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      Canada Knows China Tried to Meddle in Its Elections, but What Should Come Next?

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      Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has rejected calls by the opposition for a full public inquiry.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may have hoped that this week’s independent review of China’s meddling in the last two Canadian federal elections would tamp down debate on the subject in Parliament. Instead, the report seemed to revitalize the opposition parties.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has rejected calls for an inquiry into election subversion.Carlos Osorio/ReutersHere’s a short version of that report, which I wrote about when a redacted version was made public late Tuesday: There is evidence that China, Russia and Iran tried to subvert the 2019 and 2021 elections, but there is no evidence that their efforts “impacted” the results.[Read: Foreign Efforts to Subvert Canada’s Last 2 Elections Failed, Report Says]The federal government has long accepted that the Chinese government tried to sway those elections. And since November, a House of Commons committee has been looking into attempts by foreign governments to meddle in elections.But the issue flared up on Feb. 17 when The Globe and Mail published an article it said was based on secret and top-secret reports prepared by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the agency most English-speaking Canadians know as CSIS.According to the article, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party did not want a Conservative government to win the 2021 election because it feared it would take a hard-line approach to China. The Chinese leadership, however, wasn’t entirely happy with the Liberals, either, and wanted to hold them to a minority government. While that ultimately was the result, it’s difficult to see how any outside government could engineer such an outcome.The documents, as reported by The Globe, laid out a variety of strategies, not all of them obviously feasible. China asked its diplomats in Canada to swing the vote in favor of the Liberal candidates in constituencies with large Chinese populations. And the documents the newspaper cited included boasts some of those diplomats conveyed back to Beijing that they had successfully defeated Conservative candidates, although there is nothing to back their claims.More on ChinaA Surge in Activity: After being battered by the pandemic in 2022, Chinese factories bounced back with vigor in February: Manufacturing activity rose to its highest level in more than a decade.Erasing Vestiges of ‘Zero Covid’: The ruling Communist Party is waging a propaganda campaign to rewrite the public’s memory of its handling of the pandemic, which included some of the harshest restrictions in the world.Desperate for Babies: For generations, Chinese parents chafed under the country’s one-child policy. Now, facing a declining birthrate, China wants lots of children — but many families don’t.Courting Europe: Beijing, in urgent need of reviving its economy, wants to mend ties with Europe but is struggling to create distance between itself and Moscow.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, citing secrecy laws, has not addressed any of the specific allegations, but he has criticized the article and other reports for containing inaccuracies, without elaborating.The Conservatives, who of course were the target, swiftly demanded a public inquiry, and Pierre Poilievre, their leader, charged that Mr. Trudeau was covering up China’s actions.“He’s perfectly happy to let a foreign, authoritarian government interfere in our elections as long as they’re helping him,” Mr. Poilievre said at a news conference.The New Democrats also joined the call for the inquiry, and on Thursday, the committee looking into election interference passed a motion, not binding on the government, from one of its members. It called for a public inquiry into foreign interference in Canada’s democratic institutions and during Canadian elections.Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader, has charged the prime minister with trying to cover up Chinese meddling.Blair Gable/ReutersOn Friday, Mr. Trudeau again told reporters in Winnipeg that such a step would be unnecessary. He noted that a panel of senior public servants, who work with law enforcement and intelligence agencies during elections, found that no foreign government had managed to subvert the vote. In addition to the public hearings of the House of Commons committee, Mr. Trudeau said, a special committee of members of Parliament who meet in secret and have access to confidential intelligence was reviewing the issue.Wesley Wark, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and a former intelligence adviser to the federal government, told me that while more needed to be done about election subversion by foreign governments, an inquiry was not the way to go. It would, he said, most likely be conducted by a judge with little or no background in intelligence, would have little or no access to secret intelligence and would not issue its findings until after the next election.Instead, Mr. Wark said, he wants both the government and CSIS to follow Australia’s lead when it comes to interference by China in Canada.“The Australians are willing to to really talk about the threats very bluntly and provide, without getting into the very sensitive information, case-by-case examples of how these dangers are unfolding,” Mr. Wark told me.By contrast, he said, it has been over a year since David Vigneault, the director of CSIS, has made a public speech, and the latest report on foreign interference in Canada from the intelligence agency is from 2021.“It’s just not fulfilling what I think of as its responsibility as an authority on threats to the security of Canada to help educate Canadians about that,” Mr. Wark said.More broadly, Mr. Wark faulted the government for, in his view, being “super reluctant” to expel diplomats who are interfering in Canada’s affairs, whether through disinformation campaigns, illegal campaign activities or threatening and intimidating nationals of their countries who now live in Canada.That reluctance, he said, appears to come from a fear of retaliation. But he disagrees with allowing such concerns to hold back the response.“Expulsions are a way of sending a message to the governments engaging in that kind of behavior, and also sending a message to Canadians that we’re on this and we’re not going to turn a blind eye,” Mr. Wark said. “Expulsions and more naming and shaming are very appropriate.”Trans CanadaMigrants arriving in Quebec after illegally crossing the border from the United States.Nasuna Stuart-UlinNorimitsu Onishi, my Montreal-based colleague, has looked into the rise in the number of people who are illegally crossing into Canada from the United States: “Shielded by geography, strict immigration policies favoring the educated and skilled, and its single border with the United States, Canada is now being forced to deal with an issue that has long bedeviled other wealthy Western nations: mass illegal border crossings by land,” he writes.The New York Times Magazine this week includes a in-depth look at a truly revolutionary stroke treatment that promises to save millions of lives. Eva Holland, a writer based in Whitehorse, examined it in action in Calgary for her article.This week, the government of Canada joined those in other nations and banned the TikTok app from government devices out of security concerns.The Canadian actor Eugene Levy is, to put it mildly, not keen on travel. He discussed with Anna Peele what it had taken to persuade him to star in a travel television series.In her review of “Old Babes in the Woods,” a collection of stories by Margaret Atwood, Rebecca Makkai writes: “If you consider yourself an Atwood fan and have only read her novels: Get your act together. You’ve been missing out.”Brendan Fraser, the Canadian American actor who has been nominated for an Oscar for his performance in “The Whale,” spoke about his comeback with Kyle Buchanan, the awards season columnist for The New York Times.A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.How are we doing?We’re eager to have your thoughts about this newsletter and events in Canada in general. Please send them to nytcanada@nytimes.com.Like this email?Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up here. More

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      House committee advances legislation to ban TikTok over security concerns

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      House committee advances legislation to ban TikTok over security concernsRepublican committee chair describes Chinese-owned social app as a ‘spy balloon in your phone’A powerful US House committee has applied further pressure to TikTok by backing legislation that could give Joe Biden the power to ban the social video app.The House foreign affairs committee voted on Wednesday along party lines to grant the administration new powers to ban the Chinese-owned app as well as other apps believed to pose security risks. The fate of the measure is still uncertain and it would need to be passed by the full House and Senate before it can go to Biden.The Republican committee chair, Michael McCaul, described TikTok this week as a “spy balloon in your phone”, referring to the Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina last month. Democrats on the committee voted against McCaul’s deterring America’s technological adversaries act but Republican lawmakers pushed it through 24 to 16.The committee vote came in the same week that Canada joined the US in banning TikTok from being installed on all government-issued mobile devices, due to security concerns. The European Commission has also banned TikTok from staff phones. Politicians who support the TikTok bans have expressed concerns that the Chinese government could access user data or manipulate public opinion via the app – accusations that TikTok denies.On Monday the British government said there was no evidence of the need for a TikTok ban.“We have no evidence to suggest that there is a necessity to ban people from using TikTok,” the UK’s secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, Michelle Donelan, told Politico. “That would be a very, very forthright move, that would require a significant evidence base to be able to do that.”McCaul told Reuters after the vote that he thinks the TikTok bill will be taken up on the floor “fairly soon” and voted on by the full House this month. He said this week that Democrats would prefer to rely on a security review of TikTok being undertaken by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, although an approved plan has yet to emerge from that process.Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House foreign affairs committee, said he opposed the legislation because it would “damage our allegiances across the globe, bring more companies into China’s sphere, destroy jobs here in the United States and undercut core American values of free speech and free enterprise”. TikTok has around 110 million users in the US, according to analytics firm data.ai, and more than 1 billion worldwide.In a letter sent to McCaul this week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) warned that the legislation was “vague and overbroad” and would “violate the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans who use TikTok to communicate, gather information, and express themselves daily”.TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, said it was “disappointed” to see the legislation being brought forward.“A US ban on TikTok is a ban on the export of American culture and values to the billion-plus people who use our service worldwide. We’re disappointed to see this rushed piece of legislation move forward, despite its considerable negative impact on the free speech rights of millions of Americans who use and love TikTok,” said a TikTok spokesperson.On Tuesday a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said banning TikTok on US government devices revealed Washington’s own insecurities and was an abuse of state power.Reuters contributed reportingTopicsTikTokUS politicsChinanewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Time is not on our side’: Congress panel says tackling China defines next century

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      ‘Time is not on our side’: Congress panel says tackling China defines next century‘We do not want a war within the PRC, a clash of civilizations,’ says ranking Democrat as new committee holds first hearingThe US Congress must act urgently to counter the economic and national security threats posed by the Chinese government, a bipartisan chorus of lawmakers on a newly created special House committee has warned during an inaugural, primetime hearing.The two superpowers were locked in an “existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century”, the committee’s Republican chairman, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, said as the rivalry between the US and China deepens.With democracy advocates and protesters in attendance, the panel – formally the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party – began its work at a precarious moment for US-China relations. It comes weeks after a suspected Chinese spy balloon traversed the continental US and amid intelligence that Beijing is considering providing lethal weapons to aid Russia in its war against Ukraine.Some politicians seem comfortable with the prospect of a new cold war. They shouldn’t be | Christopher S ChivvisRead moreMeanwhile, China’s militarization and aggression toward Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own, as well as its response to the coronavirus pandemic, have further escalated tensions.Underscoring the broad range of challenges the panel hopes to address, lawmakers peppered the witnesses with questions on human rights abuses, trade policies, the influence of TikTok, aggression in Taiwan, the origins of Covid-19 and international espionage.Gallagher hopes the committee will help shape China policy and legislation that can win support from both parties. But with the 2024 presidential campaign looming, and Republicans eager to paint Joe Biden as “weak on China”, the possibility of bipartisan action is likely to become increasingly narrow.“Time is not on our side,” he said, imploring a bitterly divided Congress to come together to confront China. “Our policy over the next 10 years will set the stage for the next hundred.”Illinois congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, the ranking Democrat on the panel, echoed Gallagher’s sense of urgency. He said Democrats and Republicans had for years “underestimated” the Chinese government, believing that economic integration would “inevitably lead to democracy”. But it did not and now the US needed to move quickly to pursue economic and trade policies that would “up our game” as Americans to compete with China.“We do not want a war within the PRC,” he said, referring to the People’s Republic of China, “not a cold war, not a hot war. We don’t want a clash of civilizations.”The hours-long proceeding ​offered a rare display of cross-party unity in a​n​ otherwise bitterly divided Congress​. It featured two former advisers to Donald Trump: former national security adviser HR McMaster and former deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, a China expert who resigned after the January 6 attack on the Capitol.Offering a sweeping overview of China’s rise, Pottinger said the success of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) at presenting itself as “responsible” and “normal” was “one of the great magic tricks of the modern era”.“You could say the CCP is the Harry Houdini of Marxist-Leninist regimes; the David Copperfield of Communism; the Criss Angel of autocracy,” he said “But the magic is fading.”McMaster said the US and western leaders were guilty of decades of “wishful thinking and self-delusion” in its efforts to integrate China into the international system. But he expressed optimism that the panel’s work could help lay the groundwork in Washington to “rebuild America’s and the free world’s competitive advantage”.Pentagon releases selfie of US pilot flying above Chinese spy balloonRead moreThe panel met in the same chandeliered room where the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol held its hearings. In the audience were Hong Kong pro-democracy activists as well as anti-war protesters who interrupted the proceedings, with one yelling “this committee is about saber-rattling, it’s not about peace” as he was removed from the hearing room.Several members remarked on the interference, noting that the right to protest was a hallmark of American democracy and a freedom not afforded to those in China.Highlighting human rights concerns will be a major focus of the panel. On Tuesday, the panel heard compelling testimony from Tong Yi, a human rights activist who was the former secretary to one of China’s leading dissidents, Wei Jingsheng. Yi told how she was arrested and detained by the CCP in the 1990s. After spending nine months in a detention center she was charged with “disturbing social order” and sentenced to two-and-a-half years in a labor camp.“In the US, we need to face the fact that we have helped feed the baby dragon of the CCP until it has grown into what it now is,” she said.The committee also heard from Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, who argued that the US dependency on China has had a crushing impact on American workers and wages. “While conflict with China isn’t inevitable, fierce economic competition is,” he said.On Capitol Hill, a bipartisan consensus has emerged around measures banning TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media app, bills barring Chinese citizens and companies from purchasing land near sensitive military sites, and efforts to limit US exports and technology trade to China. But there are also sharp divisions.Republicans continue to assail Biden over his response to the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon, which was downed by the US military after it sailed across North America.​Asked during the hearing what message China hoped to send with the balloon, McMaster said he believed it was likely a “metaphor for the massive effort at espionage” Beijing is carrying out around the world. China has denied the airship was used for spying, ​​claiming that it was a civilian aircraft blown off course​.Meanwhile, revelations that the US energy department concluded with “low confidence” that the Covid-19 pandemic was the result of a lab leak in China has inflamed anew a partisan debate over the virus’s origins. Officials in Washington have said that US agencies are not in agreement over the virus’s origins.Critics of the panel have raised concerns that heated rhetoric casting China as the US’s enemy would amplify anti-Asian sentiment amid a surge in hate incidents. Addressing those fears directly, Krishnamoorthi would avoid “anti-Chinese or Asian stereotyping at all costs”.“We must recognize that the CCP wants us to be fractious, partisan and prejudiced – in fact, the CCP hopes for it,” he said.Earlier on Tuesday, the House foreign affairs committee held a hearing focused on countering the rising national security threats posed by China. Testifying before the panel, Daniel Kritenbrink, US assistant secretary of state for east Asian and Pacific affairs, said China represented “our most consequential geopolitical challenge”.Joan E Greve contributed to this reportTopicsUS foreign policyChinaUS politicsAsia PacificCoronavirusnewsReuse this content More

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      Foreign Efforts to Subvert Canada’s Last 2 Elections Failed, Report Says

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      An independent review found that China, Russia and Iran tried to interfere in the 2019 and 2021 votes, but that the elections’ integrity was not compromised.OTTAWA — Foreign governments tried to interfere with the last two federal elections in Canada, but they did not succeed in “impacting” the voting results, according to an independent review released on Tuesday.That conclusion comes as opposition politicians and others are pressing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to open a separate, public inquiry into allegations of election interference by Chinese diplomats based in Canada, as well as by informal agents of the Chinese government — a move that Mr. Trudeau has rejected.The report released on Tuesday was a review of the work of a special panel of five senior public servants, created to work with intelligence and law enforcement agencies to alert the public to any “incidents that threaten the integrity of a federal election.”Morris Rosenberg, the former deputy justice minister who wrote the report, said the panel had “determined that the government of Canada did not detect foreign interference that threatened Canada’s ability to have free and fair elections,” adding: “National security agencies saw attempts at foreign interference, but not enough to have met the threshold of impacting electoral integrity.”The report singles out China, Russia and Iran as having tried to interfere in the votes held in 2019 and 2021, and it indicates that social media sites were important tools to that end. It makes particular note of activity by China.More on ChinaDesperate for Babies: For generations, Chinese parents chafed under the country’s one-child policy. Now, facing a declining birthrate, China wants lots of children — but many families don’t.Health Insurance Cuts: China’s local governments, short on money after three years of “zero Covid,” are forcing changes on the country’s health care system, squeezing benefits and angering citizens.Courting Europe: Beijing, in urgent need of reviving its economy, wants to mend ties with Europe but is struggling to create distance between itself and Moscow.Covid Deaths: While a precise accounting is impossible, rough estimates suggest that between 1 and 1.5 million people died of Covid during China’s wave — far more than the official count.It says that Canada’s main intelligence agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, was concerned that “China notably tried to target elected officials to promote their national interests and encouraged individuals to act as proxies.” China’s techniques, the agency told Mr. Rosenberg, included threatening members of the Chinese community in Canada.The reports cites an editorial in Global Times — a Chinese Communist Party-run newspaper — that falsely suggested that the Conservative Party “almost wants to break diplomatic relations with China.”It also notes a post on the Chinese messaging app WeChat, which made the claim that a bill to establish a registry of individuals lobbying for foreign governments — introduced by Kenny Chiu, who sought re-election in 2021 as a Conservative — “suppresses the Chinese community.”Mr. Chiu was defeated by a candidate from Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party.While the report said the foreign efforts had not affected election integrity, it added that it was difficult to precisely measure the total effect of Chinese disinformation on election results. “Were Conservative losses in several ridings with large Chinese diaspora communities due to attacks on the Conservative platform and on one of its candidates by media associated with or sympathetic to the Chinese government?” the report asks. “Or were they the result of the Conservatives simply not being able to connect with sufficient numbers of voters in those communities?”The question of whether China is influencing Canadian elections has long been a political issue in Canada. Pressure from opponents on Mr. Trudeau to call for an inquiry grew after The Globe and Mail, a Toronto newspaper, published reports that it said were based on a viewing of top-secret Canadian intelligence documents, showing that China “employed a sophisticated strategy to disrupt Canada’s democracy” in 2021. The newspaper said the documents indicated that officials in Beijing wanted Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals re-elected — but only with a power-limiting minority in Parliament — because they believed that a Conservative government would take a harder line against China.Citing secrecy laws, Mr. Trudeau has not discussed the specifics of those reports. But the prime minister and his staff have said that they contained “many inaccuracies.” More

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      Your Wednesday Briefing: A U.S. Push to Isolate Russia

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      Also, China’s attempt to erase “zero Covid” and Nigeria’s contested election.Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, meeting with Kazakhstan’s foreign minister, Mukhtar Tleuberdi.Pool photo by Olivier DoulieryA U.S. push in Central AsiaThe U.S. secretary of state met with the president of Kazakhstan in Astana at the start of a new effort to isolate Russia as Belarus’s leader began a state visit to China — the latest examples of dueling diplomacy related to the war in Ukraine.Antony Blinken, the top U.S. diplomat, is urging five Central Asian countries that were part of the former Soviet Union — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — not to help Russia evade sanctions imposed by the West over its invasion of Ukraine. The countries have strong ties to Russia, but leaders there have made comments reflecting concerns about maintaining their sovereignty.One of Russia’s staunchest allies, President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus, arrived in Beijing for talks with China’s leader, Xi Jinping. The U.S. has suggested that China was preparing to supply military aid to Russia, a claim rejected by the Chinese government.U.S. officials said they viewed Lukashenko’s visit as another sign of China’s growing engagement with Russia. Blinken’s trip to Central Asia follows recent visits to Kyiv by President Biden and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that were intended to shore up support for Ukraine.Context: China is trying to present itself as a neutral observer while maintaining close ties with Russia, a precarious balancing act. Beijing’s position has alienated European leaders who might have helped invigorate China’s economy following years of pandemic lockdowns.Other news from the war:The promised torrent of tanks from European nations to Ukraine now seems like more of a trickle.Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, warned that the situation in the eastern city of Bakhmut was “getting more and more difficult.”Removing a Covid testing booth at a park in Beijing. Jade Gao/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesChina moves to erase ‘zero Covid’China’s ruling Communist Party is trying to rewrite the public’s memory of “zero Covid,” the country’s strict lockdown policy. Analysts say the move is aimed at quashing any resentment over the enormous price China paid in economic loss and trauma to enforce its coronavirus restrictions.In a decree that was published after a recent meeting of top officials, a newly triumphant narrative has emerged in which the country’s Covid response was a “miracle in human history” and “completely correct.” China’s official messaging acknowledges none of the extremes of “zero Covid,” nor does it mention the chaos that ensued after the policy’s abrupt dismantling in early December, which left hospitals unprepared for an explosion in new infections.Instead, the party has declared that its efforts led China to a “decisive victory” over the virus. The term “zero Covid” itself, once ubiquitous, has vanished from the party’s rhetoric. The State of the WarRussia’s New Offensive: The Russian military is relying on tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts to carry out its latest maneuver, which has barely budged over the last month.Deploying High-Powered Aides: President Biden has dispatched Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a concerted diplomatic push to show support for Ukraine.A War of Words: Russia and the West have been arguing for months about which side is more willing to negotiate ending the war in Ukraine peacefully.Analysis: The government’s messaging is in line with efforts to restore the public’s confidence, both in the party’s leadership and in the country’s future. But the aftermath of the pandemic may be especially challenging for the party to bury, as feelings of whiplash, grief and frustration simmer just beneath the surface for many Chinese residents.Counting votes in Lagos.James Oatway/ReutersNigeria’s opposition calls for a rerunThree days after Nigeria held its most wide-open presidential election in years, two opposition parties called for the vote to be canceled and rerun, saying it was compromised by vote rigging and violence.The call came as vote counting showed that the candidate of the governing party appeared to be taking the lead. With about one-third of the 36 states reporting results, Bola Tinubu, the candidate of the governing All Progressives Congress party, had won 44 percent of the vote.Many polls had predicted a win for Peter Obi, the so-called youth candidate of the little-known Labour Party. But early results showed Obi had just 18 percent of the vote, while Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party also trailed behind Tinubu with 33 percent.Response: A spokesman for Tinubu’s party campaign council rejected the accusations of vote rigging. Independent observers raised concerns about whether the election was fair, but stopped short of accusing the governing party of rigging it.Context: Many Nigerians had looked to the election to put the country back on track after eight years of rule by Muhammadu Buhari, a military dictator turned democrat. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has struggled with economic and security crises under his leadership.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificDentsu helped coordinate the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in venues like Japan’s National Stadium.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesJapanese prosecutors accused the advertising giant Dentsu, a driving force behind the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, of illegally conspiring to evade the public bidding process.Hong Kong’s leader said the city would lift its Covid mask mandate, ending one of the last such policies in the world.Wendy’s, the American burger chain, is coming to Australia. Like other American imports, it might need to change its name.Around the WorldThe coffins of shipwreck victims in Crotone, Italy, on Tuesday.Valeria Ferraro/Associated PressA shipwreck off Italy’s coast that killed at least 63 people has made it clear that the E.U.’s consensus against migrants has hardened.After accusations of misconduct and mismanagement, the president of France’s soccer federation stepped down yesterday.U.S. NewsThe Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed deeply skeptical of the legality of the administration’s plan to wipe out more than $400 billion in student debt.Jazz Pharmaceuticals exploited a safety requirement to prolong its monopoly on a narcolepsy drug that has generated more than $13 billion in revenue.Nearly two dozen dead whales have washed ashore on the East Coast since early December, in part because of collisions with cargo ships. A Morning ReadCustomers at Kuraichi, a sake shop in Brooklyn.Nico Schinco for The New York TimesSake is booming in the U.S., The Times’s wine critic writes. Exports of the fermented product of rice from Japan are soaring, and breweries and specialty stores have opened in the U.S. to quench the growing thirst. Here’s a guide to sake basics.ARTS AND IDEAS Should acting awards be gender-neutral?The cast of Season 2 of “The White Lotus” at the SAG Awards.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressAt the Screen Actors Guild Awards Sunday in Los Angeles, there was at least one red-carpet question without an easy answer: Should awards shows eliminate separate acting categories for men and women?The debate over gender-neutral acting prizes has gained steam as more nonbinary actors have given acclaimed performances and, in some cases, chosen to withdraw from awards consideration rather than compete in a gendered category. “Right now, you need to choose,” said August Winter, a nonbinary actor, referring to awards that separate categories for men and women. “And I don’t think people should be put in that position.”Others worry that gender-neutral categories could mean fewer nominations — or that women could be shut out of awards consideration entirely.“I’m not sure what the solution is,” said Sarah Polley, director of the Oscar-nominated film “Women Talking.” “But it certainly can’t stay the way it is, because it is excluding people from being recognized.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookBobbi Lin for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Sue Li. Prop Stylist: Sophia Pappas.This vegetarian tteokbokki features a base of butter-fried shallots, a layer of melted cheese and a crunchy blanket of raw cabbage.What to ReadThese three science fiction and fantasy novels offer a welcome break from reality.What to Listen ToThe experimental pop duo 100 gecs turns toward rock for its second album.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Paramour (5 letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. Have a great day. — Dan and MariahP.S. Here’s how The Times has covered the war in Ukraine, one year in.“The Daily” is about why so many buildings have collapsed in Turkey. We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Covid-19 likely emerged from laboratory leak, US energy department says

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      Covid-19 likely emerged from laboratory leak, US energy department saysUpdated finding a departure from previous studies on how the virus emerged and comes with ‘low confidence’The virus which drove the Covid-19 pandemic most likely emerged from a laboratory leak but not as part of a weapons program, according to an updated and classified 2021 US energy department study provided to the White House and senior American lawmakers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.The department’s finding – a departure from previous studies on how the virus emerged – came in an update to a document from the office of National Intelligence director Avril Haines. It follows an FBI finding, issued with “moderate confidence”, that the virus spread after leaking out of a Chinese laboratory.The conclusion from the energy department – which oversees a network of 17 US laboratories, including areas of advanced biology – is considered significant despite the fact that, as the report said, the agency made its updated judgment with “low confidence”.Conflicting hypotheses on the origins of Covid-19 have centered either on an unidentified animal transmitting the virus to humans or its accidental leak from a Chinese research laboratory in Wuhan.The spread of Covid-19, just one in a line of infectious coronoviruses to emerge, caught global health bodies unawares in early 2020. It has since caused close to 7 million deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization, and disrupted trade as well as travel.Former US president Donald Trump politicized the issue, calling it the “China virus”, triggering a racialization of a pandemic that his Democratic successor Joe Biden has sought to avoid. But political polarization remains under the surface of efforts to establish its origins.The energy department’s updated findings run counter to reports by four other US intelligence agencies that concluded the epidemic started as the result of natural transmission from an infected animal. Two agencies remain undecided.US officials, the Journal said, also declined to expand on new intelligence or analysis that led the energy department to change its position. They also noted that the energy department and FBI arrived at the same conclusion for different reasons.The CIA remains undecided between leak and natural transmission theories, according to the National Intelligence Council study. But while the initial 2021 report did not reach a conclusion, it did offer a consensus view that Covid-19 was not part of a Chinese biological weapons program.The National Security adviser, Jake Sullivan, acknowledged Sunday that there are a “variety of views” within US intelligence agencies on the issue.“Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other, and a number have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure,” Sullivan told CNN.But he said that the Biden administration has “directed repeatedly every element of our intelligence community to put effort and resources on getting to the bottom of this question”.Sullivan added that Biden had specifically requested that the National Laboratories under the energy department be brought into the assessment. “He wants to put every tool at use to figure out what happened,” Sullivan said.“Right now there is not a definitive answer to emerge from the intelligence community on this question,” he added, referring to eight of 18 agencies – along with the National Intelligence Council – that have looked in Covid-19s origins.A previous report by the energy department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in May 2020 concluded that a lab-leak theory was plausible.The updated, five-page NIC assessment, the Journal reported, “was done in light of new intelligence, further study of academic literature and consultation with experts outside government” and comes as Republicans in Congress press for more information.A spokesperson for the energy department wrote in a statement that the agency “continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of Covid-19, as the president directed”.Chinese officials have disputed that Covid-19 could have leaked from its labs, among them the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC) and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products.According to the initial US 2021 intelligence report, Covid-19 first circulated in Wuhan, China, no later than November 2019, when three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology – reportedly involved in coronavirus research – were sick enough to seek hospital care.TopicsCoronavirusUS politicsChinaAsia PacificBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol Hill finds rare bipartisan cause in China – but it could pose problems

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      Capitol Hill finds rare bipartisan cause in China – but it could pose problemsExperts fear this moment of agreement in Washington could escalate tensions with Beijing and increase the risk of conflictIn the weeks since the US military shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have spoken passionately about the need to more effectively compete with Beijing. A resolution condemning China for the balloon incident passed the House in an unanimous vote of 419 to 0.Joe Biden has similarly expressed hope that efforts to strengthen America’s global competitiveness in response to a rising China can unite Democrats and Republicans in an era defined by bitter partisanship.“Today, we’re in the strongest position in decades to compete with China or anyone else in the world,” Biden said in his State of the Union address earlier this month. “Let’s be clear: winning the competition with China should unite all of us.”The new House select committee on China will hold its first primetime public hearing on Tuesday, and the panel’s supporters are optimistic its work will provide a rare opportunity for bipartisan cooperation in the divided Congress.But while there’s widespread agreement among policymakers and lawmakers in Washington over the need to better compete with China, there is no prevailing consensus on how to do so. Some experts also fear this kumbaya moment in Washington could escalate tensions with Beijing and increase the risk of conflict.“There is a bipartisan consensus on the fact that China poses a broad challenge to the United States across multiple domains,” said Patricia Kim, an expert on US-China relations at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “I don’t believe we have a clear consensus on the precise mix of policies that are necessary to address this challenge.”A committee walks the ‘fine line’Competitor or adversary? West struggles to define relationship with BeijingRead moreOne of Republican Kevin McCarthy’s first major victories after securing the House speakership (on the 15th ballot) was to create a new select committee examining competition between the US and China. The motion to form the committee was overwhelmingly approved in a 365 to 65 vote, with 146 Democrats joining all Republicans.“I’ve heard my colleagues on both sides say that the threat posed by Communist China is serious. I fully agree. This is an issue that transcends our political parties,” McCarthy said.The panel, officially named the House select committee on strategic competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist party, is broadly charged with examining a host of economic, security and human rights issues involving China.The panel will be led by congressman Mike Gallagher, a Republican of Wisconsin and prominent “China hawk”, who emphasized that it would work in a bipartisan fashion to expose the threats the CCP poses to US national security and economic interests. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat of Illinois, will serve as the committee’s ranking member. The leaders have stressed that the target of their scrutiny is China’s ruling party, not its people, and hope their work yields policy and legislative recommendations that win support from lawmakers of both parties.Of course, partisan divisions will arise. Republicans increasingly depict China as an outright “adversary” intent on reshaping the international order while the the Biden administration and many Democrats ​have treaded more delicately, describing it as “our most consequential strategic competitor”.Republicans have repeatedly attacked Biden over his approach to Beijing, though members of both parties criticized the president’s handling of the balloon incident with some lawmakers accusing the White House of concealing information. And there have also been partisan disagreements about how the US should engage China over shared challenges such as the climate crisis.At the same time, some of the rhetoric from Gallagher and his Republican colleagues has alarmed Democratic members of the committee. Congressman Andy Kim, a Democrat of New Jersey, voiced concern after McCarthy and Gallagher co-signed a Fox News op-ed outlining a strategy to “win the new cold war” against China.“If Chair Gallagher keeps talking about this as a ‘new cold war’, that is not helpful,” Kim told NBC News. “There’s a fine line between deterrence and provocation, and you are crossing over that in a way that is only going to inflame and create greater escalatory challenges.”And there is fear that language casting China as America’s enemy will encourage anti-Asian sentiment amid a surge in hate incidents.“I have a lot of respect for Mike Gallagher in terms of how he’ll conduct the committee in a serious way, but it’s important to see how the conversations unfold,” committee member Ro Khanna, a Democrat of California, told the Guardian.“For those of us who are concerned about not devolving into a cold war or anti-Asian American sentiment, we have to be particularly vocal.”A transition is under wayOver the last decade, as the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, consolidated power at home, hope in Washington of improving US-China relations dimmed. Under Xi’s rule, the US has accused China of committing genocide against the Uyghurs and other Turkic and Islamic minority people in the country’s Xinjiang province.Xi has meanwhile overseen an expansive military buildup. This month, the Pentagon informed Congress that China now had more missile silos than the US, though the US has a much larger nuclear force than China.Amid rising fears of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing claims as its own, the US military has expanded its presence in Asia. Just this month, the US gained expanded access to four military bases in the Philippines.Meanwhile, US lawmakers, including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, have enraged Beijing with visits to Taiwan in a show of support for the island’s democracy. Gallagher and Khanna made official trips to the capital city of Taipei this month for meetings with top political, national security and business leaders.The discovery of the suspected Chinese spy balloon sparked a diplomatic crisis that resulted in the cancellation of a long-planned trip to Beijing by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken. Just weeks prior, a top US military commander warned officers in a memo that his “gut” told him the US and China would be at war by 2025.Now US officials say China is considering supplying lethal weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine. China denies the claim, though that didn’t stop US national security adviser Jake Sullivan from telling CNN on Sunday that it would be “a bad mistake” for Chinese officials to do that. “China should want no part of it,” Sullivan said.In a sign of lawmakers’ hardening views on China, measures to confront Beijing on multiple fronts now routinely attract bipartisan support.Last year, Congress overwhelmingly approved sweeping legislation aimed at growing the nation’s domestic manufacturing and technology sectors to try to boost US competitiveness with China. Shortly thereafter, Biden introduced export restrictions on semiconductors in an effort to strangle China’s microchip sector.Congress also gave the Biden administration new authority to send Taiwan weapons​, though lawmakers say a spending dispute is slowing efforts to help the self-governing island fortify its defenses against China.Meanwhile, there is growing support for legislation that would ban the Chinese-owned video sharing platform TikTok that lawmakers say poses a security risk, as well as for efforts to hold China accountable over the country’s alleged abuses of Muslim minorities in its Xinjiang province.The US is turning from a strategy of integration with China to one of confrontation and competition, said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ​The sharp erosion in relations between the world’s largest economies​​, underscored by calls for an economic “decoupling”, has left multinational ​companies ​scrambling to adapt to the new geopolitical reality.“It’s a very fraught environment for companies to operate in,” Kennedy said. “They’ve become careful to a fault.”Spy balloon, UFO or Dragon Ball? Japan baffled by iron ball washed up on beachRead moreYet despite the rising tensions, he noted that the countries’ economies remain highly interdependent. Last year, trade between the US and China reached a record high of nearly $700bn.Bipartisanship without consensusAs US policymakers intensify their efforts to reorient the relationship between China and the US, critical questions remain about what that strategy will look like in practice.There is broad agreement that the US must decrease its reliance on Chinese-made goods and technologies, said Kim, the Brookings expert, but “there certainly isn’t a consensus on how much de-risking and decoupling is necessary to strike the right balance between national security concerns and upholding American values and principles that have long held dear the free flow of information, people, trade and open markets”.The House panel begins its work at a time of rising ​public ​hostility toward China. ​According to a survey by the Pew Research Center​, ​82% of Americans ​hold an unfavorable view of the country, ​more than twice the figure in 2012, when Xi came to power. In general, Republicans, more so than Democrats, tend to harbor more negative views of China and are more likely to support the US taking a more hardline approach to the country, it found.The committee’s hearings, meanwhile, will play out against the backdrop of a presidential campaign cycle, ​with Republicans already aiming to cast Biden as “weak” on China.Amid this heated political environment, some experts have emphasized the importance of avoiding a drumbeat to war with China. Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to progressive Senator Bernie Sanders, complimented Biden’s overall handling of the balloon incident, but he admonished the administration’s “overreaction” in canceling Blinken’s trip.“The American people are going to take cues from their leaders on these issues,” said Duss, who is now a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “That makes it even more important for the administration and for others not to signal hysteria.”The US will soon mark 20 years since the invasion of Iraq, Duss noted; that vastly consequential and widely criticised decision was supported by members of both parties at the time.“Bipartisanship is good,” Duss said. “But bipartisanship behind bad policy is very bad.”TopicsUS CongressUS politicsEspionageChinaJoe BidenUS foreign policyfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Plans in Congress on China and TikTok Face Hurdles After Spy Balloon Furor

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      With budgets tight and political knives drawn, lawmakers seeking to capitalize on a bipartisan urgency to confront China are setting their sights on narrower measures.WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats are pressing for major legislation to counter rising threats from China, but mere weeks into the new Congress, a bipartisan consensus is at risk of dissipating amid disputes about what steps to take and a desire among many Republicans to wield the issue as a weapon against President Biden.In the House and Senate, leading lawmakers in both parties have managed in an otherwise bitterly divided Congress to stay unified about the need to confront the dangers posed by China’s militarization, its deepening ties with Russia and its ever-expanding economic footprint.But a rising chorus of Republican vitriol directed at Mr. Biden after a Chinese spy balloon flew over the United States this month upended that spirit — giving way to G.O.P. accusations that the president was “weak on China” — and suggested that the path ahead for any bipartisan action is exceedingly narrow.“When the balloon story popped, so to speak, it felt like certain people used that as an opportunity to bash President Biden,” said Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the top Democrat on the select panel the House created to focus on competition with China.“And it felt like no matter what he did, they wanted to basically call him soft on the C.C.P., and unable to protect America,” he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “That’s where I think we can go wayward politically,”For now, only a few, mostly narrow ventures have drawn enough bipartisan interest to have a chance at advancing amid the political tide. They include legislation to ban TikTok, the Beijing-based social media platform lawmakers have warned for years is an intelligence-gathering gold mine for the Chinese government; bills that would ban Chinese purchases of farmland and other agricultural real estate, especially in areas near sensitive military sites; and measures to limit U.S. exports and outbound investments to China.Such initiatives are limited in scope, predominantly defensive and relatively cheap — which lawmakers say are important factors in getting legislation over the hurdles posed by this split Congress. And, experts point out, none are issues that would be felt keenly by voters, or translate particularly well into political pitches on the 2024 campaign trail.A Divided CongressThe 118th Congress is underway, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats holding the Senate.Jan. 6 Video: Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to grant the Fox News host Tucker Carlson access to thousands of hours of Jan. 6 Capitol security footage has effectively outsourced a bid to reinvestigate the attack.John Fetterman: The Democratic senator from Pennsylvania is the latest public figure to disclose his mental health struggles, an indication of growing acceptance, though some stigma remains.Entitlement Cuts: Under bipartisan pressure, Senator Rick Scott of Florida, a Republican, exempted Social Security and Medicare from his proposal to regularly review all federal programs.G.O.P. Legislative Agenda: Weeks into their chaotic House majority, Republican leaders have found themselves paralyzed on some of the biggest issues they promised to address.“There would be nervousness among Republicans about giving the administration a clear win, but I’m just not sure that the kind of legislation they’ll be looking at would be doing that,” said Zack Cooper, who researches U.S.-China competition at the American Enterprise Institute. “It’s more things that would penalize China than be focused on investing in the U.S. in the next couple of years.”At the start of the year, the momentum behind bipartisan efforts to confront China seemed strong, with Republicans and Democrats banding together to pass the bill setting up the select panel and legislation to deny China crude oil exports from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. A resolution condemning Beijing for sending the spy balloon over the United States passed unanimously after Republican leaders decided not to take the opportunity to rebuke Mr. Biden, as many on the right had clamored for.But with partisan divisions beginning to intensify and a presidential election looming, it appears exceedingly unlikely that Congress will be able to muster an agreement as large or significant as the major legislation last year to subsidize microchip manufacturing and scientific research — a measure that members of both parties described as only one of many policy changes that would be needed to counter China. Only a few, mostly narrow ventures have drawn enough bipartisan interest to have a chance at advancing amid the political tide.Kenny Holston/The New York Times“The biggest challenge is just the overall politicized environment that we’re in right now and the lack of trust between the parties,” said Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, the chairman of the new select panel, who has committed to make his committee an “incubator and accelerator” on China legislation. “Everyone has their guard up.”Still, there are some areas of potential compromise. Many lawmakers are eyeing 2023 as the year Congress can close any peepholes China may have into the smartphones of more than 100 million TikTok American users, but they have yet to agree on how to try to do so.Some Republicans have proposed imposing sanctions to ice TikTok out of the United States, while Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, wants to allow the president to block the platform by lifting statutory prohibitions on banning foreign information sources.Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Angus King, independent of Maine and a member of the panel, want to prevent social media companies under Chinese or Russian influence from operating in the United States unless they divest from foreign ownership.But none have yet earned a seal of approval from Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the Democrat who is chairman of the committee and whose support is considered critical to any bill’s success. He was the chief architect of last year’s sweeping China competition bill, known as the CHIPS and Science Act, and he wants to tackle foreign data collection more broadly.“We’ve had a whack-a-mole approach on foreign technology that poses a national security risk,” Mr. Warner said in an interview, bemoaning that TikTok was only the latest in a long line of foreign data firms, like the Chinese telecom giant Huawei and the Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, to be targeted by Congress. “We need an approach that is constitutionally defensible.”There is a similar flurry of activity among Republican and Democratic lawmakers proposing bans on Chinese purchases of farmland  in sensitive areas. But lawmakers remain split over how broad such a ban should be, whether agents of other adversary nations ought also to be subject to the prohibition, and whether Congress ought to update the whole process of reviewing foreign investment transactions, by including the Agriculture Department in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency group.“It’s actually kind of a more fraught issue than you would imagine,” Mr. Gallagher said.Lawmakers in both parties who want to put forth legislation to limit U.S. goods and capital from reaching Chinese markets are also facing challenges. The Biden administration has already started to take unilateral action on the issue, and further steps could box lawmakers out. Even if Congress can stake out a role for itself, it is not entirely clear which committee would take the lead on a matter that straddles a number of areas of jurisdiction.  Even before the balloon incident, existential policy differences between Republicans and Democrats, particularly around spending, made for slim odds that Congress could achieve sweeping legislative breakthroughs regarding China. Architects of last year’s law were dour about the prospect of the current Congress attempting anything on a similar scale.“The chances of us passing another major, comprehensive bill are not high,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the lead Republican on the CHIPS effort, who noted that with the slim G.O.P. majority in the House, it would be difficult to pass a costly investment bill.G.O.P. lawmakers have been demanding cuts to the federal budget, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, has indicated that even military spending might be on the chopping block. Though no one has specifically advocated cutting programs related to countering China, that has some lawmakers nervous, particularly since certain recent ventures Congress created to beef up security assistance to Taiwan have already failed to secure funding at their intended levels.That backdrop could complicate even bipartisan ventures seeking to authorize new programs to counter China diplomatically and militarily, such as a proposal in the works from Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator James Risch of Idaho, the top Republican, to step up foreign aid and military assistance to American allies in Beijing’s sphere of influence.That likely means that action on any comprehensive China bill would need to be attached to another must-pass bill, such as the annual defense authorization bill, to break through the political logjams of this Congress, said Richard Fontaine, the CEO of the Center for a New American Security. “China has risen as a political matter and things are possible that weren’t before, but it has not risen so high as to make the hardest things politically possible,” Mr. Fontaine said. 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