ExclusiveChina Hosts Iranian FM Ahead of Trump-Xi Meeting | China in Focus

Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Our top story, Iran's foreign minister is in Beijing as China weighs its role in the Iran conflict ahead of the expected Trump-Xi summit in Washington. The Chinese Communist Party using American organizations to sway public opinion. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are scrutinizing the network. Our trade deficit with China is now one billion euros a day. And the European Union targeting China's unfair trade practices that are putting European companies at a disadvantage. We will use all tools at our disposal to rebalance our relationships. Iran's foreign minister is in Beijing for talks with his Chinese counterpart. The meeting comes days before Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to travel to Washington for a summit with President Trump next week. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqi met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Wednesday. Wang urged Iran and the United States to show restraint and return to negotiations. He also called for the Strait of Hormuz to reopen, citing risks to global energy supplies and supply chains. Araqi and Wang Yi had just spoken at the BRICS summit in India, and then he come to Beijing again. How much more do they have to say between them? In fact, to me, this is a jacking between the two sides ahead of the Trump-Xi summit. This meeting is merely grandstanding, a diplomatic pose with no practical meaning for solving the Iran problem. The meeting comes as Washington and Beijing prepare for another round of high-level talks. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant is set to meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York on Sunday, ahead of President Trump's expected meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the White House on September 24. Washington has recently intensified its economic pressure on Iran. The new campaign, known as Operation Economic Outcast, is targeting Iran's oil revenues, financial networks and sanctions evasion channels, including entities outside Iran. China remains Iran's largest oil customer. Meanwhile, Beijing continues to call for de-escalation in the region. Trump knows where the CCP stands and that it cannot be impartial. The CCP is certainly propping up Iran through various COVID methods that preserve deniability. On September 14, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, USCC, released an updated report tracking the CCP's support for Iran. It states that China remains Iran's most important economic lifeline. And recent reports have also raised questions about possible Chinese military or intelligence support for Iran, including claims that Chinese entities provided satellite imagery to Tehran. The two sides are expected to discuss trade, rare earths and artificial intelligence. Iran is also expected to be part of the discussions, particularly China's financial ties with Tehran. Switching gears to the Huawei trial, a T-Mobile employee testified Wednesday that Huawei employees appear to take photos of a testing robot in a T-Mobile lab when they weren't authorized to be there. The testing robot, called Tappy, is used to test phones before they're released to the market. The Justice Department is accusing Huawei of stealing valuable information about this T-Mobile robot, which Huawei denies. Entity's Juliet Song has the story. Witness testimony and internal Huawei emails show a Huawei employee took photos of a T-Mobile testing robot in 2013 without permission and sent them back to China. The robot is T-Mobile's prized innovation and kept under tight security. T-Mobile uses the robot to stress test phones and tablets to ensure their quality before market release. Huawei was developing a similar device, but there's a gap between Huawei's testing robot and that of T-Mobile. Prior to the incident, Huawei tried to license the robot from T-Mobile, and the latter refused. Huawei employees in the U.S. later gained access to use the robot to test Huawei phones in T-Mobile's labs in Washington state. T-Mobile at one time threatened to cut off that access after Huawei asked too many questions on the details of the robot. A T-Mobile contractor, Trey Villanueva, testified that in 2013 he saw three Huawei employees at the lab at a time when they were not permitted to be there. Among the three were Adam Xiong and Frank Wing. The following day, Trey discovered Frank back at the lab without authorization. Security footage shows Frank taking photos of the robot. Weeks later, security footage shows Adam removed a detachable component used for testing from the robot and put it in his own backpack. When Trey asked him if he saw the device, Adam said he didn't know where it was. Prior to these incidents, Huawei's headquarters in China sent U.S. employees who had access to the T-Mobile lab a list of detailed questions they wanted to know about the robot. Juliet Zong, NTD News. A congressional hearing shines a light on how the Chinese Communist Party works to influence Americans from inside the United States, from U.S. nonprofits to political networks, all while targeting those who oppose the regime. NTD's Washington correspondent, Jack Bradley, has takeaways from Tuesday's hearing. We're here today because America's adversaries, China, Cuba, Iran, Russia, and others, are conducting covert influence campaigns to shape American thought and society through lies and censorship. The Chinese Communist Party's influence campaign doesn't stop at China's borders. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are examining how Beijing uses U.S. networks, whether as media outlets, activists, or nonprofits, to shape public opinion. And the Hearing Central China case study was Neville Roy Singham. Neville Roy Singham. Neville Roy Singham. Neville Roy Singham. Singham's an American tech millionaire who lives in Shanghai and has ties to the Chinese regime. Singham himself has openly collaborated with Chinese Communist Party members and shares office space with a Chinese propaganda agency. The leaders of his nonprofits have openly collaborated with CCP media to rail against U.S. policies. He's also married to the founder of Code Pink, which, along with the People's Forum, are tax-exempt left-wing nonprofit activist groups who've organized protests against ICE, defending former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, and campaigned against U.S. data centers, to name a few. Code Pink launched its China Is Not Our Enemy campaign in 2020 following meetings in Beijing and has since pursued China-focused advocacy and organized travel. The State Department flagged this network back in February, writing organizations like Code Pink and the People's Forum denigrate the United States, whitewash the violence of Marxist regimes, and run cover for narco-terrorists like Maduro while enjoying an influx of cash from a donor network with connections to the Chinese Communist Party. The witnesses at the hearing say foreign influence can also translate into pressure against Americans who oppose the CCP. Visa restrictions, market pressure, intimidation, and legal or administrative costs on the other, for example, lawfare. The panel says that the answer is greater transparency and public scrutiny as Beijing continues looking for ways to shape America's information environment. Jack Bradley, NTD News, Washington. The European Union will use every possible means to reduce its trade deficit with China, the head of the EU, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Wednesday. Take a listen. Our trade deficit with China is now one billion euros a day. It has reached a tipping point. Some say the second China shock is looming, but it's already here. It shows in our communities and factories across our union. It leads to deindustrialization in the industrial heartlands of Europe. Last year, the EU had a trade deficit of 1.1 billion dollars a day with China. Von der Leyen also highlighted the EU's reliance on China for many critical minerals, notably rare earths. Part of the solution is for the EU to establish a new European corporation on critical raw materials to help member countries obtain and stockpile what they need. And to Canada, the EU is opening the door for it to become the EU's first so-called associate member. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney was also in the EU headquarters on Tuesday to listen to von der Leyen's annual State of the Union address. He said Canada was seeking a unique alliance with the EU, but not membership. This so-called unique alliance between the EU and Canada has never been done before. It would not be a membership and it would go far beyond the free trade agreement that the two parties currently have, which is quite all-encompassing. The Commission and Canada are still coming up with ideas, ranging from closer cooperation on defense, security, critical minerals, supply chains and energy. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney has been quite clear that he is not seeking membership, but a new type of alliance that has never been done before. He wants closer cooperation and the EU is very open to that. The EU and Canada have had general conversations so far. The EU has realized that it has traded its dependence on Russian gas for U.S. gas and it's now realizing that it should not depend on an unpredictable partner under U.S. President Donald Trump and it is seeking to diversify. And this would work well with Canada that wants to find other partners. Economically, it could mean a lot more cross-investment and a boost from foreign direct investment from the EU into Canada and vice versa. The EU and Canada already have a far-reaching trade deal that was signed back in 2014. That has not yet been ratified by all member states, though it is in force. It's unlikely that the countries who have not ratified the deal will ultimately do so. There was a lot of resistance in France from farmers to the deal, but there are other trade irritants that potentially the EU could solve. Saudi Arabia and China recorded about $100 billion in bilateral trade in 2025. According to China's Consul General Wednesday, trade between the two countries reached about $50 billion in the first half of this year. That includes Saudi exports to China, mainly oil and other energy products, as well as Chinese exports to the country, including machinery, electronics and manufactured goods. China is Saudi Arabia's biggest trading partner, while Saudi Arabia is China's largest trading partner in the Middle East. China is opening up a new trade route. The Pinglu Canal, announced Wednesday, stretches 83 miles across southern China, connecting the Xijiang River to the Gulf near Vietnam. It also gives inland areas of southwest China a shorter route to Southeast Asian markets, cutting shipping distances by about 350 miles. Officials say it could also lower logistics costs by up to 30 percent, while allowing ships carrying up to 5,500 tons to pass through. Coming up, the U.S.-China race extending into space. The Pentagon is operating space weapons within Earth's orbit. Russia and China are keeping a close eye. More on that after the break here on China In Focus. Welcome back to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. The rivalry between the U.S. and China is extending into space, with satellites and space weapons the frontier of military might. The U.S. acknowledged this week that the Pentagon has weapons in Earth's orbit, a landmark moment that has drawn attention from China and Russia. To discuss, I spoke on Tiffany Meyer tonight yesterday with Rebecca Grant, vice president at the Lexington Institute. The United States now publicly acknowledging it has weapons in orbit. Air Force Secretary Troy Mink making the disclosure Monday at a space conference in Maryland. Today, we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist. This is why the United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action. The comments, the first public Pentagon acknowledgement the United States has deployed these weapons in orbit by the Pentagon, not saying what kind of weapons they are, how many are deployed or when they were put into orbit. The disclosure coming amid rising U.S. concerns about Russia and Chinese counter space capabilities. A U.S. Space Command official calling the acknowledgement a landmark moment. Joining us now is national security analyst Rebecca Grant, vice president of the Lexington Institute. Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us. Always great to have you. First, hypothetically, what kinds of weapons might we have at this point in space versus what our adversaries may have? Well, this is a really big moment and such an interesting announcement. You know, Dr. Mink, who is the secretary of the Air Force, worked in space for many, many decades. He's also a former Air Force pilot. So believe me, every word was deliberate. Now, the Air Force does not want to discuss what kind of weapons it has. And I think that's fine. But I'll just give you kind of the broad possibilities. You can counter other satellites with lasers. You can do it with electromagnetic jamming. You can do it with cyber attack. And you can also do it with physical attack, because satellites are very, very delicate. So those are some of the possibilities. Now, why this is happening is because the Space Force has told us we know that Russia is working, thinking about developing a nuclear on-orbit weapon. That's not what we're doing. And also China has tested a fractional orbital bombardment system and also has some other capabilities as well. So this is the U.S. putting down a marker, number one, to deter any conflict in space. And on that point, there have been reports that Iran has used satellite imagery provided by Chinese entities ahead of a July attack that killed three American troops in Jordan. Could these space weapons be used to counter those kinds of threats? Well, again, probably Iran. We don't know for sure where they got the satellite imagery, but there is a lot of commercial satellite imagery that is available. And shame on whoever sold it to them. But that's a little bit of a different category, because there you have a satellite taking a picture of a facility on the ground and it being passed to Iran, who then used it for targeting, which is terrible. But what we're thinking about here with the space weapons is not so much taking out commercial satellites as defending our ability to do space control. And, you know, so much of our economy is based on the timing signals that come from space. And then our U.S. military is very reliant on space for communications and for sensing as well. So this is about space control, making sure that we are able to use our U.S. space assets for the joint force and then, frankly, in our everyday lives. And when it comes to the threats posed by China and Russia in space, a former senior space official said this during a Senate hearing last summer. Let's take a listen. What about our adversaries, China, Russia? My biggest concern is that the kill web that we call it, that the PRC has put in place, allows them to track and target at great range the rest of the joint force and all the other domains. They've put a very capable ISR web together on orbit. I have to protect the joint force from a space-enabled attack worldwide. What do we, do we characterize that defense by name? Space superiority. And Rebecca, General Saltzman mentioned China's kill web in that clip. Break that down for us. What is it and how concerned should we be about it? Well, it's a big concern because this is a number of Chinese satellites that have been launched, most of them in fairly recent years, and put together, China is trying to have the ability to track the movement of our military forces on the surface of the Earth. So whether that's Navy ships, air bases, et cetera. Now look, there are a lot of tactics that our Navy and our Air Force has to evade that. But another piece here is to be sure that if it came to a conflict, US forces could disrupt and break down and break up China's satellite-based kill web. It's not complete yet, but it's getting to be very, very good. And again, you do that either non-kinetically with electromagnetic radiation, or maybe you do it by knocking out a satellite or two. So this is the United States very deliberately saying, look, we have space superiority and we're going to keep it. And let me tell you, whatever is on orbit that they're talking about, spend there for a little while, is my guess. And lastly, the timing of the Pentagon's announcement is also interesting. We know Xi Jinping's visit to Washington is expected to take place in less than 10 days. What do you make of the Pentagon announcing these space weapons, essentially targeting China in its messaging, just ahead of that summit? Yes, I mean, definitely to get that message to Xi Jinping, but also a bit of a rebuke for probably the assistance that we've seen to Iran to try to target our US forces. And then also, look, our Space Force, been in existence six years, it needs to double in size. And that money is requested in the 2027 budget. We need more ground stations. We need more guardians. Those are the people in the Space Force. We need to continue with important programs like space based airborne moving target indicator. And there's a lot of the golden dome that rests in space to do missile defense. So we really need a bigger Space Force and Congress will be taking up that request with this budget cycle. That's all for today's China In Focus. 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 ChinaInFocus at NTD.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.