Important Takeaways:
- Indiana farmers raise national security fears as China buys up over 600 acres, as lawmakers try to ban purchases near military bases amid spying threat
- Indiana lawmakers propose a law banning certain land ownership by China
- Purchases near military bases or national guard armories would be barred
- 24 states have passed similar laws including Alabama, Idaho and Virginia
- The Indiana bill does not ban specific countries, but defers to the US Commerce Department’s list of adversaries, which currently includes China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba.
- At least 24 other US states have passed similar laws restriction certain forms of foreign land ownership.
- Federal data show that Chinese firms and investors own just over 383,934 acres in the US as of 2021, making it the 18th largest foreign investor.
- That’s far less than the land owned by the top foreign land owners: Canada, Netherlands, Italy, the UK and Germany.
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Important Takeaways:
- The US government is spending $1million of American taxpayer money to fund gain-of-function experiments on dangerous bird flu viruses in collaboration with Chinese scientists.
- The research involves infecting ducks and geese with different strains to make them more transmissible and infectious, and study the viruses’ potential to ‘jump into mammalian hosts,’ according to the research documents.
- It is being funded through the US Department of Agriculture and will take place at sites in Georgia, Beijing and Edinburgh in Scotland.
- The documents were obtained by the campaign group, The White Coat Waste Project, and shared with DailyMail.com.
- The papers show funding for the avian virus research began in April 2021 and it is slated to continue through March 2026.
- The specific viruses the researchers will work with include H5NX, H7N9 and H9N2.
- A 2023 study described H5NX viruses as ‘highly pathogenic’ with the ability to cause neurological complications in humans.
- The main collaborators on the project are USDA Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute – a Wuhan lab partner.
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Important Takeaways:
- “China has signaled interest in joining discussions on setting rules and norms for AI, and we should welcome that,” said Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund to the Breaking Defense site. “The White House is interested in engaging China on limiting the role of AI in command and control of nuclear weapons.”
- [N]o, America should not want to enter into any AI agreement with the People’s Republic of China on “nuclear C2” — command and control — or any other matter.
- An agreement requiring a human to make launch decisions would, as a practical matter, be unenforceable.
- None of China, Russia, or the United States would allow others to pore over millions of lines of their computer code…..
- America does not need another feel-good agreement with China. It already has them, especially the Biological Weapons Convention, which has no enforcement mechanisms.
- The Chinese regime wants to talk about artificial intelligence largely because it is trailing the U.S. and thinks an agreement would help it catch up…. [and] pave the way for China to access the U.S. technology it does not already have.
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Important Takeaways:
- U.S. members of Congress introduced a proposed law called the BIOSECURE Act that would ban the use of tax dollars for the utilization of genetics companies from China that collaborate with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
- This is a good bill, but one must ask: How in the world have we allowed such a practice to continue to this day? Why does the executive branch of the U.S. government need a law for such a common-sense rule that it could have made policy long ago?
- We should have had an all-of-government, if not all-of-society, effort since at least the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 to end reliance on China, especially companies linked to its military. We should most especially have limited the release of genetic data to Beijing.
- As noted in the House announcement, but not in most of the bill’s mainstream media coverage, the proposed law is in part meant to stop the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from using U.S. genetic data for malign purposes, including genetic targeting of U.S. citizens with bioweapons.
- “Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) collects genetic data of Americans [and] uses it for research with the Chinese military,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) in the bill’s announcement. Mr. Gallagher chairs the House Select Committee on the CCP. He introduced the House version of the bill, along with his Democratic co-chair.
- “The CCP will undoubtedly use the genetic data collected by BGI to further its malign aggression, potentially even to develop a bioweapon used to target the American people,” Mr. Gallagher noted.
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Important Takeaways:
- The US military is almost entirely dependent upon China and Russia for a metal used in many military applications, such as explosives and armor-piercing bullets. The metal is antimony, and China currently owns 53 percent of the world’s supply. However, it processes over 80 percent of antimony ore through contracts with other producers. The US’s last source of antimony, the Stibnite mine in Idaho, ceased operations in 1997.
- It isn’t just the military that relies on antimony, though it does appear insane to import the key element in manufacturing modern military munitions from your most likely adversary; the private sector is also heavily reliant on the metal.
- For example, consider its usage in the high-tech sector, where it is a key ingredient in semi-conductors, circuit boards, electric switches, fluorescent lighting, high quality clear glass and lithium-ion batteries. No antimony, no iPhones. No hi-definition TVs. No modern kitchen appliances, all of which make use of digital circuitry. Oh, and that car you’re thinking about buying? Sorry.
- Now, consider this: There can be no “energy transition” without adequate supplies of antimony. That thick, heavy glass used in solar panels? It’s made with antimony. Those 300 to 700 foot-tall windmills that sporadically produce electricity? Made with antimony. Antimony is a key element in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries, as mentioned above, but even more crucial is the fact that it is integral to the development of the next-generation liquid metal batteries that, as Ecclestone pointed out during the webinar, hold the key to truly scalable energy storage for wind and solar power.
- This issue has hit the front burner of Capitol Hill. The House Armed Services Committee is investigating the status of the Defense National Stockpile, which is charged with maintaining a strategic reserve of rare minerals. Our stockpile and the infrastructure to operate it will largely cease to exist by 2025 unless urgent action is taken.
- Crap like this simply validates the idea that we are ruled by fools and buffoons. Congress has nearly sold off the stockpile, according to Defense News, “over the past several decades to fund other programs.”
- The stockpile was valued at nearly $42 billion in today’s dollars at its peak during the beginning of the Cold War in 1952. That value has plummeted to $888 million as of last year following decades of congressionally authorized sell-offs to private sector customers. Lawmakers anticipate the stockpile will become insolvent by FY25.
- “A lot of what happened is Congress just getting greedy and finding politically convenient ways to fund programs that they weren’t willing to raise revenue for,” said [Massachusetts Democrat Seth] Moulton.
- These sell-offs have included 3,000 short tons of titanium, used in building military airframes, and 76 million pounds of tungsten ores and concentrates, used in military turbine engines and armor-piercing ammunition. They have also included more than 2 million pounds of tantalum, used in electronics, as well as 26 million pounds of cobalt and 62,881 short tons of aluminum
- Somehow, if a war breaks out over Taiwan, I don’t think the Chinese will be selling up the material we need to make ammunition.
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Important Takeaways:
- China Is Buying Up US Farmland, But Just How Much Isn’t Clear
- Foreign ownership and investment in US farmland, pastures and forests jumped to about 40 million acres in 2021, up 40% from 2016, according to Department of Agriculture data. But an analysis conducted by the US Government Accountability Office — a non-partisan watchdog that reports to Congress — found mistakes in the data, including the largest land holding linked with China being counted twice. Other challenges include the USDA’s reliance on foreigners self-reporting their activity.
- Outside ownership of US cropland is drawing attention from Washington as concern rises about possible threats to food supply chains and other national security risks. Lawmakers have called for a crackdown on sales of farmland to China and other nations.
- “Without improving its internal processes, USDA cannot report reliable information to Congress or the public about where and how much US agricultural land is held by foreign persons,” the report said.
- The GAO made six recommendations, including that the USDA share more timely and complete data with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, an interagency panel led by the Treasury Department that reviews foreign business deals.
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Important Takeaways:
- U.K. Govt Warns: Be Ready for War with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea in Five Years
- Speaking at Lancaster House on Monday, British Minister of Defense Grant Shapps said the West is facing a “much more troubled world” and could no longer consider itself post-war, with considerable new investment in military spending needed. He said:
- …now is the time for all allies and democratic nations across the world to… make sure their defense spending is growing too. Because as discussed, the era of the peace dividend is over. In five years time we could be looking at multiple theatres including Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.
- …we find ourselves at the dawn of this new era. [The] Berlin Wall a distant memory but we have come full circle, moving from a post-war to a pre-war world. An age of idealism has been replaced by a period of hard-headed realism.
- Illustrating actions taken by Britain to prepare itself for this multifaceted conflict the British government apparently believes is coming, Shapps cited the UK’s support to Ukraine, the country leading the largest NATO deployment since the end of the Cold War this year, the signing of a new UK-Japan-Italy fighter coalition, and the creation of the Australia-UK-U.S. submarine coalition. He said the government was moving to putting 2.5 per cent of GDP into defense spending as soon as it could afford to.
- Estonia, one of Ukraine’s most enthusiastic allies and a state which has a land border with Russia said through their Prime Minister on Monday that their intelligence states NATO has “three to five years” to prepare for a Russian attack on NATO itself.
- Sweden warned its citizens last week to be prepared for war.
- Germany is reportedly of the same mind, with the best-selling newspaper in Europe Bild splashing this week on leaked war plans anticipating Russian invasions of European states by the summer of 2025.
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Important Takeaways:
- Joe Biden ‘is struggling to keep his head above water’ as US is challenged by Iran and Russia – ‘and China and North Korea are taking notes’, experts say as they warn inaction now ‘will cost American lives later’
- Joe Biden ‘is struggling to keep his head above water’ as the US ‘ignores’ threats from Iran and continues to be challenged by Russia – while North Korea and China are ‘taking notes’, experts have warned.
- Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed yesterday that their forces launched ballistic missiles close to the US consulate in Erbil, northern Iraq – a move condemned as ‘reckless’ by the US State Department.
- Former military intelligence officer Colonel (Ret) Jonathan Sweet and foreign policy expert Mark Toth labelled the US response ‘as perfunctory as it was lacking’, saying it is just the latest example of the Biden administration’s inaction in the region.
- Iran’s so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ – including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels – has been increasing its attacks on Israel and commercial shipping routes, prompting the US and UK to launch devastating strikes by air and sea.
- But the experts told MailOnline: ‘For all the US military might put on display throughout the Middle East, Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden right now, Iran and their proxies have not been deterred.’
- Meanwhile, as the war in Ukraine approaches its third year, Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric has become more aggressive, threatening Ukraine’s statehood and warning that Russia would ‘never’ abandon the gains it has made.
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Important Takeaways:
- World War 3 fears as Xi Jinping ‘purges China’s military and brings in generals willing to go to war in move that could lead to Taiwan invasion and drag US into global conflict’
- Xi Jingping is purging China’s military and bringing in generals willing to go to war in a move that could lead to an invasion of Taiwan and drag the Unites States into World War Three, military analysts have said.
- The Chinese leader, seen by many as a dictator, is ‘trying to gain control of the military,’ Gordon Chang told Business Insider, adding: ‘I think that he is thinking that he needs officers who are prepared to actually fight.’
- According to Chang, author of ‘China Is Going to War’, Xi feels ‘that many of China’s general officers don’t want to fight.’ As a result, he said, the Chinese premier sees ‘a force led by an officer corps that is ambivalent about going to war.’
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Important Takeaways:
- China purges top army brass after US intel revealed they’d filled missiles with WATER instead of fuel and had a huge silo bunker with the wrong lids due to military corruption
- The news comes days after a startling New Year’s message from ruler Xi Jingping, who warned that ‘all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait’ will be ‘reunified.’
- The communist country’s top lawmakers ousted nine senior military officers from the national legislative body on Friday, state media reported, a step that typically precedes further punishment.
- Many of those removed were from the Rocket Force – a key arm of the Chinese army overseeing tactical and nuclear missiles.
- Now, American intelligence claims military corruption led to the mistakes, which also included fields of silos in Western China fitted with lids that stopped the missiles from launching.
- Since Xi took power in 2012, he has embarked on a wide-ranging anti-corruption crackdown among Communist Party and government officials, with the army being one of its main targets.
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