NEW from me: In MN, George Floyd-era faith networks have reignited after Renee Good's killing by ICE. They often partner w/others: last night, a church, brewery & bookstore hosted an event. If you showed up w/a whistle (to warn people of ICE), you got a free drink. religionnews.com/2026/01/11/i...

Big year for photos of clergy enduring pain while protesting ICE. · Rev. David Black, Chicago Sun-Times: chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/10... · Rev. Jorge Bautista, SF Chron: www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti... · Rev. Hannah Kardon, Chicago Protest Photography: www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1...

Chen Zhi, the alleged ringleader of one of Asia’s largest scam conglomerates, was arrested in Cambodia and extradited to China, the Cambodian government said Wednesday. www.wsj.com/world/asia/c...

My appreciation for the film Dr. Strangelove has grown over the years. Its subtitle, I now feel, has a lasting brilliance that never loses its relevance — "How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb."

Wow — even China doesn't do this. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/t...

Chinese models are rapidly gaining global users through open-weight releases & easy API access. As I told The Washington Post, if we don’t understand how they’re built, we risk importing censorship & political control hidden inside the technology itself. www.washingtonpost.c...

We tested image understanding in English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. We found: • Much stricter censorship in Chinese • Strongest distortions on Tiananmen, Tibet, Falun Gong & Xinjiang • Some models quietly added pro-state framing even without refusing.

The results are staggering. Models routinely: ❌ refuse to answer ❌ erase key details ❌ repeat state narratives Here’s one example: a major Chinese LLM flat-out refuses to describe the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

China’s national AI-safety standard categorises 31 types of “unsafe” content — from terrorism and privacy breaches to… 🟥 criticism of the CCP 🟥 “Western ideology” 🟥 peaceful protest This is the logic shaping every model released in China.

Our new ASPI report 'The Party’s AI' is out now. It shows how China’s LLMs, vision models and “AI+” governance architecture are hard-coding censorship and control into the future of AI. www.aspi.org.au/repo...

Beijing Rules: China's Quest for Global Influence by @bethanyallen.bsky.social (2024) #AutumnReading

ASPI's exclusive new report, shared with the @theguardian.com, reveals that the number of scam centers operating along the Thai-Myanmar border has more than doubled since Myanmar’s military seized power in 2021 Read the Guardian's on-the-ground reporting: www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

WOW. China is drilling for oil and gas inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone, a move that analysts believe is likely part of Beijing’s unilateral grab for disputed territory. Great scoop from @heldavidson.bsky.social and @thejamestownfdn.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

In this article about China's green tech revolution, the New York Times cites ASPI's Critical Technology Tracker and my colleague Dr. Jenny Wong-Leung: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I was today years old when I learned the final appendix to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense — the pamphlet that set fire to the Revolution — concludes with a firm rejection of “mingling religion with politics.” The context is he’s fighting with Quakers he says aren’t Quakers, but he doesn’t mince words.

If the State Department doesn't renew funding for Freedom House's China Dissent Monitor, the world will lose an entire category of knowledge about how people in China are actually experiencing life under CCP governance. Read my latest: www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-last-pub...

"Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intel Cmte., led by … Marco Rubio."

Taiwan: I've finally discovered a country where everyone else apologizes to everyone else almost as much as I do, for non-infractions such as dropping a straw in front of a stranger and apologizing because now you have to stoop down in front of them to pick it up.

NEW: A ChinaFile investigation into China's powerful, but leaky, internet censorship system at locknet.chinafile.com 1/21

There's a family in the coffee shop I'm at who are alternating between Farsi and German. The fact that I understand both these languages has basically never been useful in my career, but it does make me an A+ eavesdropper lol

Michele Bachmann says Christians should be thrilled about the Israel/Iran war: "We are living in the times that the Bible said that the prophets longed to see. The prophets of the Bible wanted to be alive now!"

Wow, @columbiagr.bsky.social is keeping up its tradition of eye catching covers. I’ve loved the ones for my books with them and just saw the one they have for a forthcoming CGR that I can’t wait to read (by a writer I admire & on a topic of interest to me) globalreports.columbia.edu/books/the-ro...

It is increasingly clear that drones — from reconnaissance UAVs to long-range loitering missiles to uncrewed subs — are a fact of modern warfare. Yet as it stare down the possibility of imminent Chinese invasion, Taiwan is struggling to build its own drone capability. www.wired.com/story/taiwan...

"toward"

AP: New Zealand has halted millions of dollars in funding to the Cook Islands over the “breadth and content” of agreements the smaller Pacific nation made with China, officials from the New Zealand foreign minister’s office has said www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

China tells its citizens in Israel to evacuate. www.reuters.com/world/china/...

"Protecting the borders from espionage is essential. It’s something else to deny students because they are Chinese and hope to pursue a STEM degree in the United States." www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/b...

Today @financialtimes.com has featured my team's latest research. Liverpool's China venture has extensive and close ties to sanctioned Russian and Chinese entities, including a new "China-Russia cooperation center," and partnerships with Chinese semiconductor groups. www.ft.com/content/476d...

2. For the unfamiliar, here's a primer on Wilson, a rising star on the right who co-founded a denominations whose members include Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. religionnews.com/2024/05/31/t...

Hong Kong has declared six locations of Beijing’s national security office as “prohibited places,” including four hotels and the office’s future permanent sites in Kowloon. hongkongfp.com/2025/05/13/h...

🏆A @hongkongfp.com investigation has been nominated for a prestigious Society of Publishers in Asia award. hongkongfp.com/2025/05/08/h... HKFP’s 2024 probe into Hong Kong’s role in illegal deforestation of the Amazon rainforest was a joint investigation by Mercedes Hutton and Repórter Brasil.

The Batten Medal, for exceptional journalism that serves the public, is awarded to Kavitha Surana, Cassandra Jaramillo and Lizzie Presser of ProPublica for "Life of the Mother." 🏆 (Sponsored by editors from the former Knight Ridder.) Read about The Poynter Journalism Prizes: www.poynter.org/prizes

Congratulations to @propublica.org which has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the second year in a row. Kavitha Surana, @cassandrajaramillo.bsky.social and Lizzie Presser have won for public service reporting:

Today 寶寶 ate a rice and bean burrito for the first time, and he told me, "Mom this is basically an American 飯糰."

I'm quoted in this New York Times article, about Trump's fight with China. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/26/o...

🚨 NEW: The latest 'State of the Strait' Weekly Digest is now live: Taipei watching Vatican-China ties closely amid papal transition. Plus: Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council to probe ‘united front’ writing contest. stateofthestrait.substack.com/p/taipei-wat...

Say a prayer today for the AIT spokesperson, whose real name is Pope Thrower. It's not going to be a good pun week for him. www.ait.org.tw/ait-announce...

🚨 NEW: The latest 'State of the Strait' Weekly Digest is now live: Lai launches cybersecurity overhaul as China’s attacks surge. Plus: Beijing praises Cambodia for deporting Taiwanese nationals to China. open.substack.com/pub/stateoft...

Today 寶寶 asked me if Taiwan discovered America.

Reviving my 寶寶 tweets. 寶寶 loves puns and the other day i mentioned 師範大學 and he said, "吃飯大學?!?" and then cackled up a storm

“Thirty-eight of 43 experts cut last month from the boards that review the science and research that happens in laboratories at the National Institutes of Health are female, Black or Hispanic, according to an analysis by the chairs of a dozen of the boards.” Gift link:

Chinese officials or middlemen warn Hong Kong’s last major opposition party to disband or face consequences, Democratic Party members say – Reuters

Burning the Ming treasure ships.

very good piece by Zichen here - www.pekingnology.com/p/some-troub...

In retrospect, 科学发展 is a pretty appealing slogan

ASPI has just launched a Taiwan newsletter! Our weekly "State of the Strait" is a data-based approach to tracking of all the ways China is putting the squeeze on Taiwan. Subscribe here: stateofthestrait.substack.com/publish/post...

For China and US Inc, Trump’s trade war feels much worse this time – Reuters: ‘low-end manufacturers are already struggling with razor-thin margins, […], and local Chinese governments that might have provided support to protect jobs are mostly too cash-strapped to give new subsidies.’

A sheriff in Mississippi, the highest paid and most powerful public figure in his county, staffed his mother’s commercial chicken farm with inmates from the local jail and used taxpayer-purchased equipment to improve it, an investigation by The New York Times and Mississippi Today found.

EXCLUSIVE: China has told state-owned firms to hold off on any new collaboration with businesses linked to Li Ka-shing and his family, according to people familiar with the matter.

Some news many years in the making: My book EMPIRE OF AI, out May 20, is ready for pre-order at empireofai.com. It tells the inside story of OpenAI as a lens for understanding the moment we’re in: the tech elite's extraordinary seizure of power and its threat to democracy. 1/