U.S., China Reach ‘Basic Consensus’; Taiwan Won’t Be Traded | China in Focus

Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Alice Tang, in for Tiffany Meyer, our top story. Ahead of the Trump-Xi summit this week, the U.S. and China have reached a preliminary consensus on trade. President Trump is optimistic about finalizing the deal. Beijing has yet to confirm the meeting between the two leaders. I think we'll have a good deal with China. They want to make a deal. We want to make a deal. A win for the U.S. in the rare-earth showdown with China. President Trump signs a series of rare-earth agreements with several Southeast Asian nations. A move aimed at reducing America's dependence on China. Two U.S. Navy aircraft went down in the South China Sea within 30 minutes of each other. As authorities continue their investigation, we'll have the latest coming up. The Chinese Communist Party's murderous policies have been brutalizing its people for decades. Stephen Musher was one of the first U.S. scholars allowed into China 50 years ago. He joined NTD's Steve Lance to reveal what he uncovered and why it turned him into a China hawk. President Trump is set to meet with China's leader Xi Jinping on Thursday to complete the trade deal. Ahead of that, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson says negotiators from both nations have agreed on a substantial framework, which Beijing is calling a basic consensus. The Trump-Xi summit has yet to be confirmed by Beijing as of press time. A good deal with China. They want to make a deal. We want to make a deal. The U.S. and China held their fifth round of trade talks over the weekend in Malaysia. The discussions covered a wide range of issues, from fentanyl and rare earths to soybeans, TikTok and a possible truce extension. Regarding China's new export controls on rare earths, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson said those restrictions are off the table for now. The president had given me maximum leverage when he threatened 100 percent tariffs if the Chinese imposed their rare earth global export controls. So I think we have averted that so that the tariffs will be averted. He confirmed Beijing plans to delay the new curbs on critical minerals for one year on soybeans. Secretary Besson did not offer specifics, but he expressed his satisfaction with the progress. But I can tell you that the soybean farmers are going to be extremely happy with this deal for this year and for the coming years. Turning to TikTok, Besson confirmed the final deal has already been ironed out. Questions over whether China will retain control of the app's algorithm are expected to be clarified during the Trump-Xi summit set for this Thursday in South Korea. And on concerns that Washington may have eased semiconductor export restrictions as part of the negotiations, Besson said, quote, no changes. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed Saturday that the U.S. will not abandon its longstanding commitment to Taiwan. President Trump received a royal welcome by Japan's Emperor Naruhiro on Monday. The president arrived at the Imperial Palace shortly after touching down in Tokyo, the second stop of his Asian tour on Tuesday. Trump will also meet with Japan's newly elected prime minister, Shinai Takaichi. It's a critical meeting for Takaichi, who wants to ease trade tensions. Trump has long criticized Japan for keeping American cars out of its markets. So Japan's government has floated the idea of buying a fleet of Ford F-150 trucks for road and infrastructure inspections. Japan is one of America's closest allies in the region and the most technologically advanced country in Asia. Meanwhile, Trump said he was open to extending his Asia trip to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. South Korea officials were skeptical of such a meeting. President Donald Trump signed a series of trade and critical mineral agreements with four Southeast Asian countries on Sunday. It's aimed at easing trade imbalances and secure supply chains as China tightens its grip on rare earth exports. President Donald Trump, who was in Kuala Lumpur for the ASEAN summit, inked reciprocal trade deals with Malaysia and Cambodia, and a framework agreement with Thailand to tackle tariff and non-tariff barriers. Under the deals, the U.S. will keep a 19 percent tariff on exports from the three countries, with some goods set to enjoy zero tariffs. Washington also announced a similar deal with Vietnam, which has been levied with a tariff rate of 20 percent on its exports to the U.S. Trump signed separate deals with Malaysia and Thailand to strengthen cooperation on critical minerals. Reuters recently reported that China is in talks with Malaysia to build a rare earths refinery, with Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund expected to partner with the Chinese firm. In a joint statement, Malaysia pledged not to ban or impose quotas on exports of critical minerals or rare earths to the U.S., though it's unclear if that applies to raw materials, processed elements, or both. China is the top producer of rare earths and has tightened export controls on refining tech, pushing global manufacturers to find alternative sources for key minerals used in chips, EVs and defense systems. Malaysia holds an estimated 17.8 million tons of rare earth deposits, but currently bans raw exports to protect its resources and develop its downstream industry. As part of the deals, the four Southeast Asian countries committed to removing trade barriers and granting preferential access to U.S. goods. Two U.S. Navy aircraft went down in the South China Sea on Sunday. The two crashes came within 30 minutes of each other. First, a Seahawk helicopter crashed at 2.45 p.m. local time. Officials from the U.S. Pacific Fleet say it was conducting routine operations. About 30 minutes later, officials said a Super Hornet fighter jet from the same carrier also went down. All five crew members in both accidents, three from the helicopter and two on board the fighter jet, were recovered safely. The crashes are under investigation and no further details about possible causes have been released. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, President Trump said the crashes could have been caused by what he called, quote, bad fuel. He ruled out foul play and said there was nothing to hide. The Chinese Communist regime has rolled its latest effort to assert influence over Taiwan by seeking to distort the meaning of a historical day. NTD's Joy Chu reports from Taiwan. After Japan's defeat in World War II, the Republic of China reclaimed the island of Taiwan on October 25, 1945. That day has long been celebrated as Taiwan's retrocession day. But last week, the Chinese Communist Party designated October 25 as Taiwan Restoration Day. National Taiwan University Associate Professor Chen Xinmin noted that China's war of resistance was led by Chen Kai-shek, who at the time was chairman of the Military Affairs Commission of the Republic of China. When Japan surrendered in 1945, the People's Republic of China did not yet exist. If we are to speak of a so-called restoration of Taiwan, then the 1945 restoration occurred under the Republic of China, not under the People's Republic of China. Reporting from Taiwan, Joy Chu, NTD News. Taiwan condemned Beijing's move to create Taiwan Restoration Day, saying the move seeks to fabricate the claim that Taiwan belongs to China. NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang will hold one of its biggest AI conferences in Washington, D.C., just blocks from the White House. That's as the company tries to navigate a tense U.S.-China tech rivalry. The event Tuesday comes ahead of President Trump's meeting with Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping, where major trade and tech policies hang in the balance. Huang aims to win over U.S. policymakers who determine whether NVIDIA can do business with China, the world's largest semiconductor market. China accounts for roughly 40 percent of the world's AI market. In a recent Fox News interview, Huang said NVIDIA's market share in China's AI markets went from 95 percent to zero after U.S. export controls took effect. The framework agreement between the U.S. and China unveiled Sunday could ease trade tensions, but Treasury Secretary Scott Besson said the deal won't change current chip restrictions, making it difficult for NVIDIA to re-enter China's market. Meanwhile, China hawks in Congress are pushing to tighten advanced chip sales, saying U.S. national security comes first. The upcoming NVIDIA conference will also feature lawmakers from both parties, and following the conference, Huang plans to head to South Korea for a business summit running alongside the APEC summit. Nixperia, a chipmaker based in the Netherlands, has sharply scaled back production at its main plant in China. Workers say hours have been cut down drastically, and one-third of the machines are now idle in one particular area. The slowdown comes after the Dutch government took control of Nixperia, former Chinese parent company Wingtech Technology. That's as the U.S. introduced policies last month targeting subsidiaries that are at least 50 percent owned by Chinese companies. It's aimed at preventing them from bypassing export controls. Automakers across Europe and Japan rely heavily on Nixperia's chips. Tensions between the Netherlands and Nixperia's Chinese parent company are raising concerns for these car makers. Coming up, the Chinese Communist Party's murderous policies have been brutalizing its people for decades. Stephen Mosher was one of the first U.S. scholars allowed into China 50 years ago. He's joined NTD's Steve Lentz to reveal what he uncovered and why it turned him into a China hawk. More on that after the break here on China From the brutal forced killing of Chinese babies in the 1980s and 90s to live forced organ harvesting of religious dissidents, the Chinese Communist Party has no regard for human life. Stephen Mosher, author of The Devil and Communist China, witnessed harrowing cases of forced abortion enforced under the command of the CCP. NTD's Steve Lentz sat down with him to unpack some of the regime's worst human rights abuses. Here's a look. Stephen Mosher, really an honor to sit down with you. Well, thank you. You've written extensively on China over the years. You were also one of the first American scholars granted access to do any type of in-depth research inside of China. Talk to us about what that experience was like and what you came to understand with your own eyes inside of Communist China in the 70s. I arrived in China in March of 1979. I was part of the scholarly exchange group of 50 that was sent to China by the United States after we normalized diplomatic relations. I was the only one in that group allowed to do unsupervised research among the Chinese people themselves. When I went to China, I had been educated at Stanford University. We had a number of people at Stanford University who were very much admirers of the Chinese Communist Party and of Chairman Mao. We had Professor John Gurley in the economics department writing books about how wonderful Mao's economic plans were and how the communes had greatly improved the lives of the Chinese people. We had the former Democrat candidate, Kamala Harris's father, Professor Harris at Stanford, who was also a big believer in the success of Communist China's effort to create a new socialist man and a new socialist woman. Those were the attitudes that I took with me when I went to China. It didn't take very long for the Chinese people to convince me that all of that was simply a fantasy created in the minds of Western socialist-minded people. Really, the reality on the ground was a brutal reminder of what communism is like in action. One of the things that happened after I arrived in China was, first of all, I was taken out by a new friend of mine to a little hill outside the village. He said this was the hill where, when the Red Army came into the village, they executed all of the former clan elders and the former members of the local militia. Now, every village had a militia because that was the local police force to protect them from robbers and bandits. They were all executed. All the guns were confiscated, and the leaders of the village were executed, and new leaders were appointed by the Chinese Communist Party. That was kind of a wake-up call. On top of all this—and we're talking about human rights violation after human rights violation, tyranny after tyranny, brutality after brutality—the one-child policy began when I was in the village. The new policy was that the population of Guangdong Province could not be allowed to increase more than one percent in the year 1980. So I said, well, what are you going to do? The secretary of the Communist Party Committee said, it's very simple. We'll do a house-to-house search of the village. We'll identify all of the women who are pregnant with illegal second and third and fourth children, and then we will tell them they must get abortions. Communist officials would say things like, you there are nine months pregnant. Don't think you can simply stay in this lockup until you give birth, because we will not allow you to take your baby home. Should you go into labor before you give us permission to do an abortion, we will simply kill your baby at birth. I went with these women as they were taken to the local medical clinic and aborted by caesarean section. Again, some of them, most of them, were seven, eight, nine months pregnant. They decided to do two things to stop these babies from being born, to stop the population of Guangdong province from increasing, right? First, they gave a lethal injection into the womb to kill the unborn child, and then 24 to 48 hours later, they would do the caesarean section abortion and remove the now dead or dying baby. But there were women who were brought in at the last minute in labor, too late to give the poison shot into the womb. So what would they do with those? They would take a hypodermic needle, fill the syringe with alcohol or formaldehyde, and wait until the baby's head was crowning. Babies are mostly born head first. And they would inject the alcohol or formaldehyde into the fontanelle, the soft spot in the child's head, and the child would die in convulsions seconds, minutes later. And after they were forcibly aborted, they then would sterilize them. They would do a tubal ligation to make sure these violators would never come back in following years pregnant with another illegal child. So they took away the prospect of any future babies being born. And there was in the 80s and 90s, and until the one-child policy ended, there was an epidemic of suicide in China, which, in most countries, most suicides are men, elderly men. In China, the suicides were mostly young women. Why were they committing suicide? They were committing suicide because the Communist Party had forcibly aborted the baby they conceived in love, and they couldn't get over the loss. And so they ended their lives in consequence. And I decided I would do what I could to let America and the world know what was really happening in China. This didn't come without a cost, of course. And the cost was that Stanford was forced by the Chinese Communist Party to choose between me and continuing ties with China, literally. They were told that your scholarly exchange agreement with China between Stanford and the Ministry of Education will be ended unless you punish Stephen Mosier severely. And punish me they did. They sent me packing. There's been horrific revelations over the past decade in the 2000s of the allegations of forced live organ harvesting inside of China of prisoners, religious prisoners of conscience, whether they be Falun Gong or now the Uyghurs and others. A lot of people's reaction to that is just simply—and there's been films titled with regard to this topic—hard to believe. Based on what you've seen with your own eyes inside of China, do you think that this crime that we're speaking of is possible? Oh, I think forced organ harvesting in China is a big business, because you see they have literally a captive population of people to harvest from. Many years ago, I looked into this whole topic in depth because it was of a piece with the other human rights violations that I had earlier studied in China and documented, and I became convinced that Falun Gong, first and foremost, but also other political prisoners of conscience and other minorities, were being tissue-typed when they were arrested. And if they were a tissue match for a Communist Party official who needed a new heart or lung or liver or cornea, that they would be killed for that purpose. I also did research into a procedure called ECMO, which is extracorporeal membranous oxygenation. One of my sons was born prematurely and had to have this artificial heart-lung machine, this extracorporeal membranous oxygenation, used to allow his lungs to mature so he could live, and he's quite well and healthy now. He's 30 years old. But this technology was taken to China by a particular doctor and now is used to make organ harvesting even more profitable, because before the advent of this heart-lung machine procedure, you could just harvest a heart, but by the time you harvested the heart, the other organs would have started decaying. Now what you do is you use the extracorporeal oxygenation to continue the blood flow to the organs while you cut off the blood flow to the brain, killing the donor, but allowing you to harvest not just a heart or liver, but a heart and a liver and a lungs and all the other organs as well, because it keeps the organs perfused with blood. This was a technology that came from the United States, invented to save lives, which is now being used to make forced organ harvesting in China even more profitable for the communist officials in charge. I have told officials at the Vatican, I have told officials at the U.S. State Department, I have testified before the British Parliament on human rights abuses in China, including kinds of abuses. I am absolutely convinced that forced organ harvesting began decades ago and it has gotten more common and more sophisticated over the years, and that people are being deliberately killed in China for their organs. The only thing you need to know to prove that is happening is that you can order a heart or transplant in advance. That can only happen if someone is killed for the purpose of providing you with that heart. You see, because everywhere else in the world, you sign up and you wait. Months, if not years. Months, if not years for a transplant in China. You sign up and they say, come on October 16th and we will have your new heart ready and waiting for you. The only way that can happen is if they're killing someone in order to provide that heart for you. So we need to ban people from going to China for organ transplants because everyone who goes to China for an organ transplant is complicit in the death of an innocent in China. That's all for today's China In Focus. I'm Alice Tang, in for 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 chinainfocus at ntv.com. 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.