Bloomberg: The China Show 06/04/2025
'Bloomberg: The China Show' is your definitive source for news and analysis on the world's second-biggest economy. From politics and policy to tech and trends, Yvonne Man and David Ingles give global investors unique insight, delivering in-depth discussions with the newsmakers who matter. (Source: Bloomberg)
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Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Chinese bioterror suspects' arrests signal communist country plotting 'something worse' than COVID: expert
After the pattern of recent covert communist Chinese infiltrations of the U.S. continued with the arrest of two suspected "bioterrorists" in Michigan this week, one expert said it's time to sever relations with China completely. "The only way to stop this is to sever relations with China," attorney and Chinese Communist Party expert Gordon Chang told Fox News Digital. "And I know people think that's drastic, but we are being overwhelmed, and we are going to get hit. And we are going to get hit really hard. Not just with COVID, not just with fentanyl, but perhaps with something worse." Chang was responding to recent news of Chinese nationals Yunqing Jian, 33, and her boyfriend Zunyong Liu, 34, who, over a two-year period, were allegedly smuggling Fusarium graminearum into the U.S. and studying it in labs. Jian was a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan, whose research was funded in part by the People's Republic of China. Patel: Chinese Nationals Charged With Smuggling 'Known Agroterrorism Agent' Into Us Is A 'Direct Threat' Fusarium graminearum is a toxic fungus that causes a crop-killing "head blight," a disease of wheat, barley, maize and rice that "is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year," according to the Department of Justice. It is also toxic to humans, and can cause vomiting, liver damage and "reproductive defects in humans and livestock." Read On The Fox News App "This couple should be sent to Guantánamo," Chang said. "This Chinese government has declared a 'People's War' on us." A "People's War" is a military strategy developed by brutal former Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, who died in 1976, known for killing tens of millions of Chinese people via starvation and political persecution. Such a war calls for a protracted military and political onslaught meant to exhaust the enemy. Jian and Liu were arrested earlier this week and charged with conspiracy, smuggling goods into the U.S., false statements and visa fraud. "We're Americans, so we think we're entitled to ignore the propaganda of hostile regimes," Chang said. "But for a communist party, [a People's War] has great resonance, and what they're doing with their strident anti-Americanism is creating a justification to strike our country." Suspected Chinese Bioterrorists Smuggled Killer Agent Into Us In Boots, Officials Say "This means, for example, that this couple should be sent to Guantánamo," he said. "This was an attack on the United States at a time when China thought it was at war with us." Since the 2019 People's War decree referenced by Chang, a laundry list of Chinese and Chinese-aligned infiltrators have been caught red-handed in the U.S., especially at American universities. Here's a look back at some of those instances: In 2020, two Chinese nationals who were graduate students at the University of Michigan pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a breach at a Naval air station in Key West, Florida, where they were caught illegally entering and photographing defense infrastructure. Charles Lieber is not a Chinese national, but was convicted in 2021 of making false statements to authorities and failing to report income from his work with China's Wuhan University of Technology. He also had a contract with China's Thousand Talents Program, which "incentivize [their] members to steal foreign technologies needed to advance China's national, military, and economic goals," according to the FBI. He was sentenced to time served, which was two days in prison, and two years of supervised release with six months of home confinement. He also paid various fines and restitution of more than $88,000. In 2022, Ji Chaoqun, a Chinese national who had been a student at the Illinois Institute of Technology, was convicted after attempting to commit espionage and theft of trade secrets. Chaoqun gathered information from American defense contractors and engineers as part of a plot by high-level Chinese intelligence officials to glean information about U.S. technology advancements. He was sentenced to eight years in prison. In 2024, the FBI filed charges against five Chinese nationals, all students at the University of Michigan, after they were caught allegedly photographing a joint American-Taiwanese training exercise at Camp Grayling, a National Guard training facility in Michigan. Their studies were part of a joint program with Shanghai-based Jiao Tong University. Late last year, a University of Minnesota student and Chinese national named Fengyun Shi was convicted in federal court for illegally taking photos of Norfolk, Virginia, naval bases using a drone. He was sentenced to six months in jail and then deported in May of this year. Chinese Official Claims No Knowledge Of Fungus Situation, Says China Requires Citizens 'Abide By Local Laws' "We can lose our country, even though we're the far stronger nation, because we are not defending ourselves with the vigor and determination that is necessary," Chang told Fox News Digital. Chang also noted that in 2020, Americans in all 50 states received seeds from China unsolicited, which he said "was an attempt to plant invasive species" in the U.S. He also noted that this year, Chinese online retailer Temu did the same. "Imagine walking into your local grocery store and seeing empty shelves where bread, cereal, and even pet food used to be," Jason Pack, a former FBI supervisory special agent, told Fox News Digital. "Prices spike. Supply chains slow down. All because a foreign actor deliberately targeted the crops that keep America fed. That may sound far-fetched, but it's exactly the kind of scenario that becomes possible when someone brings a dangerous agricultural pathogen into the United States. "It doesn't take a bomb to disrupt an economy. It takes a biological agent like Fusarium graminearum introduced into the wrong place at the wrong time. Food prices rise. Livestock suffer. Exports stop. The economic ripple effects are enormous."Original article source: Chinese bioterror suspects' arrests signal communist country plotting 'something worse' than COVID: expert
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The West tried to make North Korea a pariah – but it's never been stronger
Kim Jong-un sits captivated. Leaning forward with binoculars raised, the North Korean dictator watches tanks manoeuvring over sandy terrain and troops rappelling down from helicopters. Occasionally, he turns to one of the uniformed officers behind him to point something out or ask a question. The scene, captured on video and shared by North Korea's state media last month, offered a rare glimpse into the secretive regime's expanding military capabilities. The isolated country, known for its intensely authoritarian regime, boasts the world's fourth-largest military, with nearly 1.3 million troops. It also has 50 nuclear warheads, with plans to build 150 more by 2027. A recent assessment from the US department of defence found North Korea had reached its 'strongest strategic position' in decades. 'North Korea has never been as strong – strong militarily as well as strong in oppressing its civilian population – as it is right now,' said Joanna Hosaniak, deputy director general of the Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights. This is, in part, thanks to a new mutual defence treaty signed between North Korea and Russia in November last year. But it is also down to its increasing ability to source foreign income through hacking and forced labour, despite Western sanctions, as it wages an information war against its enemies and its own population. Taken together, these three factors are allowing North Korea quietly to transform itself. Since striking a deal with Russia, North Korea has supplied Moscow with 15,000 soldiers, 100 ballistic missiles and millions of munitions to help Moscow wage war against Ukraine. In return, the Kremlin allowed Pyongyang to have its pick of sophisticated hardware – a huge boost for a regime that commands predominantly outdated, Soviet-era weaponry. While North Korea still has a long way to go in terms of upgrading all of its inventory, the newly strengthened ties with Moscow have reinforced the regime's strength and power. With a defence budget less than one per cent the size of China's, North Korea has had to choose between conventional and nuclear weapons. Kim has largely sided with the nuclear program. Earlier this year, a new intercontinental ballistic missile site was detected near Pyongyang where Kim's 'Winter Palace' once stood, marking the latest developments in the country's nuclear progress. Expanding these capabilities has allowed North Korea to create an effective deterrent against the US, especially in case of any future conflict with South Korea, but it has done this at the expense of upgrading conventional weapons like tanks, warships and fighter jets. 'North Korea has a lot of conventional military power – lots of troops, lots of tanks, but the aircraft are 1950s era,' said Michael Cohen, an associate professor at the Australian National University. 'I suspect Tom Cruise has had more time flying them than the North Korean pilots.' A year before Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed their defence treaty, Kim visited a rocket launch pad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in far eastern Russia. Leonid Petrov, a leading North Korea expert and dean of the International College of Management in Australia, described the visit as a 'shopping trip' for Kim as he 'named the price for sending North Korean troops and conventional armaments' to Russia. North Korea has since received an unspecified number of short-range air-defence systems and 'advanced electronic warfare systems including jamming equipment' from Russia since the visit, according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency. Pyongyang has also recently shown off a number of new weapons that closely resemble Russian arms, including a supersonic cruise missile, drones, and a new fighter jet. Satellite images have also shown a rapid expansion of North Korea's drone programme. A report from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies said that North Korea was 'likely incorporating Russian battlefield experience' as it enhanced its drone capabilities. 'North Korea is now getting unlimited access to Russian natural resources, technology, military and ideological support,' said Dr Petrov. North Korea is subject to dozens of sanctions, imposed by the United Nations, the European Union and governments including the United Kingdom, which aim to cut off Pyongyang from the international banking system as well as arms sales. While Russia has become an increasingly important partner in circumventing these restrictions, Pyongyang's relationship with China has also helped keep it afloat. Beijing is believed to have provided Pyongyang with military and nuclear expertise and a huge chunk of its foreign currency. 'China has been bankrolling the North Korean regime for a long time. About 95% of North Korean trade was with China for decades,' said Dr Petrov. Ms Hosaniak explained that North Korea is able to produce commercial goods domestically at a very cheap rate in forced labour camps, then sell them to the international market through China. She said: 'These goods can be sold in the EU, the UK…There are no restrictions, as long as the labels say 'Made in China', although the goods were produced in North Korea.' Companies facilitating this trade almost always need to have state backing to do so. 'In order to trade with North Korea you have to have an official North Korean trading partner so this is really a government-to-government kind of business that is operated by so-called private businesses,' Ms Hosaniak said. Beyond commercial ties with China, the North Korean regime has also brought in cash through cyber theft, especially from overseas workers. Local news outlet Daily NK reported that dozens of researchers from North Korea had been sent to China and Southeast Asia earlier this year to carry out attacks against cryptocurrency exchanges, engage in illegal cryptocurrency mining and target network firewalls. Pyongyang was also revealed to be carrying out an illegal scheme known as 'laptop farming', in which dozens of laptops in the US were being remotely controlled by thousands of North Koreans using stolen identities. Through these increasingly refined schemes, North Korean hackers have stolen an estimated $6 billion (£4.4 billion) in cryptocurrency, according to analysis firm Chainalysis. As Kim expands his country's defence and revenue streams, he also has to contend with a population of over 25 million people. The most effective way of doing this is to wage a full blown information war. 'The more information that North Koreans get, the more they would know that their government isn't being entirely truthful and life perhaps is better on the other side,' said Shreyas Reddy, the lead correspondent at local outlet NK News. Before the advent of the internet, it was significantly easier to do this, but now Pyongyang has had to develop its own technology and enforce new, draconian laws. A key way that outside information has entered the country was through USB sticks and CDs. These contain a wide variety of media, from South Korean media to much more sensitive information about human rights and politics. The COVID-19 pandemic dealt a major blow to these efforts, as North Korea shut its borders and erected an electric fence between it and China. A new law introduced in 2020 also increased the punishment for anyone caught consuming or sharing foreign media and in 2023, Kim outlawed common South Korean phrases and made it illegal to speak in a South Korean accent. 'Videos smuggled out of North Korea show people being punished severely for these sorts of incidents and we've heard unverified reports about executions or other permanent punishments for watching or accessing foreign culture,' said Mr Reddy. The constant evolution of censorship and propaganda efforts have allowed Kim to retain an upper hand in the long-standing information war upon which his reign depends. Most experts agree that North Korea will continue on the same trajectory. Kim is only 41 years old and has put in place numerous mechanisms to ensure that his grip on power remains ironclad, while also posing a major threat to enemies abroad. His newly cemented partnership with Russia, forged from shared isolation, is the latest of these efforts. 'Politically, economically, militarily, it makes them stronger,' said Dr Petrov. 'Both need this alliance. It's a mutually beneficial symbiosis of dictatorial regimes, which have been at war with their neighbours for many years.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Business Insider
27 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Dangote's $20B refinery sources U.S. crude, raising questions on Nigeria's output
The Dangote refinery, the largest crude processing facility in Africa, has been importing significant quantities of U.S. crude WTI, highlighting an apparent inconsistency given Nigeria's status as Africa's top oil producer. Africa's largest refinery, Dangote, imports significant quantities of U.S. crude, despite Nigeria being Africa's top oil producer. The refinery processes U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Midland crude for its technical advantages, such as higher yields and gasoline blending improvements. Current Nigerian crude production capacity cannot fully supply the refinery's needs, leading to a reliance on imports. Following a prolonged back-and-forth between Nigeria's national petroleum company, the Dangote $20 billion refinery, with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day (bpd), has turned to the US crude oil market in 2025, sourcing West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Midland crude, a Bloomberg's ship tracking data noted. The refinery's intake of American crude has risen to roughly one-third, almost double the proportion seen during its 2024 startup phase. More notably, the surge in U.S. crude imports persists despite Nigeria's status as Africa's top crude oil producer and key OPEC member. However, the country's crude production capacity is limited, and it struggles to meet the Dangote refinery's needs and broader national demands. Critics argue that the factors behind Dangote's crude reroute stem from concerns over logistics and technicalities. According to Randy Hurburun, senior refinery analyst at Energy Aspects, technical advantages play a key role. WTI Midland offers higher yields of reformate and improved gasoline blending characteristics. Additionally, the shift is a consequence of the recent downturn in Asian demand for U.S. crude, driven in part by ongoing U.S.-China trade tensions, which has made more Midland oil available on the global market. As a further consequence, the refinery's ramp-up has led to a tightening of Nigerian crudes, a Dangote spokesperson confirmed, noting that June's crude intake will likely include an even higher share of U.S. supply. Bloomberg added that the event would allow U.S. crude to gain a larger share of Dangote's imports compared to Nigerian crude. Dangote refinery's refining capacity The Dangote Refinery, situated in the Lekki Free Zone near Lagos, Nigeria, has a designed processing capacity of 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd), making it Africa's largest oil refinery and the world's largest single-train facility. The refinery, located near Lagos, began producing diesel and naphtha in early 2024, with gasoline output commencing in September. As of early 2025, the refinery was operating at approximately 85% capacity, processing around 550,000 bpd. To meet its crude requirements, the refinery has been importing significant quantities of U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil. In June 2025, it booked approximately 300,000 bpd of WTI, and in July, it planned to import at least 5 million barrels, equating to about 161,000 bpd Once fully operational, it is projected to meet Nigeria's entire domestic demand for refined petroleum products while generating surpluses for export across Africa and beyond. The image of Nigeria, a nation rich in oil, importing crude may seem ironic, but the Dangote refinery's sourcing strategy highlights broader challenges in the country's upstream sector, including underinvestment, theft, and operational inefficiencies. In contrast, the U.S. shale sector remains agile and export-oriented, with competitive grades like WTI Midland offering technical and economic advantages for large-scale processors. As Nigeria continues to reform its petroleum sector and attract new upstream investment, the success of the Dangote refinery could mark a turning point in reducing dependence on imported fuels – albeit fueled, for now, by American crude.
