'Ticking Time Bomb': Chinese Malware Hidden in US Defense Systems? | China In Focus

A ticking time bomb. Possible Chinese malware in the U.S. defense system that could devastate military operations. 31,000 evacuated, with hundreds trapped and at least two dead. Rose turned to rivers in Beijing after a typhoon dumped record rainfall on the region. A new U.S. weapons package greenlit to bolster Taiwan's defenses. The value worth up to $345 million. A secret Chinese lab illegally operating in California. Inside, investigators detected at least 20 potentially infectious agents. But why was it running there? What do you think? Let us know below. And subscribe if you haven't already. Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. A ticking time bomb hidden in the US defense system and designed to halt military operations. That's how US officials described suspected Chinese cyber malware implanted across several American military bases and key utility networks. Unlike previous spying attacks from China, experts believe that this time, the intent is to disrupt operations during a war. Here's the story. Officials are on high alert for Chinese malware and key utility systems, calling it a ticking time bomb. According to a weekend report by the New York Times, the software may allow China to cut off power, water, and communications to US military bases. Officials say if the malware is activated, a recovery is expected within days. But such disruptions could slow down the US response in event of a conflict like Beijing's possible invasion of Taiwan. The report says the White House has started briefing members of Congress, state governors, and utility companies on the findings. Earlier in July, Chinese hackers reportedly breached the email accounts of at least two government officials. The incident heightened the urgency for vigilance within the private sector. Microsoft first reported Chinese state-sponsored hacking activity targeting US military bases in Guam back in May. But officials said Beijing's malware campaign began at least one year before these attacks. Beijing was accused of stealing the security clearance files of about 22 million Americans from the Office of Personal Management during the Obama administration. Beyond that, China's recent breaches marked a departure from the past. Officials say their purpose appears to be disruption instead of surveillance. Deputy Director of the US National Security Agency, George Barnes, said, "'China's cyber operations activities were very noisy and very rudimentary. They have continued to bring resources, sophistication, and mass to their game.'" A bizarre discovery in California is raising concerns. Specifically, why would a Chinese company operate a COVID-19 lab downtown Reedly City? According to a local newspaper report last week, city code officers discovered and investigated the lab when they saw a garden hose attached to a supposedly empty warehouse. What they discovered inside was far more than they expected. Based on a court filing, investigators found a room of 900 lab mice engineered to carry COVID-19, plus thousands of containers, vials, and bags holding biological material like human blood and tissue. Those items were inside almost three dozen refrigerators with no power running to them. Court records also point to the manufacturing of COVID-19 and pregnancy tests inside the facility. Furthermore, at least 20 potentially infectious agents also detected, such as chlamydia, E. coli, hepatitis, and rubella. The city's public health body says it took three days to safely remove and dispose of all the hazardous materials. State and federal agencies were called in to investigate. Based on reports, Wang Jialing of Prestige Biotech has operated the facility illegally since last year. Officials have now shut down the lab. Beijing taking a jab at US-China tech ties with new export curbs. China announced export controls on some drones and drone-related equipment Monday. In a statement from China's Commerce Ministry, restrictions are aimed at, quote, safeguarding national security and interests. China runs a major drone manufacturing industry and exports to several markets, including the US. More than 50% of drones sold in the US are made by Chinese company DJI. The drone export curbs follow other Chinese controls last month, targeting metals used in chipmaking. The move was seen as retaliation after Washington restricted Beijing's access to key technologies. The limits on drones also follow other Western criticism aimed at Beijing's drone exports to the battlefield in Ukraine. China's ban on some consumer drones and civilian drones for military use starts September 1st. The US is bolstering Taiwan's defenses, announcing a new weapons package for the island on Friday. How much value are those weapons packing? Let's zoom in. The United States has unveiled a Taiwan weapons aid package worth up to $345 million US. The move is one likely to anger China, even as the Biden administration declined to publicly provide details on the arms in the package. Congress authorized up to $1 billion worth of weapons aid for Taiwan in the 2023 budget via the Presidential Drawdown Authority. Beijing has repeatedly demanded the US, Taiwan's most important arms supplier, halt the sale of weapons to the island. China views democratically governed Taiwan as its territory. Taiwan strongly rejects Chinese sovereignty claims. The formal announcement did not include a list of weapons systems being provided. Taiwan's defense ministry thanked the US for its, quote, firm security commitment. It added in a statement it will not comment on the package details due to the tacit agreement between the two sides. The PDA has in the past been used on an emergency basis to expedite security assistance to Ukraine, but the Taiwan PDA is a non-emergency authority approved by Congress last year. China has increased military pressure on Taiwan over the past three years. It has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. Beijing's wide-reaching infrastructure initiative, the Belt and Road Initiative, is losing a key player. Italy wants to pull out of the deal, but without hurting relations with Beijing. Italy's defense minister says he regretted joining the Belt and Road, calling the decision improvised and atrocious. He said the plan did little to boost Italian exports and that China was the only winner. Amid criticism from Western allies, Italy became the only G7 country that signed on to Beijing's Belt and Road project in 2019. The scheme promises funding for infrastructure projects outside China, but critics see it as a vehicle for the Chinese regime to expand its influence overseas. After meeting with President Biden at the White House last week, Italy's prime minister said she would negotiate with China about the possibility of withdrawing by the end of this year. What's the extent of the Chinese Communist Party's role in fentanyl trafficking? The Drug Enforcement Administration last week laid out how the CCP uses false packaging to ship fentanyl chemicals to two major cartels. NTD's Malina Wyscott has the details. Bipartisan collaboration between Republicans and Democrats is a rare sight here on Capitol Hill, but it does happen in specific areas like how to address the fentanyl crisis, which right now is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45. Attacking the source of this, which is the Chinese chemical companies in China, but as well, we must deal with the hugeness of cartels and the persistence of cartels. Three cases in which we charged four Chinese chemical companies, eight Chinese nationals, and we charged them for knowingly providing customers in the United States and Mexico with precursor chemicals and the scientific know-how to make fentanyl. The administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration testified that the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in deceitful measures, like false packaging to mail fentanyl precursors to Mexico, fueling two vast cartels, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel, which control the majority of the fentanyl global supply chain. You know, border barriers, technology along the border. You have to stop their financial incentives. This crisis costing more than 100,000 lives per year on average, that's roughly 300 deaths every day. But if we're losing wartime numbers, being killed by the cartels and the CCP, I ask you, what is the definition of war? This deadly substance sourced in China goes to Mexico and then here to the US, where oftentimes social media platforms are the last step. Reporting from Capitol Hill, Melina Weisskopf, NTD News. 31,000 forced to flee their homes as Typhoon Daxiri dumps record rainfall on China. Despite that, hundreds are trapped and at least two dead in the face of torrential downpour across China's capital. Roads turn to rivers with cars getting swept away. Social media posts showing this mountain road in Gansu Province in Northern China crumbling away in the flood water. Another road in a village in Fangshan District collapsed amid the record rainfall. Over 350 roads in Beijing affected by the rain as of Monday. But as Daxiri tapers off, forecasters warn of another typhoon approaching. Authorities say this could inflict further damage to corn and other crops that have already been hit by Daxiri. Accused of bomb threats they say they didn't make. The family of a Chinese dissident is being held in Thailand. The Chinese embassy leveled allegations against them. Now, the family's plan to seek asylum in the Netherlands faces a desperate standoff alongside threats of deportation back to China. What's inside the fearful world of China's exiled dissidents? Let's dive in. When Gao Peng landed in Thailand, his mother had told him it was a tourism trip. She also mentioned avoiding police harassment at home in China. But what happened next was shocking for him. The day after he arrived in Thailand, someone called his mother and accused him of making bomb threats. A person who claimed to be working at the Chinese embassy in Thailand told my mother that they planted a bomb in the Chinese embassy and sent threatening messages. Gao Peng said his family tried to report bomb threats to police, but it took days to find an officer who spoke Chinese. The officer said it was probably a scam and they should just not pick up the phone. The accusations frightened Gao Peng. I was terrified and angry when I heard the accusation. I cannot accept their false accusations and slander. My father told me that they also asked the Thai police to arrest me and issued a warrant. While parts of the story told by Gao Peng and his father, Gao Zhi, couldn't be independently confirmed, their predicament echoes accounts by other Chinese dissidents abroad. They believe Chinese authorities are making bomb threats in their names to control their political activities. Gao Zhi's friend, Wong Jing-Yu, a Netherlands-based activist and at least three other people linked to him, have also described bomb threats made in their names. Wong said Dutch police found that the threats were sent from IP addresses in Hong Kong and China. The bomb threats were also sent to European airports in Gao Peng and his mother's names. They were put on an EU travel blacklist. The Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service later helped remove them from the blacklist, but it was too late. At about 9am on July 12th, my mother and I walked out of the hotel. We were surrounded by seven or eight policemen who claimed to be from the Thai Immigration Bureau. Around the same time, the Dutch government informed his father, Gao Zhi, that it had revoked his family's visas. Thai police had said they were investigating the family over the alleged bomb threats and that the family had supposedly confessed and volunteered to go back to China. My father contacted the police in Thailand to ask about my mother and sister. The police said that my mother and younger sister have signed a confession and are now detained for interrogation. Gao Zhi had already got asylum in the Netherlands and moved there in January 2020. He was not a prominent dissident, but he had attended a rally organized by Wang Jingyu on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. A few days later, Chinese police came to the home of Gao's wife and forcibly took her mobile phone away. Gao Zhi urged her to leave China. Dutch officials had told Gao his family could get emergency visas at the Dutch embassy in Bangkok. Gao Peng said his parents had never told him why his father left China. He went abroad in January 2020. I was still young. I didn't know why he had left the country then. Liu was charged with overstaying a visa. Her daughter has not been charged. Thai police told Liu's lawyer that the Chinese embassy had expressed a special interest in the case. Thai immigration officials also refused to extend Gao Peng's visa, but he has not been detained. What the family can do next is uncertain. Another big story to look out for, how can Hong Kong residents cast their votes without fear? After Beijing sweeping security law imposed on the city. That question sparking overseas activists to come up with a plan, launching an exiled Hong Kong parliament. That report and more coming up tomorrow on China In Focus. That's all for today's China In Focus on YouTube. We're now sharing a shortened version of our program here after being demonetized for two years. Here's what to look out for in our second half. What's behind the influx of Chinese migrants and asylum seekers arriving at the US border each year? And amidst rising Chinese espionage and Beijing's transnational repression in the US, who really are they? And does Washington keep an eye on their activities in the United States? We sat down with Aaron Stevenson for more. He's a former Department of Homeland Security employee and whistleblower who went public to expose US immigration policy loopholes on sex trafficking. Full episode is available on our partner platform, Epoch TV. To sign up, click the link down below. Thanks for watching China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer, see you tomorrow.