Missouri Jewish leaders advocate for trans rights at state legislature

Eight bills were heard that would restrict trans children from participating in sports that align with their gender identity and limit their access to specialized medical care.

By JACKIE HAJDENBERG/JTA
Published: FEBRUARY 4, 2023 

“Hi, my name is Dan. I’m 11 years old and I like doing magic and circus skills, especially unicycling. I’m here today to testify against House Bill 170, 183, and 337,” a young voice said into the microphone.

“I really like to play sports with my friends, although honestly I’m not very good at it,” he added. “I’d really like the chance to play.”

Dan — a transgender boy whose parents asked that his last name not be used — was the youngest person to testify at the Missouri State House last week in opposition to eight bills heard in the chamber that would restrict trans children from participating in sports that align with their gender identity and limit their access to specialized medical care.

He was also part of a delegation of Missouri’s Jewish community members, alongside a few Christian clergy, that has been consistently appearing at the state Capitol to advocate for trans rights in response to a slew of bills that activists say violate their religious freedoms and cause significant harm to the LGBTQ community.

“Those are the bills that criminalize treating your child as every medical and psychological mainstream organization recommends.”Daniel Bogard, rabbi at Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis

Daniel Bogard, the rabbi at Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis and the parent of a trans child, was at the State House Jan. 24 and again on Feb. 1 to support those testifying against the bills and to lobby lawmakers against them. He is a frequent visitor to Jefferson City as a trans rights activist, saying the possibility of restrictions on medical care are what scare him the most. One piece of legislation would bar physicians and health care professionals from providing gender affirmation procedures to anyone under 18. It would also deny access to medication like puberty blockers, which are administered to delay the onset of puberty.

The Transgender Pride Flag flies on the Foreign Office building in London on Transgender Day of Remembrance, 20 November 2017. (credit: FOREIGN COMMONWEALTH & DEVELOPMENT OFFICE)

Proponents' motives

“What we want to do is we want to protect kids from unnecessary and harmful surgeries and medications,” said Brad Hudson, a Republican representative and one of the sponsors of the bill. “I say harmful because giving kids puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even transgender surgery violates the first duty of medicine, do no harm.” (The Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and other providers say they are generally considered safe to use.)

Hudson also identified himself in his testimony that he is a Christian pastor, and said that his worldview is one in which human beings are created “in the image and likeness of their Creator.”

Opposition to the legislation

“Those are the bills that criminalize treating your child as every medical and psychological mainstream organization recommends,” Bogard countered. “And that means parents are left with a choice of not giving these kids the sorts of treatment and care that are best practice according to everything that we know, or fleeing the state, or staying and risking some sort of criminal charge. The one that terrifies me is the idea of DSS [Department of Social Services] agents showing up to my door to take my kid away.”


Bogard, who has been going to the state Capitol for five years now, says the experience of being back at the State Legislature has been simultaneously “awful and affirming.”


“What’s remarkable is you go in and two-thirds of the people who are sponsoring these bills or testifying in favor of these bills are using overtly Christian theological language when they’re talking about the why,” he explained. “And then you look around and the people who are showing up to protect trans kids are Jews.”


“I’m just so proud of our Jewish community, the way we have shown up around this issue here in Missouri,” Bogard said, remarking on the decades-long history of Jewish-led LGBTQ advocacy in the state. (The founder of the statewide LGBTQ advocacy group PROMO, which is not itself a Jewish group, was founded by Rabbi Susan Talve, one of the founding members of Bogard’s synagogue. Shira Berkowitz, a Jewish summer camp friend of Bogard’s, is the senior director of public policy and advocacy at the organization, and last year, Bogard and Berkowitz launched a summer camp for trans kids.)


The new principal of Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School, Raquel Scharf-Anderson, made the two-hour drive early on Jan. 24 to testify on behalf of her students.


“I make all of my decisions in the best interest of children,” Scharf-Anderson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Anything that would impact the students in my school, I want them to see me standing with them.”


The sports bills in particular, she said, would impact trans students at private schools, like Mirowitz.


Over the course of the Jan. 24 hearing, Rachel Aguirre, a special education teacher who ran unsuccessfully for State Senate in the Republican primary in 2022, argued that the government was “founded upon the word of God,” and therefore athletes should only play on teams whose gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth. Nancy Delcour, another witness testifying in favor of the bill, also cited the biblical principle that humankind was created in God’s image, and an attempt to change that is the work of Satan.





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Before the nine-hour long hearing was over, another interpretation of the principle of “the image of God” was explored on the hearing room floor.


“As a Jew, this is something that speaks to me quite a bit. We call it ‘b’tzelem Elokim’ — ‘created in the image of God,’ literally,” said Russel Neiss, a Jewish educator and technologist and the parent of a trans child. “But the way we understand this is that God bestows a special honor onto humans that requires that we need to be treated with dignity and we need to treat others with dignity.”


Maharat Rori Picker Neiss, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis, a rabbi, and the wife of Russel Neiss, also testified against the bills and in support of their child.


“Sitting here for the past two hours has been one of the most painful things that I’ve ever had to do as a mother and we’ve been doing this for four years,” she said. Picker-Neiss stayed home from the Jan. 31 Senate hearing for the first time in four years — but was back at the Capitol fighting for her child’s rights by the next day.


Next week, as another bill limiting what can be said about trans identity in schools makes its way through the Missouri chambers, Scharf-Anderson says school leadership will return to the state Capitol.


“We know that children imitate what we do, and we want to make sure that we’re being good role models for them,” she said. “And we will continue to stand by the children that we need to support who are part of our school and in our broader community.”

Healing generational trauma of Japanese Americans through art


Na Omi Judy Shintani, destructed kimono
CREDIT: CORSETRY OF WASHINGTON STATE HISTORY MUSEUM

FEB 03, 2023 at 6:49 PM

BY Natalie Akane Newcomb

This month marks the 81st anniversary of Executive Order 9066, the World War II order that forcibly removed Japanese Americans on the West Coast and placed them into camps. Many of those who were incarcerated held American citizenship.

The Washington State History Museum in Tacoma is hosting a touring exhibit, "Resilience—A Sansei Sense of Legacy." The exhibit showcases artwork from eight "sansei," third-generation Japanese American artists.

One of the artists is Na Omi Judy Shintani. Eight of her family members were incarcerated in the camps.

Her series of artwork is called "deconstructed kimonos." Kimonos are traditional Japanese clothing. Shintani altered the kimono by cutting out patterns on the garments. Then she created ceramic alters that hold the cut out pieces.

Shintani said altering the kimonos "expresses my loss of connection to my culture. I think that loss has to do with assimilation."

Shintani said many "nisei," second-generation Japanese Americans, after leaving camp wanted their children to be seen as Americans. This is why many parents didn't teach children their mother tongue, Japanese.

The deconstructing of kimonos was Shintani's way of "expressing anger and sorrow of losing our culture, because of a feeling, that we were seen as less American due to being imprisoned."

Shintani said the "symbol of the kimono is very strong," and the unaltered kimonos were in " beautiful forms."

"I think some people find my expression in this way a bit shocking," Shintani said.

Mary Mikel Stump, director of exhibitions at the Washington State Historical exhibit, invited the exhibit to the museum. She says this exhibition is special because "sansei" in many cases will be the last generation to have a direct relationship to the experiences in the camps.

Stump said many "sansei" also experience generational trauma. It's passed down through a Japanese concept called "gaman," which means patience.

"It's the idea of not talking about it and maintaining grace through silence," Stump said.

She said the art work in the exhibit is a space for artists to heal from multi-generational trauma.

"Resilience—A Sansei Sense of Legacy" will be at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma Feb. 4 through July 7. Tickets can be purchased online or at the museum.

Asian-American tragedy: California shootings highlight social alienation alongside US gun culture

Recent attacks in which Asian-Americans were both victims and suspects have elicited a special pain and a search for answers within the community

‘Negative exposure to American culture’ and rise in gun-buying over anti-Asian violence pose challenges, observers say

Bochen Han
+ myNEWS
Published:4 Feb, 2023

People gather at a vigil in Half Moon Bay, California, on January 27, days after a mass shooting took place at two farms in the community. Photo: San Francisco Chronicle via AP

“Why would Chinese people ever shoot Chinese people?”

That was how Duan Fuxiang, 89, of Manitoba, Canada, reacted when her granddaughter informed her of the recent mass shootings in California. The two tragedies coincided with Lunar New Year, a two-week festival ending this weekend and normally a time of celebration in Chinese and other Asian communities.

The first one, on January 21, took place at a dance studio in the predominantly ethnic Asian city of Monterey Park, where 11 victims, all of Asian descent, died. The second, less than 48 hours later and some 400 miles away in Half Moon Bay, happened at two mushroom farms filled with Chinese and Mexican workers.

Both suspected gunmen were Chinese immigrants. Both were over 65.

Americans are no strangers to mass shootings, and violence and discrimination against Asian-Americans have skyrocketed since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

But multiple attacks in which Asian-Americans were both victims and suspects – and where the accused are elderly men – have elicited both a special kind of pain and a search for answers within the Asian-American community.

The superficial similarities in the two suspects’ backgrounds led to a comparison with David Chou, a 68-year-old Chinese-American who opened fire at a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods, California, less than a year ago.

Two marks a coincidence, three signifies a pattern, as popular thinking goes. But Min Zhou, a professor of sociology and Asian-American studies at UCLA, cautioned against concluding that Asian elders committing violence in the US was a trend.

Instead, a “negative exposure to American culture” or “bad assimilation” was noteworthy, she said, referring specifically to American gun culture.

Many observers agree that what has transpired bears the traits of a uniquely American story: immigrants navigating a new world where social alienation and the world’s largest supply of privately owned guns make it all too easy for rage and despair to manifest as mass violence.

“There are angry, dislocated, disenfranchised people everywhere in the world,” said Eileen Chow, an associate professor in Chinese and Japanese cultural studies and founding member of the Asian-American and diaspora studies programme at Duke University.

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Yet “in the US, a 72-year-old can take out 20-some people in 10 seconds of shooting”, Chow said.

California has some of America’s strictest gun laws, but experts have said there are too many firearms in the country to completely prevent gun violence in any given state. An estimated 393 million guns are privately owned across the US, whose population totals about 333 million people.

Zhao Chunli, 66, the suspected gunman in Half Moon Bay, reportedly told investigators that workplace disputes spurred his actions. Huu Can Tran, the 72-year-old shooting suspect in Monterey Park, had accused his family of theft, fraud and attempting to poison him.

In all, 20 people were shot in Monterey Park, 11 of whom lost their lives. Seven people were killed in Half Moon Bay, with an additional person injured.

Chow said surprise over Asian-on-Asian violence was misplaced. Such violence was “not so uncommon”, and mass shootings might happen in China if people there had greater access to guns, she added.

While Asian-Americans have historically purchased the fewest guns compared to other demographic groups in the US, according to a 2021 survey by Pew Research Centre, they have been buying more firearms in the last few years.

Chow attributed the rise in gun-buying within the community partly to media coverage of anti-Asian violence.

“Why do people buy guns? Because they were reading over and over again that they’re being attacked.”

Scholars like Sylvia Chan Malik, an associate professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Rutgers University, have highlighted Chinese elders as particularly vulnerable to radicalisation given the high levels of misinformation in some Chinese media outlets and often limited access to English-language alternatives.

Meanwhile, Stop AAPI Hate, a San Francisco-based non-profit organisation formed in the wake of increased violence against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders at the pandemic’s outset, recorded almost 11,500 hate incidents towards the community between March 19, 2020 and March 31, 2022.

Duan’s son, Wang Guqi, 62, lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and has been closely following the shootings in California and their aftermath, discussing them with his fellow Chinese-Americans.

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As his feelings of insecurity spiked in recent years, Wang considered buying a gun and even attended a gun exhibition. He ultimately decided against it because he lacked sufficient time to learn how to use one.

Wang, originally from Jiangxi province, believed his fellow elders did not learn how to “forgive” others because they spent their formative years in the midst of China’s Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976.

By Wang’s account, amid the “class struggle” in which they grew up, employees were pitted against employers, and violence was considered an appropriate option to resolve conflict.

When they come to the US, it can be difficult to shed those past ways because they do not fully assimilate into mainstream American society, Wang said. He was not surprised that the gunmen targeted members from their own community, noting “Chinese people are surrounded by other Chinese people”.

Nor did Wang believe the suspects harboured any particular affinity for guns. The salient point was gun access, he said. “They use whatever they are familiar with to address their issues.”

A woman pays her respects at a memorial for 11 people who died in a mass shooting in Monterey Park, California, on January 26. Photo: Los Angeles Times/TNS

Zhou of UCLA said a lack of community support likely contributed to the circumstances leading to the two tragedies. Many immigrants, especially elders, do not know how to deal with their mental health issues.

“Normal social networks are disrupted through migration,” she added. “When people repeatedly face discrimination, stereotyping and if they lack support in their community, things could go bad”.

Asian-American elders experience significantly lower life satisfaction and receive less emotional support than their peers of other racial backgrounds, according to a 2022 study based on 2018 data published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

The Half Moon Bay shooting stood out to Chow because “these are all working elders … I was like, ‘wow, we really have immigrants working into their old age for survival’”.

Jeanie Chang, chair of the board of the Asian Mental Health Collective, said Asian elders are very new to mental health conversations, even though the stigma around mental health has gradually lifted for younger Asian-Americans.

“In the whole life cycle, they’re all about giving, giving their wisdom, extending their own knowledge of life,” Chang said of many Asian elders’ state of mind. “They’re not there to necessarily receive it.”

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Confucian values could also discourage them from talking about conflict for the sake of maintaining peace, she added.

The shootings cast a shadow over Lunar New Year celebrations that began on January 22 and end on Sunday. Some observers have said the annual holiday could also have been a trigger for the shootings.

Chang, who is a licensed family therapist, noted that her consultations and appointments surge in number during holidays, which she said were full of joy yet also “extremely stressful”.

Chow of Duke said the shootings were “meant to inflict maximum damage”.

“Maximum damage is when people are happiest and at a place when they are happiest,” she said.

But ultimately, no single factor could explain these attacks, Chow believed. “It’s just structural,” she said. “Frankly this is an American phenomenon, an American story.”

From China to Big Sky: The Balloon That Unnerved the White House

Peter Martin, Jenny Leonard and Jennifer Jacobs, Bloomberg News

Antony Blinken Photographer: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Star gazing is nothing unusual in Montana, where skies go on forever. But as Chase Doak left work on a Wednesday and looked up on a cold winter day he saw a mysterious round white object that was clearly neither the moon or a star. 

He began to film something that could come straight out of a movie where science fiction meets the Wild West. Within 48 hours the strange thing that went on to confound the residents of Billings was revealed to be a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon. 

“Not gonna lie,” tweeted Doak as his video went viral. “First, I thought this was a #ufo. Then, I thought it was @elonmusk in a Wizard of Oz cosplay scenario. But it was just a run-of-the mill Chinese spy balloon!”

Its journey across the ocean has gripped the world’s attention and forced the top US diplomat to cancel his trip to Beijing. Its fate, as it wafts 10 miles above ground, remains uncertain — as do the delicate relations between two superpowers grasping for ways to deescalate tensions and get talks back on track.

This account of how a balloon burst diplomacy just as Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to travel to China and meet with President Xi Jinping is based on conversations with several officials briefed on the matter who asked to stay anonymous to discuss intelligence matters.

As it turns out, US authorities were aware the unidentified object that had entered American airspace on Jan. 28, that had then left and re-entered over North Idaho on Tuesday. But with such a high-profile trip at stake, keeping it on the down-low was key.

By the time the thing became visible in Montana, President Joe Biden had already been briefed and the White House was scrambling to decide whether to blast it from the sky.

The gravity of the situation was only exacerbated by Montana being home to Malmstrom Air Force Base, which houses a large portion of the US’s Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles. 

The Biden administration knew it had to exercise extreme caution especially in what was a heated political environment ahead of 2024 elections, with Republicans agitating on which party could strike a harder or tougher line on China.

As the balloon continued to hover over the Big Sky state on Wednesday, Biden huddled with his national security team to receive a detailed briefing on the balloon. The President argued for shooting the object down, but was urged against doing so by his most senior military advisors. 

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark A. Milley insisted that such a move would put civilians at risk, people familiar with the discussions said.

The President ultimately decided to let the balloon continue on its way as the US sought answers from the Chinese embassy in Washington, but they struggled to obtain satisfactory responses. US officials said they were baffled by China, which itself appeared to be caught off-guard by the bizarre incident. 

For now, the White House opted not to inform the American public. Events, however, soon forced Biden’s hand. 

On Thursday afternoon, the Billings Gazette, a local Montana paper, published a photo of the balloon – meaning it was only a matter of time until national media would pick up on the report and the Biden administration would have to face questions. 

The pace of discussions in the White House quickened. 

In a call starting at 5:15pm on Thursday, the administration finally went public. That spurred a rush to brief lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The Biden administration will hold a briefing next week for the “Gang of Eight,” a group of lawmakers including the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. 

In an effort to keep things calm, administration officials stressed this was not the first such incident and that similar activities had been observed over the past several years, including during the prior administration.

The Pentagon’s announcement prompted an outcry from Republicans. Former President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social website to “shoot down the balloon. ” Others, from former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo to Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, framed the decision not to shoot down the balloon as a sign of weakness by Biden. 

The biggest question was how would China respond to all the furore that was unfolding at a rapid pace as Asia was asleep.

After earlier calling on the US to refrain from “hyping” the incident, China finally commented on the balloon directly in a statement Friday morning Washington time, attributing it to a “force majeure” for which it was not responsible. 

China said the balloon blew off course and entered US airspace by accident, adding that it is “regretful” over the incident and that the balloon’s purpose was climate research. 

Administration officials are privately dismissive of Beijing’s explanation, as are former American intelligence analysts. The official Chinese explanation mirrored a well-worn excuse for aerial espionage. 

“I do not know of anyone who constructs a meteorological balloon the size of three school buses,” said Dennis Wilder, the Central Intelligence Agency’s former deputy assistant director for East Asia and the Pacific.

US officials, who had spent hours debating whether Blinken should scrap a long-planned trip to Beijing, finally felt they had no choice but to postpone the first high-level US visit to China in five years. A delay was not a cancellation. It sent a signal that the US had no desire to escalate matters.

The sentiment among those in the room was that the trip wasn’t worth the potential domestic political costs of going, given that Blinken’s talks in China were not expected to yield much in the first place. 

Biden’s team worried that the incident would serve as more fodder for Republicans who believed the administration is weak on China, especially if the balloon crashed and hurt someone while Blinken was in Beijing. 

“A split screen of a spy satellite over the United States when Secretary Blinken lands in Beijing would not have been tenable,” said Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former Director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia on the National Security Council. 

Meanwhile, the balloon continued its voyage eastward across the continental US, heading toward Washington. “The balloon is not going away,” said Wilder, the former CIA officer. 

The problem, he said, is that “China has no way to take it back so it will drift over the continental US for an unknown time frame before coming down.”

Until then, Americans will keep taking pictures of it and Biden will have to keep defending the decision not to just shoot it down. 

--With assistance from Iain Marlow, Brian Platt and Lindsey Rupp.

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.

China's balloon over the U.S. seen as bold

 but clumsy espionage tactic

By Steve Holland, Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom

U.S. and Chinese flags are seen in this illustration taken, January 30, 2023. 

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - China's flight of a suspected surveillance balloon over the United States appears to mark a more aggressive - albeit puzzling - espionage tactic than relying on satellites and the theft of industrial and defense secrets, security experts said.

Both the United States and China have for decades used surveillance satellites to keep an eye on each other from the air. But China's recent balloons - a White House official said this week's episode was not the first - have some in Washington scratching their heads.

"In a way, it's more amateurish," said former White House national security adviser John Bolton. "Do the cameras in their satellites not have high enough resolution that they have to send a balloon over?"

The uproar over the balloon comes as China has been building up its military capabilities and challenging America's military presence in the Pacific. The United States also believes Beijing routinely seeks to capture proprietary information and knowledge from U.S. companies.

China said the balloon was for civilian meteorological and scientific purposes that strayed into U.S. airspace, on Saturday accusing U.S. politicians and media of taking advantage of the situation to discredit China. It has previously rebuffed accusations of espionage and said the United States holds a Cold War mentality and hypes up the 'China threat.'

The balloon discovered this week appeared deliberately provocative, said Dean Cheng, senior advisor to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

"This is a way to test how does the other side respond, not in a military sense. But politically, what do you do about it? Do you keep it quiet? If there have been in fact many and this is not the first time, then it raises an interesting question. What happened to the previous ones? Did we shoot them down?” he said.

Mike Rounds, a Republican member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, told Fox News it would be good to recover the balloon to see "if it was designed to actually collect data or if it was designed to test our response capabilities."

Andrew Antonio, co-founder of high-altitude balloon startup Urban Sky, said the wind currents high-altitude balloons depend on for steering on long-distance trips were least favorable in the winter, suggesting China's intentions might not have been be to target any specific location in the United States.

"Specifically targeting a certain military base with that balloon from a launch in China, in January or February, in the northern hemisphere, is very difficult to do, if not impossible," Antonio said, speculating that the balloon's venture into U.S. airspace could have been the result of a failed experiment, or some failure in its self-termination system.

Adding to the questions on Friday night, a Pentagon statement said another Chinese balloon was observed over Latin America.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in 2020 that the greatest long-term threat to U.S. information and intellectual property was "the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China."

China's alleged clamor for American trade secrets has been so sweeping that the FBI estimated last October that it was opening a new Chinese counter-intelligence operation every 12 hours.

A more common spying tactic by China in recent decades, experts say, has been to use graduate students and other individuals with ties to China to gain access to sensitive materials by studying at research universities, working at technology companies or hacking into their computer networks.

"The problem with China is far more in the academic, scientific world," said Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who is involved in various national security cases.

"There is no doubt that that dynamic is changing and the Chinese are becoming more aggressive for whatever reason."

The United States has been also been accused of spying by China.

Before the use of spy satellites, the United States used high-altitude aircraft that could not easily be shot down and flew them over the Soviet Union, China and Cuba, for example.

U.S.-China relations plunged in April 2001 when a U.S. Navy EP-3E signals intelligence aircraft collided with a Chinese fighter jet in mid-air over the South China Sea about 70 miles away from China's Hainan province.

In 2009, the Pentagon said five Chinese ships including a naval vessel harassed U.S. Navy ship the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed ocean surveillance vessel, in international waters off Hainan. China said the U.S. ship was carrying out an illegal survey off the island province.

Reporting by Steve Holland, Michael Martina, David Brunnstrom and Joey Roulette; Editing by Heather Timmons, Don Durfee, Edwina Gibbs and Lincoln Feast.

ALL THIS FUSS AND ITS NOT EVEN A UFO

US hypes spy balloon, brings ‘China threat’ to new level

By Liu XinPublished: Feb 03, 2023 


Recent signals sent from the US on China have been utterly chaotic, which may bring more uncertainty to already strained bilateral relations, Chinese analysts said on Friday. They urged the US to be more sincere in fixing relations with China instead of making provocative actions against it, especially after the picture of a white balloon made headlines in the US and some Western countries on Friday, as Pentagon officials claimed that a Chinese spy balloon hovering over Montana this week had a flight path that took it over "sensitive sites" in the US.

A spokesperson from the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Friday that the balloon was an airship from China but rejected the spy claim, saying that the civilian airship, used mainly for meteorological research purposes, deviated from its planned course after being affected by westerlies and due to its limited self-steering capability.

The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure, and will continue communicating with the US side and properly handle this unexpected situation caused by force majeure, said the spokesperson.

The balloon - about the size of three buses, is traveling at an altitude "well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground," Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters in a hastily arranged news conference where he addressed the ongoing situation, the Washington Post reported.

Before being clear of the facts, the US military and media accused China of spying, and this incident has brought the US' recent hyping of the "China threat" to a new level, with some Chinese analysts saying the stunt, which was not backed by concrete proof, may bring new tensions to China-US relations, as it is a follow-up to more intensive US moves to contain China in the fields of military, technology, and diplomacy and also on issues of China's core concerns, including on the island of Taiwan.

The string of US' actions against China also came with the news from the US that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit China on February 5 and 6. China has not yet confirmed Blinken's visit, despite the spokesperson of China's Foreign Affairs Ministry previously welcoming it.

Following the balloon hype, US media reported Friday that the Biden administration has decided to postpone Blinken's upcoming trip to Beijing.

While the international community expects to see the world's top two economies ease tensions via high-level interactions to boost global development in the post-pandemic era, the US is being urged to be more sincere in making concrete moves to solve problems with China, instead of making more provocations, analysts said.

Maintaining high-level communication is conductive to improving bilateral relations, However, deeply affected by its domestic politics, Washington has sent utterly chaotic signals, with positive commitments made by the top leader as well as continuous actions that further endanger relations, bringing more uncertainties to China-US ties, Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times.

This week, while drumming up the threat from China, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had been engaged into a whirlwind of activities in South Korea and the Philippines, two of China's neighboring countries, to step up military drills and push for wider access of US troops to bases in Southeast Asia.

Aside from adding to its military presence around China, the US also ramped up efforts to strangle China on high-technologies, including a decision to cease approval licenses for American firms to export most items to Chinese technology giant Huawei and coercing the Netherlands and Japan to agree to join the US in limiting exports of advanced chipmaking equipment to China. It has also been unceasingly hyping issues on the island of Taiwan ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine military conflict.

To set real guardrails

Analysts said it is neither strange nor rare to see the US playing this old trick of exerting extreme pressure on China before significant and high-level potential interactions in an attempt to gain more bargaining chips. However, China will make no compromise on its core concerns and will take countermeasures against provocations while welcoming any exchanges made in good intention.

On Friday, China released a report that examines the US' willful practice of long-arm jurisdiction in recent years, and the perils it has brought to the international political and economic order and the international rule of law. Some analysts interpreted the report as a response to Washington's suppression of China.

The US is facing a problem on how to balance its strategic goals with domestic practical needs, as its containment of China is more a negative-sum game than a zero-sum one. As it attempts to cripple China, it is shooting its own feet. For example, the semiconductor industry in the US is facing its toughest challenges since the 90s and its internet industry has suffered the coldest winter, Lü Xiang, an expert on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times, on Friday.

Economic recovery is not the only field in which the US needs China. Analysts noted that the Biden administration is seeking to hold talks with China on a slew of issues, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict, exchanges between the two militaries, and climate. Communication channels on the latter two fields had been temporarily suspended after the US former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's highly provocative visit to the island of Taiwan.

Some US lawmakers, especially hawkish anti-China ones, have provocatively put out a longer list of issues that should be discussed between China and the US. US media reported that US Senator Bob Menendez wrote to Blinken on Wednesday to urge him to talk about human rights issues and the Taiwan question.

Li said that China also has its own list of issues it needs to talk about with the US, especially on the island of Taiwan. With the harm done by Pelosi's visit to the island still lingering over China-US relations, the Biden administration should credibly honor its commitment and make sure the new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy does not provoke China with a visit to the island, which is a real move that would set a guardrail on bilateral relations.

The US has continued playing the Taiwan card, with the latest stunt pulled by US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns, who said on Thursday that China's "ambitions" on the island should not be underestimated.

In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at the press conference on Friday that the island is an inalienable part of China and the Taiwan question is China's domestic affair, which is different from the Ukraine issue in nature. She urged some people in the US to stop creating new factors that will bring tension to the cross-Straits situation.

China has made the red line crystal clear to the US, and it is time for the US to show sincerity in fixing ties, said analysts.

Lü said that the US and China should grasp the current window of opportunity to improve relations, as the US will fall into more chaos after it enters its election cycle. More stable China-US relations benefit not only the US and China, but also meet the expectations of the international community.

China's foreign ministry says airship over the US was an accident

A balloon flies in the sky over Billings, Montana, U.S. February 1, 2023, in this picture obtained from social media. Chase Doak/via REUTERS

04 Feb 2023

SHANGHAI: China's foreign ministry said on Saturday (Feb 4) that the flight of a Chinese "airship" over the United States was a "force majeure accident", accusing US politicians and media of taking advantage of the situation to discredit China.

The United States, saying the craft was a suspected spy balloon that had committed a "clear violation" of US sovereignty, postponed a visit to China by Secretary of State Antony Blinken that had been expected to start on Friday.

"China has always strictly abided by international law and respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries," the ministry said in a statement.

It said Beijing and Washington had not announced any visit by Blinken and that "the US announcements are their own matter and we respect that".

Related:

Blinken postpones China trip over 'unacceptable' Chinese spy balloon

The ministry said in a separate statement that Wang Yi, director of China's Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, had spoken to Blinken over the phone on Friday evening and discussed how to deal with accidental incidents in a calm and professional manner.

Wang told Blinken that both parties needed to communicate in a timely manner and avoid any misjudgments, the ministry said.

Blinken cancels China trip as spy balloon floats over US, Beijing calls it ‘civilian airship’

The presence of a China-made spy balloon in US airspace forced Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel his first trip to Beijing. But China has said the balloon was launched for weather research and it strayed into the US.

Adarsh T R
New Delhi,

UPDATED: Feb 4, 2023 

A balloon flies in the sky over Billings, Montana, US. (Photo: AP)

A high-altitude Chinese surveillance balloon was spotted hovering over Montana in the US, home to one of three nuclear missile launch facilities at Malmstrom Air Force Base on Friday, straining US-China relations.

While the US said the spy balloon was launched by China to collect information, Beijing confirmed it was China-made. It later voiced regret that the balloon, launched for weather research, strayed into US airspace.

The spy balloon saga led to the postponement of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's first official trip to Beijing. Although the trip was not formally announced, both Beijing and Washington were talking about his imminent arrival.

“Shoot down the balloon,” former President Donald Trump wrote on his website on Friday morning.

Here are the latest developments.

The White House said the presence of the spy balloon in US airspace was a clear violation of sovereignty and international law. Antony Blinken postponed his trip, saying the incident on the eve of his visit was an "irresponsible act" by China.

"The first step is getting the surveillance asset out of our air space," he said, adding that Washington would maintain open lines of communication with China


The postponing of Blinken's trip, which had been agreed to in November by US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, is a blow to those who saw it as an overdue opportunity to stabilise an increasingly fractious relationship. The last visit by a US secretary of state was in 2017.

Joe Biden was briefed about the floating orb on Friday as Republicans mounted pressure on the administration to shoot down the spy balloon. The US did get fighter jets, including F-22s, ready to shoot down the balloon, but the Pentagon recommended against it as its size would create a debris field large enough to harm people on the ground.

The US has assured its citizens that the spy balloon does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground. It was not clear what the military was doing to prevent it from collecting sensitive information or what would happen with the balloon if it wasn’t shot down.

The mood in China over the balloon was also glum. The government expressed regret that an "airship" used for civilian meteorological and other scientific purposes had strayed.

However, in a stern message, Wang Yi, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee told Antony Blinken that China is a responsible country and has always strictly abided by international law, Global Times reported.

"We do not accept any groundless speculation and hype," Yi told Blinken.

Currently, the US is tracking the path of the spy balloon, hovering above the central United States. The balloon is demonstrating its capability to maneuver, but the US said it will not give constant updates on its location.

The public has the ability to look up in the sky and see where the balloon is, a Pentagon official told The Washington Post.

The Pentagon's disclosure about the balloon's maneuverability directly challenges China's assertion about it being blown off course.

Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder said the spy balloon would likely be over the country for a few more days. He also said another Chinese balloon was observed over Latin America, without saying where exactly.

--- ENDS ---

Chinese Balloon High Over US Stirs Unease Down Below

The Chinese balloon drifting high above the U.S. and first revealed over Montana has created a buzz down below among residents — and raised a chorus of alarm from elected officials

By Associated Press
Feb. 3, 2023, 

A balloon floats over Columbia, Mo., on Friday, Feb. 3, 2023. A huge, high-altitude Chinese balloon sailed across the U.S. on Friday, drawing severe Pentagon accusations of spying despite China's firm denials. (Anna Griffin/Missourian via AP)ANNA GRIFFIN

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Chinese balloon drifting high above the U.S. and first revealed over Montana has created a buzz down below among residents who initially wondered what it was — and now wonder what its arrival means amid a chorus of alarm raised by elected officials.

The balloon roiled diplomatic tensions as it continued to move over the central U.S. on Friday at 60,000 feet (18,288 meters). Secretary of State Antony Blinken abruptly canceled an upcoming trip to China.

Curiosity about the bobbling sky orb that's the size of three school buses swept the nation and the internet, with search terms like “where is the spy balloon now?” and “spy balloon tracker” surging on Google. There is no such tracker just yet, but a couple St. Louis TV stations offered grainy live feeds of the balloon.

Internet users posted wobbly videos and photos of white splotches in comments sections and speculative feeds. And online storm chasers, more accustomed to tracking raging systems and funnel clouds, offered updates on the balloon’s path through cloudless skies.

It crossed into U.S. airspace over Alaska early this week, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic.

In Montana — home to Malmstrom Air Force base and dozens of nuclear missile silos — people doubted Beijing's claim that it was a weather balloon gone off course. And the governor and members of Congress pressed the Biden administration over why the military did not immediately bring it down from the sky.

“I question whether or not we would even found out about this if people hadn't spotted it in Billings,” said Chase Doak, a resident of the southern Montana city who appears to have captured some of the first known video footage and photographs of the balloon.

A white balloon with what appeared to be a solar array hanging beneath it was seen over Billings Wednesday afternoon, around the same time the local airport was temporarily shut down and a day before the Pentagon said it was tracking a Chinese spy balloon over the state.

Initial speculation over its origins ranged from the foreign to the extra-terrestrial.

When Todd Hewett's 10-year-old son saw it over Billings he thought it was a comet. Hewett got some shaky footage, using a cellphone to take video through a telescope, and was skeptical of the Chinese claim it was a civilian balloon.

“Shoot it down,” he said. "If we could somehow pierce the bottom of it to allow some of the gas to escape to allow for a more controlled descent (that) would be nice .. but if we can’t do that ... blow it up.”

Montana has some experience with balloons launched by adversaries: Japan in World War II targeted the western U.S. with incendiary “balloon bombs” that were floated over North America with plans to harm people and start forest fires. More than 30 of the bombs made of rice paper landed in Montana, according to the Montana Historical Society.

In Oregon, five children and a pregnant woman on a church picnic were killed in 1945 when they found one of the bombs and it exploded.

On Friday in Kansas City, Missouri, the National Weather Service said it received reports of a large balloon in the Kansas City metro area and posted two images of white orbs taken from the weather station office in Pleasant Hill, Missouri. The service confirmed it was not a National Weather Service balloon.

A graphic generated by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration online tool was eagerly shared on Facebook, showing the balloon’s trajectory sweep into the U.S. South. Local National Weather Service offices were asked on Twitter whether the balloon was theirs. No, was their answer.

Tami Hansen, 44, saw the balloon overhead in Columbia, Missouri, and said she was not terribly concerned about the object flying over her city.

“I’ve heard all kinds of thoughts. Is it a spy balloon, is it a weather balloon? Who knows right now? It is what it is," she said. “We really try not to get too political out here,” she said.

Montana U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, who chairs the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said he would hold a hearing to get answers from the Biden administration. He called China's actions “a clear threat."

Rep. Ryan Zinke sent a poll to constituents early Friday saying the balloon was still over the state and asking if should be shot down. When the Pentagon said the balloon had since drifted over the central U.S., Zinke raised the possibility China had more than one balloon over the U.S..

“I don't know if that's the only balloon. We've asked for those answers,” he told The Associated Press. He said the balloon should have been shot down. “The message that it gives to our allies is, we’re not capable of dealing with a balloon," he said.

Republicans in Montana have grown increasingly outspoken in recent years about China posing a threat to U.S. national security.

A bill pending before the state Legislature would ban “foreign adversaries” from owning, leasing or renting critical infrastructure or farmland. The measure's sponsor singled out China as being interested in acquiring U.S. lands and resources to “help them with spying efforts."

The heavy anti-China sentiment marks a shift from a just a few years ago, when Montana U.S. Sen. Steve Daines visited China, hosted the Chinese ambassador on a visit to a Montana ranch and helped secure a deal to export more beef to China.

The beef deal later fell through, and the Republican has transformed into a strong critic of China.

Daines on Friday rejected the Pentagon's contention that it was too dangerous to bring the balloon down over Montana. He told reporters there would have been “no better place” than his sparsely populated home state.

“You've got higher odds of hitting a cow or a prairie dog or an antelope than you would of hitting any kind of a structure or a person,” he said.

_

Associated Press writers Margaret Stafford in Liberty, Missouri; Alina Hartounian in Phoenix; and Lolita Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

Democrats say Republicans - including George Santos - wearing assault weapon pins ‘isn’t the flex you think it is’


Eric Garcia
Thu, 2 February 2023

House Democrats criticised freshman Republicans, including embattled Representative George Santos, for wearing assault rifle pins on Capitol Hill.

Democratic Representative Jimmy Gomez of California tweeted out photos of Representatives Anna Paulina Luna of Florida and Mr Santos of New York wearing lapel pins in the shape of an assault weapon.

“Where are these assault weapon pins coming from? Who is passing these out?” he tweeted.

Ms Luna wore one during a hearing for the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Wednesday while the embattled Mr Santos wore one during a speech on the House floor.

“Anna Paulina Luna wore an assault weapon pin at today’s Oversight hearing — less than 48 hours after her state experienced a mass shooting,” Mr Gomez tweeted. “You can’t make this sh*t up. This isn’t the flex you think it is.”

Earlier in the week, 11 people were hurt in a mass shooting in Lakeland, Florida.

In images shared by Los Angeles Times photojournalist Kent Nishimura, the pin can be seen clearly on Mr Santos.

This was not the only confrontation that Democrats and Republicans had about firearms on the Hill this week. On Wednesday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman whether he thought it was acceptable for members to bring firearms to the committee.

“The chair believes that members of the Natural Resources Committee should follow the House rules and the guidance of Capitol police,” he said.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez responded by saying that members have different interpretations of the rules. The question came after the GOP struck down a rule that would prevent members from bringing a firearm into the committee.

“I need to know for a sense of my own personal safety what your interpretation of the House rules are as it pertains to this issue,” she said.

Mr Westerman said that she should take it up with the House Administration Committee.

“So, we are seeing that the chair, who is responsible for the enforcement of these rules, does have a specific interpretation of whether firearms should be or not be permitted,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez said, following up by asking if he had consulted with the Administration Committee.

Mr Westerman said “the committee has not been in consultation with the House Administration because it’s an amendment, that’s not necessary,” before noting it was the only committee that had an amendment about bringing in a firearm and that was put in when Democrats controlled the House.

“So just, in summary, the decision as to whether the chair believes that firearms should be permitted in this committee is determined by House admin, but the committee has not been in touch with House admin whether this should or should not be allowed,” she said. “And so therefore, we’re going to leave this ambiguous.”

In response, Mr Westerman said it is up to every member of the House to follow the House rule

Democrats Go Ballistic Over Assault Rifle Lapel Pins Worn By GOP Lawmakers

“Anyone can wear whatever they want, but you have to have some common decency," said a stunned Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.).

By Mary Papenfuss

HUFFPOST
Feb 3, 2023

Florida GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna sports an assault rifle lapel pin even though there
were six mass shootings in her state in January.
SCREEN SHOT/TWITTER/REP. JIMMY GOMEZ

At least three Republican lawmakers in the House have been sporting tiny assault rifle pins on their lapels amid an alarming series of mass shootings — and critics are exploding.

“To promote that on the floor of the House is despicable and an insult to all of the victims of assault weapons,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) told a Nexstar Media reporter.

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) said that “anybody can wear whatever they want, but you have to have some common decency.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), who has worn the lapel pin for years, said in a tweet that he distributed them to his colleagues to “remind people of the Second Amendment of the Constitution and how important it is in preserving our liberties.” He appeared proud that he was “triggering” Democrats.

Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and George Santos (R-N.Y.) have both been photographed wearing the pins. Luna did so on Monday less than 48 hours after a mass shooting in her state that injured 11 people, two of them critically. There were six mass shootings in Florida in January.

“You can’t make this sh*t up,” Gomez tweeted.

He also pointed out the utter heartlessness of wearing the pins during Gun Violence Survivors Week — and noted that Clyde is the owner of a major gun retailer in Georgia that profits from gun use.

In response to one of Gomez’s comments, Luna bizarrely tweeted a photo of a signed, handwritten note apparently taped to a House office door saying: “Jimmy, stop trying to date me!” — with the rifle pin attached.

As of early February, the Gun Violence Archive counted 54 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2023. Six of them involved four or more fatalities.

Though handguns are most often used in mass shootings, AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles or similar guns — just like the ones the lapel pins depict — are increasingly a mass shooter’s weapon of choice, USA Today reported.