Category: China

Here is a long, but interesting article that shows how China groomed a federal reserve economist to spy for them:

How Chinese spies used lies, romance and betrayal to target the Federal Reserve

John Harold Rogers was walking Prada, his tiny spaniel, past a school bus stop in his suburban Washington neighborhood when FBI agents surrounded him. They handcuffed the former senior Federal Reserve official and took him into custody to face charges of spying for China. 

An agent took Prada’s leash, and investigators from multiple federal agencies began an intensive search of Rogers’ house.

The now 65-year-old economist was arrested in January 2025, days before he was set to travel to China with his wife, a Chinese national, and their 6-year-old daughter. Investigators believed that Rogers passed information about the Fed to a Chinese government spy, who, over more than a decade, helped him with his career, his finances and his marriage to a woman 24 years his junior.

CNBC

You can read more at the link, but I find it hard to believe this guy did not know he was interacting with spies.

It will be interesting to see if any big announcements come out of this summit:

U.S. President Donald Trump greeted Chinese President Xi Jinping in a rare welcome at a military base near Washington on Wednesday, as Xi kicked off his three-day state visit to the United States for a summit on trade, artificial intelligence (AI), security and other key issues.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump gave Xi and Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan the rare welcome on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on the eve of the leaders’ White House summit — the third in-person meeting following their previous talks in Busan, South Korea, last October, and in Beijing in May. 

Trump’s greeting upon Xi’s arrival rather than at the presidential compound underscored the importance the U.S. president attaches to the visit by the leader of the Asian superpower, as the high-stakes summit is set to feature crucial issues, including a bilateral trade truce, AI safety and Taiwan’s security.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I think the moral of this story is that the analyst was incompetent to solely trust an AI chatbot and not independently verify information this important. Hopefully the analyst was fired to set an example to other analysts using chatbots:

The intelligence report, circulated across the US military this spring in the midst of the war with Iran, immediately set off alarm bells: A Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program.

The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, according to four sources familiar with the episode. According to two of the sources, armed members of the US military were preparing to board the ship. Military planes were in the air, one of those sources and another source familiar with the incident said.

It was only just before the planned operation that officials dug deeper into the report put together by a special operations command analyst and found it had been generated with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) — and that a chatbot the analyst had used inaccurately identified the material the ship was carrying. CNN was not able to learn what the misidentified cargo was.

CNN

You can read more at the link.

Say what you want about the CCP, but they aren’t wrong here. If you are taking government handouts it seems luxuries like traveling to Hong Kong to a concert should not be allowed:

A woman from a low-income family in China crossed over into Hong Kong to get to a concert she had spent months saving up for.

It was a trip that Beijing’s vast surveillance apparatus didn’t miss. Now her family face the prospect of losing their government benefits for splurging on “high-end consumption.”

The incident has sparked massive debate across Chinese social media over whether those receiving benefits are also entitled to small luxuries. It’s also a reminder of the staggering extent of the Chinese government’s surveillance system, one turbocharged by advances in AI and the embrace of digital payments. (…..)

For many of the legions of K-Pop fans in mainland China, Hong Kong is the most accessible place to see a K-Pop concert. For the past decade, Beijing has placed an unofficial ban on performances by Korean artists on the mainland as it feuds with Seoul over trade and the presence of US weapons in South Korea.

In late August in Hong Kong there was a two-day international music awards festival featuring performances from different K-Pop bands, including some famous ones such as ALLDAY PROJECT, aespa, BABYMONSTER, RIIZE, Super Junior and TOMORROW X TOGETHER.

CNN

You can read more at the link.

I would think the only diplomacy that China would be supportive of between the U.S. and North Korea would be one that leads to the reduction or removal of U.S. troops in South Korea. If China is signaling little to no support for Trump’s diplomatic efforts with North Korea that likely means discussions about U.S. troop reductions is not being considered:

China may not block the resumption of diplomacy between the United States and North Korea but is unlikely to play a “central” role in their reengagement, a former senior U.S. diplomat said Thursday, ahead of the upcoming summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Daniel Kritenbrink, who served as assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs from 2021-25, made the comment in response to written questions from Yonhap News Agency, noting that Beijing will be “suspicious” of any significant thaw in the Washington-Pyongyang relations.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.