Leaked Documents Reveal China Buying Russian Weapons for Taiwan Invasion Prep | China in Focus

Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Kevin Hogan, in for Tiffany Meyer. Our top story, leaked documents reveal China has been secretly buying Russian weapons since 2022, reportedly to prepare for a Taiwan invasion. What's on Beijing's shopping list? And about 10 Chinese and Russian military aircraft entered South Korea's restricted air defense zone. In response, South Korea scrambled fighter jets to monitor them. NVIDIA has gained approval from the U.S. government to sell its more advanced H200 chips to China, although some critics say the move may hurt Washington's national security. The trial of former senior New York state official Linda Sun has now entered the procedure of closing arguments. Prosecutors are accusing Sun of secretly serving the CCP while working inside the New York state government. Twelve billion dollars for American farmers. President Trump unveils this aid package for the agriculture sector after China pulled back purchases of products like soybeans. Leaked Russian documents reveal China has been secretly buying Russian weapons to build up its air force since 2022. The move appears to be in preparation for a Taiwan invasion. The Kyiv Independent reported the story based on leaked Russian documents obtained by hackers. The documents say China has reportedly purchased Russian aircraft, combat vehicles, ammunition and equipment. The sale is a means to bolster the Chinese military's paratrooper and airborne units. The Chinese military also bought armored vehicles that can be airdropped from an aircraft onto the ground. The deadline for parts of the contract is 2027, the year Chinese leader Xi Jinping said the country's military should be ready to invade Taiwan. China tried to conceal its payments to Russian defense manufacturers as the purchases are subject to international sanctions. Notably, military ties between China and Russia have been growing. Earlier this month, the two militaries conducted a joint anti-missile exercise. This follows their first ever joint submarine patrol in the Pacific that was carried out just months ago. Earlier this year, leaders of China, Russia and North Korea appeared together at a massive military parade in China. Ukraine's presidential advisor said about 60 percent of foreign parts found in Russian weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine come from China. A China expert warns that Russian arms sales to China create challenges for the U.S. Russia has been consuming American and European weapons in Ukraine, while China has been buying Russian arms for use for potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Sun said Russian weapons could strengthen China's military and shorten the time needed to prepare for a Taiwan invasion. He added that the U.S. and Taiwan need to reevaluate the urgency of the looming threat. China and Russia sent military planes to South Korea's air defense identification zone on Tuesday. The zone is not the same as a country's territorial airspace. It's a buffer area where foreign aircraft must identify themselves for security purposes. Entering the zone without prior notice can trigger a military response, which is exactly what happened on Tuesday. South Korea scrambled fighter jets after two Chinese and seven Russian military planes entered the restricted zone. They lingered for about an hour without notifying South Korean authorities. After the incident, China said it was conducting an annual joint strategic air patrol with Russia over the East China Sea and Western Pacific. And President Trump says he will allow NVIDIA's H200 processors to be exported to China. It's the company's second most powerful AI chips. In a Truth Social post Monday, Trump said he had informed Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping about the move and that Xi responded positively. Here are the details. President Donald Trump on Monday said NVIDIA will be allowed to sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips to China, but at a price. The U.S. government will collect a 25% fee for each chip exported, higher than the 15% floated in August. A White House official says it will be collected as an import tax from Taiwan, where the chips are made, before they undergo U.S. security checks and head to China. NVIDIA shares jumped after Trump's announcement on Truth Social, up 2% after hours following a 3% rise earlier on reports of the deal. Trump added that the U.S. Commerce Department is finalizing details of the deal, and the same approach would apply to other AI chip firms such as AMD and Intel. The move appears to settle debate over whether American chip makers should sell to China, or hold back to protect U.S. dominance in AI. However, critics in Washington say shipping high-end AI chips to China risks supercharging its military. Democratic senators criticized the decision, calling it a major economic and national security failure. Experts say NVIDIA's H200 is nearly six times more powerful than the H20, which is the most advanced chip currently allowed for export to China. But it's still slower than NVIDIA's Blackwell chips, which U.S. firms use for AI training and development. In more news involving chips to China, two Chinese nationals are now in custody, accused of trafficking NVIDIA H100 and H200 processors to China. Prosecutors say they worked with employees at a Hong Kong logistics firm and a China-based AI company. Officials say the aim was to evade U.S. export controls. The individuals allegedly used straw buyers and false claims that the chips were bound for American or third-country customers. The chips were routed through U.S. warehouses, where labels were swapped to hide their origin. And in a separate case, U.S. officials say they've dismantled another China-linked network that moved more than $160 million worth of restricted NVIDIA AI chips to China. Two businessmen were arrested, and a Houston company and its owner have already pleaded guilty. The tricky part of the situation is that when the suspects smuggled the H200 chips to China, the export was still banned. But now, President Trump has approved shipments of these chips. It remains unclear how the case will unfold. President Trump unveils a $12 billion farm aid package at a roundtable with Cabinet members and American farmers. The aid package is meant to help farmers affected by tariffs and other factors, especially related to China. Antittes, Washington correspondent Mari Otsu has more. President Trump unveiled that $12 billion farmer aid package here in the Cabinet room, alongside farmers of corn, cattle, soybeans and many other industries. And in this package, an initial $11 billion will be given to farmers of row crops. Then another additional $1 billion is still being sorted out for specialty crops. The aid will be given through a one-time bridge assistant program under the Department of Agriculture's newly named farmer bridge assistance program. Here's Court Holub, a farmer from Iowa, saying how the aid will affect his family. Watch. I think you brought Christmas to farmers. With this bridge payment, you have a backbone to stand up to other countries for trade. I'll be able to potentially pass on a farm to my children because of you. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says the payments will start by February 28. But by the end of this month, so just in the next couple of weeks, every farmer that is able to apply for it will know exactly what that number looks like. Farmers are an indispensable national asset, part of the backbone of America. I've always felt it so strongly. They're so important. This announcement comes as the U.S. has been in a trade war with China, leading to some U.S. farmers struggling to sell their crops as Beijing pulled back on purchases of products like soybeans, a move that President Trump condemned as economically hostile. Either in person or when we are on a call with President Xi, the first thing the president asking for is more soybean purchases. We don't talk about geopolitics. We don't talk about trade. It's about soybean. We don't even say hello. We immediately start. Do start with the soybean, please. Could you do a little? It's always could you do a little more? Soybean purchases gradually ramped up after a late October agreement between President Trump and CCP leader Xi Jinping, with China making its biggest daily soybean buy in two years last month. China committed to purchase at least at least 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans this growing season, followed by a minimum of 25 million tons annually for the next three years. However, current soybean purchase quantities are still far behind the committed 12 million tons that China said that they would commit to by the end of February. And meanwhile, President Trump is threatening to impose an additional 5 percent tariff on Mexico, accusing it of violating a water sharing treaty. The president is demanding that Mexico immediately release the 200,000 acre feet of water before the end of this year, saying that it's damaging Texas crops and livestock and that it's hurting American farmers. The weeks long trial of alleged Chinese agent Linda Sun is finally coming to an end on Tuesday. Prosecutors on behalf of the U.S. government have now started presenting their closing arguments. Sun has been accused of serving Beijing's agenda during her time as a senior state official and selling out the New York state government for greed. Meanwhile, her husband, Chris Hu, is accused of laundering the illegal proceedings the couple received from the CCP's apparatus. Antides Flora Hua was at the courthouse. Here's the story. Prosecutors walked the jury through the evidence supporting each charge against Linda Sun and her husband, Chris Hu. The Justice Department, FBI, IRS, New York state government all contributed to the investigation into Sun's ties to the Chinese Communist Party and her family's business activities and their finances. Sun spent almost a decade as a senior official in the New York governor's office under both the Cuomo and Houkou administrations until 2023. Assistant District Attorney Alexander Solomon called Linda Sun, quote, a PRC woman working within the New York state government. He added that her real boss is the Chinese regime and that her role in New York's government was just part of her assignment. Prosecutors accused Sun of taking orders from various parties, including leaders of CCP-controlled overseas organizations and the Chinese consular general in New York. Just to name a few, through court-verified text messages between Linda Sun and Chinese diplomats, Sun boasted about blocking all formal and informal interactions between Taiwanese officials and the New York governor. Solomon emphasized that New York had no such policy and that Sun's actions essentially benefited Beijing. In her own text messages, Sun boasted to Chinese diplomats that she could control then-Lieutenant Governor Houkou's schedule, even calling Houkou more obedient than Cuomo. Prosecutors say Sun was generously compensated by the Chinese regime. A seafood company run by her husband and his uncle was well taken care of by Chinese officials from the provinces of Shandong, Guangdong and Henan. The deals brought in millions for Sun's family, money her husband then hid from the U.S. government. On top of that, prosecutors accused Sun of profiting from the New York government during the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sun allegedly lied to the government by recommending a company associated to a distant relative. And in return, she and her husband Chris Hu received millions in kickbacks. Chris Hu allegedly laundered the money through dummy bank accounts, wire transfers through shell companies and other means. According to prosecutors, Sun and her husband spent this money on mansions, luxury handbags, expensive cars and watches. It's worth noting that the U.S. government showed mercy towards Sun before pressing charges. Court records show that in 2020, four years before her arrest, an FBI special agent warned Sun to keep her distance from the Chinese consulate. The agent also advised her to register as a foreign agent. However, it appears that Sun never heeded the warning. We'll keep a close watch as the defense is expected to deliver their closing argument, wrapping up by Wednesday evening. Reporting from Brooklyn, New York, Flora Hua, NTD News. Coming up, NASA is ramping up its return to the moon. Private astronaut and Trump appointee Jared Isaacman says the moon is more than just a scientific hub. A geopolitical analyst joins us to explain why it matters. If you can control the moon, you can control all the orbits below it, including the earth. This is how China thinks. This is how we need to be thinking. Hong Kong's election turnout hits a near record low after a deadly fire sparks anger at China-backed authorities. More on that after the break here on China In Focus. Welcome back to China In Focus. I'm Kevin Hogan. NASA is gearing up for a major push back to the moon with the Artemis program set to launch astronauts in the coming months. Private astronaut and Trump appointee Jared Isaacman stresses the moon as both a scientific hub and a strategic high ground in the space race with China. To unpack all this, Tiffany Meyer spoke with Brandon Weichert, geopolitical analyst. Brandon Weichert, thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you back on the show. Thank you for having me, as always. Now, Trump's NASA pick, Jared Isaacman, was in front of Congress again for his second hearing, and he was really stressing the importance of getting to the moon and setting up a whole base ahead of China, saying that would be basically catastrophic if we don't do that. What do you make of this kind of priority, if you will? At the same time, though, he did stress it's not abandoning Mars. It's kind of a parallel track. But what do you make of the reprioritization, if you will, of going back to the moon? Well, it's essential because when we talk about space dominance and grand strategy in space, which is really a thing, we're talking about Earth-Moon system. So basically, if you think about the strategic high ground, yes, the orbits above the Earth are the high ground, but there's an even higher ground than that, and that is the moon. So if you can control the moon, you can control all the orbits below it, including the Earth. This is how China thinks. This is how we need to be thinking. I think this is what Isaacman is referring to. And he's right. We're not abandoning Mars. In fact, the private sector is free to keep pursuing the Martian goal as much as they want, and I hope that they get there quickly. But we have to get to the moon because that is not just an economic and scientific boon, but it is a strategic priority. You control the moon, you control the orbits below it, you control the Earth. And by the way, it's cheaper to get from the moon to Mars as well. And on that note, talk to us about the resources here, right? Often when people talk about getting to Mars, there's a lot of resources there. How important, expanding on your earlier point, is it to have that moon base? If you actually listen to what China is talking about, 2030 to 2032 is when they think they're going to have boots on the moon. And from there, they're talking about establishing a permanent base, and they're specifically talking about lunar mining operations. And the reason they're talking about that is because the moon is chock full of natural resources that are mineable, rare Earth minerals in particular. Something called helium-3. H3 is an isotope found on the moon. And if you can harvest it, you can use it in nuclear fusion reactions. It's deuterium, tritium right now. I think you get rid of the tritium and replace it with deuterium-helium-3. And helium-3 is better of a source of power than is deuterium. So you're talking about a clean energy revolution, and we know China's all over that already. And so the moon could be key to that. And China understands that. They understand the moon as an economic anchor, as well as a strategic necessity. And we need to start thinking like that. And I think Isaacman is. Now, when it comes to getting humans back on the moon, right, you have Isaacman emphasizing NASA's Artemis program, specifically Artemis 2, to get a crewed flight back to the moon, saying it's approaching in just a matter of months, followed by Artemis 3, designed to land astronauts on the surface. Again, China also has its ambitions there, so how do you see this playing out? How much of a lead, if you will, does the U.S. still have in this area? Not much of a lead. And the biggest issue is we've let that lead go away because of our bureaucracy and our lack of strategic will, political will as well. But luckily, under President Trump, we have the political will to a point. But as you already saw with the Isaacman dick the first time around, political factors prevented him from being confirmed in April. Thank God he's back. And the reason I say that is because he not only understands the strategic need for the moon, but he's an astronaut. So he has a lot of gravitas that he brings to the role, a lot of inherent, innate understanding of space as a strategic domain, as an economic domain, as a scientific pursuit that other candidates for this job did not have. On the bureaucracy angle, because we have seen in the past kind of pulling away from, you know, emphasizing this area, this whole sphere, if you will, and pulling resources from that too, if Isaacman does get in, how hard will it be for, you know, all of his priorities to be put into action? If he gets confirmed, he's going to have to deal with the Democrats in the Senate and the Democrats in Congress fighting him all the way because he's the Trump guy. He's going to also have to deal with some of the undercutting from certain wings like Laura Loomer and MAGA, which doesn't like him because he was a former Democrat, whatever. The point is, though, he is bringing with him years of experience. He's bringing with him an understanding strategically of the region, and he's bringing with him a lot of a lot of respect from the tech community. He's a partner with SpaceX, which is the only reason we're in the space race right now. So I think he will be able to get his priorities through by simple fact that he is an expert in this domain. And as the U.S. has the infighting here, if you will, how are you watching, you know, China's progress in this area? Yeah, well, China is neck and neck with us, not just here, but in a lot of other technological areas. They've got their own problems, of course. But the thing is, they have a national comprehensive commitment to what they call space dominance. That's not a Brandon Weichert term. That's a China term. They refer to it often as space dominance. So we should take them at their word. And they're very specific about what they want to achieve. And if you look at what they've done in space so far, it may not always be pretty, but it is effective. And that's all that matters in space is getting up there and holding your ground and then spinning off from there. And that's what the Chinese are doing. And this is a problem because whereas we have a lot of technological skill sets, we don't always employ them in a comprehensive strategic way. China, however, they may not always be the prettiest in the bunch, but they have a grand strategy of space dominance. There's always a lot at stake here for sure. Brandon Weichert, as always, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. The city of Hong Kong's election saw a near record low turnout over the weekend. That's after the city's worst fire in nearly 80 years prompted anger against its China-backed authorities. Here are the details. Hong Kong's Legislative Council election on Sunday saw a near record low turnout despite extended voting hours and new polling stations to encourage people to vote. The election comes after the city's worst fire in nearly 80 years, which sparked anger among voters against Hong Kong's China-backed authorities. Only candidates who were government-vetted, quote, patriots, were allowed to run for Hong Kong's 90-seat legislature. Of those seats, only 20 are directly elected, and the rest are chosen by an election committee comprised of Beijing loyalists, special interests and professional groups. The government said the final turnout was at 31.9 percent, slightly higher than 2021's record low of 30.2 percent. Voters walked out to vote. Security was tight in the Tai Po district, where the seven Wang Fu Court apartment buildings were engulfed in flames last month, killing at least 159 people. Eager to contain the public dismay, authorities have since launched criminal and corruption investigations into the blaze. Meanwhile, the anti-corruption agency said on Sunday that four men were arrested on suspicion of using social media to incite boycotts or cast invalid votes. It obtained an arrest warrant for another man for a social media post on Saturday. Publicly urging a boycott was criminalized under sweeping changes that sidelined pro-democracy voices, who once made up about 60 percent of the electorate, but have since shunned elections. Officials warned against using the disaster to disrupt Hong Kong and vowed to crack down on any anti-China protests. The blaze is a major test of Beijing's grip on the former British colony, which it has transformed under a national security law after mass pro-democracy protests in 2019. That's all for today's China In Focus. I'm Kevin Hogan. If you have any feedback on the show, or have something you'd like to see us cover, send us an email at chinainfocusatntd.com. And for round-the-clock original news coverage, visit us at ntd.com or download our NTD app. Thanks for watching. See you soon.