#jack beyrer

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D., Pa.) put forward a measure on Wednesday to require all women over the age of 18 to register for selective service. Houlahan said her policy would best draw on the "talents of our entire nation." Only one in three women, however, support adding women to the draft, according to an Ipsos poll. Republicans pilloried the legislation. Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R., Mo.), a House Armed Services Committee member, lampooned the prospect that millions of America’s daughters could be put needlessly in the line of fire.

"I feel confident that in an emergency that the women of this country would step up and volunteer as needed," Hartzler said. "It seems like this is a solution in search of a problem. … We don't need to draft women in order for women to have equality in this nation."

Beihang University, one of China's leading universities for defense research and analysis, scrubbed public mentions of its international educational partnerships from its website minutes after the Washington Free Beacon accessed the page. An Internet Archive record of the list shows the Chinese school has teamed with more than 50 schools worldwide, including 5 American colleges and universities.  . . .

Beihang, which is also known as the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, is one of the seven foremost schools for defense research. Beihang has nine labs specifically devoted to incubating Chinese military experiments and spends 60 percent of its research budget on defense activities. Beihang's most alarming projects include fighter jets, satellites, and ballistic missiles, all platforms that Pentagon simulations identify as cornerstone elements in China's strategy to attack American allies in the Indo-Pacific. In 2001, a Department of Commerce export control order placed Beihang University on a blacklist for its involvement in Chinese rocket systems and drones.

Beihang's opaque relationship with American research universities fits a larger pattern of Chinese military-industrial cooperation with U.S. schools. The Free Beacon reported in January that institutions affiliated with the Chinese military funneled $88 million to American schools over the course of six years. The Trump administration cracked down on such relationships, strengthening accountability and transparency measures that forced colleges to divulge their ties with the communist regime. Chinese educational projects, however, have since begun targeting K-12 programming and university-level exchanges to fly under the radar of government watchdogs.

Beihang has partnered with the University of Michigan, Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon University, Saint Mary's School of Law, and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, according to the list. Course catalogs, social media, and other platforms from all five schools show varying levels of involvement between the American universities and the Chinese military university.

Zhao and Global Times shared a Chinese music video that accuses U.S. officials, including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), of covering up the pandemic's supposed Maryland roots. "This RAP song speaks our minds," Zhao tweeted on Aug. 11. "Instead of caring about facts & truth, [the United States] only wants to consume & malign China," Zhao wrote in a separate tweet.

The Chinese social media campaign attacks the House Foreign Affairs Committee report authored by Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), which offers extensive evidence that the virus emerged in Wuhan as early as September 2019. In one June statement, Zhao—also known as China’s most aggressive "wolf warrior" diplomat— also accused Rep. Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) of using disinformation to blur the origins of the virus.

Meeks introduced the EAGLE Act—the House version of the bipartisan Strategic Competition Act—in May and included measures to boost a global climate change plan while eviscerating sections related to affirming support for Taiwan. Meeks also rejected several suggestions from House Republicans on national security challenges related to the Chinese Communist Party.

Tony Chung, 19, went to the consulate in Hong Kong on Tuesday morning in an attempt to gain political asylum. According to British activist group Friends of Hong Kong, when Chung arrived, the consulate was not yet open, and he realized an individual he believed to be a national security agent had followed him there. After stopping to wait in a coffee shop for the consulate to open, Chung was arrested by men in plain clothes.

Current U.S. diplomatic policy does not allow foreigners to receive asylum at consulates or embassies, as asylum seekers must first arrive in U.S. territory. Political dissidents, however, can apply for refugee status at American consulates.

Friends of Hong Kong said it had lobbied the State Department for Chung’s protection, but Chung felt he could not wait for the extended process.

Rachelle Peterson, a senior fellow at the National Association of Scholars, called the State Department's assessment of American education "spot on." Young people raised with a "biased, disfigured teaching of our own history" will be "receptive to Chinese propaganda," according to Peterson.

"For years, students have been taught American history as an unbroken chain of violated promises, ignoring the groundbreaking work Americans have done to advance the cause of personal liberty and individual responsibility," Peterson said. "Is it any wonder that students, convinced America is inherently bigoted, find Chinese propaganda persuasive?"

The department said Beijing will present an intractable problem for years to come and will not simply be an issue for the current administration.

"The China challenge, so understood, is likely to dominate American foreign policy across many administrations," the paper reads. "The major components of China’s conduct … reveal a great power that sees the transformation of international order as critical to its plans to dominate world affairs."

The paper called on lawmakers to increase investment in state-of-the-art technologies and bolster diplomatic institutions such as the International Development Finance Corporation and the Blue Dot Network to counter Chinese influence abroad. It also asserts that the CCP regime has deep external and internal vulnerabilities that the United States must seize on, such as its declining population and slowing economic growth.

Duke University operates a joint-campus in China with Wuhan University, a public university that repeatedly carried out cyber attacks on behalf of the Chinese military. Northwestern University and the University of California Irvine have together received more than $4 million in research funding from an entity controlled by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, a Chinese defense contractor that used stolen designs of American F-35 fighters to build planes for the Chinese military.

Institutions controlled by the Chinese government—state-owned enterprises, state-controlled public universities, government-controlled nonprofits, and other sources—collectively donated at least $315 million to American colleges between 2014 and 2019. More than a quarter of the contributions—27 percent—came from either state-owned defense contractors or public universities that closely partner with the Chinese military to conduct defense research.

The expenditures indicate that the Chinese government is a much bigger player in U.S. academia than previously thought. State-backed entities often avoid scrutiny as their government ties are not immediately obvious. The $315 million sum, based on federal disclosures, is likely a conservative estimate of Chinese influence peddling on campus. . . .

The Free Beacon combed through nearly 1,000 Chinese donations to U.S. universities logged in a Department of Education database, reviewing each donor to see whether it is formally owned or controlled by the Chinese government. The review found that 198 separate Chinese government entities funneled money to dozens of U.S. universities.

The biggest regime-backed donors were Chinese universities, which collectively donated more than $192 million to U.S. colleges. These donations funded a wide variety of projects, but more than 40 percent of the money came from institutions that have been identified as close research partners of the Chinese military by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's China Defense Universities Tracker.

Many top Biden surrogates, such as former Obama national security official Ned Price and Biden foreign policy aide Tony Blinken, have staunchly defended the Iran deal. Price argued that the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani was a result of President Donald Trump's decision to abandon the deal and would push the United States and Iran to the "brink of open conflict."

The Trump administration has taken a hard line against Tehran, enacting a "maximum pressure" campaign aimed at isolating Iran financially so that it will come to the table under more favorable circumstances for the United States. Special envoy for Iran Elliott Abrams told the Washington Free Beacon that Iran is in extremely poor economic condition. "A lot of money is tied up in various ways by our sanctions," Abrams said.

A Biden administration could enable cash-strapped and isolated Iran to regain ground, especially in its nuclear program, a major area of concern for Jerusalem. The Iran deal’s logic from the Obama-Biden years, according to Hanegbi, was "mistaken—and that’s an understatement."