In this mailing: Con Coughlin: Even Europe Is Losing Patience with Iran's Nuclear Antics Lawrence A. Franklin: China Has Already Started to Test the Biden Administration Even Europe Is Losing Patience with Iran's Nuclear Antics by Con Coughlin  •  January 26, 2021 at 5:00 am       In recent weeks Iran announced that it had begun work on enriching uranium to 20 percent -- just short of the level required to produce nuclear weapons -- as well as informing the International Atomic Energy Agency... that it was to resume work on producing uranium metal. Both these developments represent a clear breach of the JCPOA. Under the agreement, Iran committed to keep uranium enrichment at 3.5 percent, the level required for civilian use, and signed up to a 15-year ban on "producing or acquiring plutonium or uranium metals or their alloys". Iran's announcement that it was proceeding with the production of uranium metal has prompted a furious response from the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, who, in a joint statement earlier this month, warned that there was "no credible civilian use" for the element, and that "The production of uranium metal has potentially grave military implications. [W]hat makes anyone think Iran would honour a new deal any more than they honoured the old one? Why enter a new sham deal at all? In recent weeks Iran announced that it had begun work on enriching uranium to 20 percent -- just short of the level required to produce nuclear weapons -- as well as informing the International Atomic Energy Agency that it was to resume work on producing uranium metal, for which, according to the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, there is "no credible civilian use." Pictured: The Isfahan uranium enrichment facility in Isfahan, Iran. (Photo by Getty Images) When the European Union starts warning the ayatollahs that the Iran nuclear deal is at a "critical juncture", it is a clear sign that Tehran's increasingly aggressive conduct in relation to its nuclear activities will make incoming US President Joe Biden's hopes of reviving the deal almost impossible. From the moment the nuclear deal was agreed to between Iran and six of the world's leading powers -- the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- in 2015, the EU has been an enthusiastic champion of the deal. Even though neither Iran nor the EU itself was a signatory to the deal, the organisation's then foreign policy chief, the British Labour politician and veteran Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament activist Catherine Ashton, led a sustained campaign on behalf of the EU to support the agreement. Continue Reading Article China Has Already Started to Test the Biden Administration by Lawrence A. Franklin  •  January 26, 2021 at 4:00 am       Not a week has passed since the inauguration of President Joe Biden -- whose son reportedly engaged in business deals with China worth $1.5 billion -- and the Chinese Communist Party, which illegally seized Hong Kong last summer, has already sent more than two dozen warplanes, including bombers, into Taiwan's airspace for two days in a row. China also issued a new law permitting its "coastguards to launch pre-emptive strikes without prior warning" on any foreign ship that might enter disputed waters that China would like to consider its own. Biden's team should not misinterpret any Chinese conciliatory rhetoric as being a sign of a less aggressive CCP effort to push US military assets out of the Western Pacific. Xi, a stalwart of the "One China Policy," may still demand not words but actions, such as: a moratorium on Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) by US Navy vessels in the South China Sea, a cessation of US criticism of Chinese human rights violations, and a promise to reduce American VIP visits to Taiwan following President Trump's high-level contacts with Taipei. China has clearly assessed Biden's capacity for bold leadership as highly improbable. The Biden administration should not assume that Chinese objectives are negotiable. The CCP is committed to becoming the premier power in the world at the expense of US interests and is most likely willing to risk war to accomplish it. President Joe Biden's team should not misinterpret any Chinese conciliatory rhetoric as being a sign of a less aggressive Chinese Communist Party effort to push US military assets out of the Western Pacific. Pictured: Chinese President Xi Jinping with then US Vice President Joe Biden in Beijing, China on December 4, 2013. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images) Not a week has passed since the inauguration of President Joe Biden -- whose son reportedly engaged in business deals with China worth $1.5 billion -- and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which illegally seized Hong Kong last summer, has already sent more than two dozen warplanes, including bombers, into Taiwan's airspace for two days in a row. China also issued a new law permitting its "coastguards to launch pre-emptive strikes without prior warning" on any foreign ship that might enter disputed waters that China would like to consider its own. Continue Reading Article