Floods Break Dam at China’s Second Largest Freshwater Lake | China In Focus

Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Our top story, critical developments as flooding batters China. An emergency breach in the embankment guarding China's second largest freshwater lake. Plus, villagers seen banding together to rescue a 90-year-old. Caught on camera, a glue factory explosion rocks southern China. The cause of the incident now under Reporting to Beijing, gathering intel and spreading propaganda. Chinese Communist Party members say they are still living under the regime's shadow even after moving to the other side of the world and putting down roots in the U.S. A look at the impact on American soil. It means civilians are collecting intelligence and becoming sub agents or even spies for the CCP. And a counterpunch against Beijing's aggression, Japan and the Philippines signed a landmark defense pact as China ups its pressure on Manila. A major breach in an embankment guarding China's second largest freshwater lake. Over 5,000 residents evacuated overnight and multiple villages submerged. The breach was over 700 feet wide. Authorities are warning locals to not talk to the media about the situation. The dam guards China's second largest freshwater lake called the Dongting. The breach was over 700 feet wide. Waters surged through the break, flooding six villages nearby. Some houses were almost entirely submerged with only the roof still above water. If any of them can swim ashore, that'd be good. Look at them. A local ox farm was among the flooded properties. Dozens of the large animals were seen swimming in the overflow. Authorities are now building up a second line of defense about a mile away to prevent floodwaters from reaching any further. On Sunday, the Chinese authorities said emergency workers had patched up more than 295 feet of the breach, adding that they are still hard at work and closing up about 13 feet of the gap every hour. Authorities also said that no one was hurt or killed, although the ruling Chinese Communist Party has a history of concealing disaster casualties. This number cannot be independently verified. It's too dangerous. Wow, it might be 80 meters now. Just a moment ago, it was only 50 meters wide. Local officials are filling the breach with rocks and boulders. When the embankment first broke, it widened quickly, going from just over 30 feet to more than 300 in just an hour. Witnesses called the site terrifying. Drone footage showed that as of Saturday morning, houses and farms in many villages were still underwater. A local resident told NTD that he suspected the authorities are concealing casualties. To protect the resident's identity, we've distorted his voice. Mudslides and landslides are everywhere in the countryside. The roads are gone, and many people have been swept away by mudslides. An online post revealed a warning that local authorities sent out to internal staff, ordering them not to accept any media interviews or release any information regarding the flooding. Elsewhere in Shandong province, footage captured a daring rescue when three villagers saved a 90-year-old woman with quick thinking and a robe tied to a tree. Over in Hunan province, a different round of flooding caused a local dam breach last Saturday. Over 1,000 residents have been evacuated. Over 20,000 people live downstream from the dam. Chinese media reports say there's less water in the reservoir held back by the dam. They add that the emergency is under control and that there's no need for large-scale evacuation. A huge explosion in southern China on Sunday. A video clip shows plumes of smoke rising from a factory that caught on fire just before a huge fireball curled into the sky. Media reports named the explosion site as a glue factory in southern Guangdong province. Nearby businesses reported the explosion was so strong that it shattered their windows. Authorities say no injuries or casualties have been discovered so far. NTD can't independently confirm that information due to the Chinese regime's history of covering up casualties. The fire has been extinguished and the cause of the blast is under investigation. Leaders of the world's biggest military alliance gearing up to meet at a summit in Washington on Tuesday. Topics on the agenda strengthening defenses, supporting Ukraine, and countering the Chinese Communist Party. NTD's Jack Bradley has more from the State Department. Leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO are meeting in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday for a three-day summit. Topics of discussion will likely include supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia, protecting NATO's newest members Sweden and Finland, and the security threats posed by the Chinese Communist regime. This comes as China and Belarus announced on that they're holding joint military training exercises near the border of Poland, a NATO ally, and while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is visiting Poland. The Chinese regime is Russia's main supplier of microelectronics and tools to build missiles and tanks, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the Chinese regime will face consequences if it continues to do this, and he reiterated these points on Monday. Leaders of our Asia-Pacific partners, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea are present at the summit. That demonstrates that our security is not regional, our security is global, and that's clearly demonstrated in the war in Ukraine where Iran, North Korea, China are supporting and enabling Russia's illegal war aggression against Ukraine. Another topic that's likely to come up during the summit is Ukraine's long-term bridge membership in NATO. President Biden has said that the war with Russia must end before Ukraine can join. If Ukraine joins NATO before that, all members will essentially be at war with Russia. The alliance is expected to announce more weapons going to Ukraine and further training of Ukrainian forces. To strengthen Ukraine's air defenses and to help Ukraine-protected cities and its grid, the United States and several of our allies will have several big announcements at this week's summit, and the NATO alliance will announce significant new steps to strengthen its military and political partnership with Ukraine. NATO has a benchmark that requires each member state to contribute at least two percent of its GDP to defense. 23 out of 32 countries are now hitting that benchmark. That's compared to just three countries back in 2014 when this benchmark was made. Reporting from Washington, D.C., Jack Bradley, NTD News. Tensions between the U.S. and China. The Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, is tightening its control over its members living abroad. A dozen of them recently told the Financial Times that the CCP expects them to fully obey the party's instructions, even though some requirements go against U.S. immigrant rules or local laws. China experts shed light on the issue. The Chinese Communist Party, CCP, has always demanded this, and it may have been emphasizing this more recently. This actually further damages the image of Chinese people and overseas Chinese. The CCP has already infiltrated a lot abroad. If it also utilizes a large number of ordinary party members, it sets a very bad precedent. It means civilians are collecting intelligence and becoming sub-agents or even spies for the CCP. Right now, there are at least 10,000 CCP members living in the U.S. Many of them hold senior positions in top U.S. institutes, plus big tech and financial corporations. The CCP has a to-do list for these elite members. Check in with Chinese officials to make sure they're still loyal to the party, tell positive stories about China to American communities, study Chinese political materials, and pay CCP membership dues. A former Chinese lawyer sheds light on what telling positive China stories means. The so-called telling China's story well is actually about telling the story of the Chinese Communist Party, CCP. It means spreading the CCP's autocratic and dictatorial system to the whole world. This has a significant impact on American society, subtly influencing American ideology, values, and culture towards communism. Therefore, American society indeed needs to be very vigilant about this. For those who are still studying the CCP and its affiliated youth league have been requiring them to contact Communist Party cells every six months since 2019. Lai pointed out that not all Chinese people want to follow the Communist Party or agree with its instruction. He's calling on overseas Chinese nationals to think critically and spread the values they learned from democracies to their Chinese peers, instead of vice versa. Many party members abroad might not have a strong belief in the CCP itself. They are only doing it for personal career advancement. However, under the CCP's demands, they may risk becoming information gatherers or even spies. This is unfair to these individuals and to the wider Chinese community. For those Chinese who have already established roots in the United States, they should not try to have it both ways. They should cherish the freedom in America. New York-based immigrant attorney Felipe Alexander said having a certificate of quitting the Chinese Communist Party is helpful for the immigration process. The certificate works as a declaration for overseas CCP members who renounce their membership. Flora Hua, NTD News. The Philippines and Japan joining hands and forces to counter China. The two countries signed a defense pact on Monday. It would smooth out military cooperation and allow both sides to deploy forces on each other's soil. Let's zoom in. It enables the Philippines and Japan now to have a framework for cooperation in defense and security and other related issues. The deal comes after rising aggression from Beijing. Chinese coast guard vessels have repeatedly rammed Filipino boats, fired water cannons, and directed lasers at them, all to prevent the Philippines from supplying troops stationed on a disputed shoal in the South China Sea. In the most recent clash, Chinese coast guards used axes, knives, and spears to puncture Filipino boats. A Filipino sailor lost a finger and seven other sailors were also injured. A big question looming is whether Washington will get notified if the conflict escalates. The U.S. is obligated to defend the Philippines in an armed attack because the two are treaty allies. Washington has warned that it's obliged to defend Manila in an armed conflict. For more insight about what Japan calls the groundbreaking achievement, we spoke to William Chu, Japan Chair Fellow at the Hudson Institute. William Chu, thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you back on the show. The Japan and Philippines have signed a defense pact as both face increasing aggression from communist China. Japan's foreign minister calling it a groundbreaking achievement. How do you read this move? I think this is very significant. It's only Japan's third reciprocal access agreement after the UK and Australia. It permits greater training and interoperability between the Philippines and Japan, which is very important for a potential fast-moving security crisis. And to step back, it's part of Japan's broader effort to take on a global leadership role in supporting the rules-based order. Japan sees the Philippines as a key partner in that and this builds on the recent U.S.-Japan-Philippines trilateral cooperation on security, technology, and economic development. And expanding on that, William, how do you see this latest move impacting when it comes to, say, countering that Chinese aggression? Sure. This is just yet another reminder to Beijing about how its aggressive and unlawful practices in the Scarborough Shoal, in the Taiwan Straits, and the Senkakus are compelling other countries to work together to support a rules-based order in the Pacific. These things are not happening out of the blue. They are in reaction to Chinese aggression. Beijing has lashed out at the news with its foreign ministry spokesperson saying, quote, the Asia-Pacific region does not need military blocks, and then went after Japan specifically for its actions in World War II. Now, what is the likely impact of this Japan-Philippines deal, especially when it comes to countering Chinese aggression? Look, this is not a military block. It's a sensible reaction to build up cooperation in a more increasingly dangerous security environment. It certainly pales in comparison to the no-limits partnership that Beijing has promised Moscow. As for Japan's actions in World War II, that's laughable. Japan has the highest approval ratings of any country in Southeast Asia, among Southeast Asia. And ask any Southeast Asian country about which country they're most concerned about, Japan will not be mentioned. Now, zooming out a bit, actually, how important is Japan as an ally to the US, especially in this region? So Japan is America's most important ally, both in terms of capabilities as well as worldview. It is the fulcrum of the US latticework of partnerships in the Indo-Pacific that I mentioned earlier. We cooperate in multiple dimensions, be it security, economics, technology, diplomacy. And now that Japan has taken on the responsibility of becoming a global leader in supporting the rules-based order, this opens up greater opportunities for meaningful and deep cooperation between our two countries. So it sounds like, in a way, it's allies bonding together to maintain that peace on the world stage. Is that a fair assessment? Exactly, yeah. And I think bringing on new partners like the Philippines only strengthens that cooperation between the US and Japan. William Chu, thank you so much for your time. Great, thank you. Coming up, tensions in the South China Sea are rising, and experts say the US has contributed because Washington hasn't backed the Philippines when it should have. The Americans purposely said nothing so that they wouldn't embarrass the Chinese, thinking the Chinese would appreciate the gesture. Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky. Hungary's prime minister met with all three in just a week. As holder of the European Union's rotating presidency, he says Hungary wants to play a key role in the Ukraine war peace plan. And zero joblessness. That's the Chinese regime's new policy to combating the country's soaring unemployment rate. The term is inspired by the infamous zero COVID policy that put China under lockdown for years and bravely disrupted the economy. More on that after the break, here 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 three years. If you'd like to support us, consider donating. Find us at DonorBox.org slash China-In-Focus. Or subscribe to our partner platform, Epic TV, where you can watch our full episodes. Just click the link down below. Here's what to look out for in our second half. Tensions in the South China Sea are rising. An expert says the U.S. has contributed because Washington hasn't backed the Philippines when it should have. The Americans purposely said nothing so that they wouldn't embarrass the Chinese, thinking the Chinese would appreciate the gesture. Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky. Hungary's Prime Minister met with all three in just a week. As holder of the European Union's rotating presidency, he says Hungary wants to play a key role in the Ukraine war peace plan. And zero joblessness. That's the Chinese regime's new policy to combating the country's soaring unemployment rate. The term is inspired by the infamous zero COVID policy that put China under lockdown for years and gravely disrupted the economy. More on that after the break here on China In Focus. Thanks for watching China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. See you tomorrow.