China Watch
China appears to be making a concerted effort to cement alliances with as many nations as possible, but not just among some of the usual suspects, like Iran, and recently, Afghanistan, but even among U.S. allies.
Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron had a phone chat with Chinese Chairman Xi, with both sides promising to work closer to one another to “safeguard the global order.” As Xi reached out to France, reports of Greenland making overtures to China make it seem as if China is aggressively attempting to peel off American allies using the promise of investment dollars to do so.
China, Russia, Iran cement Kabul ties as US reenters Afghan game – thecradle.co
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An unspoken alliance is quietly chipping away at the US-backed Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), challenging India’s influence across the Indian Ocean, the Asia-Pacific region, and particularly South Asia.
This alignment – comprising China, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan – has emerged as a formidable counterforce, especially in the wake of the US President Donald Trump administration’s attempts to sever Beijing’s access to vital Afghan minerals.
China has already invested $14 billion into Afghanistan’s mineral, petroleum, mining, and agriculture sectors. It has also revamped the Wakhan border with Afghanistan as part of a broader strategy that includes Iran’s plans to build the Iran–Afghanistan–China corridor.
Since the US and NATO withdrawal from Kabul in 2021, Afghanistan has become a nucleus of intense regional activity. The Taliban-led government has welcomed billions in foreign investments in mining and communications, while its ties with China and Russia have deepened.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced plans to stop CCP operatives and government censors from getting foreign visas to enter the U.S. He said of the CCP block, “The US will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”
He also declared, “Today, I am announcing a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans. Free speech is essential to the American way of life – a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority.”
State Department to ‘aggressively revoke’ Chinese student visas over CCP connections, security in ‘critical fields’ | The Post Millennial– thepostmillennial.com
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“The US will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”
The US will be working to aggressively revoke the student visas of Chinese nationals studying at universities in the United States, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said. This comes as there have been higher tensions between the US and China over trade and other relations.
In a statement released by the State Department, Rubio stated, “Under President Trump’s leadership, the US State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields. We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.”
Sec. of State Marco Rubio Blocks Visas from Foreign Officials Who Censor Americans – lidblog.com
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced that he is now set to deny visa requests for any foreign official who worked to censor American free speech.
Rubio announced the new policy in a post on X, reading, “For too long, Americans have been fined, harassed, and even charged by foreign authorities for exercising their free speech rights.”
“Today, I am announcing a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans. Free speech is essential to the American way of life – a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority.”
For too long, Americans have been fined, harassed, and even charged by foreign authorities for exercising their free speech rights.
Today, I am announcing a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans.…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) May 28, 2025
Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron had a phone chat with Chinese Chairman Xi, with both sides promising to work closer to one another to “safeguard the global order.” As Xi reached out to France, reports of Greenland making overtures to China make it seem as if China is aggressively attempting to peel off American allies using the promise of investment dollars to do so.
Xi, Macron commit to deepening bilateral cooperation and safeguarding global order – CGTN
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Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday afternoon held a phone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron at the latter’s request. The two leaders had an in-depth exchange of views on China-France relations, China-Europe cooperation, and major international and regional issues of mutual concern.
President Xi recalled that during his visit to France last May, both sides agreed to carry forward the original aspirations of establishing diplomatic relations – independence, mutual understanding, foresight, and mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation – and to infuse these principles with new relevance for the times.
China and France should maintain high-level exchanges and strategic communication to consolidate consensus, seize opportunities, and expand cooperation, he pointed out.
He encouraged deepening collaboration in traditional areas such as investment, aerospace and nuclear energy, while exploring new cooperation opportunities in emerging sectors including the digital economy, green development, biopharmaceuticals and the silver economy.
Xi also underscored the importance of enhancing people-to-people exchanges to foster mutual understanding and friendship between the two nations.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned Trump foreign policy would push allies to China. Greenland is reaching out now – Independent UK
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Foreign governments, including Greenland, are currently considering investment alternatives to the U.S., such as China. This comes as JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned that President Donald Trump’s foreign policy could isolate the U.S. under what he characterized as an “America alone” doctrine.
Dimon has stressed the need to keep in place strong economic and military ties, indicating that the CEO is frustrated with U.S. diplomacy as Trump’s foreign policy has prompted concerns at home and abroad.
Renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and making threats of annexing Canada and Greenland are just some of the issues that have created consternation. The tariffs put in place by the Trump administration on allies and foes alike
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Most Americans assume the United States is the world’s unrivaled nuclear superpower. The truth is, America’s nuclear stockpile has shrunk significantly. Meanwhile, China is building nuclear weapons at a rapid pace, and arms experts believe the world’s security is now at serious risk due to the communist regime’s expansionist schemes.
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has dramatically reduced the number of nuclear weapons it has deployed or in storage. That arsenal today is roughly 85 percent smaller than at the height of the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, and the number of operational nukes is tiny compared to 40 years ago.
America’s nuclear stockpile has fallen to levels not seen since the 1960s, while China has embarked on an unprecedented nuclear buildup.
Jamie Dimon warned Trump would push allies to China. Greenland is reaching out now – The Independent
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned Trump foreign policy would push allies to China. Greenland is reaching out now – Independent UK
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Foreign governments, including Greenland, are currently considering investment alternatives to the U.S., such as China. This comes as JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned that President Donald Trump’s foreign policy could isolate the U.S. under what he characterized as an “America alone” doctrine.
Dimon has stressed the need to keep in place strong economic and military ties, indicating that the CEO is frustrated with U.S. diplomacy as Trump’s foreign policy has prompted concerns at home and abroad.
Renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and making threats of annexing Canada and Greenland are just some of the issues that have created consternation. The tariffs put in place by the Trump administration on allies and foes alike
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In the 1950s and 1960s, professor Paul Samuelson was arguably America’s preeminent economist. His textbook for introductory economics was used at colleges and universities across the United States. He was a close adviser to President John F. Kennedy.
In 1961, Samuelson predicted that the then Soviet Union would overtake the United States in economic size somewhere between 1984 and 1997. By 1980, he continued to suggest that the Soviet Union would become the world’s largest economy within a few decades.
Obviously, Samuelson was wrong. He did not understand that extreme authoritarianism and the rejection of free market capitalism would consign the Soviet Union to the dustbin of history.
Today, however, other respected academics are making Samuelson’s mistake in their assessments of Communist China. They opine that in the current century, China will become the dominant global economic power. One researcher from Princeton University wrote recently in the New York Times that the battle for global economic superiority is being “decisively” won by China and that the U.S. is becoming economically irrelevant.
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Excerpt:China is the original riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. A country striving for modernity but feudal in its treatment of its citizens, Beijing’s economic identity is a combination of Communist orthodoxy and crony capitalism. As you might expect, the two don’t work well together.
On the outside of the riddle, China is booming, the people are subservient and happy, and the government is looking to the future with confidence. This is the picture the Chinese Communists paint for the world to see. The reality is much different.
China is being crushed by debt, has become dependent on high levels of debt, and has created a bubble in several sectors, like housing and household goods.
One noted Chinese economist said in 2019, “Basically, China’s economy is all built on speculation and everything is over-leveraged.” He was proved right when the massive overbuilding of housing caused the market to collapse in 2021.
China to donate $500 million to WHO, stepping into gap left by U.S. – The Washington Post
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Beijing will replace the United States as the organization’s top state donor, expanding its influence as the U.S. retreats from international cooperation.
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called the World Health Organization “moribund” and “mired in bureaucratic bloat” during a speech Tuesday at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva. (Magali Girardin/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
China has pledged to give $500 million to the World Health Organization as the country is set to replace the United States as the group’s top state donor, expanding Beijing’s global influence in the wake of Washington’s retreat from international cooperation.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio didn’t just show up to Tuesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing; he came loaded for bear. Ostensibly there to discuss the FY26 State Department budget, Rubio instead delivered a scathing indictment of China’s global con game and exposed shocking failures in America’s foreign aid system. What unfolded wasn’t routine testimony; it was a political thunderclap and a long-overdue reckoning.
As I’m sure you recall, Democrats have been having hissy fits over USAID cuts. They claim that the Trump administration was axing vital humanitarian aid when in reality, it was targeting waste, fraud, and abuse.
Just how bad is the waste, fraud, and abuse? Rubio revealed that under the old USAID model, only 12 cents of every dollar made it to the intended recipients. “That means that in order for us to get, you know, aid to somebody, we had to spend all this other money supporting this foreign aid industrial complex,” he said. In other words, U.S. taxpayers were funding bloated overhead while struggling nations got table scraps.
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Nvidia and Foxconn Hon Hai Technology Group today announced they are deepening their longstanding partnership and are working with the Taiwan government to build an AI factory supercomputer that will deliver state-of-the-art Nvidia Blackwell infrastructure to researchers, startups and industries.
Foxconn will provide the AI infrastructure through its subsidiary Big Innovation Company as an Nvidia Cloud Partner. Featuring 10,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, the AI factory will significantly expand AI computing availability and fuel innovation for Taiwan researchers and enterprises.
The Taiwan National Science and Technology Council will use the Big Innovation Company supercomputer to provide AI cloud computing resources to the Taiwan technology ecosystem, accelerating AI development and adoption across sectors.
TSMC researchers plan to leverage the system to advance its research and development with orders-of-magnitude faster performance, compared with previous-generation systems.
“AI has ignited a new industrial revolution — science and industry will be transformed,” said Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia in a keynote talk at Computex 2025 in Taiwan. “We are delighted to partner with Foxconn and Taiwan to help build Taiwan’s AI infrastructure, and to support TSMC and other leading companies to advance innovation in the age of AI and robotics.”
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China’s economy showed signs of slowing in April as President Donald Trump’s trade war took a toll, with retail sales, property and investment coming in weaker than economists had forecast. Industrial production slowed as Trump’s painfully high tariffs of up to 145 per cent, and 125 per cent retaliatory duties imposed by Beijing, took effect and shipments were curtailed. National Statistics Bureau spokesperson Fu Linghui said the general trend was positive though he pointed to “external shocks” that had gained intensity.
“It should also be noted that there are still many outside unstable and uncertain factors, and the foundation for the continued recovery and improvement of the national economy needs to be further consolidated,” Fu said. Here are a few key indicators reported Monday.
Retail sales Chinese consumers have been holding back after the shocks of a prolonged downturn in the housing market that is the source of much household wealth. Retail sales rose 5.1 per cent from a year earlier in April, below economists’ expectations for a 6 per cent increase. Fu said Beijing would continue to focus on supporting job creation and spurring more domestic demand.
In a dramatic shift in the tariff war dynamic, two major deals were announced by Donald Trump, one with the UK and one with China, the latter being even more impactful on the tariff wars than the former.
The UK deal includes a 10% baseline tariff on most imported UK goods still in place but an elimination of UK Steel tariffs and a reduction on UK auto tariffs from 27.5% to 10%. In exchange, the UK will eliminate tariffs on U.S. ethanol and U.S. beef, as well as reductions and eliminations on “U.S. machinery, sports equipment, and other agricultural products.”
The China Trade deal will see China’s import tariff reduced from 145% to 30% for 90 days. In exchange, China will reduce U.S. import tariffs from 125% to 10% for 90 days as well. They will also remove all retaliatory tariffs for 90 days. The deal also included an informal agreement China will work on preventing fentanyl from reaching U.S. shores.
Trump: Trade deal with Beijing will open up Chinese market for US businesses – Apa.az
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Panama President Jose Raul Mulino said Thursday that he will not renegotiate an agreement with the United States to give U.S. troops access to Panamanian facilities, despite protests charging that he compromised the country’s sovereignty.