03a China

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This Wednesday, June 4 marks the 36th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. Hongkongers had for decades commemorated the date with a large-scale vigil at Victoria Park, until the 2020 National Security Law made such public demonstrations subject to harsh judicial punishment. In the lead-up to this year’s anniversary, much like last year, Hong Kong authorities continued to restrict opportunities for publicly observing the date.

On Tuesday, reporters asked Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee whether on June 4 residents could legally light candles or even show up to Causeway Bay, the area in which Victoria Park is located. Lee made no direct comment but stated, “Any activities held on any date must comply with the law.” Local media reported that people who were stopped outside Victoria Park on June 4 last year were called by the city’s police ahead of this year’s anniversary and asked about their plans. On Tuesday, performance artist Chan Mei-tung was stopped and searched by planclothes police in Causeway Bay while standing in front of a store chewing gum, and was later released. On that same date in 2022 and 2023, she was arrested outside the same store while peeling potatoes. Between 2020 and 2024, 82 people in Hong Kong were arrested for commemorating the Tiananmen Massacre around its anniversary, and among them 43 people were convicted and sentenced to a total of over 20 years in prison, according to a tally by Brian Kern.

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President Trump’s renewed tariff war with China is escalating tensions far beyond trade policy. Despite a brief truce in May, Trump recently admitted that negotiating with Xi Jinping is “extremely hard,” and both sides have since accused each other of violating the agreement. As economic diplomacy unravels, the broader U.S.–China relationship grows more volatile, raising the risk that Beijing may abandon any remaining hopes for peaceful coexistence.

A conflict between the United States and China is becoming increasingly plausible, and perhaps even inevitable. Tensions in the Taiwan Strait have reached dangerous new heights, fueled by Beijing’s military modernization, its sharpened rhetoric, and its belief that Taiwan and the United States are edging closer to crossing red lines. While China still claims to prefer peaceful reunification, its rapid expansion of capabilities, including amphibious assault craft, cable-cutting tools, and joint-force interoperability, signals preparation for a military solution.

China’s greyzone operations around Taiwan, such as unannounced drills, airspace violations, and undersea cable sabotage, have become routine. This normalization of pressure steadily erodes the status quo and raises the risk of miscalculation or deliberate escalation. The shifting political climate in Taiwan under President Lai Ching-te, who has taken a hard stance against Chinese influence, and a more assertive posture from Washington have further narrowed the space for de-escalation.

Under Trump’s second term, the United States is gradually abandoning its long-held policy of strategic ambiguity. His administration has sharply increased arms sales to Taiwan, removed diplomatic language opposing Taiwanese independence, sent U.S. troops to train Taiwanese forces, and reaffirmed ties through legislation and senior-level visits. While aimed at strengthening deterrence, these steps may convince Beijing that time is running out to forcibly achieve unification before U.S. commitments harden into irreversible guarantees.

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EMU president reaffirms commitment to ‘protecting U.S. national security’

Eastern Michigan University is cutting ties with two Chinese universities following national security concerns from Republican lawmakers.

The school is ending its engineering teaching partnerships with Guangxi University and with Beibu Gulf University, according to a Wednesday news release from EMU.

The decision came in response to a February letter from Michigan Representatives John Moolenaar and Tim Walberg, urging EMU, along with Oakland University and the University of Detroit Mercy, to end their partnerships with Chinese universities.

EMU President James Smith sent a letter to the congressmen May 28 announcing the decision and reaffirming the school’s commitment to “protecting U.S. national security.”

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The Wall Street Journal: Harvard Has Trained So Many Chinese Communist Officials, They Call It Their ‘Party School’

For decades, the [Chinese Communist] party has sent thousands of mid-career and senior bureaucrats to pursue executive training and postgraduate studies on U.S. campuses, with Harvard University a coveted destination described by some in China as the top “party school” outside the country.

Alumni of such programs include a former vice president and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s top negotiator in trade talks with the first Trump administration.

Americans spend gargantuan amounts of money on education. Just K-12 costs $17,277 per student each year. For state and local governments, 8.5% of their entire budget is allocated to higher education, i.e., colleges and universities — more than what’s spent on highways, roads, police, courts, jails, and housing.

These colleges and universities also stuff their pockets with federal grants. In 2023, Americans spent nearly $60 billion on research and development grants alone.

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The federal government will begin revoking the visas of some Chinese international students, including those studying in “critical fields,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday — the latest restriction on foreign students.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. 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,” Rubio wrote in a statement.

Rubio also said the government will “revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.”

China is the second-largest country of origin for international students, behind only India. In the 2023-24 school year, more than 270,000 international students were from China, making up roughly a quarter of all foreign students in the United States.

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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.

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.