ExclusiveJapan to Deploy Missiles Near Taiwan

Welcome to China in Focus. I'm Kevin Hogan, and for Tiffany Meyer, our top story. President Trump's State of the Union address emphasized national security, but barely mentioned China. Meanwhile, the daughter of Hong Kong democracy fighters Jimmy Lai was invited to attend the congressional address as a distinguished guest. President Trump raises global tariffs. What impacts will they have on Chinese goods? We've had anywhere between, you know, 35, 40 to 50 percent tariffs on China. We don't intend to escalate beyond that. We intend to really stick to the deal that we had before. Australia's prime minister was evacuated from his residence following a bomb threat. The target was actually a New York-based music and dance troupe. Escalating tensions between China and Japan. Japan is set to deploy missiles near Taiwan, deterring threats from Beijing. Nearly $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer-funded research linked to collaborations with Chinese labs, more notably their Chinese defense laboratories. President Trump delivered his State of the Union address before Congress on the evening of the 24th, with the speech lasting nearly one hour and 50 minutes. The longest ever. According to statistics, the topics he spent the most time on were national security, immigration and the border. We're also restoring American security and dominance in the Western Hemisphere, acting to secure our national interests and defend our country from violence, drugs, terrorism and foreign interference. And with our new military campaign, we have stopped record amounts of drugs coming into our country and virtually stopped it completely coming in by water or sea. Trump said the flow of deadly fentanyl across the border has been down by a record 56% in just one year. In the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific, U.S. operations against drug trafficking have shifted significantly. The focus has moved from interdiction and arrest to armed strikes and destruction. And under the U.S. military's joint task force, Operation Southern Spear, more than 40 strike operations have been conducted in the region so far in 2026, including eight in February alone. The second longest portion of President Trump's address focused on the economy, jobs, inflation and tariffs. I use these tariffs, took in hundreds of billions of dollars to make great deals for our country, both economically and on a national security basis. Everything was working well. Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars. And then just four days ago, an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court. It just came down, came down. Very unfortunate ruling. But the good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made. Right, Scott? Knowing that the legal power that I, as president, have to make a new deal could be far worse for them. And therefore, they will continue to work along the same successful path that we had negotiated before the Supreme Court's unfortunate involvement. While the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the power to impose tariffs rests with Congress, President Trump believes that existing laws and regulations are sufficient. He remains confident he can advance his tariff policies without going through Congress. And during the State of the Union address, President Trump barely mentioned China. Key issues in U.S.-China trade talks, including soybeans, semiconductors and nuclear weapons development, were not addressed. China came up only in passing when he talked about U.S. forces capturing Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. Maduro's heavily protected military fortress, this was a major military installation, protected by thousands of soldiers and guarded by Russian and Chinese military technology. How did that work out? Not too good? While the president didn't mention Beijing, House Speaker Mike Johnson invited Claire Lai, daughter of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, to the State of the Union as a distinguished guest. The move sends a strong signal regarding Beijing's human rights violations. New polling data following President Trump's State of the Union address show nearly two-thirds of viewers walked away with a positive impression. According to a CNN-SSRS survey, 64% of respondents believe the president's policies are steering the country in the right direction. When it comes to the president's agenda, 54% say they agree with his top priorities. And on the everyday issue of the economy, 60% express confidence in his ability to tackle the rising cost of living. However, 45% feel Trump isn't paying enough attention to economic issues and the rising cost of living. And now an update on the Trump administration's plans for global tariffs and negotiations with trading partners, including China. Here's U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer on Fox Business Wednesday. We expect to have continuity in what we're doing. Even right now, we have the 10% tariff, it'll go up to 15% for some, and then it may go higher for others. And I think it will be in line with the types of tariffs we've been seeing. We want to have continuity in this program. Now, Greer did not name any specific trading partners who might get the higher tariffs. But the trade representative says the new tariffs are compatible with existing trade deals. On China specifically, he says the Trump administration is aware that China doesn't have the same market economics as the United States. Unprofitable Chinese firms are allowed to stay open and continue producing with government subsidies. Greer says this is why tariffs on Chinese goods need to remain in place. I think that over the past year, we've come to an agreement with China. They understand we're going to have some level of tariffs. You'll recall last April, we both escalated to about 145% tariffs. We de-escalated all of that. Since that time, we've had anywhere between 35, 40 to 50% tariffs on China, depending on the product. We expect that level to remain in place. We don't intend to escalate beyond that. We intend to really stick to the deal that we had before. It comes as President Trump is expected to visit China in April. Meanwhile, the trade representative said he spoke with his Canadian counterpart earlier today and said they would meet in Washington in a couple of weeks. Greer said he's open to talk and will see what the Canadian side has to say. He added that the Trump administration will still review the USMCA trade agreement by July 1st of this year. Australia's prime minister was evacuated from his residence on Tuesday after receiving a hoax bomb threat. The threat is targeting a New York-based music and dance troupe. It's the latest in the Chinese Communist Party's threats against the group. NTD's Washington correspondent Jack Bradley has more. A world-renowned performing arts group targeted by the Chinese regime. New York-based performing arts company Shen Yun has become a main target of the Chinese Communist Party. That's because it revives traditional Chinese culture under its tagline, China before communism. The company has faced repeated fake bomb and death threats, all hoaxes with no harm ever done. Now, a head of state is caught in the middle. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was forced to evacuate his home after threats sent to the dance company. Large quantities of nitroglycerin explosives have been placed around the prime minister's lodge. If you proceed with the performance, the lodge will be blown into ruins. Federal police searched the site and confirmed it was a hoax, but evacuated the prime minister as a precaution. We shouldn't allow such hate crime and foreign interference continue in Australia by the Chinese Communist Party. This is unacceptable. I want to make sure that we have a united front. I'm very pleased to hear that the prime minister is safe and well and that the threat came to naught. Shen Yun's performances in Australia haven't been impacted in the slightest and are going on as planned with its world tour. But sadly, the group is used to these threats, even though no actual attacks have ever occurred and no performance has ever been cancelled because of these threats. There's never ever been any actual bomb, weapon. Last month, Shen Yun received an email targeting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. And last year is when the threats started piling up in the U.S. February 11, 2025, politicians and congressmen from all countries who support Falun Gong will become targets of attack. And even shooting Trump and driving a vehicle loaded with explosives into the White House are not ruled out. With even their tour bus tires being slashed. And it's cut in such a way that the tire would not deflate immediately, but would explode at high speeds on the highway. In China, some family members of the performers are repeatedly harassed. My first MC partner was from Beijing. And the National Security Bureau would visit her family in Beijing every single weekend, telling them, we know what your daughter is doing, get her to stop it. We had an arhu player, this is a musician soloist. When she was performing with us, her husband was jailed for three years and tortured. Now Shen Yun has grown to eight companies, performing for millions in over 200 cities worldwide. Seeking to revive traditional Chinese culture, a culture with a rich 5,000 year history, but nearly destroyed by communism. Shen Yun continues its global tour from now until mid-May. And despite the interference from the Chinese regime, Shen Yun says that they are not deterred. For NTD News Washington, I'm Jack Bradley. A further escalation in the months-long feud between China and Japan over Taiwan. Japan is set to deploy missiles near Taiwan in the coming years. On Tuesday, Japanese officials said the missiles will be stationed on Yonaguni Island. It's Japan's westernmost island, about 70 miles from Taiwan. On a clear day, Taiwan's coastline is visible from Yonaguni. The deployment will be completed by 2031, marking the first time Japan has announced a specific timeline for positioning missiles on the island. The move comes after Beijing sanctioned 40 Japanese companies and institutions. Half were placed on an export control list, barring Chinese exporters from selling them goods that could be used for both civilian and military purposes. The remaining firms were added to a watch list, requiring Chinese exporters to obtain permits before making such sales. The measures are aimed at restraining Japan's ability to develop its military. Beijing has been ramping up its military threats against Taiwan in recent years. Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has ordered the military to be ready for a potential takeover of Taiwan by 2027, just under a year away. That does not necessarily mean China will invade Taiwan by then, but the timeline has raised serious concerns in Japan, a close neighbor and key ally of Taiwan. Last November, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takeichi said that if China attacks Taiwan, Japan could respond militarily. The remarks drew strong criticism from Beijing. And a new report says nearly $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer-funded research is linked to collaborations with Chinese defense labs. The study was released by the Center for Research Security and Integrity. It found almost 1,800 joint research papers published between 2019 and mid-2025 involving U.S. collaborations with Chinese defense labs. Researchers worked in sensitive fields, including artificial intelligence, radar, directed energy systems, and high-performance computational physics. These technologies have direct military applications. Analysts warn that Chinese defense labs are directly benefiting from U.S. research that could reshape future warfare. They're calling such collaborations an unacceptable risk to national security. Almost all of these Chinese labs removed the terms defense or national defense from their English titles. This could complicate U.S. institutions' efforts to assess risk. And coming up, Grace Jin Drexel appealing for her father. Pastor Jin was arrested by the Chinese Communist Party last year for his faith in God. We saw tearing down of crosses, putting portraits of Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong on church buildings. More on that after the break here on China In Focus. Welcome back to China In Focus. I'm Kevin Hogan in for Tiffany Meyer. Last October, Pastor Jin was arrested in China along with 27 other pastors and church leaders from Zion Church. It was one of the largest assaults on independent Christian congregations in China in decades. Pastor Jin's daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, has since become a prominent voice speaking out against religious persecution in China. She joined Jan Jekielek on American Thought Leaders to talk about her father and the situation in China. Give me a picture. What is his status right now? What is the situation with him? Yeah, so my father's church in 2018 was officially shut down in Beijing. And since then, he has been under an exit ban from leaving China. Prior to that, my mother, my brothers and I had moved to the U.S. with the blessing of the church so that we would not be collateral damage. And so since then, because my father has been exit ban has not been safe for us to go back to China. And so we have been living. We were able to communicate via Zoom and like various online tools. But generally speaking, we haven't seen him physically. We haven't figured so many parts of our lives that he has missed out on. Like he was not able to walk me down the aisles at my wedding. He was not able to like attend my baby's baptism and all of these things. So and my brothers have was an elementary school student and is now about to graduate high school. And none of those events have been physically witnessed by my father since 2018. But in October of 2025, the church continued to grow. And so in October of 2025, the government has detained my father along with initially close to 30 leaders of the church. And now 18 people, including my father, are still detained in China and Guangxi province. And so now it's gotten even worse. Like we can't even talk to him at all. Like we are not able to communicate with him directly, not even with letters, not even with phone calls. And the only communications that we can have is through his lawyers currently, who might see him once a month or even less sometimes depending on their schedule. So that's sort of where we are at right now. Take us back to October 10th, 2025. And clearly you knew that there was something kind of in the works since 2018. This is the reason you left. But the church still flourished despite being somewhat restricted. Just explain to me how that changed and then what happened on the 10th. So let's go back to 2018. That was part of a wave of general persecution on many Christian churches and many other religious organizations as well. But in terms of for Christians, you saw like tearing down the process, putting portraits of Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong on church buildings. You saw that with the independent church or house churches, like many times we heard about various raids every week, like where pastors would be dragged out from their podium and whoever was by like tens of police would storm in. And anyone who tried to stop the taking away of the pastors would be also equally punished. So that was in a way that was the backdrop of like a general trend of what's happened, what was happening in China. And at that time in September 9th of 2018, my father's church was also shut down. And hundreds of police came to our church building that Sunday and threw everyone out and had kept my father inside for many hours. And we weren't able to communicate with him at that point. And then after a few hours, they released him, but everyone was heavily surveyed for several months. No one in Beijing would offer another meeting place for Zion Church. Zion Church was officially deemed illegal business operations, etc. And after that, my father had continued to want to minister to his congregation. So we started doing this online offline hybrid model and we didn't know where that was going to go. But in fact, in 2020, when COVID and the pandemic happened, the whole world shut down. But especially in China, there was a was a policy where no one was able to leave and it was leave their houses for months at a time, etc. And so at that moment, Zion Church's model of this online worship actually exploded and expanded nationwide. And so Zion Church, despite government persecution, grew out of this desperation and out of this forced way of meeting online because there was no physical location for us. This has become a new model and a new kind of revitalization of the church itself. And so because of that influence, I think in October 2025, we see that beginning in 2025 and now up to 2026, there is a new wave of persecution coming. It's not just targeted to Zion Church, but to many churches and many other religious groups as well. And so in that context, on October 10th, I found out that my father was detained along with 27 leaders of my father's church at that point from all across the nation. And currently, we know that 18 of them are still detained. Now, I understand Zion Church. I mean, this was publicly done on the Internet. It was available. The authorities could watch it themselves, right? So there's some kind of an attempt to... It might be difficult for people to understand. How is it possible that you were having church services online with the authorities watching, even after being shut down? Yeah. And then, of course, we know what happened. But how did that work? I think that my father's church was always very open about our church gatherings. We assumed that we would be watched by authorities. And then if they shut down an account, we just open another account. And then we say, if there are spies, then we minister to them too. And we welcome them to join in our Sunday services as well. So we operated, like you said, very openly. And we are not against the government. So we also didn't say anything too political. We were just trying to worship like a normal church in the U.S. and the rest of the world. And so we had nothing to hide. I think that even with the charges that we are being charged with, it's called illegal use of information online. And if you push them and you ask them, what is the illegal information that is being spread? They can only point to, yes, the sermons and the worship music that is still available on YouTube. And you can go and check it out. And then it's very much just like a normal church anywhere. So then you then have to ask the question of, why is that illegal in China? And what is it about this normal sermon and worship music that is illegal and why? And I don't want to be the one answering to those questions in communist China. To watch the full episode, visit American Thought Leaders with Jan Jekielek on The Epoch Times. And 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 ChinaInFocus at NTD.com. And for around-the-clock original news coverage, visit us at NTD.com or download our NTD app. Thanks for watching. See you soon.