparing countermeasures. China must be compelled to operate inside our borders in a transparent manner consistent with U.S. laws and values.


The lesson of the 2016 election is that we must confront foreign interference in American politics before it becomes a full-blown crisis. China’s growing capabilities to undermine our democratic systems can no longer be ignored.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...250f_story.html

Aren't you Captain Stay on Topic? This thread isn't about China.

Exclusive: How the FBI combats China's political meddling
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, author of China


In May 2019, the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force quietly added a unit aimed at countering China's political influence in the United States. In an exclusive interview, an FBI official reveals for the first time the bureau's approach to countering China's interference in local and state politics.

Why it matters: "This is ultimately a potential systemic challenge to the world order that we've had for the past several decades," the FBI official tells Axios of China's efforts.

The big picture: There is a growing body of evidence that China devotes massive resources to influencing the political environments of foreign countries, including the United States.

Unlike Russia, the Chinese Communist Party focuses on cultivating long-term relationships and using economic levers to coerce people into compliance, rather than targeting a specific election event.

“For a long time we focused on the federal level, but we really have come to understand that the Chinese are playing a long game with the political influence in this country," the FBI official said. "So we have spent a lot more time and energy trying to understand the state and local people-to-people influences going on."

Over the weekend, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned that China is targeting U.S. local and state officials.

China's influence playbook centers around economic leverage stemming from its growing wealth. That includes:

The use of economic “carrots and sticks” at the local and state levels.

“Conduit contributions” to illegally funnel Chinese funds into U.S. politics.

The use of Chinese government-linked proxies to cultivate relationships of dependency with a variety of American individuals and organizations.

And it happens at every level of government and society. “The toolkit works just as well on a mayor as it would work on somebody in higher elected office," the official said.

The FBI task force's threshold for determining what counts as malign foreign influence is a four-word rubric: “subversive, undeclared, criminal and coercive.” The FBI official, who spoke to Axios anonymously, defined the terms:

Subversive: "Activities that are undermining democratic processes, or people's ability to cast a vote."

Undeclared: "Any activity where the hand of the government, the hand of the foreign government is opaque, is non-transparent to the target audience.”

Criminal: "There's a suite of election crimes in the U.S. And we're concerned about those crimes. .. So campaign finance violations, this is a big part of what we're concerned about — foreign money entering U.S. political races."

Coercive: "If there is some sort of quid pro quo, some sort of economic carrots and stick, it's a tool that the Chinese use quite a lot.”

The focus is on party-connected actors, the official said.

“We're certainly not looking at, you know, all Chinese students or all Chinese Americans," said the official. “This isn't something that we only see happening with ethnic Chinese.”

How the task force works: The initiative, which is part of the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force, is housed within the agency's counterintelligence division, with embeds from the criminal investigative, cyber and counterterrorism divisions.

The task force investigates illegal activity and provides defensive briefings — essentially a way to educate companies, organizations, academic institutions and government officials about the potential risks of specific situations.

The bureau is seeing an "increased demand signal" for briefings and similar engagement "from academic partners, from the private sector, from our U.S. government customer and policymakers," the official said.

Their advice: Do everything possible to manage risk.

That means understanding where funding comes from and any organizational ties back to China, as well as engaging in secure travel practices with personal electronic devices and business laptops.

The bottom line: China is increasing its efforts to hold sway over cash-strapped local and state governments.

Companies and organizations must aim for smarter engagement to lessen the risk because “most folks who are already engaged with some aspects of the Chinese government or with a Chinese institution can't just say no,” the official said.

Go deeper: China’s playbook for hooking local governments

Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify the China-focused unit's connection to the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force.

Tibetan NYPD officer charged with spying for Chinese government
Josie Ensor
The TelegraphMon, September 21, 2020, 4:09 PM EDT

A New York City police officer has been arrested on charges he was secretly working as an agent of the Chinese government.

Baimadajie Angwang, a community affairs liaison at the 111th Precinct in Queens and a member of the US Marine Corps Reserve, had for years been reporting back to “handlers” in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), according to a criminal complaint filed at a New York federal court.

Mr Angwang, 33, an ethnic Tibetan native of China and a naturalised American citizen, had allegedly been reporting back on the activities of fellow Tibetans in the US since 2014.

According to the charging documents filed on Monday, Mr Angwang also assessed potential Tibetan intelligence sources, and used his position in the New York Police Department (NYPD) to pass along information about its internal workings to the Chinese.


“The investigation has revealed that Angwang had used his official position in the NYPD to provide consulate officials access to senior (police) officials through invitations to official NYPD events,” the complaint said.

Since June 2018, the FBI said Mr Angwang has been "in frequent communication" with an unidentified Chinese consular official he referred to as "Boss."

That same year, he was awarded "Officer of the Month" by the NYPD for his initiative and public service.

Mr Angwang, who served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and holds a secret-level security clearance, was reportedly tasked with “neutralizing sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of the PRC.”

Despite his family being Tibetan, a minority group long oppressed and occupied by Beijing, the FBI claims in the complaint that Mr Angwang’s affiliations with China ran deep. His father is a retired member of the People’s Liberation Army, while his mother is a retired government official and a member of the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr Angwang, who makes about $50,000 (£40,000) a year, in 2016 wired $100,000 to his brother’s account in China, according to investigators. The following month, he sent $50,000 to another account in China, held in someone else’s name.

He initially travelled to the US on a cultural exchange visa. He overstayed a second visa and eventually claimed asylum on the grounds he had been arrested and tortured in China, due partly to his TIbetan ethnicity.

In a detention memo filed on Monday, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, said: “Angwang has travelled back to the PRC on numerous occasions since his asylum application was granted.

“These are not the actions of an individual who fears torture or persecution at the hands of the PRC, thus showing that his US citizenship was secured through false pretenses.”

Prosecutors asked a judge to deny bail because Mr Angwang “presents a serious risk of flight” and is facing criminal charges which hold a maximum possible prison sentence of 55 years.

Dermot Shea, NYPD Police Commissioner, said Mr Angwang had “violated every oath he took in this country," in a statement commenting on the charges. "One to the United States, another to the US Army, and a third to this Police Department.

“From the earliest stages of this investigation, the NYPD's Intelligence and Internal Affairs bureaus worked closely with the FBI's Counterintelligence Division to make sure this individual would be brought to justice."

John Carman, Mr Angwang’s lawyer, declined to comment on the case.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tibetan-nypd-officer-charged-spying-200900500.html

Well when people won't listen to your distraction, spam the hell out of the thread with off topic articles...

And you missed the part where they did an end around and were buying our beans from a third party which did not pressure them into making a deal.

Who said I don't support the deal that was reached? It's better than the deal we had if that's what you're trying to imply. It didn't however actually solve any of the issues claimed that it would. They were buying our beans before Trump worked on a trade deal and they're buying them now.

Farmers have been struggling for five years as the cost of land, fertilizer, chemicals and seed have remained high, but net income has fallen. Some who rent their land or have accumulated high debt could be forced out of farming by the crisis.

Typically, Argentina crushes most of their soybean production. “It looks like Argentina is going to get their soybeans from the U.S.,” says Vaclavik. “They’ve booked 850,000 metric tons of soybeans since the first of September.” From September to February last year, Vaclavik says Argentina sold zero soybeans to China. This year, Argentina plans to ship 1.8 million metric tons during the same period. Even if U.S. beans aren’t being sold directly to China, he says the export market is still helping prices. Farmers have long suspected China of buying soybeans through “gray” market channels.

Total U.S. soybean sales to China, however, remain well below normal as importers have sourced the majority of their soybeans from South America since the trade war with the United States erupted last year.