China
February 12, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The U.S. Air Force shot down its third balloon in as many days over Lake Huron: US fighter jets shot down an unidentified object over Lake Huron on Sunday, marking the third time such action was taken in as many days and coming on the heels of last week’s Chinese spy balloon scandal. Sunday’s takedown is believed to have involved an object that was tracked by radar over Montana on
»
February 12, 2023 — Scott Johnson
In the past 48 hours or so American pilots flying under the auspices of NORAD have shot down two more unidentified objects over North America, one off the coast of Alaska and one over the Yukon in Canada. The objects are said to be smaller than the huge Chinese spy balloon President Biden let traverse the United States before having it shot down over the Atlantic off the coast of
»
February 11, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Andrew Sullivan has just posted an accessible 50-plus minute preview of his Dishcast with former New York Times science writer and editor Nicholas Wade. Wade is the author, most recently, of the essay Where Covid Came From, published by our friends at Encounter Books. Sullivan introduces the Dishcast here at his Substack site. (Wade’s grandson interrupts briefly at about 39:30.) Sullivan has separately posted two clips from the interview on
»
February 10, 2023 — Scott Johnson
“When I call you up, your line’s engaged.” That’s the complaint registered by the singer in the Beatles’ “You Won’t See Me.” The song comes to mind in connection with this morning’s interesting AP story by Ellen Knickmeyer: “‘It just rang’: In crises, US-China hotline goes unanswered.” Knickmeyer reports right at the top of her story: Within hours of an Air Force F-22 downing a giant Chinese balloon that had
»
February 9, 2023 — Scott Johnson
President Biden sat down for an interview with PBS’s Judy Woodruff yesterday. Students of ancient history may recall the “credibility gap” whose power was deemed to have brought down a president or two. I would like to seize on Pentagon bureaucratese to declare that we have an “awareness gap” in the Biden administration from the top down. In one of the video clips of Woodruff’s interview with Biden below, the
»
February 9, 2023 — Scott Johnson
David Niven lifted the title of his best-selling memoir The Moon’s a Balloon from the poem “who knows if the moon’s a balloon” by e.e. cummings. This is the poem: who knows if the moon’s a balloon, coming out of a keen city in the sky–filled with pretty people? ( and if you and I should get into it,if they should take me and take you into their balloon, why
»
February 8, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Free Beacon’s Chuck Ross reports that the Department of Defense won’t identify the senior Pentagon official who told the press on background this weekend that the Trump administration let Chinese spy balloons transit the United States at least three times. The senior defense official omitted the critical fact that these incidents went undetected by the defense and national security establishments. Ross links to the Pentagon transcript of the call
»
February 8, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I thought the flight of the Chinese spy balloon across the United States was a national embarrassment, but it was nothing compared to President Biden’s State of the Union performance last night. I thought he hit the high point with his congratulation of Kevin McCarthy for ascending to the Speakership in the first few seconds of his speech. The speed of the descent varied, but it was downhill all the
»
February 7, 2023 — Scott Johnson
We have struggled to following the evolving leaks and statements from the Biden administration regarding the Chinese spy balloon. In the adjacent post we note one set. This morning the Associated Press has a total of five reporters on the administration’s claim of credit for getting on top of it: “White House: Improved surveillance caught Chinese balloon.” It bears on the story of previous balloon overflights that I discuss in
»
February 5, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Chinese spy balloon entered the territory of the United States a week ago yesterday. Thanks to the observant eye of Chase Doak, we learned of it as it made its way over Montana this past Thursday. The Biden administration intended to keep it a secret while it made its way across the United States and Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed off to meet the friends of the Biden
»
February 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Chinese spy balloon keeps a rollin’ across the United States. Relying on the reporting of Bloomberg (which has to be stripped of its credulity over the White House spin) and the Associated Press, I wanted compile the facts roughly making out what we know as of this morning while adding a few comments of my own. • The observant Mr. Chase Doak spotted the spy balloon traversing Montana on
»
February 3, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The AP reports on the Chinese spy balloon spotted over Montana. The AP story reads like satire. This is the Age of Biden: The U.S. is tracking a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that has been spotted over U.S. airspace for a couple days, but the Pentagon decided not to shoot it down over concerns of hurting people on the ground, officials said Thursday. The discovery of the balloon puts a
»
December 20, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Frank Dikötter is the author of The People’s Trilogy (“a series of books that document the impact of communism on the lives of ordinary people in China on the basis of new archival material”) and, most recently, China After Mao. He has served as Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong since 2006 — “one wonders for how much longer,” Tunku Varadarajan added in his Wall Street
»
December 4, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Michael Ramirez’s daily editorial cartoon of this past Friday (below) comments on the pathetic response of the Biden administration to the insanely brave protests inside the Chinese and Iranian regimes. He titles it “A deafening silence.” (Subscribe to Michael’s Substack site here.) The New York Post reports “Biden snubs question on China protests amid son Hunter’s biz ties.” The related New York Post editorial is headlined “White House offers mere
»
December 2, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Forbes has a report on how Chinese state media use TikTok to try to influence American elections. It dwarfs the piddling effort the Russians made several cycles ago: TikTok accounts run by the propaganda arm of the Chinese government have accumulated millions of followers and tens of millions of views, many of them on videos editorializing about U.S. politics without clear disclosure that they were posted by a foreign government.
»
November 28, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The big stories of the past few days share a theme in common: • Protests of China’s insane Covid regime have broken out around China. I followed them on Twitter over the weekend (as in the tweet below, for example). People of Beijing are protesting near Sitong Bridge, shouting: “We want freedom, we want freedom!” pic.twitter.com/O12i58jVjr — Xiyue Wang (@XiyueWang9) November 28, 2022 • However, traditional news outlets with reporters
»
November 22, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The Washington Free Beacon’s Chuck Ross reports that Michael Bloomberg rendered an apology last week at his conference in Singapore: Michael Bloomberg, who leads the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board, apologized to attendees of his annual economic forum after former British prime minister Boris Johnson called the Chinese government a “coercive autocracy.” Bloomberg on Thursday said that Johnson’s remarks were “his thoughts and his thoughts alone” and were not cleared with
»
