The Three Biggest Revelations From The TikTok Hearing That Explain Why The App Has Got To Go 

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew confirmed his mega-popular app is effectively Chinese Communist Party spyware and a threat to U.S. national security during testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday. 

Below are the three biggest revelations from the hearing, providing more than enough reason for President Biden to banish the app from America if its Chinese owners refuse to sell the company. 

1. CEO Admits Chinese Engineers Have Access to American Data

When Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., asked Chew if ​​ “ByteDance employees in Beijing have access to American data,” Chew confirmed, “Yes, the Chinese engineers do have access to global data.”

When Walberg asked if the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has access to American data, Chew said no. However, there is an abundance of evidence proving TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is heavily controlled by the CCP, indicating the Chinese government does indeed have access to American data. 

A highly comprehensive report submitted to the Australian Senate revealed ByteDance is not private, but better described as a “hybrid” state-private entity. The CCP has a stake in ByteDance, as well as a seat on its company board and its own party committee within the company. 

Further evidence includes ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming’s 2020 public apology to the Chinese government for not promoting “socialist core values,” and Forbes’ 2022 report that 300 TikTok and ByteDance employees had previously worked for Chinese state media, including 15 who worked for the party concurrently.

Similar to Walberg, Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, asked whether ByteDance employees in China, including engineers, have access to Americans’ sensitive user data. Chew responded by refusing to deny that sensitive user data is stored in China and accessible to CCP-controlled ByteDance employees. 

None of this should come as a surprise. This month, TikTok spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter conceded American data would be accessible in China “under limited, monitored circumstances,” after Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., brought forward allegations that the company was overstating its separation from ByteDance.

2. CEO Won’t Pledge to Prevent Commodification of Personal Health Data

When Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., asked if Chew would commit “to no longer using data about users’ health, particularly their mental health, to push them content or sell ads,” Chew claimed that “as far as I’m aware” TikTok does not use users’ health data.

Chew’s response dodged definitively confirming or denying whether TikTok collects personal health data, and whether he would commit to not using said data to push content or sell ads. But according to ABC News, TikTok’s trackers, known as pixels, “link to data harvesting platforms that pick off usernames and passwords, credit card and banking information and details about users’ personal health.” 

3. CEO Doesn’t Consider Spying on Journalists Wrong

When Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., brought up how TikTok spied on American journalists, Chew said that he “disagree[d] with the characterization that it’s spying.” Last December, TikTok admitted ByteDance employees used IP addresses to track the locations of two American journalists who had critically reported on TikTok. Whether Chew is willing to admit it, ByteDance employees improperly collecting data on the physical movements of its users is indeed spying.

Yet Chew reiterated he doesn’t consider the surveillance to be “spying” after he was asked a similar question by Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fla. “I don’t think that spying is the right way to describe it,” said Chew of the surveillance done on American journalists. 

McMorris Rodgers also asked whether TikTok censors content about topics such as the Tiananmen Square massacre, an event that has historically been heavily memory-holed by the Chinese government. Chew claimed, “That kind of content is available on our platform.” But in 2019, The Guardian reported that TikTok “instructs its moderators to censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, or the banned religious group Falun Gong.” 

“I will remind you that making false or misleading statements to Congress is a federal crime,” McMorris Rodgers told Chew. “I understand,” he responded. 

Last week, the Biden administration demanded ByteDance either sell its stakes in TikTok or risk a nationwide TikTok ban. Brock Silvers, chief investment officer for Kaiyuan Capital, told CNN that it seems “extremely unlikely that Beijing will accept any deal that removes TikTok’s algorithm[s] from its direct control and regulatory authority.”

This is understandable, given — as McMorris Rodgers said during the hearing — the app is immeasurably valuable to China in influencing and spying on the United States. “To the American people watching today,” she said, “hear this, TikTok is a weapon by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on you, manipulate what you see, and exploit for future generations.”


Evita Duffy-Alfonso is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.

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Why Is The New York Times Urging America To Buddy Up With Communist China

The New York Times editorial board published a piece last weekend that shows a worrying bias for America’s greatest foe: the Chinese Communist Party.

The piece, titled “Who Benefits From Confrontation With China,” is a masterclass in misdirection and falsehood. If it were not published in America’s “paper of record,” it would be just as at home in China Daily.

Arguing that Americans must avoid a “glib” and “misguided” cold war narrative, the editorial seeks a policy of “emphasizing competition with China while minimizing confrontation.” The line mimics CCP agitprop and ignores geopolitical realities. The editorial board frames the rising tensions between China and the United States as primarily the fault of American politicians — particularly in the Republican Party — who are hyperbolizing the danger from the CCP.

In reality, the U.S. has been far too soft on China throughout the 21st century, with each presidential administration doing its part. Former President George W. Bush brought China into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Former President Barack Obama studiously avoided conflict with the CCP. Former President Donald Trump put trade pressure on Beijing while simultaneously praising Chinese President Xi Jinping’s life tenure, and President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and his family have financial ties to the Chinese regime.

Despite two decades of favorable or neutral treatment, China has consistently provoked and aggrieved its neighbors and the U.S.-led world order. China has militarized the South China Sea — an international waterway. It has used civilian fishing fleets as cover for military actions. It has waged brutal battles against Indian soldiers for control of disputed territory high in the Himalayas. It has, at best, covered up the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic and, at worst, deliberately released it from a virology lab. And, most recently, it floated a spy balloon across the entirety of the continental United States, including our sensitive military sites. This is not mere friendly competition.

The editorial uses various tropes commonplace among CCP apologists, all meant to downplay or excuse the malign actions of the Chinese government and shift the narrative in Beijing’s favor.

First, the editorial board claims the U.S. must reduce tensions with China because the relationship economically benefits both countries. But the United States does not benefit like China does. China abuses its economic power to stifle competition, promotes the “digital fentanyl” of TikTok to America’s youth, and steals important intellectual property — most often in the military realm. The New York Times-owned magazine published an incredible exposé on Chinese government industrial espionage only a few days before this major editorial.

Second, the editors mention that the U.S. needs China to combat climate change, or else the whole planet is doomed. Setting climate change science aside, they presume Beijing will act in good faith. China has massively accelerated its construction and use of coal-fired power plants — a fuel source that activists including Swedish truant Greta Thunberg protest against in nations like Germany. The editorial board has previously excoriated Republicans for not doing enough on climate while ignoring China’s actions.

Third, the editors argue that China “continues to show strikingly little interest in persuading other nations to adopt its social and political values.” They claim, then, that China is not a threat on par with the Soviet Union.

But Xi has consistently sought to export the “China model” abroad, specifically stating as much in official communiqués. American experts, including Elizabeth Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations, have proven that China exports its ideology. Budding authoritarians the world over salivate at the totalitarian information control that the CCP exerts at home, while still advancing the basic standard of living to forestall popular revolt.

Fourth, the editorial board claims that anti-American sentiment does not unite Chinese political leaders. This is a page torn right from the old pro-Iran playbook, in the purported split between “moderates” and “hardliners.” As with Iran, the dichotomy does not apply to China. Xi’s increasingly personal rule has cemented that fact. Just before the editorial’s publication, Xi was given a third term as Chinese dictator — effectively making him ruler for life. The vote was a foregone conclusion as were the appointments of his allies to all key positions in China’s government. There are no “moderates” in charge of China, and The New York Times would do well to note that.

The editorial board’s fifth and last pro-engagement argument is that the U.S. cannot “pull back from forums where it has long engaged China,” such as the World Trade Organization. The editors oddly picked the international institution that China has most abused. It has ignored or deliberately broken WTO rules from day one by continuing prohibited policies and refusing to comply with the judgments of trade courts. China has also captured the World Health Organization, which failed to investigate Covid-19’s origins.

American politicians are finally seeing the CCP’s threat to the U.S. But The New York Times views the growing bipartisan consensus on opposing China as the provocation. This purposeful reversal of cause — Chinese malfeasance — and effect — the building bipartisan consensus on China — follows CCP propaganda and aims at turning U.S. policy and public opinion toward a non-confrontational posture.

The editorial board’s pro-CCP bias has many causes, but most revolve around profit. For years, the NYT took money from the Chinese government to run more than 200 propaganda advertorials. The NYT scrubbed those puff pieces from its website in 2020. The articles reached millions of Americans. The immoral editorials did not drive the paper’s profits, though the CCP paid several hundred thousand dollars for them. The key profit motive, subscriber revenue, reinforces the pro-CCP bias.

The NYT maintains and grows its subscriber base by appealing to the professional-managerial class. And that class has the most direct and intricate economic links to China. They would lose the most from an escalation or decoupling, so the editorial board defends the status quo and thus its readership’s bias

Unlike the NYT, the American people are rejecting China as a partner and seeing it as the danger that it is. Since 2020, American public opinion on China has drastically shifted in a negative direction, with most people in both parties viewing Beijing as a threat instead of a partner. Congress has begun to reflect these concerns with the establishment of the House China Committee and efforts to counter CCP influence.

The American people and their representatives have woken up to the China challenge. It is far beyond time we reject the naïve idea of engagement with China and The New York Times editorial board with it.


Mike Coté is a writer and podcaster focusing on history, Great Power rivalry, and geopolitics. He blogs at rationalpolicy.com, hosts the Rational Policy podcast, and can be found on Twitter @ratlpolicy.

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Hunter Biden Admits to Biden Family’s China Deals for $Millions After Years of Denial

Hunter Biden Admits to Biden Family’s China Deals for $Millions After Years of Denial

Hunter Biden on Thursday admitted and then justified the Biden family’s multi-million dollar business with Chinese entities close to the Chinese Communist Party after years of denial.

A spokesperson said:

Hunter Biden, a private citizen with every right to pursue his own business endeavors, joined several business partners in seeking a joint venture with a privately-owned, legitimate energy company in China. As part of that joint venture, Hunter received his portion of good faith seed funds which he shared with his uncle, James Biden, and Hallie Biden, with whom he was involved with at the time, and sharing expenses.

Hunter’s spokesman continued, “Rep. Comer takes something old and tries to make it new by wrapping it in a wild and baseless right-wing conspiracy … The accounts so dramatically listed by Rep. Comer belonged to Hunter, his uncle and Hallie – nobody else.”

Hunter’s statement is a public relations attempt to push back on House Oversight Committee James Comer’s (R-KY) confirmation that the Biden family business received a $3 million wire transfer from a Chinese energy company and subsequent payments afterPresident Joe Biden left the vice presidency in 2017.

Comer has also found evidence that shows the Biden family business received $179,836.86 while Joe Biden was in the White House. Although the sum appears to be insignificant compared to the $31 million received by the business during Joe Biden’s time as vice president, the new amount builds upon the previous reporting in 2022 by Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer.

Hunter’s statement is notable because it represents the first time he has ever acknowledged his family made millions from Chinese business deals.

Schweizer, speaking with Fox News Thursday evening, mocked Hunter for changing his story after years of denial of his accurate reporting:

The story has changed throughout. When we first broke this story in 2018, they denied that they were even doing business in China. Then they said well, we were doing business in china but, as you pointed out, we didn’t make any money. Then it shifted to joe biden didn’t know about those deals.

Schweizer continued:

That’s been disproven. The fact that they keep shifting the stories, I think, should be a major concern for people in the White House, because it’s pretty clear that the people spinning the news in the White House don’t know the full story, and I think there are going to be several other shoes to drop on this.

On Thursday afternoon, the White House also tried to deflect from Comer’s revelations by claiming the family was a victim, despite the millions of dollars they made without showing any production of a product or service in return for the money.

“After a disgusting attack lamenting that the President’s deceased son Beau was never prosecuted while he was alive, Congressman Comer has now decided to go after Beau’s widow,” said White House spokesman Ian Sams.

The statements come after Comer on Wednesday revealed whistleblowers have informed him Joe Biden has indirectly benefited financially from the Biden family business, raising questions about if Joe Biden is written into the family’s business deals off the books.

“One of the things that all of our whistleblowers have told us,” Comer told Just the News, “is that they were all — through these LLCs — paying for things for Joe Biden. So that’s very curious, you know.”

. . .

In 2018 and 2020, Breitbart Senior Contributor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer published Secret Empires and Profiles in Corruption. Each book hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and exposed how Hunter Biden and Joe Biden flew aboard Air Force Two in 2013 to China before Hunter’s firm inked a $1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China less than two weeks after the trip. Schweizer’s work also uncovered the Biden family’s other vast and lucrative foreign deals and cronyism. Breitbart Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris’s investigative work at the New York Post on the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” also captured international headlines when she, along with Miranda Devine, revealed that Joe Biden was intimately involved in Hunter’s businesses, appearing to even have a ten percent stake in a company the scion formed with officials at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.

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Don’t Believe Beijing’s ‘Peace Plan’ As It Builds Up Its Military

Don’t Believe Beijing’s ‘Peace Plan’ As It Builds Up Its Military

At the opening of its annual People’s Congress last Sunday, the Chinese government announced a 7.2 percent increase in its military budget, bringing China’s total military spending this year to $224 billion. China’s actual military expenditures will undoubtedly be much higher. Still, the timing of Beijing’s announcement is interesting because only a week ago, at the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Beijing cast itself as a peacemaker by issuing a 12-point “peace plan.”

But China’s accelerated military buildup is the latest evidence that anyone who counts on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to bring peace to Ukraine is delusional. Beijing’s actions always speak louder than its words. 

We shouldn’t take Beijing’s “peace plan” too seriously for three reasons. First, it lacks details and actionable items. For example, it calls for resolving the humanitarian crisis and protecting the supply chains but offers neither concrete steps nor a timetable. China does not commit to taking any specific actions to foster peace in its plan. 

Second, Beijing repeated the same talking points. It called for “abandoning the Cold War mentality,” which sounds nice on paper, but it has been Beijing’s go-to criticism of Washington on almost everything the U.S. does, from the investigation of the origin of Covid-19 to establishing a security pact with Australia and the United Kingdom.

Additionally, it seems China has already embraced a Cold War mentality. Last February, China’s leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a joint statement, claiming their “relationship has no limit” and opposing the U.S.-led world order and value system. At the CCP’s 20th Congress, Xi warned his comrades that “external attempts to suppress and contain China may escalate at any time.” Last Sunday, when China’s Premier Li Keqiang announced the military budget increase, he called on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to “carry out military operations, boost combat preparedness and enhance military capabilities to accomplish the tasks entrusted to them by the Party and the people.” It sounds like a nation that is ready for war.

Third, Beijing has a credibility issue since it often doesn’t live up to its own rhetoric. For instance, its peace plan calls for respecting the sovereignty of all countries because “all countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are equal members of the international community.” It sounds good, except Beijing often does the opposite. Ask China’s neighbors in Southeast Asia. 

Actions in the South China Sea

Multiple countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam, and China, have overlapping historical claims over the South China Sea. These international waters are one of the busiest trading routes in the world and are rich in natural resources. In 2010, at a conference hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China’s foreign minister declared that “China is a big country, and you are all small countries,” meaning Beijing gets to decide what’s happening in the South China Sea because of China’s size and power. Other smaller countries should get in line and bend to China’s wishes.

Since then, China has claimed more than 90 percent of the South China Sea as its territory, a claim no other country accepts. Yet, Beijing has used this claim to justify building artificial islands, interrupting other countries’ normal commercial activities in their own waters. The Chinese coast guard’s aggressive patrols in the region were responsible for several serious accidents that endangered the lives and properties of citizens of other nations. Given this history, Beijing’s call for respecting other nations’ sovereignty sounds duplicitous. 

Ukraine War

Besides these contradictory talking points, Beijing’s behaviors have discredited it from being a neutral peacemaker in the Russia-Ukraine war. 

Since Russia invaded Ukraine last February, China has refused to criticize Putin. Domestically, China’s state and social media embraced and spread misinformation from Moscow, claiming Russia’s war was justified and a fascist faction ran Ukraine. On the international stage, China has abstained from U.N. votes on Ukraine-related resolutions that called on Russia to cease hostilities, according to The Wall Street Journal. Beijing also voted against removing Russia from the U.N.’s Human Rights Council over its Ukraine invasion. Even in its “peace plan,” Beijing never used “invasion” to describe Putin’s military aggression and instead called it the “Ukraine Crisis.”

After the United States and its Western allies imposed severe economic sanctions on Russia, China quickly offered support to Putin’s aggression through financial means by increasing agricultural and energy imports from Russia. Voice of America reported that “China’s overall imports from Russia spiked 80 percent in May [2022] compared with a year ago, to $10.3 billion… Beijing’s purchases of Russian liquefied natural gas surged 54 percent from a year ago to 397,000 tons, even as overall imports of the fuel fell.”

Even before the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russia’s central bank and several large Russian financial institutions and restricted some Russian state-owned enterprises from raising money in international markets, China offered its currency and the China International Payment System as alternatives. The Wall Street Journal reported, “Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund, a war chest to support government spending burdened by battlefield costs in Ukraine, is using the Chinese currency to store its oil riches. Russian companies have borrowed in yuan, also known as the renminbi, and households are stashing savings in it.” As the world’s second-largest economy, China’s economic support to Russia has helped Putin blunt the effects of sanctions by the West and sustained Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

Right before China released its “peace plan,” the Biden administration announced it might release intelligence showing that Beijing is considering whether to supply weapons to Russia. Some suspected that by sending Moscow weapons, Beijing probably hoped to “increase the costs of the conflict for the West and give China a measure of leverage in proposing options to end it.” Rather than denying Washington’s accusation, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman blamed the U.S. “as the biggest source of weaponry for the battle in Ukraine” instead. 

Xi has reportedly spoken to Putin multiple times since last February but hasn’t talked with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After making public its “peace plan,” Beijing announced that Xi plans to visit Russia sometime in April or May but with no visit to Ukraine. Recently, Chinese leader Xi welcomed Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to Beijing. Lukashenko endorsed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and he praised Xi for China’s support to Russia throughout last year. 

It is obvious which side of the Russia-Ukraine war Beijing is on. Thus, China’s actions render its so-called “peace plan” meaningless. So don’t count on China to bring peace to Ukraine. 


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Yeonmi Park: ‘Biden Is Very Afraid to Admit’ that China Is an ‘Enemy’

Yeonmi Park: ‘Biden Is Very Afraid to Admit’ that China Is an ‘Enemy’

“I think Biden is very afraid to admit that somehow China is actually an enemy,” Yeonmi Park, North Korean defector and author, remarked on Monday’s edition of the Breitbart News Daily podcast with host Alex Marlow.

Park said President Joe Biden’s lack of acknowledgment of North Korea as a threat is grounded in a refusal to recognize China — the primary benefactor of Kim Jong- Un’s government — as an enemy of America.

She stated, “For Biden to acknowledge North Korea as a threat, that means that he needs to acknowledge that China is a threat against America, because the only reason that North Korea exists currently is because of Chinese Communist Party’s help.”

“Without Chinese Communist Party help, North Korea cannot survive even one week,” Park added.

Park stated, “North Korea conducting all these dangerous missile [tests] — it’s literally almost every day — and North Korea’s [standard] threat is destroying America. I think Biden is very afraid to admit that somehow China is actually an enemy, because this is China doing this right behind the scenes.”

Park credited former President Donald Trump with raising public awareness of China’s centrality to any national security threats posed by North Korea.

Park said the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for “human rights abuses and enslavement of 25 million North Korean people.”

She stated that “300,000 North Korean women in China are living as modern-day slaves, and their organs are harvested out of them, and they are sold like livestock.”

“Mainstream media” are “all covering up for China,” Park concluded.

Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.

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Biden, NATO Attack China’s Ukraine War Peace Proposals

(AFP) – China called Friday for urgent peace talks as it released its plan to end the war in Ukraine, but several Western powers rebuffed the proposals while warning against Beijing’s closening ties to Moscow.

The United Nations expressed cautious optimism over the Chinese proposals, particularly over the document’s call to avoid using nuclear weapons.

Russia reacted positively to Beijing’s efforts and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered a muted response, saying Kyiv needed to “work with China” on approaches to put an end to the year-old war.

Zelensky told reporters he was planning to meet with Xi Jinping after the Chinese leader’s government called for the peace talks, saying it would “be important for world security.”

China’s 12-point paper calling for a “political settlement” of the crisis follows accusations from the West that China is considering arming Russia, a claim Beijing has dismissed as false.

Timed to coincide with the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the paper urges all parties to “support Russia and Ukraine in working in the same direction and resuming direct dialogue as quickly as possible”.

It also makes clear its opposition to not only the use of nuclear weapons, but the threat of deploying them, after Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to use Moscow’s atomic arsenal in the conflict.

Russia said Friday it appreciated Beijing’s efforts to settle the conflict but insisted any solution should recognise Kremlin control over four Ukrainian regions.

“We highly value the sincere desire of our Chinese friends to contribute to the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine through peaceful means,” the foreign ministry said, but added any settlement must recognise “the new territorial realities”.

China’s document was immediately met by scepticism from Ukraine’s allies, with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg saying Beijing “doesn’t have much credibility because they have not been able to condemn the illegal invasion of Ukraine”.

“Putin is applauding it, so how could it be any good?” U.S. President Joe Biden told ABC in an interview broadcast Friday.

And German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that while “every constructive suggestion that brings us closer on the path to a just peace is highly welcome… whether global power China wants to play such a constructive role is still doubtful”.

At a press conference in Beijing, Ukrainian and EU diplomats urged China to do more to press Russia to end the conflict.

Jorge Toledo, the EU ambassador to China, said Beijing has a “special responsibility” as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to uphold peace.

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman said “I think the call on the need to avoid the use of nuclear weapons is particularly important.”

Strategic allies 

China has sought to position itself as a neutral party in the conflict while maintaining close ties with strategic ally Russia.

Top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi on Wednesday met with Putin and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow.

A meeting readout published by Chinese state news agency Xinhua quoted Wang as saying China was willing to “deepen political trust” and “strengthen strategic coordination” with Russia.

Since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, China has offered Putin diplomatic and financial support, but refrained from overt military involvement or sending lethal arms.

“I don’t anticipate a major initiative on the part of China providing weaponry to Russia,” Biden told ABC. “We’d impose severe sanctions on anyone who has done that.”

Leaders at a virtual Group of Seven summit Friday also warned countries they will face “severe costs” if they continue helping Russia evade international sanctions imposed over its invasion.

Follow Breitbart London on Facebook: Breitbart London

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Kamala Harris Says Chinese Spy Balloon Episode Should Not Impact Relations with China

Kamala Harris Says Chinese Spy Balloon Episode Should Not Impact Relations with China

Vice President Kamala Harris told Politico during an interview Tuesday the U.S. military downing a suspected Chinese spy balloon should not impact diplomatic relations with communist China.

“I don’t think so, no,” she told the outlet while arguing the Biden administration seeks “competition” with Beijing and “not conflict or confrontation.”

The vice president also noted she made similar comments to the Chinese communist dictator Xi Jinping in November when they met at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bangkok. “Everything that has happened in the last week and a half is, we believe, very consistent with our stated approach,” she said.

Tensions between China and the U.S. appeared to grow after the U.S. military shot down a Chinese vessel believed to be surveillance aircraft in early February over the Atlantic Ocean off the Carolina coast.

Despite U.S. officials claiming it was a spy balloon with surveillance capability, China maintains it was just an off-course weather balloon.

@RealUSC via Storyful

Last Thursday, a senior State Department official said that newly declassified intelligence indicated that the equipment on the balloon was “inconsistent” with what would be aboard a weather balloon since it had “multiple antennas to include an array likely capable of collecting and geo-locating communications.”

The same person also claimed that the balloon was “part of a PRC (People’s Republic of China) fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations” with a manufacturer tied to China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and that the U.S. “will also explore taking action against PRC entities linked to the PLA that supported the balloon’s incursion into U.S. airspace.”

Multiple reports also indicated the Biden administration would “explore” taking action against Chinese entities involved in sending the spy balloon to the United States.

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously approved a resolution — on a 419-0 margin — “condemning the Chinese Communist Party’s use of a high-altitude surveillance balloon over United States territory” and labeled the situation “a brazen violation of United States sovereignty.”

Politico noted the interview with Harris happened roughly 24 hours before she was scheduled to leave the U.S. to lead a delegation to the Munich Security Conference, where China’s top diplomat would also be in attendance. Harris said the two do not have any scheduled meetings.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.

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Biden Says Chinese Spy Balloon ‘Not a Major Breach’

President Joe Biden on Thursday during an interview said the Chinese spy balloon that violated United States airspace as it journeyed across America last week was “not a major breach.”

“It’s not a major breach. Look, the total amount of intelligence gathering that’s going on by every country around the world is overwhelming,” Biden told Noticias Telemundo, according to The Hill.

Despite Biden downplaying the balloon, the U.S. military deemed it to be a surveillance balloon directed by the Chinese government and Biden ordered for it to be shot down and recovered.

And the House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution condemning the spy balloon as a “brazen violation of United States sovereignty,” further contradicting Biden’s characterization of the balloon as “not a major breach.”

Biden did acknowledge, however, the balloon was a violation of international law and U.S. airspace.

“It’s our airspace. And once it comes into our space, we can do what we want with it,” the president said.

The balloon had antennas to collect communications, according to a State Department official, as reported by Breitbart News.

Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on Twitter, Truth Social, or on Facebook. 

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