Tag: United States Politics and Government

Senators Accuse TikTok of Misleading Congress on U.S. User Data

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Two senators sent a letter to TikTok’s chief executive on Tuesday, accusing the company of making misleading claims to Congress around how it stores and handles American user data, and demanding answers to more than a dozen questions by the end of next week. The letter, from Senators Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, and Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, focused on how sensitive data about American users may be stored in China and how employees there may have access to it. The lawmakers said recent reports from The New York…

China Investing in Open-Source Intelligence Collection on the U.S.

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Why It Matters: Beijing’s open-source intelligence collection could give it an advantage. As the relationship between the United States and China has become more adversarial, both countries are investing more in their intelligence collection capabilities. With Beijing’s investments in big data management, mining publicly available sources of information could give China an advantage in collecting intelligence on the United States and its allies. While autocratic countries like China hide information about their military, the United States — as a democracy that tries to be responsive to its public — puts…

Chinese Malware Hits Systems on Guam. Is Taiwan the Real Target?

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Around the time that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was examining the equipment recovered from the wreckage of the Chinese spy balloon shot down off the South Carolina coast in February, American intelligence agencies and Microsoft detected what they feared was a more worrisome intruder: mysterious computer code that has been popping up in telecommunications systems in Guam and elsewhere in the United States. The code, which Microsoft said was installed by a Chinese government hacking group, raised alarms because Guam, with its Pacific ports and vast American air base, would…

Biden Sees Coming ‘Thaw’ With China, Even as He Rallies Allies Against Beijing

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President Biden and his allies spent much of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, announcing new arms packages for Ukraine, including a pathway to providing F-16 fighter planes. They spent hours discussing strategy with President Volodymyr Zelensky for the next phase of a hot war started by Russia. So it was easy to miss Mr. Biden’s prediction on Sunday of a coming “thaw” in relations with Beijing, as both sides move beyond what he called the “silly” Chinese act of sending a giant surveillance balloon over the United States, only…

Biden Team to Counter Tech Espionage Unveils Cases Involving China and Russia

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The Biden administration announced arrests and criminal charges on Tuesday in five cases involving sanctions evasion and technology espionage efforts linked to Russia, China and Iran. Two Russian nationals were taken into custody last week under accusations of sending aircraft parts to Russia in violation of sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine. In another case, a former Apple engineer is accused of stealing the company’s autonomous vehicle technology to provide it to a Chinese competitor. The announcements were the work of a recently established “technology strike force,” which aims…

U.S. Solar Makers Criticize Biden’s Tax Credits as Too Lax on China

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Biden administration rules released on Friday that will determine which companies and manufacturers can benefit from new solar industry tax credits are being criticized by U.S.-based makers of solar products, who say the guidelines do not go far enough to try to lure manufacturing back from China. The rules stem from President Biden’s sweeping clean energy bill, which offers a mix of tax credits and other incentives to try and spur the construction of more solar factories in the United States and reduce the country’s reliance on China for clean…

‘Rip and Replace’: The Tech Cold War Is Upending Wireless Carriers

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Deep in a pine forest in Wilcox County, Ala., three workers dangled from the top of a 350-foot cellular tower. They were there to rip out and replace Chinese equipment from the local wireless network. Three hours into the job, the team ran into a hitch. Replacement gear from a European company was obstructing a safety beacon for airplanes. “We’ve got a problem,” a crew member on the ground said. “They say it’s blocking the beacon.” The project had already been delayed for months because of storms, slow equipment shipments…

The Next Fear on A.I.: Hollywood’s Killer Robots Become the Military’s Tools

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The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear scientist, was conducted by Israel’s Mossad using an autonomous machine gun, mounted in a pickup truck, that was assisted by artificial intelligence — though there appears to have been a high degree of remote control. Russia said recently it has begun to manufacture — but has not yet deployed — its undersea Poseidon nuclear torpedo. If it lives up to the Russian hype, the weapon would be able to travel across an ocean autonomously, evading existing missile defenses, to deliver a nuclear…

Congress Clashes With Biden Over Tariffs on Illegal Chinese Solar Panels

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The Senate voted on Wednesday to reinstate tariffs on solar panels from Chinese companies in Southeast Asia that had been found to be coming into the United States in violation of trade rules. The measure, which passed by a vote of 56 to 41, had already been approved by the House. It sets up a showdown with the Biden administration, which had temporarily halted the tariffs to try to ensure that the country had an adequate supply of solar panels in the fight against climate change. President Biden has said…

Biden to Meet Marcos in Washington as Tensions Grow With China

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WASHINGTON — President Biden will meet with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. of the Philippines at the White House on Monday, a visit that is meant to send a message to China that the Filipino leader plans to deepen his country’s relationship with the United States. Mr. Marcos’s trip comes days after the U.S. and Philippine militaries held joint exercises aimed at curbing China’s influence in the South China Sea and strengthening the United States’ ability to defend Taiwan if China invades. The exercises were part of a rapid and…