Little-noticed US funding for China tech sector now draws scrutiny
WASHINGTON — Even as Washington takes a hard line on keeping U.S. technology and data beyond China’s reach, the federal government has thus far been slow to close another channel of technology assistance: potentially billions of dollars in U.S. investment in Chinese tech startup companies.
Lawmakers stepped into the issue last year, using the fiscal 2023 omnibus spending bill to direct the Treasury and Commerce departments to find a mechanism to track U.S. capital flows into tech sectors in China and other countries. Lawmakers and administration officials say the move is essential to curbing China’s tech ambitions.
“There is a fundamental contradiction in our China policy today: the U.S. government is placing increasing scrutiny on technology transfer and tightening export controls in concert with our allies to counter malign CCP-directed companies,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party.
“At the same time however, our government is providing a de facto green light to the unlimited capitalization of many of these companies and others like them in strategic technology sectors,” Gallagher said in an email, adding that those capital flows must be addressed.
—CQ-Roll Call
Florida Gov. DeSantis floats legislation that would make it easier to sue news outlets
TAMPA, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis raised the possibility Tuesday of passing legislation that could lower the bar for prominent people to successfully sue news outlets for defamation.
In a roundtable discussion that featured complaints about the unfair “narrative” of the news media, DeSantis sat behind a desk similar to one of a news anchor with the backdrop of the word “Truth” on a screen.
DeSantis spoke with six panelists including attorneys who litigate libel cases, libertarian journalist Michael Moynihan and Nicholas Sandmann, a conservative activist who has spoken extensively about his mistreatment by mainstream media outlets.
While the Republican governor and the panelists weighed various policy options, the event concluded without DeSantis announcing any specific bill or action to be taken, only telling viewers to “stay tuned.”
—Tampa Bay Times
Salman Rushdie recovering but still struggles to write after NY attack left him half-blind, traumatized
Author Salman Rushdie is making progress after an attack last August left him badly injured, but he’s still struggling to write, he said in his first interview since the incident.
The award-winning novelist required surgery after being stabbed onstage before an Aug. 12 lecture at the Chautauqua Institution near Buffalo.
“There is such a thing as P.T.S.D., you know,” Rushdie told The New Yorker. “I’ve found it very, very difficult to write. I sit down to write, and nothing happens. I write, but it’s a combination of blankness and junk, stuff that I write and that I delete the next day. I’m not out of that forest yet, really.”
The Indian-born Rushdie, 75, reportedly suffered stab wounds to his neck and face, left hand and abdomen. The attack left him blind in his right eye. He now has trouble typing due to a “lack of feeling” in his fingertips and writes “more slowly,” he told the magazine.
—New York Daily News
Failing states make Africa terrorism epicenter, UN says
The inability of states to provide basic services and security and create jobs across much of Africa, ranging from the Sahel zone in the west to Somalia in the east and Mozambique in the south has made the continent the global epicenter of extremist violence, the United Nations Development Program said.
In 2021 sub-Sahara Africa accounted for 48% of all deaths from violent extremism and 21% of attacks, the UNDP said in its Journey to Extremism in Africa report released Tuesday. A third of those deaths were in just four countries — Somalia, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali. Between 2011 and 2020 more than 50,000 people died as result of extremist violence on the continent.
“In the absence of the state institution providing for the basic services of, you know, security, rule of law or functioning courts, people essentially turn to these violent extremist groups,” Achim Steiner, administrator of the UNDP, said in an interview. “They provide in whichever form an alternative.”
While the spread of extremist groups is creating mounting problems for Africa, with deaths from terrorism rising tenfold in the Sahel since 2007 and economic costs between 2007 and 2016 estimated at $97 billion, the collapse of state services in countries such as Burkina Faso and Somalia threatens the world.
—Bloomberg News
