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China Launches WTO Dispute Over U.S. Chip Export Controls
Capping a year of increasing tension between Washington and Beijing over advanced chips used in everything from smartphones to weapons of mass destruction, China has initiated a trade dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the United States for imposing wide-ranging semiconductor export controls on China.
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New Bill Proposes Banning TikTok in the U.S.
Both the administration and Congress have moved to limit, or even ban, TikTok in the United States because of worries about China using the Chinese-owned platform to gather personal data on millions of Americans. Justin Sherman writes that “all told, it is a noteworthy piece of legislation, and it delineates between the risk of data access and the risk of content manipulation better than then-President Trump’s executive order on TikTok.”
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U.K. Removes China from Sizewell C Nuclear Plant as Tensions Grow
London has stripped Chinese firm CGN of its stake in the nuclear plant. British lawmakers were visiting Taiwan and China’s London ambassador was summoned over the alleged assault of a BBC reporter as tensions mount.
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Germany Did Research with North Korea -- Despite UN Sanctions
Kim Jong Un wants to modernize his nuclear weapons. To stop him, the UN has banned research collaboration with North Korea. One Berlin institute continued to collaborate with North Korea on research projects — without flagging the risks.
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“Safeguarding Science” Toolkit to Help U.S. Research Enterprise Guard Against Threats
The National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) and its partners announced a unique collaboration between elements of the U.S. intelligence and scientific communities to help the U.S. research enterprise mitigate the broad spectrum of risk it faces from nation-state, criminal, and other threat actors.
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Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?
Fifty-nine years ago yesterday, 22 November, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, was himself killed two days later in a Dallas police station by Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner. A new book by Paul Gregory, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, recounts the author’s experiences knowing Oswald.
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American Investor Known for Russian Nightclub Died of “Blunt Force Injuries” Due to Fall
An American stockbroker who made a fortune in the Russian market in the 1990s and 2000s and later co-founded a posh Moscow nightclub before leaving the country died of blunt force injuries suffered as a result of a fall from a Washington, D.C. building.
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Germany’s China Policy: Has It Learned from Its Dependency on Russia?
The German economy remains heavily dependent on China, its largest trading partner, despite mounting geopolitical tensions between the West and Beijing.
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FBI Says It has ‘National Security Concerns’ About TikTok
FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday that the bureau has “national security concerns” about popular short-form video hosting app TikTok. The FBI’s concerns about TikTok include “the possibility that the Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users.”
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Three Charged with Giving Secrets to China, and Selling DOD Chinese-Origin Rare Earth Magnets
DOJ charged three residents of Kentucky and Indiana with sending technical military data drawings to China, and then unlawfully supplying the U.S. Department of Defense with Chinese-origin rare earth magnets for aviation systems and military items.
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How Foreign Intelligence Services Compromise, Exploit U.S. Technology
Foreign intelligence services have intensified their efforts to compromise or exploit U.S. technology. A new report analyzes foreign collection attempts to obtain unauthorized access to sensitive or classified information and technology.
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Reports of China's Overseas 'Police Stations' Spark Controversy
Recent allegations of China operating 54 overseas “police stations” to pressure its citizens — including dissidents — to return home have sparked controversy and led to a number of investigations into their activities across Europe and North America.
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German Ministry Seeks to Block Chinese Chip Factory Takeover
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck wants to stop the sale of a chip production plant to a Chinese investor. The Green Party politician has expressed concern about giving China control over key infrastructure.
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How China’s Military Plugs into the Global Space Sector
China is using seemingly civilian and academic Chinese research institutions to advance its military goals in space. International organizations like the International GNSS Service need to be aware that even overtly civilian entities can be intertwined with the Chinese military. Collaboration with high-risk Chinese institutions must be done with extreme care to ensure data and products intended to support international science and commerce are not redirected towards unwanted military uses.
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U.S. Charges Chinese Spies in Huawei case
Prosecutors allege that Chinese spies were foiled by a double agent. The U.S. Justice Department says China is trying to undermine the U.S. judicial system.
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The long view
Kinetic Operations Bring Authoritarian Violence to Democratic Streets
Foreign interference in democracies has a multifaceted toolkit. In addition to information manipulation, the tactical tools authoritarian actors use to undermine democracy include cyber operations, economic coercion, malign finance, and civil society subversion.
Romania, Foreign Election Interference, and a Dangerous U.S. Retreat
The Romanian election is but one example of recent foreign election interference incidents. The Russian interference in 2016 U.S. election led Congress, on bipartisan basis, and the relevant agencies in the executive branch, to make many changes to address this threat, but under the new administration, “the U.S. is now moving full steam ahead to completely destroy its defenses against that threat,” Katie Kedian writes. All of the positive U.S. government developments “have been dismantled or severely downgraded,” leaving “the U.S. public less informed and less safe from foreign interference.”