90 Miles From Tyranny

Tuesday, February 7, 2023

China: Shooting Down Spy Balloon an ‘Obvious Overreaction’; We May Shoot Down U.S. Aircraft

The Chinese Defense Ministry loudly protested America’s decision to shoot down a Chinese alleged espionage aircraft over the waters of South Carolina, claiming that taking action to stop the breach of U.S. airspace after the balloon had crossed the entire continental United States and Alaska was an “obvious overreaction.”

The Chinese Defense Ministry suggested it could take reciprocal action against American civilian aircraft, without elaborating.

News began rapidly spreading across social media on Friday of a bizarre, round flying object appearing over the skies of Montana, forcing the administration of leftist President Joe Biden, who has a long history of business ties to China, to announce it had detected an unauthorized Chinese-origin balloon over American land. The Chinese government soon thereafter confirmed – after initially denying any information – that the balloon indeed originated in China, but claimed it had deviated out of the country and into America as a result of force majeure.

Subsequent reports following Friday’s revelation that the Chinese alleged spy balloon had entered America through Alaska and likely traveled down western Canada indicated the Pentagon was “well aware” of its existence as early as January 28, but chose not to comment on it publicly. Social media images of the balloon and public concern reportedly forced a public explanation of the situation.

The Chinese government claimed the balloon was a “meteorological” research vessel for “civilian” purposes that had accidentally left Chinese airspace. The Pentagon initially refused to shoot it down, citing the potential that debris would fall on the grounds and injure Americans, and readied the public for the balloon to “be over the United States for a few days” as of Friday. By Sunday, however, in response to widespread public outrage in America, the Department of Defense confirmed that it had used fighter aircraft to shoot it down.

By the time Biden moved to shoot the balloon and its sophisticated surveillance technology out of American skies, it had crossed from Montana into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The Pentagon confirmed the balloon had been destroyed on Saturday.

The Communist Party of China, which started the crisis by violating the sovereignty of the United States, expressed outrage and disgust on Sunday at the Pentagon for taking action, albeit belatedly, on the invading aircraft – and threatened to potentially shoot American civilian aircraft out of the sky.

Chinese spy balloon with inset of Xi Jiping (Screenshot, Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images)

“The U.S. attack on Chinese civilian unmanned airship by force is an obvious overreaction,” Senior Colonel Tan Kefei, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman, said on Sunday. Tan reportedly called the shootdown a “political show.”

The Chinese state propaganda outlet Global Times, which reported Tan’s remarks, noted that he also warned that “China will reserve the right to take necessary measures in dealing with similar situations” and interpreted that to mean that Beijing would consider shooting down American civilian aircraft. The state newspaper also specifically objected to...

The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #1287

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Girls With Guns

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Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #940

US tech giants funding China's race to supremacy in AI — the 'battlefield of the future'

"[T]ransactions involving U.S. investors totaled $40.2 billion invested into 251 Chinese AI companies," accounting for "37 percent of the $110 billion raised by all Chinese AI companies," according to new report from Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

A recently leaked memo from Gen. Mike Minihan, the head of the U.S. Air Mobility Command (AMC), suggested that, within the next two years, the U.S. would be at war with China over Taiwan.

"I hope I am wrong," wrote the four-star general, before adding that his gut feeling is that "we will fight in 2025." The leaked memo comes at a time when, according to a recent article in The Economist, tensions between the U.S. and China are at an all-time high — a conclusion amply reinforced by recent headlines about the test of wills between the two nations over a Chinese spy balloon the Pentagon believes was overflying sensitive U.S. military sites.

The wars of tomorrow will be won by the nations with the best technology, including, especially, the best artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. China is fast-becoming the global leader in AI, thus creating arguably the greatest cybersecurity threat facing the United States today, as a 2021 article in the Harvard Business Review noted.

The U.S. "must maintain vigilance and win the battle being fought in global cyberspace — it is the battlefield of the future," former FBI crisis manager and security risk expert Jim DiOrio told Just the News. In many ways, he added, "quantum computing and AI should be viewed as the new space race."

Despite what's at stake — for U.S. security and global freedom — in the competition with China for AI supremacy, major U.S. investors have played a significant role in funding this threat.

A new report released by researchers at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology shows many U.S. companies are investing inordinate sums of money in Chinese companies. Between 2015 and 2021, 167 U.S. investors participated in over 400 investment transactions involving Chinese AI companies, representing 17% of the global total of 2,299.

Investors have included Intel and Qualcomm, multinational semiconductor giants headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and San Diego, respectively. Qualcomm, with 13 investments, and Intel, with 11, were both outdone by GGV Capital. The global venture capital firm, also based in California, made a total of 43 investments in China's AI sector.

"Collectively, observed transactions involving U.S. investors totaled $40.2 billion invested into 251 Chinese AI companies," accounting for "37 percent of the $110 billion raised by all Chinese AI companies," according to...

Senior legislator Wang Yi has urged China to maintain 'active, one-step-ahead position' over US on climate change

A deep-pocketed green energy group working to ban gas stoves in the United States counts as a top adviser a Chinese government official who has urged his nation to compete with America on climate change.

Climate Imperative, a green nonprofit with a nearly $1 billion budget thanks to funding from billionaires Laurene Powell Jobs and John Doerr, lists Chinese Academy of Sciences professor Wang Yi as a member of its advisory council. The group does not disclose, however, that Wang also serves in China's legislature, the National People's Congress. Wang even sits on the Congress's Standing Committee, according to a Chinese environmental research group to which he belongs. That committee consists of government insiders who wield state power to accomplish Communist Party goals when the full Congress is not in session.

With Wang as an adviser, Climate Imperative has awarded grants to the Building Decarbonization Coalition, another green nonprofit that works to "transition to clean buildings that don't run on gas." Climate Imperative executive director Bruce Nilles, meanwhile, in December outlined his goal to get "methane gas out of homes and buildings." "It turns out that fossil fuels and humans don't actually coexist very well," Nilles said.

It's unclear how much Wang has influenced Climate Imperative in the group's bid to do away with natural gas. Climate Imperative, which did not return a request for comment, says its advisers provide "independent, expert advice" to the group and do not "endorse or approve specific grants." Still, Climate Imperative is far from the only influential green group to partner with the Chinese. The Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado-based nonprofit that published a controversial December study attributing 13 percent of U.S. childhood asthma cases to gas-stove use, for years worked with China's National Development and Reform Commission to implement an "economy-wide transformation" away from oil and gas, the Washington Free Beacon reported in January.

In addition to his role as a Climate Imperative adviser, Wang advises the Chinese government on climate change through the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), a CCP-approved group that provides "policy recommendations to the Chinese government on environment and development." As a CCICED council member, Wang in a September 2020 policy report called climate change the "highlight of Sino-U.S. relations" and argued that if U.S. "efforts to combat climate change prevail," China will lose its "active, one-step-ahead position in global climate governance." As a result, Wang and his coauthors wrote, China should pursue "strategic competition" with the United States on climate change and "engage in dialogue and exchange with relevant U.S. entities."

Wang appears to be affiliated with the China Association for Promoting Democracy, a minor political party under the direction of the Communist Party that represents academics and holds seven seats on the National People's Congress Standing Committee. One expert of China's political system stressed that despite its name, the China Association for Promoting Democracy is not free from the CCP's grips.

"They are subservient to the CCP," the expert, who spoke on background to discuss the issue candidly, told the Free Beacon. "The idea is that they create these spin-off groups that are designed to appear to be independent in some kind of way from the CCP, when they're actually controlled and directed by...