Lawmaker Urges US College to Cut Ties With China; Texas Sues TikTok | China in Focus

Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Our top story, the chair of a house committee calling on U.S. higher education to shut down partnership with Chinese universities. This after a growing number of Chinese espionage cases were brought to light. Top U.S. officials lay out their biggest concern, election interference from China, Russia and Iran. Texas is taking TikTok to court. Why does it say the Chinese-owned app violated the privacy rights of American children? And the European Commission confirms it has enough votes to impose higher tariffs on Chinese-made electric cars. After a vote, what does it mean for the bloc and its high-stakes trade relations with Beijing? What you're dealing with with the PRC is not a normal economy. It's not a normal country. It plays by none of the rules that any of the other major countries have agreed to and play by. A stark warning from a top lawmaker, U.S. colleges must, quote, shut down their cooperation with Chinese colleges immediately. Congressman John Molinar, the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, made the remark in a statement to the Daily Mail. It added that, quote, and protect the critical taxpayer-funded research they do. His comments come after five Chinese nationals were charged earlier this week. They have been caught trespassing on a U.S. military site in Michigan last year. Officials said they lied to the FBI about their trips and tried to cover their tracks. NTD's Sam Wong has the details on the investigation. Federal prosecutors unveiled a string of charges this week against five Chinese nationals, all of them graduates of the University of Michigan. The indictment traces back to an incident at Camp Grayling in August 2023, when the U.S. National Guard was hosting a training exercise with the Taiwanese military. According to the FBI, the group was caught snapping pictures of military equipment but tried to cover their tracks when approached by authorities. Court filings did not reveal the suspects' whereabouts, but charges against them are mounting from conspiracy to lying to authorities to destroying evidence during a federal investigation. This is not an isolated incident in Michigan that involves allegations of Chinese infiltration. The Select Committee will come to order. John Molinar is the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. In a post on X, he said, quote, This case shows once again that CCP espionage can happen anywhere in America, and we must be vigilant. Molinar also highlighted Gaotian Hi-Tech, a Chinese battery firm seeking to build a multi-billion-dollar manufacturing facility in its home state of Michigan. The Chinese Communist Party does not think like us. When it invests abroad, it does so in the name of control. A Daily Caller report suggests Gaotian employed nearly 1,000 CCP members, including the company's CEO. That's while it receives hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tax incentives from the state of Michigan. I've said from the beginning that I want to see this area have more jobs and investment, but we must not welcome companies that are controlled by people who see us as the enemy. Meanwhile, the CCP's influence is expanding across the U.S., from allegedly planting an agent in the New York governor's office to infiltrating American universities and research institutions. A recent congressional study finds institutions, including UCLA and UC Berkeley, have helped advance the Chinese military and its technology. In September, the House of Representatives passed 25 bills aimed at protecting Americans from threats posed by the CCP. Sam Wong, NTD News. Warnings about election interference. Top U.S. officials from the Justice Department to cyber say countries, including China, are targeting U.S. elections. We've seen this in terms of the indictments against Russia. You've seen it in the recent indictments against Iran. China is also very interested in influencing the election. She noted adversaries wouldn't have a chance of influencing election results. Matthew Olson is the top official at the DOJ. He said on Wednesday that his biggest concern is about, quote, an onslaught of foreign election interference, adding Russia, Iran and China are targeting U.S. elections as they see it as a period of vulnerability for the U.S. Texas is suing Chinese-owned app TikTok. It accused the short video platform on Thursday of violating children's privacy and state law. Texas says the company shared personal information on minors without consent from their parents. Here's a closer look. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit. Paxton said TikTok does not provide tools to restrict children's privacy and account settings. The attorney general says it also allows targeted advertising to children. Paxton says TikTok and other large technology companies must be held accountable for, quote, exploiting Texas children. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. government sued TikTok earlier this year for allegedly violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. TikTok is also facing lawsuits in some other states like Indiana, Montana and Arkansas. Next, the European Union has enough votes to impose higher tariffs on electric vehicles from China, even though that could mean retaliation from one of the bloc's largest trading partners. The results just came in on Friday, with France and Italy supporting the measure and Germany and Hungary opposing. A majority of EU member states agreed Friday to impose tariffs of up to 45 percent on imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles. Today, the European Commission's proposal to impose definitive countervailing duties on imports of battery electric vehicles from China has obtained the necessary support from EU member states for the adoption of tariffs. But the European Commission did say it would continue to negotiate with Beijing to find an alternative solution. The purpose has been to establish, or rather re-establish, a level playing field so that the goals pertaining to electric vehicles and overall, you know, green goals, we do not and we never have wanted to impose tariffs in this case for the sake of imposing tariffs. What we want is to remove the injurious subsidisation, the effect of the injurious subsidisation, that are painstakingly detailed, WTO-compatible and thorough investigation identified. The Commission had proposed final duties for the next five years. It wants to counter what it sees as unfair Chinese subsidies after a year-long anti-subsidy investigation. The tariffs range from nearly eight percent for Tesla to 35 percent for SAAIC and other companies deemed not to have cooperated with the EU investigation. BMW CEO Oliver Zipzer called Friday's vote a fatal signal for Europe's auto industry. Mercedes-Benz also called the tariffs a mistake, while Europe's top carmaker Volkswagen called it the wrong approach. China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The EU's stance towards Beijing has hardened in the last five years. It views China as a potential partner in some issues, but also as a competitor and a systemic rival. The Commission says China's spare production capacity of three million EVs per year, which needed to be exported, is twice the size of the EU market. Given 100 percent tariffs in the US and Canada, the most obvious outlet for those EVs is Europe. Beijing this year launched its own probes into imports of EU brandy, dairy and pork products. The moves were widely seen as a retaliation. The 2024 US presidential race is heating up. Both candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have vowed to take a tough stance on China. Tariffs have been a point of contention. The Democrats say Trump's plan to increase tariffs will make goods more expensive. Trump says prices didn't go up when he added tariffs as president. He also highlighted that the Biden-Harris ticket did not reverse his tariffs after getting into office. So what's best for America over the next four years? Don Ma with NTD News spoke to retired US Colonel Grant Newsham for his take. He's a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the author of When China Attacks. Colonel, it seems like both candidates will levy tariffs on China. For example, both Trump and Harris have supported tariffs on Chinese goods like EVs, solar cells and steel. Do you think on this issue, we'll get a similar outcome regardless who becomes president? I think it will be similar. Particularly, you have to remember that when Mr. Trump imposed these tariffs on the Chinese, that the Democrats side of the House screamed bloody murder, saying it was going to destroy the economy, cost American jobs, raise prices, etc. Well, you notice that once Mr. Biden took office, that he kept almost all of what Mr. Trump imposed. So I expect these will continue. And really, the test, when you look at the effectiveness of tariffs, experts can debate this all day. And depending on what your position is, you can always find a lobbyist or a lawyer to give you the position you want, the answer you want. But the thing to remember is look at the Chinese response. Look at the Communist Chinese Party's response when tariffs were applied and they don't like it. And even now they complain bitterly. Xi Jinping has even mentioned this point with President Biden when they've actually met in person. So the reaction of the Chinese Communist Party should tell you that they don't like having tariffs put on them. That reasonably assumes they're effective at what they're intended to do. What you're dealing with with the PRC is not a normal economy. It's not a normal country. It plays by none of the rules that any of the other major countries have agreed to and play by. So you really have to do some pretty drastic things if you're going to get their attention. And that's really what tariffs are in this case, is it's almost an act of desperation at a country which is not played by any of the regulatory rules, the agreement that they made when they got into the World Trade Organization and will not stop funding and subsidizing their own companies, which are state-owned companies financed by the government. They get all sorts of benefits, tax benefits, free land, direct financial contribution subsidies. That it's not a normal economy, as I said, where the usual rules apply. So you have got to hit them pretty hard with tariffs. It's almost the last step. You almost have nothing else to do. So this is trying to get China's attention in the hopes that they will behave better. But I don't really know how effective it's going to be overall, particularly because the Chinese economy is floundering. It needs to export to earn convertible currency since the Chinese currency is not freely usable overseas. And thus it has really revved up its manufacturing sector. And as you know, Colonel, the Biden administration has put pressure on China over its overcapacity in certain sectors like solar panels. Can you explain to us what that is and how it has impacted the U.S. and Americans? Well, what it's done, just taking the green energy field, is China has been able to, through the use of subsidies and state-backed companies, offer products at such a low price that American, European, Canadian manufacturers can't compete. They've gone out of business. And that's why China has such dominance in these industries, and supposedly the industries of the future. We'll find out about that. But nonetheless, the administration and other governments are prioritizing the green energy development. And China's use of trade is part of their economic warfare scheme. And this is warfare very much. Seeks to destroy your business opponents, but also to cripple your military opponents, which is how the Chinese see it, because they simply don't have any manufacturing anymore in these industries. And that is something that puts the American people, American consumers, citizens at risk when you are this dependent on an enemy. All right, Colonel Newsham, thank you very much for the discussion today. Thank you very much for having me. Appreciate it. Coming up, death threats attempt to interrupt movie screenings in Taiwan. A documentary is shedding light on a crime against humanity, Oregon harvesting by the Chinese Communist Party. But it's facing obstacles on its way to Taiwan's silver screen. Japan moving to bolster its alliance with the U.S. amid growing security threats. Could a NATO-like alliance take shape in Asia? Tokyo explains its stance. And how does Beijing exploit poor nations through loans? And why are tariffs used to counter the regime's trade practices? An expert from the Heritage Foundation breaks it down. More on that after the break here on China In Focus. Certainly, this is essentially the practice of a loan shark just on the international stage. Welcome back to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Filmmakers behind an award-winning documentary, Facing Death Threats, all for trying to screen the film in Taiwan. The movie, called State Oregons, aims to unveil the Chinese Communist Party's most unprecedented crime, Oregon harvesting. That crime committed against its own innocent Chinese people, and especially those part of the faith group Falun Gong. The film's production company said it has received multiple threatening messages this week, urging them to cancel the screenings. And a movie theater in the capital city of Taipei reported seeing police detectives around its building earlier on Friday. What's more, the filmmakers said they received an email earlier this week. It orders them to cancel the screenings of State Oregons. If the movie is played, we will break into the movie theater and shoot everyone we see. The filmmakers added that one message threatened to hack in and steal information from any theater that agreed to play the film. It also threatened the safety of theater staff. Several Taiwanese lawmakers and politicians said the situation shocked them. The screenings went smoothly despite the challenges. State Oregons had entered the Oscar race for 2025 and has screened in theaters in New York and New Jersey. One of the most important U.S. allies in Asia just got a new prime minister. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is putting together a stimulus package to support his country's economy and express his stance on China. Here's a closer look at the details. The new prime minister was only sworn in this week and had previously been seen as a supporter of fiscal austerity. But he now stresses his new government's top priority is to exit deflation that has weighed down the country for three decades. He also vowed Friday to keep building ties with like-minded nations including deeper security cooperation with South Korea. He said he would work with China where possible while confronting it on issues of disagreement. Japan's new leader pledging to stick to its alliance with the U.S. Friday to defend against threats from China, Russia and North Korea. He said the country is facing the most tense security environment since World War II adding there's a need to bolster Japan's military. Violation of Japanese airspace by Chinese and Russian warplanes have been observed. This is a serious violation of sovereignty. North Korea's advancement of missile technology and repeated firings more often than ever on top of developing long-range missiles. He told President Biden that he wants to strengthen the alliance on Wednesday though he stopped short of talking about establishing a NATO-like alliance in Asia an idea he previously advocated for. NATO is the world's most powerful military alliance. Japan's foreign minister said an Asian version of a NATO is a possibility in the future. A senior U.S. Treasury official Brent Naiman said the International Monetary Fund is in his words too polite when it comes to criticizing China's economic policies. He believes the IMF should be more direct and transparent especially about the loans China gives to other countries. Naiman urged the IMF to push China for more clarity about its lending terms. Don Ma with NTD Newsroom discussed this with EJ Antoni. He's a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. EJ, thank you so much for coming on today. So Naiman raised concerns about China giving out loans. He urged the IMF to push China for more clarity about its lending terms. I was wondering if you could explain to us China's practice of making emergency loans to debt-ridden countries and Naiman's concerns here. Certainly. This is essentially the practice of a loan shark just on the international stage. What China is basically doing here is going to very vulnerable debtor nations and bailing them out but using terms that are essentially going to enslave those nations in terms of debt to China ad infinitum. So there will typically be no way for these nations to ever get out from under the thumb of the influence of the Chinese Communist Party. Again, it's very much like the way a loan shark can ensnare an individual into a kind of debt slavery at the individual level. But this is just being done at the international level. Can you tell us how China is exploiting some of these debt-ridden countries? What are they doing to these countries? Well, it works very similar to when a person, let's say, takes out a credit card, and the credit card starts with a 0% interest rate for a period of time, and there is an incentive for you to go out and spend a lot of money on that card and rack up your balance in the hopes that you can pay off that balance before the very punishingly high interest rates eventually kick in. And what ends up happening for a lot of unfortunate folks is that they can't actually pay off all of that debt, and now they're stuck making those very high interest payments to that creditor, to the bank. In the case of China, very oftentimes what they do is they make countries promise things in the future. So today, they get a lot of handouts, maybe some infrastructure development from the Chinese Communist Party. But then in the future, they have to pay a punishingly high penalty. Sometimes that essentially requires these nations to hand over a tremendous amount of their natural resources, for example. So the Treasury official highlighted this point as well, that some of the loans don't always appear on the balance sheet of the borrowing nation. Can you speak to the impact of this lack of transparency? Well, it makes it very difficult for other nations to have any kind of confidence when they have to interact with these debtor nations to China, especially in terms of international trade. Because when you can't be sure if your trading partner, let's say, is in some kind of financial predicament, you are very much, you are very less likely, I should say, to want to trade with those people or want to have any kind of financial interaction at all, even if you're not necessarily trading products. What needs to be done to push for greater transparency from China regarding its lending practices? Well, one of the ways that has so far proven very successful in terms of dealing with China and trying to get them to not be such bad actors on the world stage in a lot of different matters, frankly, has been tariffs and non-tariff penalties on Chinese trade. Again, that has proven to be particularly successful in the United States. Under the Trump administration, they did a very, very good job of strategically placing those tariffs on certain products and in such a way that it essentially compelled the Chinese Communist Party to stop being such a bad actor on the world stage, to stop undermining American manufacturing, let's say. But I've noticed that every time a country places tariffs on China, the country always comes back with a retaliatory measure. I mean, does that deter certain countries from wanting to impose tariffs on China? Well, it depends on the trading partner with the Chinese in large part. In the case of the United States, we buy so much from China and they buy relatively little from us. It also depends on the alternatives that nations have. And this goes back to the strategic way in which the Trump administration placed tariffs on the Chinese Communist Party. And essentially what they did was they focused on things which American purchasers would have alternative choices. So instead of buying steel from China, they could buy steel from Sweden, let's say, for only a little bit more. That meant that the Chinese steel producer, who was already heavily subsidized by the government there, the Chinese steel producer had to essentially eat the cost of that tariff. Because if they raised prices any more than just a little bit, Americans would just buy the Swedish steel instead of the Chinese steel. So again, it goes back to it being a very case by case basis, not only country by country, but also individual product by product. All right, EJ, terrific insight today. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. That's all for today's China In Focus. I'm 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 chinainfocusandtd.com. We'd love to hear from you. Around the clock original news coverage. Visit us at ntd.com or download our NTD app. Thanks for watching. See you soon.