China
August 12, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong entrepreneur and pro-democracy activist, has been arrested this week for “violating” new national security laws imposed by the Communist Party of China. The Hoover Institution has posted the brief special edition of Uncommon Knowledge with Mr. Lai below. The special edition is drawn from two Uncommon Knowledge interviews, the first before a live audience this past October (the video is posted here) and the second on
»
August 7, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
American intelligence officials “assess” that China and Iran hope that Joe Biden defeats President Trump, but that Russia is trying to undermine Joe Biden. These assessments have generated lots of buzz. Democrats have been unhappy that Bill Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, wasn’t more alarmist about alleged Russian plans. Now they are unhappy that he has thrown China and Iran into the mix. I assess that
»
July 26, 2020 — John Hinderaker
Revelations of recent years have expanded the range of the thinkable. Four years ago, I would have considered the idea that the Department of Justice, the FBI and the CIA would team up to swing a presidential election to their favored candidate, and failing that, would try to disable the incoming administration, a paranoid fantasy, the stuff of fiction. But it happened. And it was highly successful, due to the
»
July 13, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Adrian Wojnarowski reports on basketball for ESPN. He became a media star by breaking big stories (as NBA news goes), the way Adam Schefter does with the NFL but probably more so. His tweets of major NBA news are called “Woj bombs.” To drop these bombs, Wojnarowski relies on league sources, including players and team executives. His sources could give the information to any of a number of reporters, but
»
July 6, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Niall Ferguson writes about the emerging Cold War between the U.S. and China. Ferguson calls this Cold War both inevitable and desirable. It’s desirable because, among other things, “it has jolted the U.S. out of complacency and into an earnest effort not to be surpassed by China in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other strategically crucial technologies.” Even Henry Kissinger, architect of the policy of U.S.-Chinese engagement, acknowledges the new
»
June 5, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
In response to China’s coming crackdown on Hong Kong, Boris Johnson says he’s prepared to grant British residency and working rights to approximately 3 million Hong Kong residents — about 40 percent of its population. Johnson says he will make this move if China implements its new security laws, which will criminalize conduct deemed sedition and subversion, and enable Chinese security forces to crush dissent in Hong Kong as they
»
May 12, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
At yesterday’s White House briefing on the Wuhan coronavirus, Weijia Jiang, CBS News’ White House correspondent, asked President Trump about his frequent statements that the U.S. is doing more testing for the virus than any other nation. Jiang didn’t dispute the claim. Instead, she asked: Why does that matter? Why is this a global competition to you if every day Americans are still losing their lives. . .? The question
»
May 9, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Max Baucus is the former U.S. Senator from Montana. For some reason, the people of that great state repeatedly elected him to the Senate. Less surprisingly, President Obama selected Baucus to be his ambassador to China. He served in this position for almost three clueless years. This week, Baucus told CNN that President Trump’s “over the top rhetoric” and “red baiting” of China reminds him of Joe McCarthy. Baucus also
»
April 27, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Having spread the COVID-19 epidemic to the rest of the world, the Chinese Communist Party has put it to its own uses. Reporting from Hong Kong, the Washington Post’s Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin noted one such use that has mostly escaped notice. It is cracking down on Hong Kong. The Post’s troubling April 24 story is headlined “One country, one system: The week that China shredded its promise on
»
April 23, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
China’s behavior during the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak has been disgraceful — marked by deceit and an unwillingness to cooperate with the rest of the world until it was too late. In addition, there’s reason to believe that the virus originated in a Chinese lab that did not meet safety standards. By contrast, Taiwan’s behavior has been exemplary. According to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S., Taiwan
»
April 22, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Early on in the current pandemic, before the Wuhan coronavirus virus began killing Americans, Sen. Tom Cotton raised the possibility that the virus originated in a high-security biochemical lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of the outbreak. Given the very close proximity of the lab to the outbreak’s point of origin, the suggestion was plausible. At least as plausible was the notion that the source of the
»
April 16, 2020 — Scott Johnson
First we were instructed that it was racist to refer to the origin of the COVID-19 virus in Wuhan or China as racist. Then we were instructed that the thought it might have derived from a Wuhan virology lab as a right-wing conspiracy theory. The Wuhan virus from a Wuhan lab? Doubleplusungood. So bad it can’t even be thought. As Harry Kazianis puts it in a good column at The
»
April 15, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
I think I’ll take a day off from looking at Wuhan coronavirus numbers and writing about the pandemic. Instead, I will refer readers to a few articles on the subject. This one is from Townhall. It reports that an Israeli professor, Yitzhak Ben Israel of Tel Aviv University, has concluded that this virus follows its own pattern, irrespective of social distancing measures. He found that whether the country was quarantined
»
April 10, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
When the dust from the current pandemic has settled, there will be aspects of President Trump’s response at which, legitimately, to snipe. It’s unrealistic to expect any leader to make all the right calls when confronted with this kind of unexpected crisis. Other than Sen. Tom Cotton, I don’t know of any politician who fully had the right line on the Wuhan coronavirus from the beginning. However, Joe Biden will
»
April 9, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Further to Paul Mirengoff’s post “Don’t let China off the hook” and my own “The China syndrome,” I want to offer a few additional resources that I have found to be helpful: • Cleta Mitchell’s March 31 Federalist column “The real Coronavirus chronology.” • Giulio Meotti’s April 5 Gatestone column “Coronavirus: China’s Great Cover-up.” • Michael Waller’s comprehensive and frequently updated Center for Security Policy chronology “China’s propaganda pandemic in
»
April 2, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Further to Paul Mirengoff’s “Don’t let China off the hook,” I want to offer a few resources that I have found to be helpful so far: • First and foremost among those I have saved is Jim Geraghty’s NR Morning Jolt The Comprehensive Timeline of China’s COVID-19 Lies.” Subhead: “A day-by-day, month-by-month breakdown of China’s coronavirus coverup and the irreparable damage it has caused around the globe.” The whole thing
»
March 31, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Our friend Michael Auslin explains the importance of pushing back against China’s effort to deflect blame for the origin and spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. The case for holding China accountable is founded in morality, global governance, and the need to protect against future pandemics. The moral case stems from the Chinese government’s reprehensible response to the early outbreak of the pandemic there. Auslin reminds us: Chinese officials knew of
»
