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The Dutch government has taken the unusual step of intervening in the operations of Nexperia, a Chinese-owned semiconductor manufacturer, after identifying what it described as a potential threat to national and European economic security.

As Beijing moves to tighten export rules on crucial rare-earth elements — the same minerals long extracted from Tibet under state-directed exploitation — the world confronts a stark irony: after decades of selling resources taken from an occupied land, China now seeks to hoard those materials for its own strategic and military ambitions.

The Pukpuk Treaty between Australia and Papua New Guinea is a historic defence pact, marking a formal alliance in a region where much of the strategic contest is currently unspoken. While the treaty does not explicitly name China as an adversary, the timing, content (especially clauses about third parties), and broader geopolitical trends suggest it is part of a broader balancing act in response to growing Chinese influence in the Pacific.

As red banners rise and fireworks explode over Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party proclaims another “National Day,” parading the myth of democracy before the world. Yet behind the music and marching soldiers lies a darker truth: seventy-six years not of liberation, but of colonization, repression, and silence.

Beijing is waging a silent war, not with bombs and missiles, but through manipulation, disinformation, and psychological pressure. Its narrative: Taiwan is weak, isolated, inevitable in decline. But it miscalculates the singular force that opposes defeatism: a democratic people backed by a watchful world.

For 49 days, Zhang Yadi (known online as Tara) has been missing in China. She is a 22-year-old international student, linguist, and advocate for Tibetan culture. Reports confirm that state security agents took her back to Changsha under the pretext of “endangering national security”—a vague, overused charge regularly used to silence students, academics, and human rights defenders.

Arc’teryx was founded in 1989 in Vancouver, but today it is owned by Anta Sports, a Hong Kong-listed giant with deep ties to Beijing. Anta has built its empire on securing favor in the Chinese domestic market, making Arc’teryx part of a broader portfolio of brands being promoted aggressively in China. Arc’teryx has come under fire after staging a massive fireworks display in Tibet’s fragile Himalayan region. What the company called “art” quickly revealed itself as a reckless stunt—one that not only contradicted Arc’teryx’s conservationist image but also exposed Beijing’s exploitative use of Tibet as a stage for propaganda.

China under the CCP has become a juggernaut in green technology. Its achievements are genuine: scale, speed, production, exports. But the cost is steep: environmental damage, labour suffering, overcapacity, opacity, geopolitical risk. The CCP must be held accountable: ambitions alone are not enough. For green tech to truly be green, the darker side must be exposed and reformed.

The United States is not the first democracy to confront TikTok’s risks. In 2020, India permanently banned TikTok, WeChat, and more than 50 other Chinese apps, citing national security and data privacy concerns. The Indian government declared the apps “a threat to the sovereignty and integrity of India,” pointing to their potential misuse in data mining and surveillance.

In a scathing exposé this week, the Associated Press tore through the sleek façades of Silicon Valley’s innovation culture to expose its shadowy complicity in one of the most brutal surveillance operations of the 21st century: China’s state-run mass repression of Uyghurs, Tibetans, dissidents, and anyone who dares to live free under the boot of the Chinese Communist Party.