Here is a new propaganda angle Chinese state media is using to deflect blame for the recent COVID spread in China:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has expressed regret over Chinese state-run media depicting clothes imported from Korea as the possible source of COVID-19 infections in China.
Korea Times
“China has recently stepped up quarantine measures not only on clothes they import from South Korea but also for almost all imported goods from other countries,” a ministry official told reporters, Thursday. “But some government offices or Chinese state-run media are failing to properly explain the whole context of the matter and, therefore, are making inappropriate and inconsiderate remarks, which is not desirable in terms of Korea-China relations.
You can read more at the link, but with the state control of the media people in China are very likely to believe this nonsense.
It is pretty incredible how brazen Chinese spy operations are becoming in the U.S. now:
It is one thing when China brutally suppresses dissent in Beijing. It is more troubling when it does it in Hong Kong. It is even more troubling when it sends agents to Dubai to harass and intimidate Chinese nationals in foreign countries such as the United Arab Emirates.
But to harass and spy on a Chinese American U.S. citizen on U.S. soil is an altogether different matter. That is why last week’s announcement of arrests by the Department of Justice of three Chinese nationals for “stalking, harassing, and spying on U.S. residents” on behalf of China’s secret police is so alarming.
In the most alarming case, a Chinese national with ties to China’s Ministry of State Security hired a private investigator in New York to do whatever he could to stop the congressional campaign of Xiong Yan, a political refugee who fled China after the Tiananmen Square massacre. Yan was granted asylum in the United States, where he then served in the Army, attained the rank of major, and was awarded citizenship.
“Right now, we don’t want him elected,” the Chinese official told the private investigator. “Go find a girl … see how he goes for prostitution, take some photos, something of that nature,” the Chinese national advised. “Beat him up until he cannot run for election.”
That’s right, an agent of the Chinese government asked a private investigator to “beat up” a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil to prevent him from running for office. Even more chilling, the Chinese national told the private investigator, “We will have a lot more of this [work] in the future.”
Washington Examiner
You can read more at the link, but let’s hope the FBI vigorously goes after these people and jails them for a long time.
It looks like President Moon was serious about assisting President-Elect Yoon with moving the presidential office after initial skepticism:
The Cabinet on Wednesday approved 36 billion won (US$29.5 million) in reserve government funds for President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s plan to relocate the presidential office.
The spending was approved in an extraordinary Cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum, a day after President Moon Jae-in ordered the swift approval of the relocation budget.
Kim said the approval was made in the context of cooperation for a “smooth government transition without a security vacuum” amid the heightening situation on the Korean Peninsula.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
I have always felt countries in the Pacific need to arm themselves with a robust ballistic missile capability to counter the ballistic missile threats posed by China and North Korea:
A capability to strike enemy bases would let potential adversaries know they’d “pay a price” for attacking Japan, according to the country’s defense minister.
The Japanese government, in closed-door hearings the past few months, has heard from security experts about possibly acquiring the means to conduct counterstrikes, Kyodo News reported Monday.
The Defense Ministry plans discussions over acquiring this capability, Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said in another Kyodo report Tuesday.
Chinese Communist Party channels screened a video last summer that threatened a nuclear strike if Japan intervenes in war over Taiwan, Australia’s Sky News reported July 19.
North Korea test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile March 24 for the first time since November 2017. The missile splashed down in waters within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, prompting Vice Defense Minister Makoto Oniki to call it “a serious threat to our country’s security.”
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
Hard to believe anything that comes from the Kim regime when these are the people that can invent the flimsiest of excuses to launch provocations:
The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said South Korea is no match for her nuclear-armed country, as she reiterated Pyongyang’s position that Seoul is not a “principal enemy,” according to state media Tuesday.
Kim Yo-jong again took issue with the South Korean defense chief’s talk in public last week of his troops’ “preemptive strike” capabilities, boasting repeatedly about Pyongyang’s nuclear combat force.
Kim, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea who is known to be in charge of inter-Korean affairs, described the minister’s remarks as an “irretrievable very big mistake.”
“If anyone does not provoke us, we will never strike it before anything else,” she said in her second press statement in two days carried by the Korean Central News Agency.
“We will not fire even a single bullet or shell toward South Korea. It is because we do not regard it as match for our armed forces,” Kim added, emphasizing once again that the North is a nuclear weapons state.
“In other words, it means that unless the South Korean army takes any military action against our state, it will not be regarded as a target of our attack,” she said.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
