China, Russia, North Korea, Iran Forming Axis?; 'External Force' Can't Change Taiwan's Future

Welcome to China in Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Our top story, producing weapons, deploying troops, China and North Korea both stepping up support for Russia as a new axis taking shape. Taiwan is back with a bold no for China. The island's president is once again rejecting Beijing's rule in favor of freedom and democracy, all while marking the anniversary of a key victory over communist forces. We cannot and will not allow any external force to change the future of Taiwan. President Biden ordering U.S. agencies to increase their use of artificial intelligence. The goal is to outpace China as it tries to use the advanced tech to revolutionize its military. And is the U.S. properly defending against the Chinese Communist Party's political and economic warfare? A new house report finds it's not. As China, North Korea and Iran offer apparent support for Russia's war on Ukraine, a concern is emerging. Is a new axis taking shape? On Wednesday, the U.S. confirmed that North Korea has deployed at least 3,000 troops to Russia for training. What's more, Ukrainian intelligence says they've spotted as many as 12,000 troops there via satellite images. It's unclear why North Korean troops were sent there. If they're co-belligerents, their intention is to participate in this war on Russia's behalf. That is a very, very serious issue. And it will have impacts not only in Europe, it will also impact things in the Indo-Pacific as well. The growing coordination between these adhocracies is alarming the West. China and Russia are nuclear powers. North Korea has about 50 nuclear warheads, while the U.S. believes Iran is capable of assembling nuclear weapons. The military ties between them are becoming stronger. The U.S. Treasury said China worked with Russian firms to co-produce long-range drones. That is a step up from before, whereas China only provided Russia with dual-use goods. Iran has provided Russia with drones and ballistic missiles. Observers say China would decide how the alignment would develop. That's because it's the most powerful player out of the group. And all three depend on China for economic protection against Western sanctions. Meanwhile, the U.S. is caught up in two wars, one in the Middle East and the other in Europe. And Washington is struggling to keep weapons and munitions coffers stocked as it funnels gear to allies. Despite that, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said he's confident that the U.S. would win in a war against China if Beijing invades Taiwan, adding that a future conflict would be akin to World War II. Taiwan says no external force will change its future. The island's president made the statement on Friday during a visit to a historic site. It's where the Taiwanese army defeated Chinese forces decades ago. Here's more. We treasure a democratic and free way of life, and we cannot and will not allow any external force to change the future of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu. Lai said Taiwan would not give up an inch of its territory as he visited the Kinmen Islands, which are only miles from China's coastline. 75 years ago, the Chinese Communist Party's forces tried to take over Taiwan by force for the first time, targeting these islands. Taiwan pushed back the invasion attempt. The victory laid the foundation for Taiwan's safety in the decades that followed. At the event commemorating the victory, Lai told veterans the battle represents Taiwan's determination to protect the country. Lai also expanded on current global tensions. The fact that North Korea has sent troops to Russia shows that totalitarianism continues to cooperate and expand. We will firmly unite to move forward, to defend democracy, freedom, and our nation. Beijing sees Lai as a so-called separatist and views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory. Taiwan rejects the claim. Lai said only Taiwan's people can decide their future. China staged a day of war games around Taiwan earlier this month, and Taiwan mapped out wartime food plans this week. President Biden urging defense and intel agencies to ramp up the use of artificial intelligence. The effort seeks to out-compete communist China and to protect American national security. NTD's White House correspondent Iris Tao has more. President Biden is directing the Pentagon and intelligence agencies to increase their use of AI. The goal is to maintain an edge over rivals like China. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says the new memo published on Thursday is the nation's first-ever strategy for harnessing the power of AI to advance U.S. national security. We have to be faster in deploying AI in our national security enterprise than America's rivals are in theirs. They are on a persistent quest to leapfrog our military and intelligence capabilities. Sullivan says AI is already reshaping how our security agencies plan logistics, prevent cyberattacks, and analyze intelligence. And he warns that countries like China are also using AI to revolutionize its military and intelligence capabilities. As a result, the U.S. must outpace China. We know that China is building its own technological ecosystem with digital infrastructure that won't protect sensitive data, that can enable mass surveillance and censorship, that can spread misinformation, and that can make countries vulnerable to coercion. Meanwhile, concerns are growing over the Chinese Communist Party spreading misinformation trying to sway voters in the U.S. election. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned this week that countries like China are using social media to denigrate some candidates in presidential and congressional races. The office added that some social media posts are likely to be generated by AI. Reporting from Washington, D.C., Iris Tao, NTD News. How is the U.S. defending against the Chinese Communist Party's attempt at global domination? A new House report says the effort is lacking. The report outlines which areas are most vulnerable to Chinese Communist Party subversion tactics. Here are the details. The House Oversight Committee investigated 25 federal sectors. What it found is that the government doesn't have a plan to protect Americans from the Chinese Communist Party's unrestricted warfare. And what's more, the House committee chairman told NTD the average government employee isn't even clear-eyed on this threat. But China is our biggest threat. And yet, the average government employee, even the high-ranking government employees, don't know what to look for. His committee highlights several areas where there are opens for the CCP to infiltrate and harm Americans, including the departments of education, treasury, agriculture, NASA, and more. A direct example is found on college campuses. The regime leverages its Chinese-led scholar programs to harass students and stifle free speech. Both Republicans and Democrats are concerned about the threat. The most consensus is found around the need to combat the regime's economic warfare through crackdown on IT theft and pulling supply chains out of China. A broader threat is found in China's footprint in the agriculture industry. More and more every day, China's getting a bigger footprint in our food supply, especially in our food manufacturers. This administration's afraid to ban China from purchasing farmland. They're afraid to ban China from purchasing interest in our food processors. A group of senators Wednesday introduced legislation to protect food supply chains that are susceptible to Chinese control. Senator Rick Scott warns that the U.S. cannot allow the Chinese Communist Party an opening to hold the food supply chain hostage. They hope that the economy has a downfall. They hope that there's political upheaval after this election. They want disruption in the United States so that they can continue to advance their economy and advance their communist style of government across the globe. So how should these threats be dealt with? The House Oversight Committee recommends a whole of government strategy, starting with federal agencies directly recognizing the regime for what it is, quote, a communist totalitarian regime aimed at destroying the United States. The committee says once recognized, the government must resist the psychological warfare that the CCP uses to influence policymaking in the U.S. And overall, the U.S. must create a systematic strategy to defend itself. What does the U.S. strategy look like for blocking China's political warfare and influence peddling on American soil? A report called CCP Political Warfare was just released Thursday by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. Entity's Steve Lance sat down with Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer to discuss what the committee found. Oversight Chairman James Comer, thank you so much for joining. A pleasure. Chairman, your committee releasing a report this morning detailing the Chinese Communist Party's political warfare and influence operations in the United States. If you could sort of break down that actually means in some of the most significant findings in this report. We wondered what exactly the plan was in the Biden-Harris administration to offset this Chinese Communist Party warfare within our government. And what we found was there is no plan. Not only that, there's not even a process in place to educate the government employees and the heads of each division and each cabinet exactly what to look for and how to know when China is behaving badly. And you look at the things that we found. China's buying so many of our treasury bills. We're having to issue more treasury bills because we have a massive deficit. We spent $1.83 trillion more last fiscal year than we took in. This administration is reliant on China to buy that debt. This administration is reliant on China in trade policy where China has a competitive advantage because of the one area where we probably have close to a balanced trade with China is in the agriculture industry. This administration's afraid to ban China from purchasing farmland. They're afraid to ban China from purchasing interest in our food processors. We saw during the protests that this administration doesn't have a policy in place to protect students and teachers from anti-Semitic behavior and protest and violence. So the list goes on and on about the things that China has been doing to the United States, and yet our government doesn't have a plan in place to reject that and protect its citizenry. House Oversight Chairman James Comer, really appreciate you joining us. Thanks for having me. Turning now to the Middle East, China's envoy to Afghanistan said Friday that it would offer the Taliban tariff-free access to several sectors, construction, energy, and consumer goods. Right now the Taliban's economy is in a bad shape. Beijing has been building ties with the Taliban, but stopped short of recognizing it. Meanwhile, Afghanistan is rich in resources, home to $1 trillion worth of minerals. Deposits of lithium, copper, and iron would prove valuable to China's battery and construction industries. The Taliban has said that it wants to join China's Belt and Road Initiative, a global project where China invests in infrastructure in developing countries and asks for control of key ports and assets if countries can't pay their debt. Coming up, a bloody protest against the Chinese Communist Party. One Chinese truck driver decided to live stream his crash into a number of cars while cursing life under the regime. The International Monetary Fund and the U.S. aren't seeing eye to eye their disagreement whether China's massive trade surplus is hurting the global economy. And Taiwan is focusing on boosting its combat readiness with live fire drills, the enemy in mind, a potential invasion by communist China. More on that after the break, here on China In Focus. Welcome back to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer, turning now to news from within China. On Wednesday night, a Chinese man drove a large truck into numerous cars on the street while live streaming the entire incident. And just a warning, some viewers may find this footage disturbing. The driver said he had earlier been summoned to a police station. Angered by the incident, he chose to retaliate. Social media posts say the man drove a large concrete mixer truck and crashed into dozens of cars. He was taken into custody that night. Local police say at least three people were injured in the incident, were hospitalized. Chinese Internet regulators later censored his videos from social media. China Affairs commentator Xin Tianxin gave her take on the man's motives. She said the tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party has instilled hatred in Chinese people and added that this incident is one example of how people are harming each other to vent their anger. She said the social unrest could even contribute to the Communist Party's eventual collapse. Growing tensions between the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund over managing a global flood of Chinese exports. IMF Director Kristalina Georgieva is encouraging China to redirect its approach from exports to a consumer-driven economy. But the U.S. wants the IMF to make a stronger push. Take a listen. We are on the view that as the Chinese economy has grown so big, it is the latter, domestic consumption, that is the reliable source of growth. We also have been keen to see China recognizing that in the short term, one big obstacle to consumer confidence is in the property sector and a decisive action to resolve that would help lift up consumer confidence. Georgieva shared her thoughts at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Washington. She said Beijing could no longer rely on an export-led model in a large economy. Meanwhile, the U.S. is blaming China's export surpluses on Beijing for holding down consumption and subsidizing manufacturing and exports. The U.S. charges China is causing collateral damage to trading partners and it wants the IMF to take a stronger stance. Taiwanese tanks practicing to repel a potential Chinese assault from the sea. That's as the island works to boost its military readiness. The Taiwanese military conducted live fire drills on Thursday night on the Penghu Islands. Situated between Taiwan and China, Penghu is home to the Taiwanese Navy. An important air base is also located there. And the island's air force scrambles military jets from that location to monitor Chinese warplanes when they approach the island. The Chinese military has ramped up its threats toward Taiwan. Besides war games that encircled the island earlier this month, Beijing also held live drills this week. The Chinese Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan but seeks to take control of it. The Chinese leader has voiced a plan to take over within the next three years. Wet pallets and moldy body armor plates from the U.S. have made their way to Taiwan. And one U.S. lawmaker isn't happy about it. With rising tensions in Asia and conflicts worldwide, how might this affect America's reputation globally? To discuss, we sat down with retired Brigadier General David Stilwell. He's the former Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. General Stilwell, thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you back on the show. Tiffany, it's great to be back. Thank you. Now, the New York Post is reporting on Senator Joni Ernst's letter lambasting the Pentagon. This is after Taiwan received wet and moldy gear from the U.S. The senator calling this an embarrassing debacle. First, what was your reaction to this substandard gear that ended up in Taiwan? I think it's a symptom of allowing too many crises to bubble at the same time and becoming distracted. And that comes from a failure to prioritize and put effort against the primary threat. And then whatever's left over, you put against the rest. And so it works in the military deployments world. And so I think the solution here is to encourage or force our friends and allies, that means NATO, to pick up the slack in that part of the world. NATO has got to get busy, step up and do their part. So then we can take that limited manpower, such as it is in the Pentagon, but limited attention span and push toward important things like ensuring Taiwan gets the right stuff. Now, the Pentagon has responded saying this was a communication issue and they have spent about $730,000 to fix it. How do you view this difference between the one China principle as Beijing sees it and the one China policy that the U.S. has? Well, the people in the media who confuse one China principle and policy can be forgiven because we have allowed the PRC unlimited access intrusion into our information space. And so a simple rhetorical, you know, syntactical, you know, these small word changes don't make a lot of sense or mean a lot to American people, but they do mean a lot in the PRC sense. So just to be short, one China principle comes from Beijing and that says that China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, anything that the PRC says is there, South China Sea, et cetera, falls under the purview of the Chinese Communist Party. Our one China policy simply acknowledges that that's what they're saying, but we don't agree to it, nor do we support or endorse it. And one China, two systems means that Hong Kong and Taiwan would be allowed a certain or large degree of autonomy while we resolve the question of Taiwan through dialogue without coercion or use of force. Well, if you're looking at the news today, you can see that the PRC did not live up to one word of that agreement. Right now there's a huge asymmetry in access in information. We have no access to the Chinese people. They have complete access to us. Information access is one of the things that China not only drafted but signed up to. And they clearly walked away from that one, like they walked away from their agreement on Hong Kong autonomy and all the rest. General Stilwell, thank you so much for your time. Always a pleasure. Thank you. The European Union has denounced China's claim over Taiwan. Let's take a look. The European Parliament passed a resolution with wide majority support Thursday urging Beijing to stop its quote continued military operations, economic coercion and hostile disinformation campaign against the island. Instead, Michael Geller, a member of the European Parliament, outlined a roadmap for the Chinese Communist Party on how it can win the favor of the Taiwanese people. Perhaps you should seek ways to become attractive for the Taiwanese who live in a democracy and dislike a prospect of being treated like the Hong Kongers. So you should release the Uyghurs from their so-called re-education camps and the cultural repression of the Tibetans and the incarceration of Falun Gong practitioners and the prosecution of the underground churches. Abide by the international agreement with the UK on 50 years of internal democracy for Hong Kong. Stop harassing your neighbors by ignoring the provisions of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. The resolution also calls on the European Union to support Taiwan's participation in international organizations. Under pressure from Beijing, Taiwan is excluded from nearly all formal international organizations including the World Health Organization. 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 We'd love to hear from you. For around-the-clock original news coverage, visit us at ntd.com or download our NTD app. Thanks for watching. See you soon. Coming up on NTD, stay tuned for America's Hope with Kelly Wright. Tonight's discussion focuses on women's issues in the presidential campaign. Avis Jones-Weaver and Diane Rivera-Lopez share their perspectives on divisive issues like abortion. Plus, former presidential candidate Roland Roberts discusses his views on the election and the importance of Americans putting God first and faith over politics. That's tonight at 10 p.m. after China In Focus. Thanks for watching. See you soon.