October 9, 2026

China US

California Woman Arrested on Charges Alleging She Acted as Agent of China – finchannel
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 Wanying Zhang, 34, also known as Heather Zhang, of Irvine, California, was arrested Sunday on a one count complaint charging her with acting in the United States as an unregistered agent of the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including by conducting surveillance on family members of a high-ranking Taiwanese government official.

“The central allegation here — that Zhang, at the behest of the People’s Republic of China, covertly surveilled relatives of a high-ranking foreign government official in the United States — is deeply troubling,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg.  “The National Security Division and U.S. Attorney’s Offices, along with the FBI and other law enforcement partners, will remain vigilant against threats like this on our soil.”

“Protecting our national security means confronting foreign governments that engage in covert operations in our nation,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California. “Ms. Zhang is charged with acting at the direction of Chinese government officials to spy on the family of a senior Taiwanese official here in the United States. She violated our laws and will be held accountable in our courts. We will aggressively investigate and prosecute illegal foreign operations on American soil.”

US and China discuss reciprocal visits to nuclear sites: Reports– www.channelnewsasia.com
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The United States has discussed starting reciprocal visits to nuclear sites with China, and plans to continue pushing in meetings in the coming months, CNN reported on Tuesday (Oct 6), citing sources familiar with the matter.

The idea of reciprocal visits was initially raised by China in meetings with US officials this year and visits to US Department of Energy national laboratories and equivalent Chinese facilities were discussed, CNN said, citing a source.

The discussions between US and Chinese officials have mainly been on the sidelines of gatherings by the UN Security Council’s five veto-wielding permanent members, CNN reported.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report. The White House and the Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment outside business hours.

US President Donald Trump called for trilateral arms control negotiations between the US, China and Russia when he met President Xi Jinping last month. However, the two leaders did not discuss the possibility of nuclear site visits during their talks, the CNN report said, citing a US official.

China might win some relief from Trump’s tariffs after President Trump met with Chairman Xi at the White House. The state visit produced little significant results outside of a promise to reduce tariffs on both sides and the President allegedly offering to sell arms to China. The President also made it clear to Xi that China should not attempt to help Iran, though no clear consequence was offered should China do so.

Triumph or Procrastination? Experts Split on the Trump-Xi Summit– warontherocks.com
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Over the better part of three days, President Donald Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington for a summit that drew international attention for its high-stakes agenda, from trade and AI to Taiwan. While some experts saw the summit as an exercise in kicking the can down the road on major issues, others emphasized the significance of Trump treating Xi as an equal on the world stage.

Donald Trump Says He Discussed Release Of Political Prisoners With Xi Jinping– www.ndtv.com
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US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he discussed the release of political prisoners with Chinese President Xi Jinping when the two leaders met last week.

“I did with President Xi. I did,” Trump told reporters when asked if he brought up the cases of political prisoners like Myanmar scholar and US citizen Min Zin, who was arrested in June, and Hong Kong’s most vocal China critic and media tycoon Jimmy Lai.

“We talked, and I think we had some very, very important discussions. Hopefully, fruitful discussions,” Trump added.

The White House had said ahead of Xi’s visit that Trump was expected to bring up cases of people wrongfully detained in China with the Chinese leader.

The White House did not say if Trump aimed to directly raise broader rights issues related to Tibet, the Uyghur Muslim minority group, and China’s new “ethnic unity” law.

Trump has made winning freedom for Americans held overseas a priority, including in China, even as he has largely ​avoided talking about China’s treatment of Tibetans, Uyghurs and voices of dissent.

NASA Chief Warns America Must Beat China in Space Race to the Moon– slaynews.com
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NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is warning that communist China will put astronauts on the Moon and said the United States must beat Beijing back to the lunar surface as a new space race accelerates.

Speaking to members of the Air Force and Space Force at the Air and Space Forces Association’s annual conference, Isaacman said China is positioned to accomplish something the Soviet Union never managed during the original Cold War space race.

“You are witnessing a very energized NASA, and we will need to be, as we are in the midst of a very real second space race,” Isaacman said.

“China will accomplish what the Soviets never could.”

Beijing has announced plans to land its astronauts, known as taikonauts, on the moon by 2030.

NASA, meanwhile, is targeting an American return to the lunar surface before the end of 2028.

Isaacman warned that there is little room for delay.

“History has shown they could even be early, and we could easily be late,” he said.

“Success in this endeavor will be measured in months, not years.”

Volexity spots another China-aligned threat group exploiting Chrome and Microsoft defects– cyberscoop.com
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Volexity researchers spotted another state-aligned Chinese threat group exploiting a triple-link chain of zero-day vulnerabilities across multiple campaigns, the company said in a blog post Monday.

The threat group it tracks as UTA0565 exploited the vulnerabilities in Chrome and Microsoft between Sept. 3 and 4 before the defects were disclosed or patched, researchers said.

The timing of the malicious activity mirrors other spikes threat hunters observed and attributed to multiple Chinese espionage threat groups. Yet, Volexity noted UTA0565’s campaigns differed from those attacks by using multiple fake websites to deceive victims.

Volexity shared phishing emails UTA0565 sent to Asian government entities urging them to publicly support imprisoned Hong Kong activist Chow Hang-tung. The group spoofed domains impersonating the Center for American Progress and China Digital Times in other phishing emails.

While UTA0565 showcased a variance in tactics, it used the same components researchers observed in previous instances of the exploit kit across multiple Chinese threat groups.

U.S., China to slash tariffs on goods worth US$30B after Trump-Xi meeting – National– globalnews.ca
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The United States and China released Monday reciprocal lists of products worth about US$30 billion each that will see tariff cuts, from American hair products to Chinese toys, in a deal expected to boost bilateral trade.

The details came days after Chinese President Xi Jinping met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington in his first state visit to the U.S. since 2015. The U.S. had already reduced tariffs against China after Trump’s tariffs reached as high as 145 per cent at one point last year, as tensions between the two countries eased.

China’s commerce ministry said in a statement the agreement will help strengthen trade cooperation.

U.S. Ambassador David Purdue Says Trump Offered To Sell U.S. Weapons To Chinese President Xi Jinping During Meeting– wltreport.com
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U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue gave some inside details on President Trump’s recent meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Perdue, in a recent interview with Fox News, shared that President Trump offered the Chinese President to buy U.S. weapons.

The former Senator from Georgia, however, did not reveal what Xi Jinping said in response to Trump’s offer.

Mediaite provided quotes from Ambassador David Perdue:

President Donald Trump asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping if he would like to buy American weapons during the communist politician’s three day trip to the States last week, according to U.S. Ambassador to China David Purdue.

The ambassador shared the surprising news during an interview on Fox News Sunday with anchor Shannon Bream.

“President Trump continues to say, ‘Hey, we sell arms to other people around the world.’ He actually asked President Xi if he would like to buy some, at one point,” Purdue said.

The comment came as he defended Trump’s relationship with Taiwan, with Purdue arguing Trump has “already sold 50% more arms to Taiwan than any other president since 1979.”

He said Trump’s support for an independent Taiwan should not be questioned, before saying the president is always in deal-making mode, even when it comes to potentially selling arms to America’s biggest rival.

Here’s the moment Perdue made the comments:

Why Xi believes the U.S. and China can overcome the ‘Thucydides Trap’– www.cnbc.com
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BEIJING — China is embracing the idea of competition without confrontation, by invoking an academic concept.

“The Thucydides Trap can be overcome,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said on arriving at the White House to meet U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, according to the Chinese side’s official readout.

That framing contrasts with the rhetorical question he posed at the May summit of whether the two countries could avoid the Thucydides Trap.

The Thucydides Trap, popularized by Harvard professor Graham Allison in the early 2010s, refers to how tensions between a rising and ruling power have historically often resulted in a war.

Thucydides was an Athenian general in ancient Greece. His historical record of the Peloponnesian War described how Athens’ rapid rise in power alarmed Sparta and made war between the two city-states inevitable.

Allison has met Xi and visited China multiple times, including in June 2026 for a World Economic Forum event. Allison was founding dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School, which for decades trained many of China’s government officials.

China, US agree to AI dialogue, tariff cuts on US$30 billion in goods during Xi visit– www.channelnewsasia.com
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SHANGHAI: The United States and China have agreed to reduce tariffs on US$30 billion of goods and launch a dialogue on artificial intelligence, both countries said following President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington.

The tariff reductions would apply to US exports such as agricultural goods, wood and cosmetics, as well as US imports including small appliances, toys, decorations, a White House statement said on Friday (Sep 25).

“The two countries reached consensus on recommendations for more favourable tariff treatment for US$30 billion of non-sensitive goods in each direction,” the White House said.

The three-day summit between Xi and President Donald Trump, which ended on Friday, showcased personal diplomacy rather than big public breakthroughs. Xi has since landed in Beijing, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported on Saturday.

The two sides also agreed to set up a trade council and extend the outcomes of earlier talks in Kuala Lumpur, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.

The agreement follows a move by the world’s two largest economies to extend by two months a trade truce that had been due to expire on Nov 10, allowing more time to work on ‌a potentially bigger trade deal, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday.

“This historic visit enriched the constructive and stable China-US relationship, upheld the overall stability of bilateral ties, opened a new chapter in China-US relations, and will have a far-reaching impact on world peace and development,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a statement.

DIALOGUE ON AI

On AI, Trump said on Saturday that despite a “big talk” this week with Xi, the US should not join efforts with China on the technology.

“We had a big talk on AI,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

“What they want to do is stop our progress because we’re leading China by a lot, and we’re going to keep it that way. We didn’t spend that much time talking about it,” he added.

Trump said he did not want to “integrate” AI initiatives with China because of US dominance.

The White House said that the leaders had agreed to use the term “super intelligence” in place of “artificial intelligence.”

In a separate statement, the Chinese ministry said that Beijing valued Washington’s use of the new term.

As AI technology continues to advance, the two sides should step up exchanges and work toward consensus in line with new developments, it said.

The two sides also agreed to support each other in hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meeting and the Group of 20 summit, with both leaders planning to attend the gatherings hosted by the other.

On foreign policy, the leaders agreed that Iran should fulfil its commitment not to develop nuclear weapons, and that no country or entity should impose transit tolls on international waterways, both countries said.


Trump shows Xi new White House helipad, Marine One– thehill.com
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President Trump toured Chinese President Xi Jinping around his White House projects during the foreign leader’s state visit on Thursday.  Trump walked Xi around the new granite landing pad on the South Lawn that he ordered for Marine One and pointed out the East Wing construction site where his ballroom is being constructed.  “We had…

Trump claims Xi Jinping likes his plan to rebrand AI– www.washingtonpost.com
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President Donald Trump has a new name for artificial intelligence, and he’s pitching it at the highest levels, including to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“Like almost everyone else, he seemed to like calling the poorly and inaccurately named Artificial Intelligence to a far more accurate and important name, SUPER INTELLIGENCE,” Trump wrote on social media Friday morning, a day after a state dinner with Xi and top tech executives. “That would be ‘SUPER!’ Everyone last night agreed, also.”

 

US and China discuss AI safety plan ahead of Trump-Xi summit– www.bbc.co.uk
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Top US and Chinese officials have discussed creating a new “notification mechanism” for AI incidents that could affect national security, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters on Sunday.

Bessent made the comments after what he called “successful” talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York.

The meeting came as US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are due to hold a summit in Washington later this week.

AI has come under intense scrutiny in recent days after researchers warned of the potential risks posed by the technology and some of the industry’s most high profile figures called for developers to take a more cautious approach.

“We think that, just like with any cross-border activity, that moving from opaque to more transparency between the number one and the number two AI powers in the world is very important,” Bessent told reporters after the talks.

He said the meeting also covered other topics, including plans to “operationalise” a process to identify potential tariff cuts on goods called the Board of Trade.

A truce in the tariffs war between the world’s two biggest economies is due to expire on 10 November.