ExclusiveChina Helped Iran Develop Military Drones; Flood Hits Nepal's Border With China | China in Focus

Welcome to China in Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Our top story, a devastating flood hits Nepal's border with China, leaving hundreds missing and destroying roads, bridges and buildings. We take a closer look at the aftermath. Iran's Shahed drones are transforming battlefields in the Middle East and Ukraine. How China helped make it possible. Cracking down on foreign propaganda online. A new bipartisan bill in Congress would force social media influencers to disclose when foreign governments pay them to push political content. Taiwan is returning to a major Pacific forum as China flexes its military reach and the U.S. pushes for a free and open Indo-Pacific. And German companies are facing a growing cyber threat with more attacks suspected of being linked The massive flood leaves a trail of destruction. Hundreds of people are missing after a massive flood swept through villages along Nepal's border with China. At least 160 people have been reported killed, while hundreds of tourists remain unaccounted for. Nepal's tourism board says 384 travelers are missing, including 291 foreign nationals. That includes more than 100 Indian tourists and 47 Americans so far, as rescue teams search the mountainous Rasuwa district. The U.S. State Department says it's closely monitoring the situation. Surveillance video shows people scrambling to escape moments before a mudslide engulfed a border crossing. Floodwaters also destroyed buildings, bridges and roads along the Botakoshi River. Nepali police say the flooding came from the Tibetan side and are urging residents to move to safer areas. The flooding is believed to have been triggered by an earthquake that caused part of a glacier to collapse into a river running through both Nepal and Tibet. Nepal's army and police have been deployed to help with rescue and relief efforts. Iran Shahed drones are transforming modern warfare made possible by China. Powered by Chinese components, the drones are lending Russia and Iran a hand on the battlefield. They damaged a U.S. base in Bahrain, forcing service members and contractors to evacuate. And Russia has been fielding Shahed drones using more advanced engines from China, making it harder for Ukraine to intercept. The Iranian Shahed drones are relatively cheap, costing only $20,000, and it can fly up to 300 miles per hour. The Shahed drones have inspired the U.S. to create its own version. America reverse-engineered Iranian technology to design a drone called Lucas. The drones have been used to strike Iranian military targets. It took Iran decades to develop the Shahed drones. Analysts say Iran likely used designs from Israeli drones that were used to take out radar systems. In the early days, the Shahed drones were used for reconnaissance, but they weren't very accurate. Iran later pivoted towards suicide drones because they could cause significant damage. And there's another big obstacle. Iran still needs an engine to endure high speed and temperatures for hours. The best option available was designed by a German company. Iran likely obtained some using intermediaries. In 2017, a Chinese company bought the German engine maker, making it easier for Iran to source the engines. Iran later developed its own engines, but still relied on cheap components from China. As for the Western parts needed for the drone, Iran got them through Chinese intermediaries. Shahed companies in Hong Kong would order parts from Western suppliers to conceal that they were bound for Russia or Iran. Some of what you see on social media might have been paid for by America's adversaries. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is working to require social media influencers to disclose when they're being paid by foreign governments. New bipartisan legislation would require social media influencers to disclose when they're being paid by a foreign government. It's being called the Foreign Propaganda Registration Act, introduced by Congresswoman Ana Paulina Luna, and it's meant to stop U.S. adversaries from pushing propaganda through American influencers, making foreign political messaging seem like homegrown concerns. Although we are unique in the sense that we have the, you know, First Amendment and free speech here, it's nice to think that other countries aren't going to use that against us, and they do. Her bill's backed by both Republicans and Democrats, including Congressman Jared Moskowitz, who's long been calling out foreign adversaries weaponizing social media. Our foreign adversaries cannot beat us militarily, but what they can do through social media platforms is they can sell Americans propaganda to get us fighting, to get us hating each other. And this issue's increasingly common. The Chinese Communist Party has, for years, been paying off Western media influencers to sway public opinion and slander anyone critical of the party. China-linked actors have attempted to pay otherwise unaffiliated social media influencers in the United States to broadcast pro-Beijing content on topics ranging from conditions in Xinjiang to, quote, saying good things about U.S.-China relations to claims that COVID-19 originated in the U.S. deer population. The State Department estimates that China spends billions of dollars annually on foreign manipulation efforts. One of the most high-profile cases of this includes the Chinese regime's efforts to silence religious dissident groups, like Falun Gong, a peaceful spiritual practice heavily persecuted in China. China started hiring YouTubers. They offered – I'm pretty sure I got offered this at some point. I got an email where they were like, we'll give you $200 to post this video to your YouTube channel. And then I looked at the video and it was a guy being like, these really weird people, Falun Gong, what's this about? And then it was like a mini-doc that was like five to ten minutes long from some white dude complaining about this group. And I'm like, I ain't posting that to my channel. What is this? But a lot of people were like, 200 bucks, I'll take it. And U.S. adversaries are weaponizing social media in another way. The U.S. Navy just sent out a warning to service members to remove any content on social media linking them with the Navy. Officials say America's adversaries are actively mining such data on social media to threaten them and their families, including doxing, harassment, and surveillance, showing that social media is increasingly being utilized as a new battleground by U.S. adversaries. Jack Bradley, NTD News, Washington. A new Air Force-linked study finds deep ties between U.S. universities and China's top military research labs. The report counted more than 200 interactions, including joint laboratories, co-authored research, and conference collaborations. The contact involving fields like aircraft engines, underwater sensors, and missile-related technology. A few examples cited in the study include Purdue's joint labs with a Chinese aviation university and Harvard's collaboration with a Chinese defense-linked institute. The findings come as the Pentagon orders 30 U.S. schools to review their foreign research ties by the end of the month, with new funding restrictions on flag institutions taking effect next year. Taiwan's foreign minister is heading to Palau to rejoin the Pacific Islands Forum after being pushed out by Beijing last year. This comes as China expands its military presence across the while the U.S. continues pushing for a free and open Indo-Pacific. After being locked out last year under intense pressure from Beijing, Taiwan's foreign minister is heading to Palau this week, attending the side events of the Pacific Islands Forum. This year, Taiwan participates as a developing partner and is doubling down on soft power. The island nation will team up with private sector leaders to fund digital resilience, clean energy, and smart health care. It's a direct match with America's push for a free, open, and resilient Indo-Pacific. While Beijing offers heavy infrastructure, Taiwan and U.S.-aligned partners are offering long-term resilience. The visit comes after China launched a strategic ballistic missile into the South Pacific last month. As Beijing expands its military footprint near critical U.S. supply lines, Taiwan's presence acts as a vital buffer along the second island chain. German companies are facing a growing wave of cyberattacks they suspect are linked to foreign intelligence services. A new study finds more than a third of companies hit by cyberattacks traced at least one incident to a foreign intelligence service in the past year. According to Digital Industry Association Bitcom Wednesday, that figure rose to 37% from 28% the year before. China and Russia were the main suspects of the attacks, with 52% of affected companies pointing to China and 49% to Russia. Iran was cited in 9% of cases, as German officials warn of a growing threat from cyber and hybrid attacks. Organized crime remains the biggest source of attacks, affecting 62% of companies surveyed. Bitcom says the line between criminals and intelligence agencies is increasingly blurred. The group estimates cybercrime, including data theft, espionage and sabotage, costs German companies at least $245 billion a year. The study also found attackers are increasingly turning to AI, including deepfakes and automated scams. Eight in 10 companies expect the use of AI in cyberattacks to increase. Coming up, Chinese and Hong Kong entities were hit by U.S. sanctions for aiding Tehran's economy, but Beijing signaled it won't stop working with Iran. Rick Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, brings his insights. More on that after the break here on China In Focus. Welcome back to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. The Chinese Communist Party has signaled it won't stop working with the Iranian regime. That's after Chinese and Hong Kong entities were hit by U.S. sanctions for aiding Tehran's economy. Entities Kerry Dunst spoke on Tuesday with Rick Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, for more insight. It seems like we're at a standoff now with China over Iran, and we're just now weeks away from the scheduled summit at the White House with the regime leader Xi. So what do you expect to happen next, and how might China respond? China is being cornered, finally. Its major intervention into the Middle East, into the chaos of the Middle East, is its all-around assistance to the terror regime in Iran. And the Trump administration, the Treasury Department, is finally signaling that it is rallying the trucks, and it is going to surround and isolate China from much of its access to the U.S. dollar trading system if it does not comply. Sanctions have been announced. The timelines are being worked out. The banks have not yet been identified, but that clearly is the next target. Xi Jinping knows that. Donald Trump and Xi Jinping will be meeting in September with this prospect of a major American economic move that could very much impact China's economy, and thus its political stability, hanging over this meeting. Yeah, very interesting. I'd like to go a level deeper with you to explain. You mentioned the bank. So what type of punitive measures are going to be applied to China if they don't comply, and how would that be enforced? Well, the United States has already sanctioned one small bank called the Kunlun Bank. And what sanctions mean for a bank in that case is that it does not have access to U.S. dollars to conduct trade and business. Half the world's trade is conducted in dollars. Only 5% is conducted in China's currency, the yuan. So if you want to be a bank that has international access and can do business all around the world, you have to be able to deal in dollars. Now, the other banks that are servicing China's commerce with Iran are also relatively small. They're not the big four. But if China retaliates, and there are counter retaliations that end up threatening the access of the big four to the dollar system, then you're talking about a trade war, and a trade war that will directly affect the prosperity and stability of the People's Republic of China. Now, Rick, the Treasury has identified a shadow fleet that's delivering oil to China. It's estimated China is buying 90% of Iran's crude. So how is that oil getting around the blockade in the first place? Through a system of rogue oil tankers that are owned by various countries. The tankers, in many cases, are meeting on the high seas to transfer the Iranian oil to other tankers that then make their way to China. It's a complex system, a lot of moving parts that are constantly changing. This is essentially the equivalent of your arcade whack-a-mole game. I see. And as you mentioned, as we started off, should the operation be successful, China gets totally cut off from Iran, then what would that mean for the Chinese Communist Party's broader foreign policy strategy at that point? Well, first, the Chinese economy loses access to about 10%, 12% of its imported petroleum. That's a huge hit. It'll definitely affect China in their GDP. But what it will also signal is that the United States, at least, is willing to confront China's predation, China's spreading and support for dictatorships around the world. It's just one major element of China's promotion of a very bad dictatorship, the terror regime in Iran. But these sanctions could be expanded to attack China's commerce with Russia, another evil dictatorship waging war against democratic Ukraine and threatening war against our allies in Europe. Well, as you mentioned, China being cornered, finally, those are some escalating words indeed. We'll have to see what happens over the next days. And by the end of this week, Rick Fischer, thank you so much for joining. Thank you. The US-Canada trade war is escalating. After trade talks collapsed, the Trump administration imposed 50% tariffs on $27.6 billion of Canadian goods. Canada is fighting back with dollar-for-dollar tariffs of its own, set to take effect September 8th. To discuss entities, Arlene Richards was joined by political analyst Christian Briggs, economist and CEO of Hard Asset Management. What do you think about this move by Canada? Well, I think it's a mistake. Canada is a great trading partner. I think that Carney is trying to do the best he can to navigate in really uncharted waters. I mean, there's never been quite the back and forth on the tariffs between our two countries in history. And quite honestly, if you look at the tariffs that Canada applies on American goods, not just dairy products, but a lot of other things of which that they put on extreme tariffs, like 200%, 250%. President Trump is absolutely within his right to negotiate even 25% to 50%. But remember, President Trump was only negotiating at 5% of what the Canadian products we were looking at from us selling back into them or them into us. So it's really a small amount, but Canada is going to lose this no matter what. I think it's a mistake for him, Carney, to go out and then automatically just say, this is a tariff war. No, it's a tariff negotiations is what it is. Now, Trump announced 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. So if Canada simply absorbed that without responding, would Ottawa have less leverage in future negotiations? Oh, that's a good question. Oh, yeah, probably. I mean, there's a lot of negotiations going back behind the scenes. We know this. I know Ludnick, Secretary of Commerce was involved in the last minute negotiations trying to make sure that the United States interests were really put on the table. And I do believe that Ottawa is probably looking at this saying, okay, now we want to negotiate or we want to try to leverage something for everybody. I think the biggest thing that I'm going to say out of this negotiations, it's really about oil too. There's a lot of value in the Keystone Pipeline. Canada has this ability with all of their oil resources, some of the largest in the world to be able to capitalize on that. And what President Trump's trying to do is say, look, you need money, you're running some high unemployment, you need cash like anybody else, any country needs good, solid GDP growth, and a domestic energy policy. And if Carney was really truly understanding the Canadian demand of the oil that they've got, then the Keystone would be part of the equation. They could really, I would say, negotiate something even better for Canada, but they're really not even trying to do that. They're trying to look like they're in control. Ottawa is trying to get involved, which it may or may not play out for them. But at the end of the day, Canada needs to realize you're a $1 trillion GDP, if that much, we're a $33 trillion GDP. We buy $900 billion worth of goods from you. You may want to come back to the table and be more realistic on what you can expect. So how economically costly will this be for Canada? Because it imports a lot of goods from the US. Oh, absolutely. Canada will, at the end of the day, look at the Canadian dollar after the negotiations fell apart yesterday. We're seeing a huge drop in the Canadian dollar. Now, some might say, oh, that's good, because now their goods and services become less expensive in theory when their currency weakens. That is true to a point. But remember, you want a strong currency because you're still buying things around the world. And when your currency drops, yes, your domestic production of products becomes a little more attractive. But your purchasing power from other goods and services that you're going to buy around the world can cost you more. It's inflationary. So the last thing Canada needs right now is inflationary pressure. They don't need, like anybody else right now with oil prices where they're at, still hovering around $80 plus a barrel. So Canada is going to lose some incremental GDP or economics on this deal if they don't come back to the table. It's mathematics. Look, it's not personal. It's not emotional. I mean, it might be for some, but at the end of the day, it's math. It's economics 101. You need us more than we need you. But we love you guys. We love Canada. That's what President Trump's trying to say. We want to do business with you, but just make it a little more fair. Well, if we flip the script here and look the other way around, how much economic pain will these Canadian tariffs actually impose on the US? Not much. Not much at all. I mean, you're talking about a $33, $34 trillion economy. It's not the amount of money I think that what people need to realize. It's the art of the deal. What President Trump's trying to do is negotiate everywhere he can a fair deal on every product that he looks at and says, this isn't fair. Why do we have to ship dairy products to Canada that are high quality? People love our products in Canada. And yet we get slapped with a two to 250% tariff on that. We're not sitting and putting tariffs on that kind of stuff on anybody coming into our country, unless it's some kind of a predatory selling, predatory pricing, which is a willful intent to hurt the economics of the United States and underlying national security policy, which is our dollar and our manufacturing. So short of all of that, there's no reason why you want two or 300% on a product that we're selling into Canada, unless you're trying to play hard ball and protect or subsidize your own dairy farmers, which is fine. People do it. Countries do it. We do it to some degree, but not to those levels. So it's not going to really hurt us a lot. It's really about the art of the deal, making sure that everybody leaves the table and they gave up something, but no, it's not going to hurt the United States whatsoever. 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.