Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
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- Watching Asia-Pacific leaders mingle with their European counterparts at the annual NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, this week, U.S. strategists might well have lit up celebratory cigars.
- While the media attention in Vilnius inevitably focused on the war in Ukraine, the fate of Sweden’s bid to join and other matters closer to home, the representation of major East Asian democracies at the Western military alliance gathering heralds a major shift, a sign of the rising unity of the U.S.-allied democracies on both flanks of the Eurasian landmass.
- For the second straight year, leaders of the Asia-Pacific 4 (“AP4”) — Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea — turned up at NATO’s annual summit. The Japanese and South Korean militaries both rank in the world’s top 10 in the latest Global Firepower’s 2023 survey.
- NATO leaders, in their final summit communique, wrote: “The Indo-Pacific is important for NATO, given that developments in that region can directly affect Euro-Atlantic security. … We welcome the contribution of our partners in … the region. We will further strengthen our dialogue and cooperation to tackle our shared security challenges.”
- In a bit of diplomatic irony, it was the warming ties between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that helped accelerate the East-West coalition building against them.
- “With China and Russia announcing a ‘no-limits partnership’ shortly before the invasion [of Ukraine]…the balancing coalitions at either end of Eurasia became strongly linked together,” said Joel Atkinson, an international politics professor at Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- North Korea Ramps Up Rhetoric Ahead of U.S. Nuclear Submarine Visit
- North Korea threatened military action against American spy planes operating off the country’s east coast, its state media reported on Tuesday, as a United States submarine capable of shooting nuclear ballistic missiles planned to visit South Korea for the first time in four decades.
- The North has often bristled at the United States’s military reconnaissance activities around the Korean Peninsula. But since Monday, it has issued three consecutive statements threatening retaliation against what it called “provocative aerial espionage” by American spy planes and drones.
- On Monday, the North’s Ministry of National Defense accused an American strategic reconnaissance plane of illegally intruding into its “inviolable airspace” off its east coast this month.
- “There is no guarantee that such shocking accident as downing of the U.S. Air Force strategic reconnaissance plane will not happen,” it said, according to an English-language dispatch from the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
- In two separate statements issued later on Monday and early on Tuesday, Kim Yo-jong, the sister and spokeswoman for North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, also said that American reconnaissance planes committed “a grave encroachment upon the sovereignty and security” of her country by flying over its 200-nautical mile economic water zone.
- Kim warned that a “shocking” or “critical” incident would occur if such illegal intrusions continued.
- To drive home the threat, North Korea cited a 1969 incident in which it shot down an American EC-121 reconnaissance aircraft, killing all 31 people aboard.
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Mathew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
Important Takeaways:
- Police have called this a case of “intentional assault” but not elaborated on a possible motive.
- The stabbings also fit in to a disturbingly familiar pattern. Firearms are banned in China but the country has seen a spate of knife attacks in recent years, although there was also one incident where the attacker used a chemical spray to injure a classroom of 50 children.
- In most of these cases, the perpetrators are male and have expressed a grudge against society.
- Fearing copycat attacks, Beijing is also not allowing state media to publish full details of Monday’s incident at the kindergarten.
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Ecclesiastes 5:8 If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still
Important Takeaways:
- A retired American intelligence official told the Miami Herald in a report published Wednesday that China has been conducting espionage activities in Cuba since at least 1992, taking advantage of the fall of the Soviet Union to forge a closer relationship with the fellow communist nation.
- The base, Simmons claimed, is located in Bejucal, a suburb of the greater Havana area.
- Simmons described the base as a “signals intelligence facility,” meaning a base to intercept American communications for espionage purposes
- John Kirby, national security council coordinator, called it “shameful” that anonymous sources were informing the public of potential Chinese espionage activity 90 miles from U.S. soil.
- It’s shameful that somebody, or somebodies, somehow think it’s okay to put this kind of information in the public bloodstream,” Kirby scolded reporters, “Clearly, there’s a source or sources out there that think it’s somehow beneficial to put this kind of information into the public stream, and it’s absolutely not …
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Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”
Important Takeaways:
- Yellen Faces a Diplomatic Test in Her High-Stakes Visit to China
- The Treasury secretary will need to defend export controls and tariffs while explaining that the United States does not aim to harm China’s economy.
- The trip, her first to the country as Treasury secretary, represents Ms. Yellen’s most challenging test of economic diplomacy to date as she attempts to ease years of festering distrust between the United States and China.
- For Ms. Yellen, the challenge will be to convince her Chinese counterparts that the bevy of U.S. measures blocking access to sensitive technology such as semiconductors in the name of national security are not intended to inflict harm on the Chinese economy.
- In her meetings in Beijing, Ms. Yellen is expected to make the case that the Biden administration’s actions to make the U.S. economy less reliant on China and to entice more production of critical materials inside the United States are narrowly focused measures that are not meant to instigate a broader economic war.
- China continues to hold nearly $1 trillion of U.S. debt and is America’s third-largest trading partner, making an abrupt severing of ties potentially calamitous for both countries and the global economy.
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Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”
Important Takeaways:
- China to restrict export of chip making materials in trade war with US
- China will control exports of some metals widely used in the semiconductor industry. The controls will require exporters to seek permission to ship some gallium and germanium products.
- The controls, which China said were aimed at protecting national security and interests, will require exporters to seek permission to ship some gallium and germanium products.
- The move to manage exports of the rare elements that Beijing classifies as strategic, comes as Washington mulls new restrictions on the shipment of high-tech microchips to China, according to media reports.
- The United States and the Netherlands are also set to deliver a one-two punch to China’s chipmakers this summer by further restricting sales of chipmaking equipment, part of efforts to prevent their technology from being used to strengthen China’s military.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- U.S. recommends Americans reconsider traveling to China due to arbitrary law enforcement and exit bans
- The U.S. recommended Americans reconsider traveling to China because of arbitrary law enforcement and exit bans and the risk of wrongful detentions.
- No specific cases were cited, but the advisory came after a 78-year-old U.S. citizen was sentenced to life in prison on spying charges in May.
- It also followed the passage last week of a sweeping Foreign Relations Law that threatens countermeasures against those seen as harming China’s interests.
- China also recently passed a broadly written counterespionage law that has sent a chill through the foreign business community, with offices being raided, as well as a law to sanction foreign critics.
- “The People’s Republic of China (PRC) government arbitrarily enforces local laws, including issuing exit bans on U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries, without fair and transparent process under the law,” the U.S. advisory said.
- “U.S. citizens traveling or residing in the PRC may be detained without access to U.S. consular services or information about their alleged crime,” it warned.
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Ecclesiastes 5:8 If you see the extortion[a] of the poor, or the perversion[b] of justice and fairness in the government, [c] do not be astonished by the matter. For the high official is watched by a higher official, [d] and there are higher ones over them! [e]
Important Takeaways:
- Biden’s Endless Gifts to China
- The Biden Administration intends to spend more than half a trillion dollars on “clean energy and climate action over the next decade”, according to the US Department of Energy. That amount would reportedly include projects for climate change and investments in renewable energy, such as solar panels and wind turbines.
- In solar energy… China produces between 70% and 98% of the world’s silicon-based raw material and other components for solar panels — a solid world monopoly.
- The Biden Administration has placed a massive bet on electric vehicles. The goal is that 50% of new vehicles sold in the US should be electric by 2030. Electric vehicles need lithium-ion batteries. China has almost a global monopoly on producing them.
- The average cost of raw materials, including lithium, nickel and cobalt, was more than $8,000 per electric vehicle in June 2022. That amount represented an increase of more than 140% since 2020, resulting in the cost of producing an electric vehicle being 125% more to that of an internal combustion vehicle. How many American consumers can afford such expensive cars?
- The Biden Administration has also set a goal to “achieve a carbon-pollution-free electricity sector by 2035.” All these measures clearly hobble the US and reduce its power to compete, while China, already the world’s largest user of fossil fuels, has announced that by 2030, its carbon dioxide emissions will peak… China last year built more new coal-fired power plants than the rest of the world combined — the equivalent of two new coal-fired plants per week.
- All these Biden policies seem almost custom-tailored to reduce America’s ability to compete internationally, while giving China even more room to grow its economy and gain an even greater edge over the US.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Benjamin Netanyahu announces China invite as Biden keeps him at arm’s length
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed Tuesday he has been invited to China before receiving a similar honor from the Biden White House.
- The prime minister’s office tweeted that Netanyahu had informed visiting members of Congress about the invitation.
- “The projected visit will be Prime Minister Netanyahu’s fourth visit to China; the American administration was updated one month ago,” Netanyahu’s office added, without indicating whether the 73-year-old had accepted the invite or when the trip would take place.
- Netanyahu began his third term as prime minister of America’s staunchest Middle Eastern ally in December, but he has yet to be invited to visit Washington by President Biden.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- North Korea holds rally with promise to ‘annihilate’ US
- North Korea held mass rallies across the nation Saturday, which marked the “day of struggle against U.S. imperialism,” when government leaders promised to “annihilate the enemy,” according to its propaganda outlet.
- Rallies were held in each providence of the nation, and an extensive list of government leaders spoke to denounce the U.S. as “imperialist beasts,” according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. The gatherings in Pyongyang reached 120,000 attendees, the propaganda wing reported.
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