U.S. Top Fighter Jet Parts Sent to China | China in Focus

Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Our top story, how secure is America's military supply chain? Reports say top fighter jet parts were rerouted to Hong Kong. Now Senator Tom Cotton is demanding answers. A new Chinese military base in Asia and what it reveals about Beijing's ambitions across the globe. A new voluntary agreement on AI controls now signed. President Trump brought several tech leaders on board. How does the new pack aim to keep up with the rapid growth of AI? A bill targeting human rights abuses in China has cleared the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent. The following gong and victims of forced organ harvesting protection act now moves to its next hurdle, the house, before the legislation could reach the president. Concerns that American fighter jet technology is in the Chinese regime's hands. Senator Tom Cotton wants answers. This after reports that F-35 components headed for the U.S. were rerouted to Hong Kong. NTD's Daniel Monaghan has more on the case, which now involves the Department of War. Senator Cotton wants the Department of War to review security controls for U.S. military equipment and supplies transported through commercial and contractor managed supply chains. In a letter to War Secretary Pete Hegseth, Cotton cited the diversion of F-35 components being shipped from Australia and reports that the Chinese regime had taken possession of the parts and had not returned them. Cotton writing, we can't afford for U.S. military equipment to fall into the hands of a foreign adversary because of vulnerabilities in commercial transportation. Cotton says secure supply chains are critical to ensuring weapons, technology, and supplies reach U.S. troops, not adversaries. Cotton is asking the Department of War to examine five areas, chain of custody requirements for military equipment, tracking the location of shipments, approving and reporting route changes, criteria for allowing shipments to pass through foreign jurisdictions, and safeguards against military material being diverted to China and other areas controlled by U.S. adversaries. The F-35 Joint Program Office confirmed on September 18 that it and the Office of the Secretary of War were aware of a shipment issue involving unserviceable F-35 Lightning II components. The Government Accountability Office has previously identified problems with the F-35's global supply system. A 2023 audit found that one F-35 prime contractor lost more than one million spare parts worth over 85 million dollars since May 2018. The F-35 Joint Program Office reviewed the circumstances surrounding less than two percent of those losses. Daniel Monahan, NTD News. China continues projecting military power beyond its borders. It has started operating a new logistics base at an airport in Laos. The area is also home to a Cold War-era airfield once used by the U.S. for logistics operations. In another Asian country, Cambodia, China has already opened a logistics center at a naval base. It has also signed secret pacts with the Solomon Islands, a Pacific neighbor of Australia. China's military reach extends beyond the Indo-Pacific with an overseas base in Djibouti, a strategic country in the Horn of Africa. The moves have sparked concerns over Beijing's expanding global military presence. A Pentagon report says Beijing is considering additional overseas military facilities to project power across the globe. Potential locations include the UAE, the Gulf of Guinea, Myanmar, Vanuatu and Sri Lanka. The AI industry is moving towards new safeguards. President Trump and several major technology companies have signed a voluntary accord outlining new controls for artificial intelligence. The heads and top leaders of Google, Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI and XAI all signing the agreement. The companies signing the accord agree that if they are developing advanced AI models, they'll monitor their systems for risks, including cybersecurity, biosecurity and chemical threats, as well as ensure that its models do not hack or access technology systems in unintended ways. They also agree to make sure they have internal safety teams, independent outside auditors and board committees to review whether those controls are working. Elon Musk says the participating companies agree to joint monitoring and committees to review one another's safety practices. The accord says participating companies will meet regularly to establish safety standards and best practices while leaving open the possibility of future laws or regulations. The agreement comes amid concerns over AI systems being used in cyber attacks. NTD's Washington correspondent Jack Bradley has more. The focus of this is keeping America ahead of China in this AI race while also keeping it in check over the dangers of where it could lead as it develops further. The president brought together the heads of America's top tech companies here at the White House to sign what he called the White House Accord on Super Intelligence, or SI, as the term is now being called instead of AI. Now, it involves self-policing and the creation of a committee to make up members of these companies to ensure that these systems don't go rogue like they did back in June when OpenAI had rogue bots hack private Australian government websites. President Trump says that the U.S. continues to lead China to counter the dangers of this authoritarian regime controlling the technology. Take a look. They want every data center. They want it because that's great for China. Well, it's great for us and we're leading by a lot and we're going to keep it that way. It's going to be also, it's going to be very, very safe. There's a self-policing and there's also a group policing. The president also says that he doesn't want to cooperate with China on AI over concerns that they'll steal America's IP. The Chinese Communist Party has a track record of stealing America's technology and intellectual property from AI chips to F-35 fighter jets to missile sensor technology. Take a look. Somebody said, oh, let's do a joint venture. Let's work together with China. But if we do that, we're going to be giving a lot of secrets that we have that they just would want to have or anybody else. And frankly, there is nobody in third place. I mean, it's all between us and China. And a lot of people say, let's do it together with China, but then they're going to be able to immediately gain access to things that we know that they don't know. A bill aimed at protecting Falun Gong practitioners and stopping forced organ harvesting in China has cleared the Senate. Now it faces one more hurdle before reaching President Trump's desk. NTD's Fiona Ji has the details. The Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act sanctions those who participate in forced organ harvesting inside of China, and it directs the Secretary of State to report on the Chinese Communist Party's organ harvesting policies and actions. According to the bill, forced organ harvesting refers to the, quote, removal of one or more organs from an individual by means of coercion, abduction, deception, fraud or abuse of power or a position of vulnerability. The main victims of forced organ harvesting in China are practitioners of Falun Gong, which is also known as Falun Dafa. This is a spiritual practice based on Buddhist tradition and the principles of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. The CCP has been persecuting Falun Dafa since 1999, and this has drawn widespread criticism from U.S. lawmakers. The persecution of the Falun Gong is horrific. Forced organ harvesting is a massive human rights abuse, and I am very glad to see the Senate standing unanimously against those, that horrible abuse. CCP is a horrible person, kills his own citizens, steals their organs, puts people in prison because of Uyghurs and Falun Gong and things like that. So I'm proud that people stood up to call Xi what he is. The Falun Dafa Information Center, which documents the persecution of Falun Dafa, posted on X that the bill is, quote, a major step toward accountability for forced organ This is a bill with bipartisan support, and it has 11 co-sponsors. I've also spoken to victims who personally experienced and then escaped the persecution, and they say that organ harvesting is closer to the U.S. and to the American people than Americans may realize. Because if you're an American who needs an organ and you travel to China to get one, you don't actually know where that organ is coming from, and it is possible that that organ came from a prisoner of conscience. Reporting from Washington, D.C., Fiona Ji, NTD News. White House Borders are Tom Homan says the federal government is working to close a loophole that allows Chinese nationals to conduct birth tourism on American soil. Homan was speaking on American Thought Leaders with Yanni Kellik. This comes as Homan says the past few months have seen record-breaking numbers of ICE arrests. NTD's Fiona Ji reports. Borders are Tom Homan says that Russia and China are two of the biggest abusers of birth tourism. Now, that's the practice of foreign nationals traveling into the U.S. to give birth here so that their children will automatically get U.S. citizenship. Homan says that this is a driver of illegal immigration. So we're going to have millions of Chinese and Russian nationals going to have the ability to, you know, to vote in this country, run for office, because they're going to be U.S. citizens. Right now, Chinese nationals need a visa to enter the United States, but they don't need any visa to visit the U.S. territories of Guam or the Northern Mariana Islands for up to 14 days. That's a potential loophole. Are you guys doing anything with that specifically? We're all over it. OK. I can't share a lot, but we're on it. I'll leave it at that. OK. We're on it. It's being addressed. Homan also gave some of the latest numbers related to the border and immigration, including over 157,000 children who were originally unaccounted for have now been found, and zero illegal immigrants have been released at the border in 17 months. A five-day ICE operation in Indiana earlier this month resulted in 426 arrests. Senator Jim Banks, speaking with Fox News Digital last week, says he wants to see the president's border and immigration policies codified. If we codify the Trump border patrol policies, America will be safer in the long term. In a Fox opinion piece titled, Our Closing Argument, The Midterms Are a Referendum on Who Runs Your Life, House GOP Chairwoman Lisa McClain writes, We've funded and empowered law enforcement for the first time since 2020, resulting in the largest recorded drop in violent crime in FBI history. With the midterm election just a little over a month away, lawmakers are using the results at the border as part of Republicans' message to Americans to vote red. Reporting from Washington, D.C., Fiona Ji, NTD News. A former HSBC senior executive testified today that Huawei CFO, Meng Wanzhou, misled him about the Chinese tech giant's business in Iran. U.S. prosecutors accused Meng of tricking banks into making transactions that violate U.S. sanctions on Iran. NTD's Juliet Song has the story. A meeting between a HSBC senior executive and Huawei CFO, Meng Wanzhou, was the focus of the trial today. The former executive, Alan Thomas, testified that Meng lied to him about Huawei's relationship with Skycom at the meeting. That's as the U.S. accuses Huawei of using Skycom as an unofficial subsidiary to get around sanctions and obtain U.S. goods for Iran. And prosecutors say Huawei tried to hide that connection, presenting Skycom as just a business partner. Huawei has denied all charges. In 2013, a Reuters report said Skycom attempted to sell sanctioned U.S. equipment to Iran, and that Huawei had close ties with Skycom. The news sparked concerns from HSBC. Thomas, a senior HSBC executive at the time, met with Meng Wanzhou in Hong Kong. Thomas testified that Meng assured him that Skycom is just a business partner, not a Huawei subsidiary. Meng said Huawei used to hold shares of Skycom to monitor its compliance, and that all the shares had been sold to a third party. The U.S. government earlier presented evidence that Skycom shares were sold to a purported third party, which was actually controlled by Huawei. A former Skycom employee testified Huawei was its real boss in Iran. Back to the meeting with Meng. Thomas said he left the meeting feeling relieved, thinking Huawei did not hide anything from the bank, and he didn't think a CFO of a top-tier client would lie to him. Prosecutors said because HSBC believed Meng, it continued its banking relationship with Huawei. This led to HSBC providing prohibited banking services for Huawei's Iran-based business in violation of U.S. law. Years later, Meng admitted to knowingly making false statements to HSBC. It's part of an agreement with prosecutors to drop the charges against her. Juliet Song, NTD News. A warning from America's top diplomat in Beijing. U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue says China is weaponizing its dominance of rare earths. These are minerals used in everything from smartphones to fighter jets. Perdue says Beijing now criminalizes efforts to shift supply chains away from China, threatening arrest, asset seizures, and exit bans. New rules took effect earlier this month, allowing Chinese authorities to stop people from leaving China over export control violations. In June, Beijing also put two U.S. rare earth companies, USA Rare Earth, on an export control list, barring Chinese exporters from supplying them with certain controlled materials. Perdue says Washington has told Beijing this is unacceptable, adding that the U.S. will not kowtow to China to do business. Coming up, messages from President Trump to Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping sometimes seem to be at odds with each other. But is that really the case? Former U.S. defense attaché in Beijing, Brigadier General David Stilwell, shares his insights. More on that after the break here on China In Focus. Welcome back to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. President Trump pushed back on a claim that he discussed selling U.S. weapons to China. The administration says there's been no change in U.S. policy toward Taiwan. So what was behind the message, including the flyover at a U.S. military base when President Trump greeted Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping? Joining us now is retired Brigadier General David Stilwell and former U.S. defense attaché in Beijing. General Stilwell, thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you back on the show. Good to be here. Now, President Trump has pushed back. This was after Ambassador to China David Perdue said that he had asked Xi Jinping, China Xi, if he wanted to buy U.S. arms. There was no sense of a time for that, but there was a lot of headlines about it. President Trump was asked about it yesterday, and he was like, you mean to Taiwan? And then the reporter said no to China. He's rejected that. The U.S. administration has also put out there's been no change in policy towards Taiwan. But what are your thoughts on all of this? I think what it shows is the sometimes awkward, but very necessary division of labor between the foreign service, the professional corps, and the political appointees like Ambassador Perdue. The political appointees bring a certain amount of wasta and influence that the host nations generally appreciate, that they can actually pick up the phone and call the president. Whereas the long-term foreign service officers, the continuity don't have that same influence, and yet they have the long-term understanding of what policy says and what the law says. And the law says we can't sell arms to China. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2000 and a number of others, Taiwan Relations Act, all these things make the thought of selling weapons a non-starter. And the good thing is you can walk these things back. If you remember the previous president, Biden, four times committed to coming to the aid of Taiwan, and four times his staff walked it back. That's just part of how our system works, right? We are free to offer our own thoughts. And then if we're wrong, we fess up and we correct the record. There's been some suggestions by certain analysts that this was perhaps a negotiation tactic or trying to see where Xi Jinping stands on the issue, if he would be honest with the president saying, yes, of course, I want the weapons. There were some suggestions of that. But of course, this comes right after the news of Purdue's comments comes right after that Trump-Xi summit last week at the White House where there's been a lot of headlines about what were the deliverables, the two sides with Treasury Secretary Besant and his Chinese counterpart talking about an AI phone or a communication between the two sides on that. There were the 60 billion reduction in tariff, non-sensitive goods announced yesterday, 30 billion on each side, and then the two pandas that came to the US. But otherwise, most of the analysis have been there weren't many deliverables that came out of it. What were your thoughts on the whole summit? This isn't the end of it. There's two more trips expected this year, face-to-face ones with them, APEC and G20. So is it diplomacy on one side? Is it pushing back? What were your thoughts on the whole summit? I never liked the idea of deliverables. They force you into a position generally where the US side ends up giving more than it wants to in order to just create a very short headline saying, oh, here's what we got for it. The expectations for this meeting were low from the start. And again, we can talk about messaging, but I see four clear audiences in this process and only one mattered, and that was Xi Jinping. Obviously, the behind-the-doors conversations, which we have very little knowledge of, was important. But also the stuff that did show up in the media, some people thought was designed to message the American people or to message the Chinese people. There was some of that, or maybe allies and partners. My sense is that all the things you saw in this were purely aimed at Xi Jinping as a deterrent message to say, don't even think about it and get on board, start living up to your agreements. So as far as deliverables, you mentioned communications with Treasury. That would be a repeat of what we did with the security economic dialogue under Obama, where we had 150 individual dialogues and produced nothing. I hope we've learned from that that the PRC doesn't respect dialogue. They're gonna sign paper and then do what they want. Like with Hong Kong, they called it the joint declaration scraps of paper. Why would you sit down for hours on end to hammer out an agreement with a side that isn't gonna agree, isn't gonna follow through on it? I think it's a waste of time. Then the last thing that keeps coming up is hotlines. Every time we have these meetings, we establish some new hotline. Well, there are at least 10 crisis management hotlines right now that both sides can use to pick up the phone and say, hey, what's happening here? And the PRC doesn't pick up the phone. So why would we establish even more hotlines? Like the defense telephone link and the secure video teleconference capability. To your point on the phone aspect or the hotline under the previous administration, we did see the Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin saying there was a whole headline where you called China and the phone just rang, right? Like they didn't pick up. To your point on that, I wanna dig into messaging though, because there's been a lot of talks about that, if you will. For instance, President Trump greeting Xi at the airport, whereas when Trump went to China in May, China side sent like a junior toady to pick him up. But at the same time, of course, there was the flyover. There was the military power projection that we saw. We also saw that when Putin visited. What were your thoughts on that airport scenario? So the initial language was that the president was gonna meet Xi Jinping and Andrews and that just said capitulation. And for me, and I think many others who've been watching and dealing with this for 20, 30 years, that was a very discouraging piece of news. Because like you said, you generally send someone two, three layers below to greet at the airport and that's accepted practice. But when I saw those two B-1 bombers go over the top in full afterburner in tactical formation, look, I've done a bunch of flybys in my time and it's power back, 300 knots, pretty formation, thousand feet, it's there for the spectacle. That was not a flyby, that was a show of force. That was the president telling Xi Jinping, I'm in charge, we still are a very strong country, don't even think about it. And I think looking at Xi Jinping's face, very poker face, but you can tell he goes, yeah, okay, you got me. And one, and two, they can't do that. The Chinese side can't, could not repeat that if we were to go to China to do the same thing. So watching the F-16 that I flew has one of those engines. The B-1 has four of them times two jets. That was eight F-16 afterburners going overhead. You saw the president's response. He knew it was coming and he still went. It's like, can you imagine how loud that was? That's called a show of force. That's a tactic we use in CENTCOM in the Middle East to scare away bad guys who are attacking good guys. It's a message of strength and deterrence and I know Xi Jinping got it. That's all for today's China In Focus. Tiffany Meyer, 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. We'd love to hear from you. For on the clock original news coverage, visit us at ntd.com or download our NTD app. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow.