Saturday, March 28, 2020

RED CHINA IS WINNING THE CORONAVIRUS EPIDEMIC IT STARTED

Silicon Valley, and the Chinese Connection to Coronavirus Infection
By James Fulford
VDare.com Blog, March 26, 2020
. . .
https://vdare.com/posts/dr-norm-matloff-on-covid-19-silicon-valley-and-the-chinese-connection-to-coronavirus-infection


The Chinese communist regime has representatives in almost every large company in China, Wright said. The concerns over TikTok come amid broader anxiety over forced technology transfers from U.S. companies to Chinese authorities and intellectual property theft.


FEINSTEIN HAS SPENT HER POLITICAL LIFE STALKING THE HALLS OF CONGRESS SNIFFING OUT DEALS THAT PUT HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS IN HER POCKETS.

SHE HAS AVOIDED PROSECUTION BY VOTING AGAINST ANY ETHICS BILLS AND HER HUSBAND, RICHARD BLUM'S HANDING OUT "CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION" BRIBES TO EVERY DEMOCRAT OUT THERE!




IN THE November 2006 election, the voters demanded congressional ethics reform. And so, the newly appointed chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is now duly in charge of regulating the ethical behavior of her colleagues. But for many years, Feinstein has been beset by her own ethical conflict of interest, say congressional ethics experts.


“All in all, it was an incredible victory for the Chinese government. Feinstein has done more for Red China than other any serving U.S. politician. “ Trevor Loudon


“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes.  This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen McQuillan  AMERICAN THINKER.com


Senator Who Employed 


Chinese Spy Endorses Joe 


Biden for President

 

  

A high-profile U.S. senator with professional and personal ties to China — including once employing one of its spies — is backing former Vice President Joe Biden amid mounting questions over his son’s business dealings with the communist regime.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), a former chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, announced her endorsement of the former vice president on Tuesday, claiming to have witnessed Biden’s “fortitude” and leadership during their overlapping tenures in Congress.
Feinstein said in a statement:
I’ve worked closely with Vice President Biden and I’ve seen firsthand his legislative ability, his statesmanship, and most importantly his moral fortitude (NO, IT’S NOT A JOKE, BUT THEN FEINSTEIN IS THE MOST SELF-SERVING CORRUPT POL IN U.S. HISTORY). During his time in Congress and in the White House, Joe Biden has been a tireless fighter for hard working (ILLEGALS) MEXICAN families.



Senator Who Employed Chinese Spy Endorses Joe Biden for President

 

  

A high-profile U.S. senator with professional and personal ties to China — including once employing one of its spies — is backing former Vice President Joe Biden amid mounting questions over his son’s business dealings with the communist regime.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), a former chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, announced her endorsement of the former vice president on Tuesday, claiming to have witnessed Biden’s “fortitude” and leadership during their overlapping tenures in Congress.
Feinstein said in a statement:
I’ve worked closely with Vice President Biden and I’ve seen firsthand his legislative ability, his statesmanship, and most importantly his moral fortitud. During his time in Congress and in the White House, Joe Biden has been a tireless fighter for hard working American families.






4 Ways China Gains from the Coronavirus Pandemic

BEIJING, CHINA - APRIL 26: Chinese President Xi Jinping proposes a toast during the welcome banquet for leaders attending the Belt and Road Forum at the Great Hall of the People on April 26, 2019 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Nicolas Asfouri - Pool/Getty Images)
Nicolas Asfouri - Pool/Getty Images
14:06

Despite outrage over Beijing’s initial coverup of the Chinese coronavirus outbreak, the country is already attempting to leverage the global pandemic at a time the U.S. finds itself struggling to contain the disease.
Below, in no particular order, are four major ways China is gaining ground from the coronavirus crisis.
1 – China is using the pandemic to position itself as a global response leader while the U.S. shifts to survival mode.
China greatly suffered at the start of the pandemic, including during the period it was actively engaged in a coverup of the virus. Now that the crisis seems to have somewhat stabilized in China, the country is positioning itself as the global leader in helping other nations respond to the Chinese coronavirus outbreak.
And that response offers China a unique opportunity to extend its tentacles by massively expanding its international influence and playing the role of superpower precisely at a time the U.S. has been struggling to contain the virus. In just one example, China has been supplying large quantities of masks to hard-hit countries while the U.S. is fast at work trying to produce enough masks for its own domestic requirements.
“This could be the first major global crisis in decades without meaningful U.S. leadership and with significant Chinese leadership,” noted Rush Doshi, director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Axios reported that Chinese think tanks are floating the idea of a “Beijing-led global health organization that would rival the [World Health Organization].”
“The Chinese government has been trying to project Chinese state power beyond its borders and establish China as a global leader, not dissimilar to what the U.S. government has been doing for the better part of a century, and the distribution of medical aid is part of this mission,” argued Dr. Yangyang Cheng, a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell University and columnist for SupChina.
Indeed, China has pledged or provided aid far and wide, from Greece to Italy, Japan, Iraq, Serbia, Spain and even Peru, in an attempt, as the New York Times characterized it, “to reposition itself not as the authoritarian incubator of a pandemic but as a responsible global leader at a moment of worldwide crisis.”
“The coronavirus pandemic has become a battleground,” said Bruno Maçães, a former secretary of state for European Affairs in Portugal. “I see China focused on using the crisis as an opportunity to play up the superiority of its model.”
“I think this also shows what climate change could look like in the future,” Maçães added, “less an opportunity for global cooperation and more the background for geopolitical competition, with every major actor trying to do better than its rivals.”
Peter Rough, former research director for President George W. Bush and a fellow at the Hudson Institute, questioned China’s motives in selectively providing aid to certain countries.
Rough wrote at Foreign Policy magazine:
Take, for example, the decision by Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei to donate 800,000 masks to the Netherlands. Why would the conglomerate, known for its closeness to the Chinese government, display such benevolence toward a country which, at the time, had hardly any coronavirus cases? Surely it could not be because the Netherlands’ auction of fifth-generation (5G) mobile licenses is slated for June, and because the Dutch still have to decide whether to exclude Huawei from its 5G networks over espionage concerns.
Or consider Italy, where China has sent doctors and donated ventilators that have been in short supply. Does China’s newfound interest in Italy’s well-being stem from genuine concern, or from that of Rome’s status as one of Europe’s biggest supporters of the Belt and Road Initiative?
Perhaps, then, China’s donation of 500,000 masks to Greece is an uncharacteristically generous gift. Or is it nothing but a gift horse, part of much longer campaign that has showered Greece with trade and investment? Already, Greece has been a reliable supporter of China in Brussels, which Beijing increasingly counts on to veto any measures China considers to be against its interests—on trade, security, or human rights, for example.
China may also be seeking to drive a wedge in Europe where it has focused some of its strategically offered aid on non-EU countries at a time when EU members are closing their borders.
In one of many examples, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told reporters that he penned a letter to his “brother and friend” Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, asking for medical aid, writing that “the only country that can help us is China.”
“European solidarity does not exist,” Vucic complained. “That was a fairy tale on paper. I believe in my brother and friend Xi Jinping, and I believe in Chinese help.”
2 – America and the rest of the world rely on China for pharmaceuticals, a phenomenon Beijing is already starting to leverage.  
Like the rest of the world, the U.S. is perilously dependent on China for the ingredients in critical drugs since those products are cheaper there and China is subject to fewer regulations. This puts the Chinese Communist Party in a pivotal role in controlling the supply chain of the world’s pharmaceuticals.
About 80 percent of the active ingredients used in U.S. drugs are believed to come from China and India. Perhaps most dangerously, China is the only manufacturer of some generic antibiotics.
Even India, which is responsible for about one-fifth of the world’s generic drug exports, receives most of its raw material imports from China. Due to Chinese supply chain disruptions under the coronavirus pandemic, India recently announced it will need to temporarily suspend exports of 26 essential drugs and drug ingredients, including some antibiotics.
If China turned off its international pharmaceutical supply chain then “military hospitals and clinics would cease to function within months, if not days,” warned Rosemary Gibson, author of “China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine.”
Already, an article in the Xinhua state-run media agency considered a mouthpiece for the CCP hinted at holding back drugs from the U.S.  The article warned China had the ability to impose pharmaceutical export controls which could throw the U.S into “the mighty sea of coronavirus.”
Sen. Marco Rubio said the Chinese warning proves China feels that during the coronavirus crisis “they can threaten to cut us off from our pharmaceutical supplies, they could trigger a domestic problem here that would make it difficult or us to confront them.”
“It’s a tremendous amount of leverage,” Rubio said.
Holly Strom and Kenneth Schell, both past presidents of the California State Pharmacy Board, documented:
The FDA has identified roughly 20 drugs that are solely made in or derive their active pharmaceutical ingredients from China. The U.S. is partly reliant on Chinese raw ingredients for 370 medicines deemed “essential” by the World Health Organization. **According to one research study, the prices on pharmaceutical raw materials have grown by up to 50% since the outbreak began.
Despite the well-publicized threat, reliance on Chinese medications has only increased in recent years. According to a U.S. government report released last year, U.S. imports of Chinese pharmaceutical materials grew by nearly one-quarter in 2017 from the prior year to nearly $4 billion.
While it’s quite late in the game, several prominent U.S. lawmakers are now advocating for the U.S. to take back control of the drug industry.  Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Mike Gallagher introduced the  Protecting Our Pharmaceutical Supply Chain From China Act aimed at ending U.S. dependence on Chinese drugs.
Among other things, the legislation offers incentives for manufactures to produce drugs domestically and requires federal entities to cut off the purchase of drugs with Chinese ingredients by 2025.
3 – China’s so-called debt diplomacy may bring it more control as Chinese coronavirus puts global economies into a tailspin.
China’s expansionist Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and other Chinese moves have long positioned China as a debt collector that can use the payments it is owed to influence those countries in its debt. With coronavirus causing worldwide economic turmoil, China may find itself with even more economic control over certain countries even though Beijing will take a big hit from its inability to collect debts.
Azeem Ibrahim, research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, took note of what he described as China’s “debt-based model of imperial control” and how the Chinese coronavirus outbreak could expand that influence.
Ibrahim wrote:
As these countries frantically attempt to manage the economic and financial consequences of the pandemic, they will struggle to service their debts to Beijing—which will expect more favors, and the ceding of more sovereignty, as the cost of debt relief.
Economic suffering is inevitable; as unemployment numbers grow and small businesses stare down the barrel of bankruptcy, it’s already arrived for many. Some may be more resilient than others, but dependent developing countries such as Liberia and Niger are going to be especially vulnerable. Their capacity to respond to the pandemic will be constrained by their relatively limited resources. And preexisting exposure to debt can put them in a real bind when forced to make choices between the lives of their citizens and becoming even more vulnerable to powerful creditors, most notably China.
The role of debt in China’s expansion of its sphere of influence along the Belt and Road is already well documented and understood. So-called “debt-trap diplomacy” has already seen Sri Lanka effectively lose sovereign control of one port on the Indian Ocean. Djibouti, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Montenegro have all been identified as at risk of similarly losing sovereign control over areas of interest to China, as they all already owe more than 45 percent of their gross domestic products to Beijing over Belt and Road projects.
In the spirit of never letting a crisis go to waste, there are indications China is already using the coronavirus pandemic to reposition its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a development strategy with focus on securing Chinese infrastructure projects in over 70 countries, including across Europe, Asia and Africa. China critics see the Belt and Road Initiative as a Trojan horse scheme to expand Chinese dominance globally, in part using a strategy of low bids to ensure successful tenders.
In the wake of the pandemic, China is offering low-cost financing and special foreign exchange liquidity loans for companies involved the BRI, Beijing announced earlier this month. This as the BRI seems to have hit a short-term roadblock because many countries put a freeze on labor coming from China over fears the coronavirus could be spread.
While some analysts say China’s massive international infrastructure project might actually take a short term knock from coronavirus, others believe the increased demand for Chinese cooperation on healthcare and virus response will open doors for BRI’s ultimate expansion.
Matt Ferchen, head of global China research with the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Germany, saw both sides of the coin on the BRI issue. “That China would see belt and road as a natural platform for extending such public diplomacy efforts, especially in developing countries, is not a surprise,” Ferchen remarked.
“The underlying contradiction, however, is that belt and road is a symbol of Chinese-led efforts at promoting the benefits of connectivity, while the virus has exposed the risks and weaknesses of connectivity on a global scale,” he said.
4. China seems to be implementing a post-virus strategy to gain ground from the U.S.
As long as the U.S. economy remains in question, China will seek to take advantage in the perceived power vacuum created during the pandemic – likely at the expense of the U.S.
“China has a long-standing strategic plan that’s focused on co-opting nodes and systems in which it thinks it can claim coercive power over the United States and the global system,” said Emily de La Bruyere, co-founder of Horizon Advisory, a consulting firm that tracks China. “Now that the world is shutting down, China sees its opportunity to move in much more quickly and aggressively to those nodes and systems.”
“They have a post-virus strategy, and it is already underway,” added Nate Picarsic, the other co-founder of Horizon Advisory.
Citing Chinese government and media sources, Horizon issued a report last week documenting “Beijing intends to reverse recent US efforts to counteract China’s subversive international presence; at the same time to chip away at US-Europe relations.”
Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin penned a piece titled, “How China is planning to use the coronavirus crisis to its advantage.”
“In Washington, there’s a lot of talk about how the coronavirus crisis could increase the push for more economic decoupling with China. But the Chinese government is thinking about it in exactly the opposite way. Beijing is preparing to use the crisis to advance China’s economic strategy against us. We better start taking notice,” Rogin warned.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow.
Joshua Klein contributed research to this article. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein_





US Lawmakers Call for Full Investigation Into China’s Pandemic Coverup

BY EVA FU

March 25, 2020 Updated: March 25, 2020
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Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) are calling for an international probe into how Beijing’s initial handling of the ongoing virus outbreak may have endangered the United States and the rest of the world.
In a resolution introduced in both chambers on March 24, the lawmakers asked Congress to condemn the Chinese regime for its coverup of the outbreak, which “almost certainly” heightened the CCP virus’s rapid global spread, they said.
Congress should also quantify the damage of such acts on the health and economic being of afflicted nations, the resolution stated.
CCP VIRUS SPECIAL COVERAGE
The Epoch Times uses “CCP virus” to refer to the pathogen commonly known as novel coronavirus, because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.
One of three legislative proposals introduced that day to take aim at the Beijing regime, the resolution also calls on the international community to design a mechanism for the CCP to deliver compensation accordingly.
“It is time for an international investigation into the role their coverup played in the spread of this devastating pandemic,” Hawley said in a joint press release with Stefanik. “The CCP must be held to account for what the world is now suffering.”
Media reports have detailed how Chinese authorities censored critical information when the virus first emerged in the city of Wuhan, located in Hubei province.
On Jan. 1, Hubei health authorities ordered a genomics testing company to stop virus testing, destroy all virus samples, and to keep their findings a secret, according to an expose by Chinese media Caixin.
Police tracked down multiple doctors who voiced concerns about the virus on social media, accusing them of spreading rumors and inciting public fear. Critics of Chinese authorities’ outbreak response were summoned and punished, and several outspoken citizen journalists disappeared after they tried to share firsthand videos from Wuhan.
On Jan. 13, Thailand confirmed the first infection outside of China, a day before the World Health Organization, citing Chinese investigations, announced that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.”
A University of Southampton study, currently in preprint and not yet peer-reviewed, found that China could have stopped up to 95 percent of the virus’s geographical spread had it enacted containment measures earlier.
“There is no doubt that China’s unconscionable decision to orchestrate an elaborate coverup of the wide-ranging and deadly implications of coronavirus led to the death of thousands of people, including hundreds of Americans and climbing,” Stefanik said.
The resolution also took note of how senior Chinese officials have tried to push the conspiracy theory that the virus originated in the United States.
“Since day one, the Chinese Communist Party intentionally lied to the world about the origin of this pandemic,” Hawley said.
On the same day, Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) also introduced a bipartisan resolution to condemn the CCP for the outbreak coverup and disinformation.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), meanwhile, introduced a bill called “No Chinese Handouts in National Assistance Act” to prevent any virus-related relief funds from flowing into China.
“Allowing American taxpayers’ money to go to companies owned by the Communist Chinese government is antithetical to our ‘America First’ agenda,” he said in a statement.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) on Tuesday called the CCP’s handling of the outbreak “one of the worst coverups in human history.”
“This is a systematic whitewash of what the Communist Party has done in China,” he told Fox News. He added that the virus “is now wreaking havoc all across the world, costing not only the lives of people but economic chaos.”
For “the harm, loss, and destruction their arrogance brought upon the rest of the world,” Stefanik said, China will need to pay.
“Simply put—China must, and will, be held accountable,” she said.
Follow Eva on Twitter: @EvaSailEast

Josh Hawley: Legislation ‘Necessary’ to Address Chinese Monopoly of U.S. Drug, Medical Supplies

AFP/Getty Images
24 Feb 20201,067
2:59
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) wrote a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Monday, contending that it is “inexcusable” that America relies on China for its medical supply chain. Hawley called hearings and legislation to determine how to address America’s reliance on Chinese for producing vital medicine.
The Missouri conservative wrote a letter to U.S. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn after reports revealed that the coronavirus has jeopardized the “domestic supply of some 150 prescription drugs, including antibiotics, generics, and branded drugs.”
Hawley said that the time is coming for Congress to have oversight and consider legislation to address the insecurity of America’s medical supply chain.
Hawley wrote to Hahn:
The degree to which some of our own manufacturers rely on China to produce life-saving and life-sustaining medications is inexcusable. It is becoming clear to me that both oversight hearings and additional legislation are necessary to determine the extent of our reliance on Chinese production and protect our medical product supply chain.
Reports have revealed the extent to which China produces and exports the overwhelming majority of pharmaceuticals to the United States. China exports 97 percent of all antibiotics and 80 percent of active ingredients used to make drugs in Americans.
Another report stated that America is losing its ability to make pharmaceuticals because of Chinese dumping of low-price products into the global market.
Rosemary Gibson, the author of China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine, told Breitbart News Tonight host Rebecca Mansour that America should pursue a federal industrial policy to renew domestic manufacturing of medicines and medical products.
Gibson said:
I would have our federal government invest in helping to rebuild our industrial base using advanced manufacturing technology that can produce our medicines much more cheaply, safely, with less environmental footprint, and fully, from soup to nuts from those core raw materials to finished drug in one location all here in the United States.
There will be opponents who say, ‘No, we should let the market do it.’ The market will never do this. They’ll never make this investment. So we have to decide as a country, do we want to have some degree of self-sufficiency in our ability to make medicine? Do we want our military not to be dependent on China for pharmaceuticals to treat chemical and biological agents?
Gibson added, “We’ll be depending on China to help us out when we run out of medicines. The absurdity of it is extraordinary. We have to decide as a country, do we want to have some capacity to make our own medicines, or not?”
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.

Josh Hawley Introduces Legislation to Expose Chinese Monopoly of U.S. Drug, Medical Supplies

Samuel Corum/Getty Images
 27 Feb 202084
4:34
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced the Medical Supply Chain Security Act on Thursday to combat potential American drug shortages created in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak in China and to reveal America’s reliance on Chinese manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and medical devices.
Sen. Hawley said in a statement that the legislation would provide the country with the information necessary to secure the medical supply chain. He explained:
The coronavirus outbreak in China has highlighted severe and longstanding weaknesses in our medical supply chain. This is more than unfortunate; it’s a danger to public health. Our health officials need to know the extent of our reliance on Chinese production so they can take all necessary action to protect Americans. This legislation will give us the information we need to better secure our supply chain and ensure that Americans have uninterrupted access to life-saving drugs and medical devices.
The spread of the coronavirus throughout China has exposed the deep vulnerabilities in the U.S. medical supply chain as well as the country’s dependence upon China producing pharmaceuticals and medical devices.
Axios reported that the coronavirus outbreak has jeopardized the American supply of roughly 150 pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, generics, and brand-name drugs. Some of these drugs do not have alternatives on the market.
China exports 97 percent of all antibiotics and 80 percent of active ingredients used to make drugs in America. America is losing its ability to make pharmaceuticals because of Chinese dumping of low-price products into the global market.
Public health officials at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently have limited resources for assessing supply chain vulnerabilities. The FDA recently asked Congress for more statutory authority to require that manufacturers notify the agency when they discover circumstances that may lead to shortages in essential medical devices. Giving the FDA more authority would allow the agency to ensure that they can take the necessary steps to mitigate potential shortages of life-saving drugs and medical devices.
Hawley’s legislation would:
  • Require that manufacturers report imminent or forecasted shortages of medical devices to the FDA as they currently do for pharmaceutical drugs.
  • Allow the FDA to expedite the review of essential medical devices that require pre-market approval in the event of expected shortages reported by a manufacturer.
  • Grant the FDA additional authority to request additional information from manufacturers of essential drugs or devices regarding their manufacturing capacity, including sourcing of component parts, sourcing of active pharmaceutical ingredients, use of raw materials, and any other details the FDA might find relevant to assess the security of the American medical supply chain.
Hawley’s legislation follows as the Missouri populist wrote a letter this week to FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, asking Hahn what actions he and the agency can take to ensure that American citizens do not face shortages of life-saving drugs and medical drugs.
The Missouri senator said Tuesday that the coronavirus outbreak has proved that America needs to “stop relying on China for our critical medical supply chains.”


If the #Coronavirus crisis makes anything clear, it’s that we need to stop relying on #China for our critical medical supply chains. I will introduce legislation this week to jump start that effort. Details to follow https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/world/asia/coronavirus-news.html?referringSource=articleShare 

Coronavirus Live Updates: Markets Reel as Virus Spreads Across the World



Rosemary Gibson, the author of China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine, recently told Breitbart News Tonight host Rebecca Mansour that the United States should pursue an industrial policy to renew domestic manufacturing of medicines and medical products in the homeland.
Gibson said:
I would have our federal government invest in helping to rebuild our industrial base using advanced manufacturing technology that can produce our medicines much more cheaply, safely, with less environmental footprint, and fully, from soup to nuts from those core raw materials to finished drug in one location all here in the United States.
Hawley also said Tuesday that the Donald Trump administration should consider additional travel restrictions to combat the spread of the coronavirus throughout the United States.
“This is a no-brainer. It’s not just China any longer. With the rise of cases in Europe & Asia, we need to take additional steps to protect Americans,” Hawley tweeted.


This is a no-brainer. It’s not just China any longer. With the rise of cases in Europe & Asia, we need to take additional steps to protect Americans https://twitter.com/kylieatwood/status/1232654412440625152 


Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.



Hawley Introduces Security Bill Addressing Data, Privacy Concerns

November 19, 2019 Updated: November 19, 2019
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A bill (pdf) to fight the flow of Americans’ sensitive personal data to China and other countries that threaten national security was introduced on Nov. 18 by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) in the wake of a hearing that raised concerns over Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok.
TikTok had said it’s hired a U.S.-based auditing firm to analyze the app’s data security practices, in a letter to lawmakers at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing chaired by Hawley on Nov. 5.
During the hearing, Hawley said all it would take is “one knock on the door of their parent company based in China from a Communist Party official” for the data to be sent to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He requested that TikTok executives testify before the panel—nobody showed up.
Beijing-based ByteDance Technology Co., which owns TikTok, is facing a national security review over its $1 billion acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly in 2017.
“Current law makes it far too easy for hostile foreign governments like China to access Americans’ sensitive data,” Hawley said in a Nov. 18 statement. “Chinese companies with vast amounts of personal data on Americans are required by Chinese law to provide that data to Chinese intelligence services.”
“If your child uses TikTok, there’s a chance the Chinese Communist Party knows where they are, what they look like, what their voices sound like, and what they’re watching,” he continued. “That’s a feature TikTok doesn’t advertise.”
In TikTok’s letter to lawmakers, TikTok U.S. General Manager Vanessa Pappas said the company stores all U.S. user data in the United States, with backup redundancy in Singapore. While TikTok claims the Chinese regime doesn’t have jurisdiction over the content of the app, lawmakers have noted that ByteDance is governed by Chinese laws.
Hawley said U.S. companies operating in China also have these risks, as Chinese law allows the communist regime to seize data from American companies operating in China “whenever it wants, for whatever reason it wants.” The legislation names China and Russia specifically over concerns relating to data privacy and security.
In order to enter the Chinese market, some American companies agree to give sensitive data to Beijing in exchange. FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that Chinese law “compels U.S. companies that are operating in China … to provide whatever information the government wants, whenever it wants.”
“We should expect foreign surveillance efforts from China to use platforms like TikTok because they are more modern and attract a younger, easily influenceable crowd,” Charity Wright, a cyber threat intelligence adviser at IntSights with 15 years of experience with the U.S. Army and the National Security Agency, told The Epoch Times earlier this month.
The Chinese communist regime has representatives in almost every large company in China, Wright said. The concerns over TikTok come amid broader anxiety over forced technology transfers from U.S. companies to Chinese authorities and intellectual property theft.
Over the past 12 months, TikTok has been downloaded more than 750 million times, according to research firm Sensor Tower; which is more than new users of Facebook, Youtube, or Snapchat in the same time period. In the first quarter of this year, TikTok was the most downloaded application worldwide on the app store.
Follow Bowen on Twitter: @BowenXiao3


Is today's Democratic Party deceiving the people?

 

Bill Gertz is an author of eight books and an award-winning national security journalist and currently is the national security columnist for The Washington Times.  His recently published book, Deceiving the Sky: Inside Communist China's Drive for Global Supremacy provides valuable insights revealing why Chinese communist leaders and their increasing totalitarian system of government pose such a menacing threat to the world and how they are actively undermining American democracy and freedom. 
While the book is focused on modern China, valuable lessons can be learned about the dangers of totalitarianism and political corruption operating anywhere in the world.  Especially noteworthy is material presented in Chapter 1 — "How Communists Lie," specifically by Guo Wengui, who is a Chinese billionaire and political exile and former insider who left China in 2014.  The first chapter includes quotes by Guo Wengui exposing how the Chinese communist system operates in deceitful ways.
Guo Wengui is a controversial public figure operating from his current home in NYC.  He is a leading and well known activist opposing the Chinese communist government through several different methods, including social media, public appearances and meeting with prominent Western opinion-makers and politicians.  Opinions today widely differ about his actual status, his background, and his true intentions.  However, he knows the communist system well as a former political insider and the ideology behind it, so the ideas offered by him are valuable to consider.
Guo Wengui starts by reminding us that China is a communist country and that communism attempts to build a utopian society, therefore the very basis of the system is false.  As a consequence, he persuasively states that in fact, communists are professional liars, because they will never realize what they promise.  It is in fact impossible to do so.  He states that traditional Western culture is built on the morality of right and wrong.  On the other hand, he asserts that in the communist system, truth and lies are interchangeable.  As an example, if the truth furthers the ideological cause, it will be used, and when outright lies are expedient, there is no unwillingness to use them. 
Guo Wengui labels today's Chinese political system as a kleptocracy concerned and primarily motivated by fulfilling the interests of a comparatively small elite rather than the well-being of the Chinese people.  These selected few elites are all exclusively high-ranking members of the Communist Party.  Totalitarian systems such as the one that exists today in China strive to take total control of the everyday lives of their citizens, including their thoughts and attitudes as well as their daily activities.  The Chinese Communist Party regularly uses its state-controlled mass and social media to maintain absolute political control, often relying on outright deceit.
As I read this characterization of the workings of the Chinese Communist Party and its leaders, it led me to thinking more about current political conditions closer to home.
In our country, the most powerful collective mechanism for the people to come together on a regular basis and have the right to choose the political agenda and the type of country we want to live in is by voting.  The American voter goes to the polls with the expectation that our elected representatives will work to deliver solutions to the issues and challenges facing our country.  Since his inauguration, President Trump has worked tirelessly to implement his agenda and has been exceptionally successful in doing so.  Various positive results have occurred in a wide variety of areas ranging from the economy, immigration, and trade policy to national security.  
The most dangerous assault on our system of government today is the orchestrated efforts by the Democratic Party to actively work in a series of campaigns to invalidate the results of the 2016 election.  Democrats actively resist, impugn, and call into question without exception any policy initiative by the Trump administration.  The Democrats currently promote an environment of resistance by outright deception indicating a determination not to offer any compromise on issues.  In addition, they do not seem to display any regard for the consequences of their actions on our country.
Extending over more than three years, on December 18, these efforts led to the House voting along party lines on two articles to impeach President Trump.  The House voted 230-197 to charge Trump with abuse and 229-198 to charge him with obstruction of Congress.  A key indicator of the continued magnitude of their determination to remove the president from office is that only three Democrats joined in to vote in opposition to one or both of the charges against the president.
All of this is occurring within an environment where there is no actual evidence of any impeachable offenses ever being committed by the president or any members of his administration.  However, there is being uncovered on virtually a daily basis extensive evidence of unprecedented political corruption and subversive activities authorized and conducted by high-ranking members of the Obama administration, with all of them directed at destroying candidate and then President Trump.   
The move to impeach President Trump is occurring as Democratic Party moves rapidly left politically openly advocating adopting socialism in America in an apparent attempt to radically transform the very nature of our country and system of government.  The growing appeal of socialism in this country can be attributed to many factors.  The brand of socialism presented by many of today's leading Democratic politicians has an alluring and emotional appeal to many people.  It is portrayed as a political system consisting of fair and equitable solutions to many of our most challenging political, economic, and social issues.
The policy agendas of today's leading Democrats including Medicare for All; the Green New Deal; open borders; and their approach to issues such as social justice, economic and tax policy, foreign policy, gun control, and energy policy, plus so many others, are rarely held up to comprehensive public examination and scrutiny by the mainstream media in any truly meaningful way. 
China today is on a path under paramount leader Xi Jinping and an increasingly powerful Communist Party of evolving its political system to be even more totalitarian, ready and willing to go to greater lengths and measures to control virtually every aspect of its citizens' lives.
In our country, is the Democrats' socialist vision and associated policies for America fake, and can they ever deliver on what they promise, and will their agenda ultimately be of benefit or detriment to the American people?  Do they threaten our freedoms in an attempt to further control our lives by implementing a significantly larger government apparatus that will include much greater regulation of a citizen's daily activities?  Are they moving us on a path toward totalitarianism similar to the one evolving in China today?

The difference in our country is that our future can still be determined by the voters in 2020.  At this time in our history and with an increasingly left-leaning radical Democratic Party and their agenda, the results of the next election will profoundly define the future direction of our nation and way of life.


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