U.S. Issues Several Warnings Against Traveling to China | China in Focus

Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Our top story. The U.S. government is warning Americans about travel to China in a rare move. Three alerts in just two days. A win for President Trump's trade dispute with China. The Supreme Court ruled to uphold some of his tariffs on China from his first term. The World Cup is in full swing, but are you wearing a real team jersey? Authorities from Indianapolis to Hong Kong are cracking down on millions in fake World Cup merch headed straight for American fans. Hidden inside a sealed everyday auto part, a Chinese tracker went unnoticed in a British Prime Minister's official car. Was sensitive location data beamed straight to Beijing? And a police raid disrupts a Sunday service in China. We have the latest on the detained church leaders and members. The U.S. government issuing serious warnings to American citizens about traveling to China. Three warnings in just two days. The U.S. Embassy in China issued a bilingual warning on Sunday. It said Beijing may target Americans with ties to U.S. government agencies, public institutions or private companies. The scope is broad and covers many sectors. The embassy also said Beijing may target U.S. citizens of Chinese descent. A day earlier, on Saturday, the embassy issued another warning. It said China may enforce local laws arbitrarily that could lead to detention, arrest or even exit bans. And Chinese authorities often do so without a legal process. There's also no clear way to challenge them. In a separate notice that same day, the embassy pointed out that China does not recognize dual citizenship. It warned that people entering China with Chinese travel documents could be denied U.S. counselor help if they face detention or exit bans. The warnings come after China confirmed last Friday that it had detained a U.S. citizen. Ding Xing, a Burmese-American scholar, traveled to China for a conference. He has since been placed under criminal detention on suspicion of espionage and endangering China's national security. The Supreme Court on Monday upheld some of President Trump's first-term tariffs on China. Back then, the federal agency's U.S. trade representative imposed duties on $50 billion worth of imports from China. Beijing reciprocated, prompting the U.S. to modify its original tariff to make it more sweeping. Several American importers filed a lawsuit claiming the Trump administration did not have the authority to modify the tariff so severely. Two lower federal courts sided with the government, and the justices of the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from importers on Monday. That's in stark contrast to the court's decision earlier this year, when it struck down other tariffs from Trump's first term, imposed under a different law. Earlier this month, the U.S. trade representative proposed new tariffs of up to 12.5 percent. The tariffs would apply to imports from 60 countries that Washington says have not done enough to combat forced labor. It's worth noting that China is widely accused of having some of the world's most severe forced labor practices. A pressing issue for the world's seven largest advanced economies at the G7 summit, reducing reliance on China for critical minerals. French President Emmanuel Macron said one of the major outcomes he expects from this G7 is an agreement on Rare Earths, given how important they are for defense and AI technology. China controls 60 percent of global rare-earth production. And after Beijing imposed rare-earth restrictions last year, Western nations all felt the squeeze. European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen said Monday that China's rare-earth restrictions are already affecting the EU's economy. She said it highlights the need for the bloc to diversify its sources of critical minerals. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takeichi says she will propose a plan calling on G7 members to maintain a 90-day supply of critical minerals. The goal is to release those reserves together during an emergency to help ease supply disruptions. And over in the U.S., the Trump administration has been racing to reduce dependence on China for critical minerals. Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted more than 50 countries in February. The administration wants to create a critical minerals trading bloc with its allies to counter China. Once they control that industry and they're the only ones in the world that do it, then they can charge you anything they want but they can also use it against you as leverage or it can be disrupted if there's any sort of global disruption. The administration has also launched Project Volt, a U.S. strategic critical minerals reserve. The effort aims to stockpile 60 critical minerals to support domestic manufacturers. The 2026 FIFA World Cup has soccer fever at an all-time high. As fans rush to gear up, authorities have uncovered massive shipments of fake jerseys and gear aimed at American buyers. A global crackdown has intercepted millions of dollars in counterfeit goods. Customs officers tell you how to make sure your tournament gear is the real deal. The printing of the logo of original jerseys are much vivid and the counterfeits are rough. It is very obvious under the light. The words and logo of the original jerseys are three-dimensional and visibly better layered while the counterfeits are flat. You can feel the difference when touching them. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers recently seized more than 1,500 counterfeit items including hundreds of fake FIFA World Cup jerseys, beanies and team shirts during Operation Winter Circle. If genuine, they'd be worth over $130,000. Hours before kickoff, Hong Kong Customs announced one of their largest hauls ever. 230,000 suspected fake items valued at nearly $20 million. Officials say at least 80 percent of that was heading to America. Earlier this month, Toronto police announced that they made the largest known seizure of counterfeit jerseys in Canadian history including more than 1,600 fraudulent items worth around These fakes are getting harder to spot, often mimicking official designs so closely that only experts can tell the difference. Authorities say more seizures are likely to occur as the tournament heats up. A former British diplomat has revealed to lawmakers that a Chinese tracking device was hidden deep inside a UK Prime Minister's car. It's raising urgent alarms over supply chain security. Yes, the Prime Minister's car in 2022 is emanating data to China through the cellular module. It was the Prime Minister's car. The device, discovered during a routine security sweep, was embedded in a sealed vehicle component imported from a Chinese supplier. Testimony before parliament reveals the component was secretly transmitting location data back to Beijing over mobile networks. The incident occurred under the previous conservative government. The revelation has prompted fresh scrutiny of security measures for high-level vehicles. Experts warn these cheap modules are everywhere, from government vehicles to everyday smart tech. Beijing has denied the claims, calling them groundless. A prominent underground Christian church in China says two leaders and several members were detained during a Sunday service. The incident is renewing concerns about the Chinese regime's pressure on religious groups outside state control. The early reign covenant church says armed police officers raided a gathering in southwestern China. According to Christian persecution watchdog group China Aid, two leaders were detained while dozens of other members were taken away for questioning. The BBC reported that some members say more than 50 officers were involved in the raid, which happened during the Sunday service. Those taken away included elderly members and children. The reason for the detentions remain unclear. Beijing requires many religious groups to operate through government-approved organizations, while some Christians attend underground churches. Rights groups say authorities have increased pressure on those independent communities in recent years. The church has faced government scrutiny before. Its founding pastor Wang Yi was arrested in 2018 and is serving a nine-year prison sentence. Coming up, Google issuing an alert. North American institutions were compromised by hackers tied to the Chinese Communist Party. Concerns over China and advanced artificial intelligence, why the White House is restricting access to Anthropic's latest models. And tensions are rising between Taiwan and China. What's driving the latest developments? And how is the U.S. responding? A geopolitical analyst weighs in. China is not, I can't stress it enough, ever going to play fair. And the Taiwanese have to take that incredibly seriously. More on that after the break here on China In Focus. Welcome back to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Chinese hackers attacking the U.S. The tech giant speaks out. Google says that North American institutions were compromised by hackers tied to the Chinese Communist Party. The tech giant says emails and login credentials related to technology, defense and medical research were targeted. NTD's David Lam has more. Google just announced that hackers linked to China have compromised research organizations across the U.S. and Canada. Google says the sophisticated campaign, launched by a group they call the UNC6508, was targeting institutions in the North American academic, medical and military research communities. The institutions have a combined research budget in the billions of dollars. Now, a chief analyst at Google says the hackers' methods are consistent with Chinese linked hacking activity seen over many years, focused on gathering information likely to be of interest to the Chinese regime. While remaining undetected for more than a year, the group compromised web applications and targeted sensitive information, including data related to national security, artificial intelligence, unmanned vehicle systems and cyber offensive programs. The earliest known compromise occurred in September 2023. A medical research university server was exploited. After three months, malware was deployed to record credentials. Google found that the group created a process that automatically forwarded emails via BCC to an email called bibidabarefoot744 at gmail.com and others. Now, Google says the group was searching for 150 keywords that matched email addresses and phone numbers for certain people in desired communities. Google said it notified the organizations that were affected and offered assistance. It's also encouraging users to enable two-step verification on all accounts and to maintain strong passwords. David Lam, NTD News. The White House is restricting access to one of Anthropic's most advanced artificial intelligence models. Officials say the technology could pose a national security risk. The Trump administration ordered the company to limit access to its powerful Mythos and Fable 5 AI models. According to Reuters, they cited concerns the technology could be used by military or intelligence actors in countries such as China or Russia. A recent report from Semaphore says U.S. officials were concerned a group linked to China may have gained access to Mythos. The report says those concerns helped drive the decision to restrict the model. However, the White House has not publicly confirmed that claim. Anthropic has described Mythos as a highly capable cybersecurity model that can identify software vulnerabilities. It could help companies find security weaknesses. But hackers could also use it to find those same weaknesses. Officials are also concerned foreign governments could attempt to copy the model through a process known as distillation. That's when a less advanced AI system is trained to mimic a more powerful one. The Commerce Department says it used its authority to restrict access to technology it considers critical to national security. Anthropic already blocks access from China. According to the company, Washington's concerns focused on reports that users could get around Fable 5's built-in safeguards, which are designed to prevent misuse. The company has since taken down access for both models, while negotiations with federal officials continue. Tensions continue between Taiwan and China. New reports suggest Beijing is mapping the seabed around Taiwan, and the island just launched a website to accept tips and intel on the communist regime. Meanwhile, the European Union says the Chinese regime is training Russian soldiers. To discuss all of this, NTD Security Dunst was joined by geopolitical analyst Rodney Martin. The CCP has been breaching Taiwan's airspace and maritime coast for a long time. Now they say that they are mapping the seabottom. Is that more saber-rattling in your view, or do you see military action coming from the CCP this time? Well, it's meaningful, but I don't think it necessarily pretends military action being imminent. The Chinese are building a shocking number of submarines. They will soon have, and by soon I mean roughly 2030, they will have more submarines than the United States does. On quality, it's no comparison. The American submarines are vastly superior to anything China is building at present, but quantity has a quality all its own. The more they operate undersea, the more they turn to submarines as a way of thwarting U.S. defense of Taiwan, and for that matter, Japanese defense, now that the Japanese are clearly involved in an active defense of Taiwan. All of that necessitates them having a better measure of their undersea environment, and we're seeing that play out now. And what do you make of Taiwan's now launching this spy tips website to counter the CCP's asymmetric warfare? I think every measure Taiwan can take is to the good. Taiwan is, of course, possessed of what it calls a porcupine defense. It wants to make it so difficult to wrestle Taiwan that no one will try, and that has been an essential part of the Trump administration's efforts to arm them properly, not to attack China, but to blow up an invading army in the water. Okay, well, you also have to deal with the spy threat, and we have the same thing here in the United States. We have a tremendous number of Chinese agents. We know we do. We know they're everywhere. We know that they're looking into everything, and that has subversive effects as well as intelligence-gathering effects. The Taiwanese are very wise in China's own backyard to take every active measure possible to reduce that threat. And in terms of Taiwan politics, to take what you're saying a step further, we see that within the political arena, China is backing unification-type politicians. What do you make of that inside of Taiwan and the non-military aspect of countering the Chinese? Well, being an American, I'm in favor of free speech. If Beijing wants to be persuasive, more power to them. The problem is they will not limit themselves to that. They will use money. They will use infiltration. They will use every possible means to subvert Taiwan from within. China is not, I can't stress it enough, ever going to play fair, and the Taiwanese have to take that incredibly seriously. Certainly, the party in power needs to do everything in its power to prevent that sort of infiltration and subversion. And Rod, as we start to finish up, there's the element of the U.S. supplying arms to Taiwan as well as to the Ukraine, President Trump trying to find the middle path and how to de-escalate while also making sure allies have adequate defense capability. Now there are reports that China is training Russian forces. What are your thoughts on all of that? Well, it appears to be a limited number of forces, about 200 Russians apparently being trained in using Chinese drone technology. I wouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about that, to be honest. The Chinese announced a partnership without limits about a week before Russia invaded Ukraine, and we immediately discovered the limits. The Chinese have not sent troops. The Chinese have not materially helped. And if anything, they have been completely predatory toward their ally, forcing a massive transfer of gold and rubles to Beijing at steep, steep discounts to market for the oil and other things that Russia can supply them. Taiwan should take a note here. There is no way to do business with Beijing that will not rip you off. They have to pay attention to that. But as for the U.S. approach to arming Taiwan, as well as Ukraine, you will note that in the Taiwanese case, as I said, we have supplied defensive weapons, weapons that you wouldn't use to go start a war with China. You would use to prevent China from successfully crossing the strait and invading Taiwan. That has so far largely been composed of HIMARS and the related missiles that HIMARS can launch, such as ATACMS, increasingly prisms, which are quite an extraordinary thing, and that we are upgrading right now to be ship killers. That was not their original purpose, but now we can use prisms and they will just get better over time to blow up ships in the water. So in the ideal configuration, Taiwan would be able to take out enough of a Chinese invasion force in the water, so they never reach land, and then have the howitzers and other weapon systems they need to blow up whatever gets to the beach. That's kind of where we are. The new package that the is mulling includes some more air defenses, and the Taiwanese are working with the Israelis on that as well. I think that we can de-risk this situation meaningfully where it becomes just much too risky from Beijing's point of view to attempt this, but that's going to take a lot of work. Rodney Martin, thanks for sharing your analysis. Thank you. That's all for today's China in Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. If you have any feedback on the show or have something you'd like to see us cover, send us an email at chinainfocusatntd.com. We'd love to hear from you. For on the clock original news coverage, visit us at ntd.com or download our NTD app. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow.