A new report reveals a growing divide among U.S. allies over China.
Titled <a href="https://polaris-us.org/docs/stars-and-stragglers.pdf">Stars and Stragglers</a>, the report from Polaris National Security examined 20 countries across technology infrastructure, economic policy, military cooperation, and diplomatic positions.
&#8220;This report qualitatively assesses which U.S. allies and partners are doing the most to help or hinder America’s efforts to counter China’s economic, technological, military, and diplomatic influence,&#8221; the report states.
Ten of those countries are designated as &#8220;Stars&#8221; for taking concrete steps to limit Beijing&#8217;s power. The remaining nations are designated as &#8220;Stragglers&#8221; for strengthening their ties with China.
The report broke down &#8220;Stars&#8221; as &#8220;Allies and partners helping America counter Chinese aggression and influence.&#8221; &#8220;Stragglers&#8221; were &#8220;Allies and partners failing to counter China — and even undercutting U.S. efforts to do so.&#8221;
Australia was designated a &#8220;Star.&#8221; The nation banned Huawei, absorbed Chinese tariffs without folding, and, according to the report, &#8220;committed nearly $3 billion to expand U.S. and British submarine capacity.&#8221; It joined a critical minerals push with the United States and received a $400 million conditional loan for an aerospace and defense project.
Japan also received a &#8220;Star&#8221; designation. The report stated that &#8220;Aside from Taiwan, no U.S. ally sits closer to the front lines of China’s ambitions than Japan.&#8221; The Far East nation also views China as its &#8220;greatest strategic challenge.&#8221;
The remaining &#8220;Stars&#8221; are: India, Israel, Lithuania, Palau, Paraguay, Philippines, Taiwan, and Ukraine.
Nations designated as &#8220;Stragglers&#8221; are heading in the opposite direction. Brazil&#8217;s trade with China hit $171 billion — more than double its trade with the U.S., while Huawei holds about 44% of its 5G networks.
Canada cut tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles from 100% to 6% and set a goal of raising exports to China by 50%.
South Korea does roughly $340 billion in trade with China, and about half of its rare earth mineral imports come from there, per the report. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung president called the continued partnership with Beijing &#8220;irreversible.&#8221;
France&#8217;s President Emmanuel Macron has told audiences that China is welcome in Europe and has pushed for more Chinese investment in nuclear and artificial intelligence.
Thailand has approved a $10 billion high-speed rail project under the CCP&#8217;s Belt and Road Initiative that will eventually connect Bangkok to China. It also continues joint military exercises with Chinese forces.
Sebastian Borda, executive director of Polaris National Security, expressed what was at stake for the U.S.: “China is the defining national security challenge of our time and the United States cannot meet it alone.”
He added that “many allies are stepping up but others have yet to match that resolve.” Borda said U.S. allies face a choice to “share the burden of deterring China or leave America to shoulder it alone.”
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Some U.S. Allies Are Selling Out To China

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In a cold, sterile room, officials at two long tables, separated by a wide divide, sat, staring. On one end, Team USA was represented by the Biden administration. On the other end, Team China. As U.S. officials slowly rolled out each scripted word, they informed the People’s Republic of China of their modern-day human rights abuses. <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/03/26/china-defends-itself-on-human-rights-by-pointing-to-history-of-slavery-in-us/">Then came China’s turn</a>. Staring down the barrel of the divide, right into the eyes of America’s top diplomat, the Chinese leader spat out, unscripted, that the U.S. no longer spoke from a position of strength; it had no authority to lecture on human rights abuses.
They painted the picture of America’s human rights abuses as “deep-seated … they did not just emerge over the past four years, such as Black Lives Matter.” On the issue of forced labor, Chinese officials rebuked the U.S., saying it had no moral authority to judge. They then proceeded to show pictures of their machine cotton production versus America’s historical production through slavery.
Even through a screen, you could feel the air sucked out of the room.
And that’s when I realized, as a public relations professional, China was officially on track to win the PR war. Just a few short years later, it looks like they’ve done just that.
This month, the Pew Research Center <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/07/15/people-in-many-countries-now-view-china-more-positively-than-the-u-s/">released a blockbuster report</a> showing that more nations had a favorable view of China than the U.S. The data also pointed to an indisputable trend: most countries still believe America respects its citizens’ freedom more than China does, but that gap is rapidly shrinking. Across the board, global sentiment toward China trended up. Pakistan topped as China’s biggest fan. But most telling, the countries with the highest regard for the U.S. were those in China’s crosshairs: Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and, most interestingly, India.
I can attest to this. As someone who grew up in Taiwan, the closer you are geographically to China, the more acutely aware you are of its striking capabilities. Literally. The <a href="https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol52/iss3/2/">mid-90s Chinese missile attacks on Taiwan</a> are seared in my mind, as my school operated daily air raid simulations. The people who live closest to China’s power often have the least romanticized view of it.
But lest you think this positive shift is just a global phenomenon, it’s not. We’re seeing the same trend here in America.
Pew also noted <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/04/14/americans-views-of-china-have-grown-somewhat-more-positive-in-recent-years/">Americans are steadily warming to China.</a> Today, over a quarter of Americans have a positive view of China, doubling over the last three years. Just like the global data, 2023 seems to be a pivotal year, with the graphs showing, pretty much across the board, most countries softening their views on the PRC. Why is that? I’m not sure anyone knows for sure. But as a PR professional, I’m convinced it is in part due to China’s refreshed messaging.
Every PR practitioner knows that two of the biggest PR metrics are message pull-through and audience sentiment. China appears to be excelling at both. The ultimate victory isn’t when someone repeats a paid message but when they repeat it organically, in their own words, believing it’s their own conclusion. Scroll through TikTok, and you’ll see videos of young influencers comparing the human rights abuses of America vs. China, debating who is more “imperialistic.”
Look at top streamer and socialist political commentator Hasan Piker. His recent trip to China was viewed millions of times as he stood in Tiananmen Square, not mentioning the atrocities but rather holding a Chinese flag, stating he had <a href="https://thehill.com/video/hasan-piker-blasted-for-china-livestream-i-dont-have-any-patriotism-for-america/11256155/">“no patriotism in his heart for America.”</a> Later, he showed reverence for former communist dictator Mao Zedong by claiming he would never criticize him. In an interview with a <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/us/diplomacy/article/3343845/hasan-piker-talks-about-his-controversial-china-trip-and-thinking-chinese-thoughts">Chinese news outlet</a>, Piker said that China&#8217;s social contract outperforms America&#8217;s, emphasizing the country’s perceived achievements.
When it comes to positive sentiment, it’s not just Piker; we can also look at social media to reflect the patterns found in the Pew data. Social media accounts share “Chinamaxxing” content: A social trend where Gen Z romanticizes the communist nation and adopts Chinese aesthetics. For years, experts <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/5432077-tiktok-china-influence-us/">recognized the significant impact</a> China’s use of TikTok can have on its 170 million U.S. users. Even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/19/the-guardian-view-on-perceptions-of-superpowers-the-world-isnt-chinamaxxing-its-america-avoidant">The Guardian points out</a>, “China is increasingly investing in overseas influence operations, including working with or amplifying local social media content creators.” It appears that the CCP understands a critical point of PR sentiment: You don’t have to win complete adoration; sometimes reducing opposition is victory enough.
I see this in my personal interactions as well. Because I grew up in Taiwan, many people share their thoughts with me about China. And what I’ve heard is a definite softening on <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/china">China’s human rights abuses</a>. “They just want to be left alone” or “They only want to operate in their sphere.” They paint China as some geopolitical Greta Garbo, when that’s just not the case.
It’s why Chinese President Xi Jinping recently described U.S.-China relations through the framework of the <a href="https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/discussing-thucydides-trap">Thucydides Trap</a>, wishcasting his nation to surpass the U.S. as the global superpower. It’s why <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1630978524684413">U.S. farmers are alarmed at American farmland being sold</a>. Even Hollywood can’t produce some American movies without agreeing to zero mentions of the <a href="https://www.heritage.org/china/heritage-explains/how-china-taking-control-hollywood">“Three Ts”</a>: Taiwan, Tibet, or Tiananmen Square.
China doesn’t need to convince Americans that it’s good. It just needs to convince us we’re hypocritical. Make us feel its ambitions are harmless. The latest Pew data confirms China’s global sentiment is improving, while its talking points are increasingly repeated by Americans themselves. By the two measures I know best, sentiment and message pull-through, the country appears to be gaining. Regrettably, China has been waging the PR war for years — and it appears to be winning.
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Emily Osment Davis is a writer and communicator with a background in non-profits and politics and a not-so-secret love of celebrity gossip. She covers the space where Hollywood meets D.C. — because sometimes the two aren’t so different. You may have read her work in Newsweek, USA Today, Fox News and more.

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Is China Winning The PR War?

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&#8220;Death to America.&#8221; These are the only words Tim Sheehy needs to hear to understand what motivates the Iranian regime. The senator from Montana and former Navy SEAL understands this threat and doesn’t hesitate to speak plainly about what is at stake for America and the broader Middle East. In this weekend&#8217;s Punch interview, DW talks with Sheehy about the importance of the fight with Iran to the future of the region and American interests, the rise of radicals within our borders, and his views on the Trump administration’s foreign policy strategy.
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Ben Domenech: Why do you think that what <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/republican-senator-delivers-blunt-message-on-iran-talks">you had to say</a> about this current situation with Iran hit a nerve with a lot of people?
Tim Sheehy: I don&#8217;t have any problem with us trying to come to an agreement with Iran. That&#8217;s not the issue. My issue&#8217;s not with the administration or the negotiating teams. The issue is with Iran. And as one of the few people on the Hill who actually fought the Iranians directly, and their proxies, who spent years of my life — and my wife&#8217;s a combat veteran and all my friends — fighting against the Iranian influence. I think it gives us a very clear-eyed realization of how insidious the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and their proxy groups really are and how brutal and barbaric they actually are.
Their designs on the world don&#8217;t end with Israel in the Persian Gulf or with Azerbaijan. They want a global caliphate, and they will literally kill everybody to get that caliphate. And they don&#8217;t want to kill them in a lethal injection snap of a finger. They want to brutally wipe us off the face of the earth, like what happened on October 7.
They want us to be in pain. They want us to be burned alive and destroyed. So I think we have to keep that in mind, and trust cannot be a component of our negotiations. We cannot have them say something, and we say something, and we trust that they&#8217;re going to carry it out. And I support President Trump and his team&#8217;s campaign. I think it was way overdue — the first president ever to do this. And I support getting a resolution to the conflict that truly has structural limits around it because we don&#8217;t want to invade Iran.
We don&#8217;t want 500,000 troops there. But I simply feel propelled as someone who fought there and who lost friends to Iran, to remind our side of this negotiation that we need to not forget who we are dealing with. We need to remember what they&#8217;re capable of and what they want because we don&#8217;t have to think or assume what they want; they tell us that every single day, and they act on it every single day. And that is death to America, death to Israel.
BD: Do you think that there is an attitude of naiveté about the Iranians that has perhaps seeped in over the last couple of years, just given the fact that people are so tired of foreign wars, but particularly of Middle East wars, that they perhaps downgrade that threat mentally?
TS: I think that is the wrong answer. I think it&#8217;s just general non-awareness of the threat. I mean, the average American, the average politician, the average person who works in government is not aware of what Iran has done, does every day, and is capable of. They&#8217;re just not. And that&#8217;s a good thing, Ben. That&#8217;s the whole point of these forever wars that everyone hates, and I get it. I fought them, too. I don&#8217;t like forever wars, but we&#8217;ve been able to keep this terrible threat at bay thousands of miles away for the last 50 years. And that&#8217;s a good thing. As a result, the average American, luckily, doesn&#8217;t have a personal experience with radical Muslim psychopaths who want to murder them and their family. And as a result, they&#8217;re like, &#8220;What&#8217;s the big deal? Why do we care about Iran? I don&#8217;t want six-dollar-a-gallon gasoline; this is unpopular. Let&#8217;s get back to bringing inflation down, housing prices down, and immigration under control.&#8221; All very valid points, and they&#8217;re not wrong, but they&#8217;re also just not aware that because we&#8217;ve kept these savages at bay, they actually still exist. And not only do they exist, but they also want to come kill us. And I don&#8217;t want it to be another 9/11. I don&#8217;t want it to be another October 7. And I certainly don&#8217;t want to funnel billions of dollars, as Obama did, into a terrorist regime that wants to kill all of us in any way possible. So I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s naive today. It&#8217;s generally not awareness of the reality of it. And I think the vice president and his team are cheering on the president&#8217;s directive to try to bring an orderly close to this. And I think it&#8217;s very important.
I&#8217;ve expressed skepticism about our ability to get a deal. I have not expressed skepticism about the president and his team at all. I&#8217;m simply reminding everyone that our counterpart here is not trustworthy. And our counterpart will say and do anything to create time and space to rebuild themselves and come at us. They have a very long view on this; they’re not in a hurry. They say, &#8220;You know what? Fine. This guy Trump, he&#8217;s pretty tough on us. Let&#8217;s just play nice. Let&#8217;s get a few hundred billion dollars of revenue. We&#8217;ll act like nice people for a couple of years until he&#8217;s gone, and hopefully we&#8217;ll get another Biden or Kamala or Mamdani for Christ&#8217;s sake. That would be a dream come true.&#8221; And then they&#8217;re like, &#8220;Great, we&#8217;re back, baby.&#8221; And then, with all the money we give them access to, they&#8217;ve rebuilt a whole new infrastructure.
One thing we did learn from this is that a lot of people underestimated how many drones and missiles these dudes really built. They had them buried everywhere, like squirrels with acorns. And on every mountain, they had a goddamn cave full of missiles. And we&#8217;re like, &#8220;Where did those come from? Oh, they came from the American taxpayer when we gave them the money to build them.” And I&#8217;ll be goddamned if we let that happen again.
BD: You talk about radical Muslim psychopaths. I think that you could be talking about them or you could be talking about the latest round of Democrats who ran and won in New York this week. Why do you think the Democratic Party is tolerating this degree of psychopathy on its side? And do you think it&#8217;s actually a more serious problem than perhaps Republicans have been paying attention to? As much as they talk about it, I feel like they didn&#8217;t take it seriously.
TS: I don&#8217;t think they did. And once again, I try not to be a history professor, but sometimes you have to remind people where these issues come from. As you well know, the Red Green Alliance goes back a long way. Radical Islam and Marxist communist ideology have been interwoven for the last 60 years. This is nothing new. The IRGC is really the most virulent example of that. The Ayatollah Khomeini’s rise in 1979 was very much a Red-Green alliance. So this collectivist, Marxist-revolutionary mindset is interwoven with radical Islamic ideology in many ways. And it&#8217;s always been there. Hell, even the Civil Rights movement and the Black Panther Movement were very tied in with that. Muhammad Ali changed his name because of that. So there&#8217;s always been that tie. But I think what&#8217;s happened lately is there&#8217;s been a very targeted investment into our media markets by Muslim influencers who don&#8217;t like us.
They&#8217;re paying off people to say things specifically to incite opinions and events that are obviously, number one, antisemitic and number two, anti-American. It&#8217;s a very engineered attempt to undermine the fabric of our society. And the Democratic Party, of course, traditionally the home base for the American Jewish voter, shockingly became their vessel to do this. I shouldn&#8217;t say shockingly because, actually, it makes perfect logical sense, because the Democratic Party has drifted more and more into the Marxist direction of the past couple of decades, which again, is a natural home for radical Islamic ideology.
So I&#8217;m not surprised by this per se, but I am disappointed that the establishment hasn&#8217;t made a stronger effort to clarify their moral positioning. Because at this point, as you know, the Democrats for the last 30 years, anytime there&#8217;s a policy disagreement with Republicans, we&#8217;re racist, we&#8217;re Nazis, we&#8217;re homophobes, we&#8217;re transphobes, and we&#8217;re sexist. Pick your name, and they call us that. Well, now they&#8217;ve embraced an ideology that literally murders gay people, that stones women to death, that condones the rape and murder of innocent families on October 7, and then condones terrorist attacks that have killed thousands of Americans.
In a terrible way, it&#8217;s politically good for Republicans because they have removed any moral high ground, if they ever had any, to accuse us of being anti-women, anti-minority, or racist. They don&#8217;t have a soapbox anymore because their flagship candidate – the leader of the Democrat Party today – is Zohran Mamdani. That is who leads the Democrat Party. That is their mascot, and that is their messaging platform.
BD: You mentioned that this has been something that&#8217;s been fomented. There&#8217;s an interesting piece that ran in New York magazine recently called “Your Feed Is Fake,” which dug into the number of essentially AstroTurfed campaigns designed to help things go viral. They were looking at it in the context of mostly Hollywood, but also other things. Just to give one example, there were firms that were hired around the Sydney Sweeney Jeans ad that were fomenting and pushing both sides of that argument, meaning the negative and the positive at the same time, to gin up more activity. Do you think there needs to be some kind of transparency requirement, or more government attention, to the number of people out there who are paid influencers advocating for these DSA plans because they are everywhere?
TS: There absolutely should be. And to your point, I do think, though, the podcast-social media influencer world has reached its peak because I think in the 2024 election, we saw that the podcasters were a game changer, the influencers were a game changer, and that&#8217;s because it was legitimate. And I think it&#8217;s been so saturated now. There are so many podcasts, and so many fake influencers with AstroTurf content, that the average person is now starting to just not believe any of it, and they don&#8217;t have the bandwidth to absorb it all. So I think we&#8217;re going to start to see the influence wane. I think it already is waning, but I do believe, just like in TV commercials, there should be a requirement to disclose who&#8217;s paying for this. You can&#8217;t run a political ad without saying who&#8217;s paying for this and this is no different. So that would obviously fall within my purview as a member of the Commerce committee. And I think there&#8217;s already been discussions about that to say, listen, you should be forced to disclose who&#8217;s paying you for this podcast.
If a foreign government gave you $20 million to buy your podcast, well, you need to say that because if you&#8217;re going to pretend like you&#8217;re in your basement in the heartland with your Coors Lite beer and a rifle on the wall and act like you&#8217;re a red-necked hillbilly, but in fact, you&#8217;ve been bought by the Chinese Communist Party, well, we should know that.
BD: The issues related to Iran obviously flow into other foreign conflicts. And one of the big open questions is what does this mean for China – particularly their interest in Taiwan? Do you think that, given the way this played out, it makes China&#8217;s attempt to take Taiwan and absorb it more or less likely?
TS: I think on the whole, this whole campaign makes it less likely. Number one, we had a tremendously successful military campaign, and despite the media just looking for any reason to bash the president, despite the Democrats being abjectly un-American during this process by going after our troops. It was disgusting how the internal backstabbing was happening here against our campaign, against the country that&#8217;s been working after 47 years. So I think we displayed a level of precision and ferocity in those strikes all the way from Midnight Hammer through the latest campaign that China said, &#8220;That&#8217;s oppressive. They can&#8217;t do that.” But let&#8217;s not forget that China has not fought a war since the Korean War, from 1950 to 1953. So they have a big paper-tiger military that should not be underestimated but is not combat-tested, unlike ours. So we showed extreme capability and ferocity in our targeting. That&#8217;s going to give them a good bit of pause.
At the same time, look at Ukraine and say wow, Russia – big, giant, big bear Russia – they&#8217;ve been beaten back and essentially knocked into a stairway now by little old Ukraine with a bunch of off-the-shelf drones and scrappy fighters and trenches.
So China will realize it&#8217;s a lot harder to project military power, especially across a body of water, than you think. It has really only been one time in history where military power has been successfully projected amphibiously over a body of water. That&#8217;s America during World War II with our island-hopping campaign and the Normandy invasion. It&#8217;s really hard to quickly and effectively move thousands of people across a body of water without getting your ass kicked. So I think that will be a tale of caution.
At the same time, though, if China is able to hack this deal in some way on the backend and recognize revenue from a very dependent Iran.
China is always dependent on cheap, sanctioned Iranian oil. That’s been a superpower for their economies. They get oil for cents on the dollar. With Iran being weaker than ever, they&#8217;re going to be more and more desperate to make a deal with China, and they may even give them cheaper oil, and China can take more of it for cheaper. Additionally, sanctions-dodging will continue. No matter what we do, they aren’t going to follow any sort of sanctions regime. So they&#8217;re going to want to try to find a way to continue to use the Chinese yuan as their exchange currency for oil, and that’s, of course, good for China and bad for us. So on the whole, this is going to be worse for China and the designs on Taiwan, but in the end, they might have better access to Iranian oil.
BD: I’m just going to ask a question on behalf of one of our younger staffers. She said, &#8220;Why didn&#8217;t we just keep bombing, and why didn&#8217;t we bomb the IRGC?”
TS: Well, that&#8217;s obviously a question for the executive branch. I&#8217;m not in the chain of command, so I can&#8217;t give you specific reasoning why. The reality is probably that a full collapse of the government would have required the follow-on commitment of ground forces, be they American, allied, Kurdish, or others, which I think would have required a broad alliance to support. And my assumption is that at the time, nobody wanted that. The American people have made it very clear they&#8217;re tired of ground wars in the Middle East. They don&#8217;t want it. And I think that the president said, &#8220;Listen, we&#8217;ll do what we have to do, but I think we can probably get this done without that.&#8221; And I think that&#8217;s where it ended up. However, I&#8217;ll say the president is absolutely locked and loaded and ready to go back in again for another round should they welch on these talks and resume their bad behavior.
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Don’t Trust Iran, They Want Us All Dead

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Weekend Punch: Michael Sobolik On Defeating Red China

For most high-ranking diplomats, a misprinted nameplate would be a minor annoyance or a subtle dig. For Marco Rubio, it&#8217;s a victory.
When the Secretary of State joined President Donald Trump for Thursday&#8217;s bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, his last name was slightly misspelled. The reason? Beijing has twice sanctioned Rubio and effectively barred him from entering the country. But Rubio is America&#8217;s top diplomat, and Trump would not have undertaken such a high-stakes state visit without him. So, the Chinese Communist Party devised a linguistic workaround to allow Rubio entry without formally lifting the sanctions.
Chinese Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said this week that the sanctions targeted Rubio’s “words and deeds when he served as a U.S. senator concerning China.”
According to Garrett Exner, those words and deeds comprise a “remarkably clear-eyed&#8221; assessment of the CCP&#8217;s faults.
“Likely because of his Cuban background, Rubio sees communism for the evil it is and has no issue calling it out,” Exner, a fellow at the Hudson Institute, told The Daily Wire. “It is a win for President Trump that he forced China’s hand in changing their own rules to bring his Secretary of State.”
As a senator, Rubio was a leading critic of Beijing&#8217;s treatment of the Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang region and an outspoken supporter of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. For that and more, China brought the hammer down on Rubio in 2020 — something the then-Florida senator met with humor.
“Last month China banned me,” Rubio wrote at the time. “Today they sanctioned me. I don’t want to be paranoid but I am starting to think they don’t like me.”
Rubio&#8217;s joking tone in no way belies an unserious approach to China. While traveling to China aboard Air Force One, Rubio described Beijing as America’s top geopolitical rival and <a href="https://x.com/foxnews/status/2054668282288873637?s=46&amp;t=ghpHusspWPjTMisXwpsMaA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">warned</a> that it seeks to displace the United States as the world’s dominant power.
“It’s both our top political challenge geopolitically and it’s also the most important relationship for us to manage,” Rubio said. “It’s a big powerful country and it’s going to continue to grow.”
Rubio added that the United States and China will inevitably have conflicting interests but argued the relationship must still be managed carefully to avoid military conflict.
“We’re going to have interests of ours that are going to be in conflict with interests of theirs; to avoid wars and maintain peace and stability in the world, we’re gonna have to manage those,” Rubio said.
Years earlier, Rubio contrasted China with Russia, arguing that Chinese ambitions posed the more serious long-term threat.
“Under Putin, Russia is trying to undermine the U.S.,” Rubio <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1122829094956294149" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote in 2019</a>. “But Xi aims for China to displace us. Putin efforts must be addressed. But in the big picture Xi challenge is a far bigger threat.”
In another 2019 <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1118153016505507841" target="_blank" rel="noopener">X post</a>, Rubio wrote: “Problem isn’t people of China — it’s Xi govt economic cheating &amp; stealing &amp; human rights abuses.”
Rubio has also repeatedly singled out Chinese President Xi Jinping personally, arguing that Xi’s leadership has damaged China’s global standing through aggressive foreign policy, human rights abuses, and COVID-era secrecy.
In a 2020 <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1265608222414643200" target="_blank" rel="noopener">post</a>, Rubio wrote that “history will say Xi’s aggressiveness backfired &amp; inflicted tremendous damage on China globally,” citing the mass detention of Uyghurs, “Coronavirus coverups,” and the rise of China’s so-called “Wolf Warrior Diplomats.”
<h3>Rubio’s Long Campaign For Uyghurs</h3>
One of the primary reasons Beijing sanctioned Rubio was his outspoken criticism of China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region, which has included accusations of mass surveillance, persecution, arbitrary arrests, torture, forced labor, sexual violence, forced sterilization, and genocide. China has denied such abuses have taken place.
In 2020, Rubio <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1317059934551494657" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declared</a> that China’s actions amounted to “a systematic state sponsored crime against humanity.”
He later <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1319639154272161801" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pushed</a> the State Department to formally determine whether Beijing’s actions constituted genocide.
Rubio additionally introduced the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which was signed into law in 2021. The law blocks goods made with forced labor in Xinjiang from entering American markets.
Rubio also has a history of calling out American corporations he believed were benefiting from Chinese forced labor practices, <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1432422169666072576" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criticizing Nike</a> in 2021 for selling products made by &#8220;600 Uyghurs in forced labor at the factory in Qingdao.&#8221; But the treatment of Uyghurs is not the only venue for Rubio&#8217;s vehement criticism of China.
<h3>Rubio Supported Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Protesters</h3>
Rubio emerged as one of the most vocal supporters of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019 and 2020, which were met with a brutal crackdown from the Chinese government.
At the time, Rubio repeatedly accused the Communist Party of violating its international commitments and dismantling the territory’s promised autonomy.
In May 2020, Rubio <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1263630684830171139" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blasted</a> Chinese officials after they accused him of placing “unjustifiable pressure” on China.
“Wrong,” Rubio responded. “China’s Communist Party is breaking its international commitments to respect Hong Kong’s autonomy &amp; democracy.”
Rubio also <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1838" target="_blank" rel="noopener">introduced</a> the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, legislation authorizing sanctions against Chinese and Hong Kong officials responsible for undermining freedoms in the territory. The bill received near-unanimous support in Congress.
In 2019, Rubio <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1161592939778334721" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> that Hong Kong was “a cautionary lesson for anyone thinking about any deal with them.”
“They signed a treaty promising autonomy &amp; democracy for Hong Kong,” Rubio said. “They will agree to anything to get a deal. But they have no intention of keeping those promises.”
In 2020, Rubio warned that the Chinese Communist Party “should never be trusted to keep any international agreement they enter into,” <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1263543790683504640" target="_blank" rel="noopener">arguing</a> that Beijing “will lie to get any deal” before ultimately doing “whatever they want” once it serves their interests.
<h3>Rubio Repeatedly Defended Taiwan</h3>
Throughout his career, Rubio has never shied away from one of the most contentious issues between the United States and China: Taiwan. Rubio has consistently defended Taiwan and rejected Beijing’s territorial claims over the self-governing island.
In 2020, Rubio warned that China would attempt to intimidate Taiwan through propaganda and psychological pressure.
“But they will fail,” Rubio <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1263075520360701954" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>. “Taiwan will not be scared into surrendering their liberty &amp; America stands with them.”
Rubio also pushed for stronger U.S. diplomatic engagement with Taiwan, including urging the Trump administration in 2019 to send a high-level American official to events marking the anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act.
“Taiwan faces unprecedented threats from China,” Rubio <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1102937750339239942" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>. “The U.S. must make our support clear.”
After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Rubio also argued that the international community should support Taiwanese independence if China was willing to recognize Russian-backed separatist territories.
“Since China supports recognizing the independence of Russian puppets in Ukraine maybe it’s time the world supports the independence of the legitimate government of Taiwan,” Rubio <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1498825760924176391" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> days after the invasion.
In October, Rubio reassured Taiwan supporters by saying the Trump administration would not negotiate away Taiwan’s future in exchange for a trade deal with Beijing.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t think you&#8217;re going to see some trade deal where, if what people are worried about is we&#8217;re going to get some trade deal or we&#8217;re going to get favorable treatment on trade in exchange for walking away from Taiwan,&#8221; Rubio <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/china/rubio-says-taiwan-should-not-be-concerned-about-us-china-talks-2025-10-25/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. &#8220;No one is contemplating that.&#8221;
<h3>Rubio Fought For Truth On COVID</h3>
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rubio emerged as one of the leading voices demanding accountability from Beijing and investigating the origins of the virus.
In 2020, Rubio accused the Communist Party of politicizing the pandemic and exploiting the crisis “for publicity and profit.”
“It proves how they politicize everything because everything, even public health, is subservient to the party,” <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1250461554979594243" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rubio wrote</a>.
In a <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-Y4_IN8_19-PURL-gpo212742/pdf/GOVPUB-Y4_IN8_19-PURL-gpo212742.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lengthy report</a> released in 2022, Rubio pointed to evidence suggesting Chinese authorities may have known about a dangerous outbreak well before publicly acknowledging it in December 2019.
The report also argued there were signs of a possible “serious biocontainment failure or accident” involving the Wuhan Institute of Virology during the second half of 2019.
In a 2023 Fox News <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1649035485648388097" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a>, Rubio said that China does not want the world to know how COVID started.
“This probably was a lab leak accident. Someone got infected, it has now spread across the world and the totalitarian Communist government in China doesn’t want the world to know about it.”
In an <a href="https://senatormarcorubio.medium.com/the-chinese-communist-party-is-dangerous-deceptive-and-self-serving-d7fdc7cb4890#" target="_blank" rel="noopener">op-ed</a> the same year, Rubio argued that the COVID origins controversy was only one example of broader Chinese infiltration efforts targeting American institutions and corporations.
“The Chinese Communist Party is dangerous, deceptive, and self-serving,” Rubio wrote.
Rubio pointed to reports claiming CCP members were embedded inside major Western companies and called for legislation targeting Chinese influence operations, espionage efforts, and military cooperation loopholes.
<h3>Rubio Warned About Chinese Espionage In America</h3>
Rubio has repeatedly warned that the Chinese government was using students, researchers, and businesses to advance Beijing’s military and intelligence capabilities.
In 2020, Rubio praised moves targeting Chinese students allegedly involved in stealing American research.
“Good move to address China using some students at our universities to steal research &amp; advance military capabilities,” <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1265951910886019072" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rubio wrote</a> regarding Chinese graduate students being expelled if they have ties to China’s military schools.
At the same time, Rubio warned Americans not to direct hostility toward ordinary Chinese citizens.
“This must be addressed in a targeted way while rejecting xenophobia,” Rubio added. “Remember, China’s govt often entraps its own people into this.”
Rubio also pushed <a href="https://joewilson.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-joe-wilson-r-sc-and-senator-marco-rubio-r-fl-introduce-the" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legislation</a> aimed at exposing Chinese influence operations inside American universities.
In 2018, Marco Rubio introduced the Foreign Influence Transparency Act, which sought to require organizations such as Confucius Institutes to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act if they promoted the political agenda of a foreign government.
“This legislation aims to bring greater transparency to the activities of foreign governments operating in the United States,” Rubio said at the time, arguing the bill would strengthen foreign funding disclosure requirements for colleges and universities while closing loopholes that allowed Chinese government-linked entities to operate on more than 100 American campuses.
With even Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-takes-a-spontaneous-2028-presidential-straw-poll-vance-or-rubio" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stoking speculation</a> as to whether his Secretary of State will run for president in 2028, it&#8217;s clear that Rubio isn&#8217;t going anywhere. No doubt Beijing is thinking a lot about that.

CHINA-US-DIPLOMACY

Sanctioned By China, Marco Rubio Represents America In Beijing

Marco Rubio

In a very literal sense, Taiwan is moving westward toward China, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. The tectonic plates that have shifted over millions of years, creating the island’s mountain terrain, are also driving it slowly and irrevocably toward the mainland. That notoriously craggy terrain is expected to act as a deterrent to any attack from the People’s Liberation Army from across the Taiwan Strait, a lane of the Pacific which runs as narrow as 100 miles and for the most part shallower than 100 meters. For the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan lies just out of reach. It is the military equivalent of skipping a smooth rock.
Taiwan’s position as a locus of China’s ambitions go beyond the temptation of seizing hold of the island’s burgeoning chip industry. It is the path to becoming a true ocean-ruling power, breaking out of the chain of Western-allied archipelagos that run along the Pacific Ring of Fire. To extend the PLA’s untested forces and grasp Taiwan isn’t just a matter of national pride to further the One China policy. It is a giant step toward the global dominance China’s leader, Xi Jinping, wants to transform into an inevitability — his lifetime’s legacy for the PRC.
For critics who have questioned the interests of the United States in its military support for Taiwan, the explosion of the semiconductor industry came at an unfortunate time. Beyond the obvious American interest in defending against the expansion of China’s brutal communist regime, Taiwan is now dominating the global foundry of chips — including more than 60 percent of the market overall, and 90 percent of the most advanced versions, central to the pursuit of artificial intelligence dominance. Taiwan&#8217;s innovations made their independence essential at exactly the same time protectionists and isolationists wanted to press the case the island is utterly dispensible.
How very inconvenient.
The question that confronts Donald Trump now as he wings his way to the long-anticipated meeting with Xi Jinping is how clearly he will make that importance known. There is no security, market, or historical incentive at this point to concede the long-held position of the United States toward Taiwan — bolstered most recently in a December package that included $11 billion in weapons for the island. But there is the question of how dedicated the Taiwanese are to their own defense, after the opposition to Taiwan’s president — who holds the largest portion of legislative seats — nixed a major package that would’ve significantly increased their defense spending, opting for a half measure that cut back on domestic drone production and their air defense systems. The opposition’s leader, Cheng Li-wun, has courted accusations that she’s working to diminish the island’s deterrence capability — a storyline that only grew after she chose to <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2026/05/taiwans-parliament-passes-pared-back-supplementary-defense-budget/">meet</a> with Xi Jinping in person last month.
For the people of Taiwan, there is also the question of time. Opposition to the acceptance of China taking over their republic is largely the view of older members of society, and the youngest people on the island seem increasingly open to the idea. The constant influence of PRC-backed social media campaigns and outreach efforts to exert soft power over the minds of youths absolutely has something to do with this. For a population that is facing a gargantuan decline — their fertility rate fell to the lowest in the world last year at 0.7 — perhaps all China will have to do is wait them out.
The PRC has telegraphed its Taiwan-related intent for this meeting all along. It wants to tempt Donald Trump by appealing to his personal vision as a peacemaker — particularly in the context of the Iran conflict — by asking for an alteration to stated U.S. policy, or just to have the president declare publicly that he opposes Taiwan’s independence. The propaganda victory alone would send a shudder through the island’s political leadership and would be a coup for Xi Jinping, even if it may seem like a low-cost offering from President Trump for potential economic gain.
In this context, the meeting this week takes on a whole new importance when it comes to dictating the future — not just for AI in the West, but for Donald Trump’s legacy as a world leader. He has restored a hardened focus on America’s interests, particularly in the Western Hemisphere. As dedicated as he is to ending Iran’s chances at becoming a nuclear power, some of his advisors might use that effort’s uncertainty as a justification for sacrificing America’s interests in Taiwan.
If there’s one thing we know about this president, it’s that, as much as he listens to those around him, he keeps his own counsel on the right path forward. There is no wisdom in being remembered as the president who gave China what it craves most. And in a brutal sense, so long as the PRC’s energy is directed at this one infuriatingly productive mountainous island the size of West Virginia, it is spending less time on everything else it would like to do to become the global superpower of Xi Jinping’s dreams. Trump is a gambler, wagering the cost of breaking norms and diplomatic rituals on his, and America’s, strength. Today, that is a cost worth paying.

TOPSHOT-TAIWAN-SKOREA-US-CHINA-DIPLOMACY

Trump Holds The Future Of Taiwan In His Hands

Leftist New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez struggled to answer when asked how the United States should respond to China&#8217;s threat to take over Taiwan.
Ocasio-Cortez was part of a panel at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, alongside Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker. The panel focused on discussing U.S. foreign policy, but when the moderator asked Ocasio-Cortez if the United States should &#8220;commit U.S. troops to defend Taiwan, if China were to move,&#8221; the far-Left Democrat struggled to come up with an answer.
&#8220;I think that, uh, this is such a — you know, I think that this is a, umm — this is, of course, a uh, a very longstanding, umm, policy of the United States,&#8221; she began. &#8220;Uh, and I think that what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure we never get to that point, and we want to make sure we are moving in all of our economic research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
AOC is asked if the US should defend Taiwan in the event China invades. Her answer is a word salad disaster that would even make Kamala cringe: <a href="https://t.co/jgfMWiSfmE">pic.twitter.com/jgfMWiSfmE</a>
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) <a href="https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/2022477481576440253?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2026</a></blockquote>
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The Daily Wire reached out to Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s office, asking for clarification on her response.
Earlier during the panel discussion, Ocasio-Cortez said the wedge between the United States and China is more about &#8220;competition&#8221; than &#8220;conflict.&#8221;
&#8220;I think China is, of course, an ascending global power, growing very quickly, acting in its own self interests,&#8221; she said. &#8220;And oftentimes in Washington, there&#8217;s this frame between conflict and competition. I think sometimes depending on what&#8217;s happening, that rhetoric can get a little conflict-driven, and I think that it&#8217;s really a question of competition.&#8221;
In another panel on &#8220;the rise of populism&#8221; on Friday, Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://youtu.be/rbmPHFIFC_U?si=I6QoD5oaxBNn8r8H&amp;t=2062">attempted</a> to describe President Trump&#8217;s shift to a new strategy on foreign policy and how the rest of the world has responded. Her remark, however, left people wondering what she meant.
&#8220;I think what we are seeking is a return to a rules-based order that eliminates the hypocrisies around when too often in the West, we look the other way for inconvenient populations to act out these paradoxes, whether it is kidnapping a foreign head of state, whether it is threatening our allies to colonize Greenland, whether it is looking the other way in a genocide. Hypocrisies are vulnerabilities, and they threaten democracies globally.&#8221;
Ocasio-Cortez was mocked over her answers on foreign policy and &#8220;the rise of populism,&#8221; with some commentators making comparisons to former Vice President Kamala Harris, who regularly made head-scratching remarks on the campaign trail and in interviews.
Both Ocasio-Cortez and Whitmer are viewed as potential Democratic presidential candidates who could compete for the nomination in 2028, but neither the governor nor the congresswoman seemed prepared to answer questions on important foreign policy topics during the Munich Security Conference panel.
In one <a href="https://x.com/Th_Midwesterner/status/2022681978911309884">exchange</a>, Whitmer was asked what she viewed as the solution to the war between Ukraine and Russia, but she tried to redirect the question to Ambassador Whitaker.
&#8220;No, please, I&#8217;d love to hear your answer,&#8221; Whitaker said after Whitmer asked him to take the question.
&#8220;The two that I am on the panel with are much more steeped in foreign policy than a governor is,&#8221; Whitmer said. &#8220;I do think that Ukraine&#8217;s independence, keeping their land mass and having the support of all the allies, I think is the goal from my vantage point. Go ahead, ambassador, do a better job.&#8221;

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

AOC Spits Out Word Salad When Asked About China, Refuses To Say If U.S. Should Defend Taiwan

Global Politics

Gretchen Whitmer

Politics

President Donald Trump dismissed concerns about instability in China after purges of its military reached inside President Xi Jinping’s inner circle.
“As far as I’m concerned, there’s one boss in China. That’s President Xi. That’s the president I’m dealing with,” the president <a href="https://x.com/RedWave_Press/status/2017942149577224459">told</a> reporters on board Air Force One on Saturday.
In response to a reporter, Trump said he is not concerned about Beijing’s “stability” after the government announced a corruption investigation into its top ranking military official and a close Xi ally.
“I think President Xi is the boss. I watch it very closely, and he’s highly respected in China. He’s the boss,” said Trump.
China’s Ministry of National Defense <a href="https://www.news.cn/legal/20260124/33406074879940878fd3102178790920/c.html">announced</a> on January 24 that General Zhang Youxia, the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission that controls China’s military, is suspected of “grave violations of discipline and the law.” General Liu Zhenli, the head of the military’s Joint Staff Department, is also under investigation, according to the announcement.
Investigations under China’s authoritarian government almost always result in guilty verdicts. Officials that fall under investigation are often never heard from again. Zhang and Liu have both disappeared from the public recently, though their absences alone had not been enough to rouse suspicion that they had become targets in the ongoing shakeup of China’s military, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/world/asia/china-top-general-xi-military-purge.html">The New York Times</a>.
The allegations against Zhang are especially noteworthy because of the vaunted position and deep level of trust Zhang was previously assumed to enjoy in Xi’s inner circle. Zhang and Xi are childhood friends. Each of their fathers were revolutionaries in Mao Zedong’s army. Zhang was second only to Xi in the hierarchy of the Chinese state.
The investigations into Zhang and Liu are just the latest in an ongoing purge of top military officials since 2023. Beijing has characterized the purge as an effort to root out corruption in the military. The campaign has taken down officers and personnel up and down the military hierarchy, as well as civilian executives of military arms manufacturers. Many of those targeted had been handpicked into their positions by Xi.
Zhang and Liu’s forced absences mean that of the six generals Xi appointed to the Central Military Commission in 2022, only one is left: General Zhang Shengmin.
“Xi may have purged them because he saw them as undermining his leadership and military objectives,” says an <a href="https://understandingwar.org/research/china-taiwan/xi-jinpings-military-purges-leave-him-increasingly-powerful-but-isolated/">analysis</a> from the Institute for the Study of War. “The CMC purges consolidate Xi’s control over the military but risk isolating him or surrounding him with sycophants, which in turn risks military miscalculations.”
The military purges have taken place as concerns grow that Beijing may attempt a military takeover of Taiwan, a nation to which Beijing has already made territorial claims.

Donald Trump, Xi Jinping

Trump Dismisses Concerns About China’s ‘Stability’ After Purge Of Top Military Official

Donald Trump

Legendary American rock climber Alex Honnold stunned the world yesterday when he scaled the 1,667-foot skyscraper Taipei 101 in Taiwan without any safety equipment.
The entire 90-minute event was broadcast live on Netflix on Saturday with a ten-second delay after being postponed due to weather earlier in the week. 
“It was like what a view, it’s incredible, what a beautiful day,” the 40-year-old climber said afterward, per <a href="https://apnews.com/article/alex-honnold-taipei-101-solo-climb-netflix-cfe8960237290086cdee581075056fbf">Associated Press</a>. “It was very windy, so I was like, don’t fall off the spire. I was trying to balance nicely. But it was, what an incredible position, what a beautiful way to see Taipei.”
Honnold has done major climbs before, but nothing to this scale. Spectators watched captivated as the climber ascended the massive skyscraper, at one point, going hands-free, gripping only with his legs.
A huge crowd of onlookers watched from the ground and in the building, which Honnold said was not the usual for him. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
ALEX HONNOLD AFTER COMPLETING HIS FREE SOLO OF TAIPEI 101: &#8220;Sick.&#8221;
The 101 story climb took 1 hour and 35 minutes <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SkyscraperLIVE?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SkyscraperLIVE</a> <a href="https://t.co/TIzeRqiUcM">pic.twitter.com/TIzeRqiUcM</a>
— Netflix (@netflix) <a href="https://twitter.com/netflix/status/2015255348215742822?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2026</a></blockquote>
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“When I was leaving the ground, you’re like oh it’s kind of intense, there’s so many people watching,” he said, per the AP. “But then honestly, they’re all wishing me well. I mean basically it just makes the whole experience feel almost more festive, all these nice people are out supporting me and having a good time.”
The father of two first went viral in 2017 after becoming the first person to “free solo” on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, climbing 2,900 feet without safety equipment. The 2018 biographical documentary “Free Solo,” is about Honnold’s climbing career and won a BAFTA and an Academy Award.
&#8220;Free solo&#8221; in rock climbing means climbing without any ropes or harnesses. It’s the most dangerous form of climbing and often proves fatal. One mistake can easily result in death. 
Another climber, Alain Robert from France, climbed Taipei 101 in 2004 upon its completion. At the time, it was the tallest building in the world. However, Robert utilized ropes and harnesses for his ascent.

Alex Honnold

American Climber Scales Taiwan’s Tallest Skyscraper Without Any Safety Equipment

Climber Scales 1,667-Foot Skyscraper With No Safety Equipment, Live On Netflix

free solo

Mountain climbing

Sports

United States

China&#8217;s foreign ministry announced sanctions on Friday targeting 10 individuals and 20 U.S. defense firms, including Boeing&#8217;s St. Louis branch, over arms sales to Taiwan.
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said the United States strongly objected to the Chinese move, which freezes any assets the companies and individuals hold in China and bars domestic organizations and individuals from doing business with them.
Individuals on the Chinese list, including the founder of defense firm Anduril Industries and nine senior executives from the sanctioned firms, are also banned from entering China, it added.
Other companies targeted include Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation and L3Harris Maritime Services, and Boeing&#8217;s St. Louis branch, which focuses on defense work.
The Chinese action appears largely symbolic given China&#8217;s lack of dealings with U.S. defense firms, whereas it has been a major purchaser of Boeing civilian aircraft.
The move follows Washington&#8217;s announcement last week of $11.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, the largest ever U.S. weapons package for the island, drawing Beijing&#8217;s ire.
&#8220;The Taiwan issue is the core of China&#8217;s core interests and the first red line that cannot be crossed in China-U.S. relations,&#8221; a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement on Friday.
&#8220;Any provocative actions that cross the line on the Taiwan issue will be met with a strong response from China,&#8221; the statement said, urging the U.S. to cease &#8220;dangerous&#8221; efforts to arm the island.
China views democratically-governed Taiwan as part of its own territory, a claim Taipei rejects.
The U.S. is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, though such arms sales are a persistent source of friction with China.
The State Department spokesperson said this policy had &#8220;remained consistent across nine different U.S. administrations and contributes to the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.&#8221;
&#8220;We strongly object to Beijing’s efforts to retaliate against U.S. companies for their support of U.S. arms sales that support Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities,&#8221; the spokesperson said, while urging Beijing to cease military, diplomatic, and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taipei.
Boeing has been in talks to sell Chinese carriers up to 500 civilian jets, according to a report in September, which would represent a major breakthrough for the company in the world&#8217;s second-largest aviation market, where orders have stalled amid U.S.-China trade tensions.
(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Joe Bavier, Peter Graff and Alistair Bell)

The two sides clashed with missiles. trade war. Flag of the People’s Republic of China. Flag of the United States. Taiwan flag

China Hits U.S. Defense Firms With Sanctions Over Arms Sales To Taiwan

Department of Defense

World

President Donald Trump aims to prevent conflict with China over Taiwan and the South China Sea by building up U.S. and allies&#8217; military power, according to a new U.S. strategy document.
The Trump administration laid out its approach to one of the world&#8217;s most sensitive diplomatic issues in an official National Security Strategy document, released on Friday. It comes as Beijing ratchets up pressure on democratically governed Taiwan and Japan, deploying vessels across East Asian waters this week in its largest maritime show of force to date.
&#8220;Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority,&#8221; said the document, a periodically updated vision statement from the administration to Congress and the first since Trump took office in January.
China views Taiwan as its own, and Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. China also has vast regional claims, including almost the entire South China Sea, which are disputed by many of its smaller neighbors.
The United States has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan but Washington is the island&#8217;s most important international backer and is required by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. The issue has been an irritant in U.S.-China relations for years.
The document&#8217;s language on Taiwan is stronger than the national security strategy produced during Trump&#8217;s first term in office. The document in 2017 mentioned Taiwan three times in a single sentence, echoing longstanding diplomatic language.
The updated strategy, however, mentions Taiwan eight times across three paragraphs and concludes that &#8220;there is, rightly, much focus on Taiwan&#8221; because of its strategic location in trade-rich waters and dominance in semiconductor manufacturing.
&#8220;We will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere,&#8221; in the chain of islands stretching from Japan to Southeast Asia, said the latest document. &#8220;But the American military cannot, and should not have to, do this alone. Our allies must step up and spend &#8211; and more importantly do &#8211; much more for collective defense.&#8221;
That will reinforce &#8220;U.S. and allies&#8217; capacity to deny any attempt to seize Taiwan&#8221; or any other steps that would &#8220;make defending that island impossible,&#8221; the report said.
50% off DailyWire+ annual memberships will not return for another year, so don’t miss this deal! Join now at <a class="c-link" href="http://dailywire.com/cyberweek" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="http://DailyWire.com/cyberweek" data-sk="tooltip_parent">DailyWire.com/cyberweek</a>.
Trump, a Republican, has largely avoided directly saying how he would respond to a rise in tensions over the island.
Trump&#8217;s penchant for dealmaking and effort to seek closer ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping have kindled fears in the region of weakening U.S. support for Taiwan and regional allies from Tokyo to Manila. Trump plans to travel to Beijing in April, where the leaders will discuss extending the truce in their trade war.
Last month, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi drew Beijing&#8217;s wrath when she told parliament that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan that threatened Japan could justify a military response. Trump privately asked Takaichi not to escalate the dispute with China, Reuters previously reported.
But Trump also signed a new law requiring his administration to regularly review how it interacts with Taipei. It also approved the sale of fighter jet and other aircraft parts to Taiwan for $330 million. Both were seen as signs of support by Taiwan. Trump has also pressed Japan and South Korea, two key regional allies, to hike defense spending.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; editing by Philippa Fletcher, Don Durfee and Diane Craft)

Donald Trump/Xi Jinping

Trump Unveils Strategy To Deter China From Invading Taiwan

The United States’ <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-state-dept-approves-possible-sale-taiwan-fighter-jet-spare-repair-parts-2025-11-14/">approval</a> of a $330 million arms sale to Taiwan on Thursday represents both a symbolic and strategic turning point in U.S.-Taiwan relations under President Donald Trump’s second term.
The package — <a href="https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2025/taiwan-confirms-more-weapons-acquisition-from-u-s-amid-rising-china-tensions?utm">covering</a> spare and repair parts for Taiwan’s fleet of F-16 fighter jets, C-130 transport aircraft, and other military planes — marks the first U.S. arms transfer to the island since Trump returned to office in January. While modest in dollar value relative to past transactions, the approval underscores Washington’s continued commitment to Taiwan’s defense amid escalating Chinese military pressure.
The Pentagon described the deal as vital for maintaining the operational readiness of Taiwan’s air fleet and improving its capacity to meet “current and future threats.” By ensuring Taiwan’s aircraft remain mission-capable, the sale strengthens the island’s ability to counter frequent “gray-zone” incursions — non-combat pressure tactics by China that test Taiwan’s air defenses through near-daily aerial and maritime patrols.
The sale is expected to take effect within a month, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, which praised Washington for sustaining a regularized schedule of support. Taipei’s presidential office thanked the U.S. for continuing its long-standing arms sales policy, calling the deepening defense partnership a cornerstone of peace and stability across the Indo-Pacific.
Taiwan’s appreciation contrasts sharply with Beijing’s fury. The Chinese Foreign Ministry reiterated that the “Taiwan question” remains the “first red line” in China-U.S. relations, calling the sale a serious violation of the one-China principle and the three bilateral joint communiqués that frame diplomatic engagement. China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, warned that such U.S. actions interfere in its internal affairs and damage its sovereignty.
In recent years, Beijing has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/china-sanctions-two-us-defence-firms-selling-taiwan-weapons-2024-04-11/?utm">imposed</a> penalties on defense companies linked to Taiwan arms sales, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics. These sanctions, ranging from property freezes to entry bans on executives, have become Beijing’s primary diplomatic tool to protest U.S. military support for the island.
Under the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), passed in 1979 after Washington severed formal ties with Taipei, the United States is legally bound to provide weapons of a “defensive character.” While maintaining unofficial relations, Washington remains Taiwan’s most significant arms provider and security partner. The Trump administration’s approval of the $330 million sale reflects continuity with that legal mandate while signaling that U.S. strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific still hinge on preventing Chinese coercion.
This latest transaction follows a series of U.S. arms sales over the past two years, including a <a href="https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2024/02/23/2003813944?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$75 million package</a> in February 2024 and a $385 million package in November 2024, both of which aimed to upgrade Taiwan’s communications, radar, and fighter capabilities.
Collectively, these deals address a significant delivery backlog — valued at more than $21 billion as of early 2025 — that has long constrained Taiwan’s defense modernization. The recent approval also comes shortly after the 24th U.S.-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference in Maryland, where officials projected that arms sales could reach record levels in 2026 once Taipei passes its new multi-year defense budget, potentially exceeding 3% of GDP.
The latest sale thus serves as a reaffirmation of Washington’s strategic resolve to equip Taiwan with the means of self-defense while recalibrating relations with Beijing amid regional power competition. For Taipei, the decision reinforces deterrence and operational endurance against China’s intensifying military drills.

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