Our picks: China watchChina Tops U.S. Intel's Global Threat List | China to America: We’re an Equal Now | Clean Energy Powered by Dirty Labor, and more

China’s Message to America: We’re an Equal Now  (Lingling Wei and Bob Davis, Wall Street Journal)
President Xi is confronting the Biden administration with a new world view, that Beijing’s decades of not challenging the U.S. as global leader are over.

U.S. Senate Unveils Bipartisan Plan to Counter Global Influence of China  (Louise Watt, The Times)
United States senators have unveiled wide-ranging plans to confront China by beefing up the American military in the Pacific, cracking down on intellectual property theft and enhancing support for Taiwan.
The draft Strategic Competition Act of 2021 is a rare bipartisan initiative designed to counter China’s rising global influence. It reflects toughened attitudes towards Beijing among Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

China, Other Countries Now Top U.S. Intel’s Global Threat List, Not Terrorist Groups  (Ken Dilanian and Andrea Mitchell, NBC News)
China is working to challenge the U.S. by doubling its nuclear capacity, besting American capabilities in space and expanding its influence abroad, according to a threat assessment by the U.S. intelligence community published Tuesday that highlights the dangers posed by rogue countries ahead of the non-state terrorism threat that once dominated national security thinking. The authors of the threat assessment, released ahead of testimony by top intelligence officials before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, note that the order in which topics are presented “does not necessarily indicate their relative importance,” but those editorial judgments are not made in a vacuum. For years, the dangers of an al Qaeda attack led the threats assessment, and in more recent years the problem of cyber intrusions was featured first. Last year, there was no public threats assessment and no open congressional hearing, because intelligence officials worried about offending then-President Donald Trump by presenting judgments that conflicted with his worldview. In 2019, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel starkly contradicted Trump on the Islamic State militant group, Iran and North Korea.

Gmail “Safer than Parliament’s Email System” Says Tory MP  (Cristina Criddle, BBC)
Tom Tugendhat told BBC Radio 4’s Today program he has repeatedly been the focus of cyber attacks over the past three years.
Hackers have tried to access his account and sent emails impersonating him, he told the BBC.
The Tory MP believes China and Iran were behind some of these attempts.

China’s Economy Is Still Dependent on Housing and Exports  (Nathaniel Taplin, Wall Street Journal)
Despite Beijing’s rhetorical emphasis on new industries and self-reliance, housing and exports continue to drive China’s recovery.

In Battle with U.S. for Global Sway, China Showers Money on Europe’s Neglected Areas  (Tom Fairless, Wall Street Journal)
Goods are arriving in Europe through a new trade corridor consisting of railroads, airport hubs and ports built with Chinese support.

EU Rebuffs Montenegro Plea to Help Repay $1B Chinese Highway Loan  (Hans von der Burchard, Politico)
‘We are not repaying the loans they are taking from third parties,’ says European Commission.

When Clean Energy Is Powered by Dirty Labor  (Elizabeth Braw, Foreign Policy)
Most solar panels come from China, and using them to fuel a clean energy transition risks reliance on Uyghur slave labor in Xinjiang.

China Learning from Russia’s “Emerging Great Power” Global Media Tactics  (Elizabeth Chen, Jamestown Foundation)
Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers observed that China has employed newly assertive tactics—including spreading widespread Russian-style disinformation—which suggested that “Beijing is increasingly seeking to shape the global information environment beyond its borders” (Alliance for Security Democracy, March 30, 2020). Chinese propaganda researchers and academics have closely studied the example of Russian media organs such as Russia Today (RT), and explicitly view the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to improve external propaganda, including deepening cooperation with their Russian counterparts.

How Growing Conflict with China Could Impact U.K. Nuclear Power  (Nick Butler, Prospect)
Given the tension between the two countries, the UK is unlikely to give China access to its nuclear energy. But a trade dispute would affect us more than them.

How China Spurred Innovation in the U.S. and Europe  (Edmund L. Andrews, Stanford University)
A Stanford economist argues that Chinese competition sped up productivity and overall growth in the West.