Palmer Luckey warns China’s territorial ambitions go far beyond Taiwan: “They believe the Philippines, Korea, and even parts of Japan belong to them.” 🇺🇸🇨🇳🇹🇼🇯🇵
“Taiwan is not the end state for China. And all the people who think this fight over Taiwan is the real fight are missing the point.
They believe that the Philippines is their territory. They believe that Korea is their territory. They also believe North Korea is their territory, but they like it as a buffer state with South Korea. That would change the moment they could actually capture South Korea.
They even think that most of Japan belongs to them. Publicly, they won’t say they own all of Japan, but they do maintain that they own part of Japan.
It’s really dangerous to let people with millennia-long ambitions of ruling those areas go unchecked.”
My take away from Palmer here is how critical defense in the Pacific will eventually become. The United States recent directional change in supplying our military with amphibious landing equipment, demonstrates how imminent they believe a threat is.
France. A father defends his shop. His only source of income to feed his wife and children. They mock him. They beat him. They destroy everything. These are not criminals, they are terrorists. Europe is dying.
An alleged Chinese spy. The Sinaloa Cartel. And claims of a multi-billion dollar scam empire built on forced labor.
They’re all connected by one case that we’ve been investigating.
https://t.co/DmfkbdkB2O
💥 Wanying “Heather” Zhang (张婉莹) has connections to the Prince Group, a Cambodian criminal organization accused of using forced labor to run multibillion-dollar scams targeting Americans (https://t.co/P3htwodRlI).
Both Zhang and Fatai Miao have links to individuals involved in sprawling criminal enterprises.
In 2024 Zhang posed for photos on Xiaohongshu in a Bugatti Chiron sports car with the caption "check out my friend's luxury car!" The car appears to be owned by Chen Sokly (陈星 Chen Xing; lower right pic), the "enforcer" of the Prince Group, named as "Co-Conspirator-2" in an indictment against Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi (陈志) filed in New York last year (https://t.co/nnRuoProFZ).
The Prince Group conducted at least US$15 billion of online scams targeting Americans, using workers in at least 10 alleged forced labor camps in Cambodia. The federal crackdown on the group involved a seizure of $15B in bitcoin, which the Justice Department said was the biggest in its history.
Zhang also forged a yearslong relationship with Miao, who is the registered agent and organizer for Yuanjin Development & Construction LLC, located at a five-bedroom home on Interstellar Street in Irvine.
Miao has a business registered at the home, a $4.5 million suburban house in Irvine, that was also used as a "stash house" for a Chinese money laundering organization. That operation worked in concert with the Sinaloa Cartel, according to a criminal complaint filed in May 2023.
Miao was not charged or named in that complaint.
A DEA task force officer tracked a member of a "large money laundering organization" dropping off a "red, medium-sized weighted tote bag" at the home on Mar 1, 2023. It was one of several bag drops at stash houses around Los Angeles and Orange counties alleged by the DEA.
Miao has not been charged with any offense. Just days before the FBI broke down his door executing a search warrant in Irvine, he flew to China last month on a one-way ticket.
The crime gang was accused by the Justice Department of operating an unlicensed currency exchange to launder millions of dollars for the Sinaloa Cartel.
Zhang had also been operating an "unlicensed currency exchange" business, with $190,000 in profits sent to her Chinese bank account — though the government made no mention of the drug ring in court or in any public filings concerning Zhang.
A separate indictment filed against 24 members of the group in Apr 2024 includes photographs from federal seizures showing stacks of $100 bills and truckfuls of bricks of cocaine and methamphetamine (https://t.co/vjVhuC0ca7).
Miao's business partner in Yuanjin Development, Cheng Zhang, is also a business partner of Chen Sokly: California corporation Big Bow LLC is managed by both Cheng Zhang and another firm, M Capital Global California LLC, which is controlled by Chen Sokly.
About the Bugatti Chiron. It was initially thought to be owned by Wenzhi "Wesley" Fei (费文致), a self-described "poker degenerate" and cryptocurrency trader. But Fei said in an interview he does not own the car. He said he borrowed it from Chen Sokly, whom he described as a friend and a generous gentleman.
Videos and photos shared on social media show Fei with Chen Sokly in a garage with rare, luxury sports cars, and Fei posing in front of a 71-foot yacht imported by Chen Sokly from Singapore.
He also posted on Instagram a video showing him climbing into a Ferrari sports car parked in the driveway of a Yorba Linda, California, home belonging to Brendon Luo (罗平华), who was sanctioned by the US Treasury for his involvement in the Prince Group.
In 2024 Fei organized a luxury yacht event for cryptocurrency industry members through his trading company, Block Infinity, at a Prince Group-owned tower in Singapore where chairman Chen Zhi had a $16 million suite.
Fei claims he did not attend the event, that he does not know Wanying "Heather" Zhang, and that he and Sokly were not that close.
https://t.co/5rAPxhzdek
We just arrested a Chinese foreign agent at LAX attempting to depart for China.
Wanying Zhang, aka “Heather,” 34, of Irvine, was arrested today by @FBILosAngeles on a federal complaint charging her with acting as an unregistered agent of the People’s Republic of China.
According to the affidavit, Zhang traveled to Seattle in 2025 and, at the direction of PRC officials, surveilled a close relative of a Taiwanese government official, sending photos, videos, and license plate information to those officials.
She coordinated the trip with an associate and used tradecraft to avoid detection. She never notified the Attorney General she was acting for a foreign government, a federal offense.
She will appear in federal court in Los Angeles tomorrow for her initial appearance. Defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
A Chinese boat refused to leave. Taiwan hit it with a water cannon. Then Taiwan fed the crew dinner and towed them home.
On October 1, Taiwan's Coast Guard found two Chinese boats illegally anchored inside restricted waters near Dongsha Island. One left after a warning. The other, "Jin Sha," ignored three radio warnings.
The ship Yunlin sprayed water into the air for 30 seconds, then aimed it at the bridge for 90 seconds. The boat started moving, then lost power entirely.
Instead of leaving it stranded, Taiwan's crew confirmed everyone was safe, delivered 35 hot meals that evening, and towed the boat out overnight. By morning they handed it to a Chinese support vessel waiting nearby.
Taiwan's Coast Guard says these incursions are increasing, with some boats taking catches of several tons.
Firm enough to use a water cannon. Humane enough to feed the crew it just forced out.
Instead, we should increasingly use terms such as “Relations with Taiwan,” “Taiwan Policy,” or other terminology that frames the relationship between our respective governments and Taiwan without implicitly endorsing China’s territorial claims.
The outdated “One China policy” has nothing to do with today’s Taiwan, a young democracy representing itself.
At the WFTA panel with Dovilė Šakalienė, Atte Harjanne, and Luke de Pulford.
The continued use of this term risks playing into China’s narrative that Taiwan is part of its territory, thereby providing rhetorical justification for potential aggression or invasion against Taiwan.
MAHIYA NAMAN KAYO | Secretary of National Defense Gilberto C. Teodoro, Jr. responded to a note from the Chinese side during the Seoul Defense Dialogue (SDD) 2026 in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
#DNDPHL#DiKaPasisiil#SDD2026
🚨🇨🇳🇹🇼 Beijing rehearsing Taiwan invasion?
2,000 Chinese boats formed 2 giant barricades across the East China Sea, each 400km long.
They're definitely not fishing.