China's ‘top puppet' Elon Musk poses US national security risks: House Democrats
Igor Patrick , Robert Delaney and Bochen Han in Washington Published: 5:10am, 12 Feb 2025 Convened by a House subcommittee on transportation and maritime security, the hearing focused on how China's presence in ports in Panama , Peru and Brazil could affect Washington's interests in the region. US congressman Carlos Gimenez of Florida said Hong Kong -based company Hutchison Ports' operations in two ports on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Panama Canal gave Beijing 'a strategic position over one of the world's most important waterways'. '[It] provides the Communist Party with an opportunity to exert influence over commercial shipping, gather intelligence on American and allied vessel traffic and potentially restrict the mobility of our Navy in a time of crisis,' he said.
'The United States cannot and will not accept the scenario where a foreign adversary, one that openly seeks to undermine our global standing, controls infrastructure critical to us, homeland security, military readiness and economic stability,' Gimenez added.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
11 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Why Xi's decision to talk to Trump during trade crisis speaks volumes
Chinese President Xi Jinping's decision to speak to US President Donald Trump directly last week, the first such call in four months, spoke volumes about the importance to Xi of finding a way through the morass of Sino-US relations. Xi's decision ran counter to the long-standing Chinese diplomatic approach during Sino-US tensions of the Chinese president refusing calls from the US president despite persistent entreaties. The White House had repeatedly predicted a Xi-Trump phone call only to fall silent when it did not materialise. Xi was almost certainly wary of speaking to Trump because of his track record of embarrassing foreign leaders , but I believe the central reason is rooted in the risk aversion in ties with Washington that has characterised Chinese foreign policy since the normalisation of relations in the 1970s. When I recently asked a Chinese academic why it is so hard for Xi to pick up the phone, he said that direct leader-to-leader negotiations in a time of crisis were not in the DNA of the Communist Party leadership. The historical record gives us ample evidence of this. As student protests rocked Beijing in 1989, ultimately ending in military forces suppressing the movement in Tiananmen Square, US president George H.W. Bush repeatedly requested a phone call with China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. The Chinese refused. Perplexed, Bush asked my China analytic team at the CIA why Deng would not take his call and why, during the crisis, Deng had disappeared from public view. Bush wondered whether he was sick or had been ousted. We explained that we had intelligence he was still in charge but that it was typical of Chinese leaders to 'go to ground' during a domestic crisis and not reappear or talk to foreign leaders until they were sure that the situation had stabilised.
RTHK
18 hours ago
- RTHK
China export growth slows on plunge in US shipments
China export growth slows on plunge in US shipments While Chinese exports to the United States plunged, they spiked to regions such as Asean, Europe and Africa. Photo: Xinhua China's export growth slowed in May while imports also dropped more than expected, as trade tensions remain high between Beijing and Washington despite the tariff truce they reached last month. Official figures released by the General Administration of Customs on Monday showed that exports rose by 4.8 percent year on year to US$316.1 billion last month. That growth rate fell short of estimates of a 5 percent jump in a Reuters' poll and was notably lower than the 8.1 percent annual rise seen in April despite US President Donald Trump's 145 percent tariffs on Chinese goods taking effect that month. Imports, meanwhile, decreased by 3.4 percent to US$212.9 billion, compared with a 0.2 percent decline in April, and was also much steeper than the 0.9 percent fall that economists had estimated. Those figures left the country with a trade surplus of US$103.2 billion for the month, up from US$96.18 billion in April. The latest fall in exports were visibly dragged down by shipments to the United States, which plunged 34.4 percent last month. That was much sharper than the 21 percent annual decline registered in April and marked the sharpest monthly drop in more than five years – since February 2020. And the export decline came despite Beijing's reaching a tariff agreement with Washington on May 12, which saw the two sides roll back most of the sweeping tariffs imposed on each other's goods for 90 days. Shipments to the Southeast Asian bloc, Asean, however, continued to rise, jumping nearly 15 percent, while those to European Union nations and Africa rose 12 percent and over 33 percent, respectively. The latest agreement by China and the United States, two of the world's economic superpowers, has set the additional US levies on Chinese goods to 30 percent and countervailing Chinese duties on US imports to 10 percent, on top of some retaliatory tariffs imposed earlier on certain American goods. But despite the tariff truce, the two superpowers are still locked in disputes over key trade issues, such as Chinese export controls on rare earth minerals and US curbs on chip-related exports to China. Leaders of the two nations have agreed to further talks, with a new round of high-level bilateral trade meeting set to take place in London later today, led by Premier He Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, along with two other US officials. For the first five months of the year, China's exports grew by 6 percent year on year while imports declined 4.9 percent. Exports to the United States retreated 9.7 percent while those to Asean members grew by 12.2 percent.
HKFP
20 hours ago
- HKFP
Social media, e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu – or RedNote in English – sets up office in Hong Kong
Chinese social network and e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu, known in English as RedNote, has set up an office in Hong Kong – its first outside mainland China. Finance chief Paul Chan officiated at an opening ceremony on Saturday, saying the new office would 'enhance the visibility of Hong Kong's tourism, retail, dining and creative industries,' according to a government press release. Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK) said the move would help ensure enhanced services for cross-border users and brands. 'As a leading lifestyle community from China, Xiaohongshu's presence will foster creative collaboration among local content creators, brands and organisations, and promote East-meets-West cultural exchanges and content marketing development among Hong Kong, the Mainland and the global markets,' InvestHK's Director-General of Investment Promotion Alpha Lau said. Founded in 2013, Xiaohongshu – which literally means 'little red book' – allows its young user base to share fashion, beauty, travel, food, and other tips as a hub for consumption decision-making. It is particularly popular among affluent Gen Z users in urban China, according to Bloomberg. It was thrust into the international spotlight in January, gaining an influx of American users amid fears that the US would shut down the popular TikTok video app, owned by Chinese tech firm ByteDance. However, it is also known for heavily censoring or limiting topics sensitive to Beijing. Taiwan's government banned public servants from using the app on official devices in 2022 over national security concerns.
