At least 82 people were killed and more than 120 others hospitalized after a massive gas explosion ripped through a coal mine in China late Friday, according to the Associated Press (AP). Two people remained missing.

The catastrophic blast at the Liushenyu coal mine in Qinyuan County, located in China’s northern Shanxi province, marked the country’s deadliest mining disaster in recent years.

Local officials, who have launched an investigation into the incident, said they uncovered "serious violations" by the mine’s operator, Shanxi Tongzhou Coal & Coke Group.

The explosion also triggered a wave of heightened safety inspections across China’s coal sector, tightening the supply outlook for coking coal and sending prices soaring Monday, according to Reuters.

EARTHQUAKE 50 MILES FROM MOUNT EVEREST LEAVES AT LEAST 95 DEAD IN TIBET

According to the AP, the explosion triggered a chaotic scene where thick smoke engulfed the mine and suffocated many victims underground.

One miner lost consciousness, while many others suffered from toxic gas exposure, the outlet added, citing state broadcaster CCTV.

The explosion has reportedly intensified scrutiny from Chinese officials, who said investigators found multiple violations at the site, though details remain unclear.

8 SKIERS FOUND DEAD, 1 MISSING AFTER MASSIVE LAKE TAHOE AVALANCHE

In 2024, China’s National Mine Safety Administration had previously classified the mine as disaster-prone due to its "high gas content," the AP reported.

State media also reported that blueprints provided by the mine did not match the site’s actual layout, complicating rescue operations, the outlet added.

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a full-scale effort to rescue those still missing and ordered a thorough investigation to hold those responsible accountable, the AP said, citing official Xinhua News Agency.

SIBANYE WORKERS BEGIN TO SURFACE AFTER ACCIDENT AT SOUTH AFRICAN GOLD MINE

The state-run outlet later reported that company officials connected to the disaster had been "placed under control," according to the AP.

China has suffered a string of deadly mining disasters in recent decades even as officials have pledged to strengthen oversight of the sector.

In 2023, at least 53 people were killed in Inner Mongolia following reports of a collapse at an open-pit mine.

In 2009, a reported explosion at a coal mine in Heilongjiang province left 108 people dead.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

China has deployed over 100 vessels in the waters surrounding Taiwan in the week after President Donald Trump's Beijing summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the secretary general of Taiwan's National Security Council said Saturday.

"Our ISR/intel shows that the PRC has deployed over 100 vessels around the 1st Island Chain over the past few days, so soon after the Beijing summit," Secretary General Joseph Wu wrote on X.

"In this part of the world, China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the Status Quo & threatening regional peace & stability."

Wu posted a graphic appearing to show a high volume of Chinese vessel deployments in the South China Sea, the East China Sea and near Taiwan and The Philippines.

CHINA LAUNCHES LARGEST MILITARY DRILLS OFF TAIWAN IN 8 MONTHS WITH LIVE-FIRE EXERCISES CAUGHT ON CAMERA

Wu alerted the world to the ship deployments a little more than a week after Trump left Beijing and just days after acting U.S. Navy Secretary Hung Cao told U.S. lawmakers the U.S. was temporarily pausing weapons shipments to Taiwan.

"Right now we're doing a pause in order to make sure we have the munitions we need for Epic Fury," Cao testified during a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Tuesday.

U.S. lawmakers approved a $14 billion weapons package for Taiwan in January, though Trump has yet to sign off on it.

AS CHINA TENSIONS LOOM, US TEMPORARILY PAUSES TAIWAN WEAPONS SALES DUE TO IRAN WAR, ACTING NAVY SECRETARY SAYS

Taiwanese officials say they were not alerted to any potential pauses, according to The Associated Press.

Cao's pause announcement followed the Trump-Xi summit during which Chinese officials made clear that the Taiwan question is China's biggest issue in diplomatic relations with the United States.

"President Xi stressed to President Trump that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a statement after the Trump-Xi meeting.

"If it is handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability. Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy."

Fox News Digital contacted the White House, a representative for the Taiwanese government and the Chinese Foreign Ministry for additional comment.

At first, Mihrigul Tursun speaks with remarkable control.

Sitting in Washington in a neatly pressed blue suit, the 35-year-old Uyghur mother answers questions softly, almost cautiously. But once the memories begin, they arrive all at once, in vivid and painful detail, as though the years separating her from China’s detention system no longer exist.

The story pours out of her in relentless detail, one memory collapsing into another: the underground cells, the interrogations, the women screaming at night, the smell of overcrowded prison rooms, the body of her infant son lying motionless in her arms as she desperately tried to warm him back to life.

For Tursun, the horror is not something she remembers. It is something she says she continues to live with every day.

WOMAN WHO SPENT 7 YEARS IN CHINESE PRISON DESCRIBES TORTURE, SURVEILLANCE AND LOSS OF HER HUSBAND

And always, there is fear.

Not fear for herself, exactly. That, she suggests, stopped mattering long ago.

The fear is for the family members she believes remain vulnerable inside China because she chose to publicly describe what happened to her, only because of her faith.

Her story unfolds as President Donald Trump visits China this week for meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with trade, security and regional tensions dominating headlines. But for Tursun, China is not an abstract geopolitical rival. It is the country she says destroyed her family, shattered her health and left psychological wounds she still struggles to survive every day.

She says she speaks publicly because too few people who survived China’s detention system are able, or willing, to tell the world what they saw.

"People think this only happened in history," she said. "But it is still happening."

ELITE US COLLEGES LINKED TO CHINESE SURVEILLANCE LABS DRIVING UYGHUR ‘GENOCIDE,’ STUDY WARNS

Tursun was born in Xinjiang, the far western region China officially calls the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, home to millions of Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority with their own language and culture. For years, human rights groups, researchers and former detainees have accused Beijing of carrying out mass detention, forced labor, political indoctrination and severe religious repression against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

China denies the allegations, describing the facilities as vocational training centers aimed at combating extremism and terrorism.

Tursun says her own relationship with the Chinese state began long before the camps.

SURVIVOR OF CHINA'S CULTURAL REVOLUTION WARNS AGAINST LETTING 600,000 CHINESE STUDENTS STUDY AT US COLLEGES

At age 10, she said, she was sent by the government to study inside China in Mandarin-language schools designed to assimilate Uyghur children into mainstream Chinese society.

"They educate us as Chinese mind," she said.

Years later, she moved to Egypt to study business administration. There, she married an Egyptian man and gave birth to triplets in 2015: two boys and a girl.

The children were only two months old when her parents urged her to return to China so they could meet their grandchildren and help care for them.

Tursun resisted at first. The babies were too young to travel, she told them. But her mother insisted it was urgent.

On May 12, 2015, she boarded a flight to China carrying the newborns.

She says the nightmare began almost immediately after landing in Beijing.

At the airport, two people approached and offered to help carry the babies through border control. Moments later, she said, they identified themselves as police officers.

"They say, ‘Keep silent. Follow us,’" she recalled.

TRUMP PLEDGES TO RAISE DETAINED PASTOR'S CASE WITH XI JINPING DURING BEIJING VISIT AS FAMILY PLEADS FOR HELP

Tursun said officers separated her from the children and interrogated her for hours about her time in Egypt, asking whether she had participated in political activities or anti-Chinese events. She repeatedly asked to see her babies, explaining they needed to be breastfed.

Instead, she says officers placed a black hood over her head, handcuffed her and transferred her to detention in Xinjiang.

There, she says, interrogations and torture began.

Weeks later, authorities temporarily released her after informing her that one of her children was sick. Escorted by police to a hospital in Urumqi, she found her surviving son and daughter separated on different floors, connected to oxygen tubes.

The next day, doctors handed her paperwork to sign.

At the top, she said, were the words: "Death certification."

The document bore the name of her infant son. "They say, ‘This is your son,’" she recalled softly.

Doctors refused to explain what had happened, she said. Because she was considered a political suspect, she says no one would answer her questions.

For three days, she kept her son’s body with her at her parents’ home under constant police surveillance.

As Muslims, the family wanted to bring the child to a mosque and bury him according to religious tradition, she said, but authorities would not allow anyone to see the body.

"The body stayed with me three days," she said. "I try to give him warmth. I try to let him wake up."

He never opened his eyes again, she says as tears filled her eyes.

Following her son’s burial, she says authorities expelled her family from their home and detained her again. Between 2015 and 2018, she was transferred between multiple prisons and detention facilities where she endured psychological abuse, interrogations and torture.

REPORT DETAILS RISING PRESSURE ON UNDERGROUND CATHOLICS AS CHINA DENIES CRACKDOWN

One memory still haunts her more than any other.

During an interrogation, she says officers mocked her faith after she told them God would punish them for what they were doing.

"Chinese Communist Party is God," she recalled them saying. "Xi Jinping is God."

Then, she said, officers shaved her hair and applied electric shocks to her head until she lost consciousness.

Tursun also described what she says were systematic medical examinations performed on detainees, including blood tests and organ screenings. Similar allegations from former detainees have fueled longstanding accusations by activists and researchers that Chinese authorities harvested organs from prisoners of conscience, claims Beijing has repeatedly denied.

Inside one detention facility, she says more than 60 women were packed into a small cell under constant surveillance. Some had not seen sunlight for more than a year, she claimed.

CHINESE UNDERGROUND CHURCH PASTOR, FATHER OF US CITIZENS, DETAINED BY AUTHORITIES, FAMILY SAYS

Many of the women were educated professionals: teachers, doctors, neighbors she recognized from outside prison.

Others were barely more than children.

She recalled one 17-year-old Uyghur girl from a remote village who had never traveled outside her hometown and asked basic questions about the outside world, like how people can fit inside airplanes.

Weeks later, Tursun says, guards took the teenager away. When she returned, she appeared bloodied and severely traumatized. She was sexually attacked.

Two months later, the girl died. Tursun broke into tears. "No one care about that."

She says guards dragged the girl’s body away "like trash."

Eventually, her husband was able to locate her and the children, and after the Egyptian authorities intervened, she was allowed to leave China — after both of them signed to never talk about their experience. 

Today, Tursun lives in the United States with her surviving children after eventually receiving refuge following congressional testimony in 2018 about her experiences in China.

In many ways, she is among the fortunate few.

Her children are alive. They are safe. They are growing up in America rather than under constant state surveillance in Xinjiang.

But survival, she says, is not the same thing as healing.

Her physical health remains fragile. So does her mental health. She says trauma follows her constantly, affecting her sleep, her memory and even ordinary daily routines.

"There is no one hour I forget," she said.

CHINA FORMALLY ARRESTS 18 LEADERS OF UNDERGROUND ZION CHURCH AMID RELIGIOUS CRACKDOWN

Sometimes, she admitted quietly, she no longer wants to continue living.

It is her children, she says, who keep her going. And the obligation she feels toward the women she left behind.

The women whose faces she still remembers. The women she watched deteriorate inside the camps. The women she says died there. That obligation, she says, is stronger than fear.

Former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, who interviewed Tursun for his recent book on religious persecution in China, believes stories like hers expose what he describes as the Chinese Communist Party’s deepest insecurity.

"This is the issue they fear the most: religious freedom," Brownback said during an interview in Washington as Trump arrived in Beijing.

"President Trump, you’re the president that’s done more on religious freedom than any modern president… You need to take this message to President Xi Jinping and his crushing of religion in China."

"Our fight is not with the Chinese people," he added. "It’s with the party."

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said the Chinese government protects "freedom of religious belief in accordance with the law" and argued that people of all ethnic groups in China enjoy religious freedom. Liu pointed to official figures showing nearly 200 million religious believers in China, along with more than 380,000 clerical personnel, approximately 5,500 religious groups and more than 140,000 registered places of worship.

Liu said Beijing regulates religious affairs involving "national interests and the public interest" while opposing what it describes as illegal or criminal activities carried out under the guise of religion. He also accused foreign countries and media outlets of interfering in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of religious freedom and urged journalists to "respect the facts" and stop what he described as "attacking and smearing" China’s religious policies and religious freedom record.

As the interview ended, Tursun gathered herself slowly before stepping back out into the streets of Washington.

To strangers passing by, she looked like any other young mother moving through the city.

Only she carries memories most people cannot imagine.

Five weeks before the birth of her third child, Grace Drexel sat in Washington speaking about her father, the grandfather her children barely know, and the hope that President Donald Trump might help bring him home.

Her father, Pastor Ezra Jin, has spent the past seven months detained in China alongside dozens of other Christian leaders in what advocates describe as one of the largest crackdowns on an underground Protestant church in recent years.

Now, as Trump visits Beijing for meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Drexel says her family is clinging to a rare moment of hope after Trump publicly pledged to raise Pastor Jin’s imprisonment directly with Xi.

PRESIDENT TRUMP MUST PUT AMERICAN HOSTAGES FIRST IN HIGH-STAKES BEIJING SUMMIT

"I’ll bring it up," Trump told a reporter when asked whether he planned to discuss the detained pastor during the trip.

"It’s such a tremendous honor," Drexel told Fox News Digital. "To have one of the most powerful men in the world know my father by name and mention his case to General Secretary Xi Jinping."

White House spokesperson Olivia Wales told Fox News Digital, "There is no greater champion for religious freedom around the world than President Trump."

For Drexel, this could end years of suffering. Her family has been separated for almost a decade — her mother and younger brothers fled China in 2018 after authorities shut down Zion Church’s physical sanctuary in Beijing, fearing they could become collateral targets in the growing crackdown on Christians.

Pastor Jin chose to stay behind with his community.

"My father actually had many opportunities to apply for a green card," Drexel said. "He felt the calling for China."

Drexel herself has not seen her father in person since 2020.

CHINA FORMALLY ARRESTS 18 LEADERS OF UNDERGROUND ZION CHURCH AMID RELIGIOUS CRACKDOWN

Now pregnant with her third child, she says all she wants is for her father to finally reunite with his family.

"We would really, really love for our children to also experience and learn from their Grandpa," she said.

Drexel described her father not as a political dissident, but as a pastor whose only mission was to remain faithful to Christianity outside Communist Party control.

"My father is a pastor in China and like Christians everywhere, he believed that the church should only have one God and serve one God," she told Fox News Digital.

She described Zion Church as independent from government oversight and deeply rooted in Scripture and community service.

REPORT DETAILS RISING PRESSURE ON UNDERGROUND CATHOLICS AS CHINA DENIES CRACKDOWN

"We helped with the society and the community around us, love our neighbors, and to love God," she said.

But beyond the role of pastor, Drexel says she simply knew her father as a gentle man devoted to those around him.

"Ultimately, I know my father as just a very gentle and kind man," she said. "He is not very confrontational generally. He just loved everyone around him."

"He never even criticized anyone, including his children, much as we were growing up," she added.

Drexel tearfully said that relatives learned that her father had been handcuffed, his head shaved, and that he was struggling to receive medication while in detention.

"And this kind and gentle man is now in prison," she said. "All because he was just leading a church."

The crackdown against Zion Church began years before Pastor Jin’s arrest.

According to Drexel, the pressure intensified around 2016 and 2017 after Xi Jinping rewrote China’s religious regulations and formally advanced the policy known as the "Sinicization" of religion, an effort critics say forces religious groups to align with Communist Party ideology.

Around that time, Zion Church became one of many churches targeted by the authorities.

Initially, Drexel says government officials demanded the church install facial-recognition cameras inside the sanctuary to monitor worshipers.

TRUMP CHAMPIONS JESUS' 'MIRACULOUS RESURRECTION' IN PALM SUNDAY MESSAGE VOWING TO 'DEFEND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH'

"We told them all our services are public. You can come and view anytime," she said. "But we didn’t feel that we wanted to put an extra amount of surveillance or control on our congregation."

After the church refused, Drexel says authorities installed surveillance cameras in the building’s lobby instead and began systematically targeting church members.

"Each and every member who came on Sunday [was] being harassed," she said. Some worshipers lost jobs, others were forced out of apartments, while some families were threatened through their children’s education and even their parents’ retirement benefits.

"It was all possible under the Chinese Communist Party if they wanted you to stop doing something," she said.

Authorities eventually confiscated the church’s property and shut down its physical worship space. Pastor Jin then moved services online and into smaller home gatherings, which led authorities to later accuse church leaders of the "illegal use of information networks" because of those online and decentralized worship activities.

But she says her father’s case is only one piece of a much larger crackdown unfolding across China.

CRUZ LEADS SENATE PUSH TO HOLD CHINA ACCOUNTABLE FOR BEIJING CHURCH CRACKDOWN

"There are so many pastors and church leaders and churches being persecuted in China actively today," she added. "We know that there are hundreds of pastors that are currently in prison or are in detention."

"This is a very critical period in China," Drexel said. "And it’s very disheartening and very scary for many Christians in China."

The broader persecution campaign against Christians, Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and Falun Gong practitioners is also documented in "China’s War on Faith," the recently released book by former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback.

Brownback profiles believers imprisoned, tortured, and surveilled for practicing religion outside state-approved institutions and argues that the Chinese Communist Party increasingly sees independent faith itself as a threat to Party authority.

For Drexel, Trump’s decision to publicly mention her father’s name represents more than diplomacy.

"We hope that as the two leaders are meeting together that they will both have a softening of the hearts and will release my father and allow him to come to the U.S.," she said.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said the Chinese government protects "freedom of religious belief in accordance with the law" and argued that people of all ethnic groups in China enjoy religious freedom. Liu pointed to official figures showing nearly 200 million religious believers in China, along with more than 380,000 clerical personnel, approximately 5,500 religious groups and more than 140,000 registered places of worship.

Liu said Beijing regulates religious affairs involving "national interests and the public interest" while opposing what it describes as illegal or criminal activities carried out under the guise of religion. He also accused foreign countries and media outlets of interfering in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of religious freedom and urged journalists to "respect the facts" and stop what he described as "attacking and smearing" China’s religious policies and religious freedom record.

President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing for a high-stakes summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a moment when both Washington and Beijing are trying to stabilize one of the world’s most consequential rivalries without giving ground on deeper strategic disputes.

The two-day visit marks Trump’s first trip to China since 2017 and comes amid mounting tensions over trade, artificial intelligence, Taiwan and the fallout from the war with Iran. While the White House is framing the summit as an opportunity for new economic agreements and "rebalancing" the U.S.–China relationship, analysts say Beijing’s priorities are far broader and more long-term.

"Trump arrives seeking headline deals and visible momentum ahead of the midterms," wrote Zongyuan Zoe Liu, senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Xi is playing a longer game, focused on strategic patience rather than substantive compromise."

TRUMP HEADS TO BEIJING FOR HIGH-STAKES XI TALKS AS TAIWAN TENSIONS, TRADE DISPUTES TEST US STRENGTH

Topics expected to be discussed during the summit include trade, aerospace, agriculture and energy agreements, and the creation of a U.S.–China Board of Trade and Board of Investment, according to the White House. 

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Trump’s goal is to "deliver more good deals on behalf of our country" while safeguarding U.S. national security.

Trump participated in a welcome ceremony and bilateral meeting with Xi Thursday morning local time in Beijing, followed by a tour of the Temple of Heaven alongside the Chinese leader and a state banquet later. 

Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said Beijing views the summit as an opportunity to stabilize ties between the world’s two largest economies. 

"Heads-of-state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable role in providing strategic guidance for China–U.S. relations," Liu said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "We welcome President Trump’s state visit to China. China stands ready to work with the U.S. to expand cooperation and manage differences in the spirit of equality, respect and mutual benefit, and provide more stability and certainty for a transforming and volatile world."

For Xi, analysts say, the top priority likely is avoiding further escalation with Washington while buying time for China’s slowing economy, as it continues to struggle with weak domestic demand, deflationary pressure and industrial overcapacity. 

A recent report by the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission warned that Beijing is doubling down on state-led industrial policy despite mounting structural weaknesses in the Chinese economy.

The commission said China is increasingly operating a "two-speed" economy, where much of the broader economy stagnates while sectors prioritized by the Chinese Communist Party receive massive state support and continue expanding beyond market demand.

The report also warned of a new "China Shock 2.0," arguing Beijing’s excess industrial capacity and record trade surplus are disrupting global markets while increasing foreign dependence on Chinese-controlled supply chains in sectors ranging from batteries and pharmaceuticals to semiconductors and artificial intelligence.

"Chinese policy seeks simultaneously to reduce China’s reliance on foreign technology while increasing the world’s dependence on China," the commission noted in its findings.

TRUMP TO CONFRONT XI AT HIGH-STAKES SUMMIT OVER CHINA BACKING FOR IRAN, RUSSIA

At the same time, Xi is entering the talks with leverage stemming from the ongoing Iran crisis and global energy disruptions.

Trump has faced growing domestic pressure over rising energy prices tied to instability in the Middle East and shipping threats near the Strait of Hormuz. Beijing, meanwhile, remains one of Iran’s largest oil customers and maintains political ties with Tehran.

Susan Thornton, former acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs during Trump’s first term, said during a recent Stanford University Asia-Pacific Research Center interview that expectations for major breakthroughs should remain low despite the summit’s symbolism.

"The primary value lies in the act of meeting itself," Thornton said.

She suggested Beijing may see a strategic advantage in America’s renewed focus on the Middle East. While China has made nominal peace proposals, it has not stepped up as a mediator.

"It seems like they are kind of hanging back and waiting to see what will happen," Thornton said, arguing that from Beijing’s perspective, a U.S. entanglement in the Middle East may serve as a useful distraction, diverting Washington’s attention and pressure away from China.

One area where the two sides could announce tangible progress is agriculture. 

The White House is pushing Beijing for expanded purchases of U.S. farm products ahead of the summit, according to a Reuters report published Tuesday, particularly soybeans and grains. 

But traders and analysts told Reuters that China’s appetite for major new soybean commitments may be limited due to weak domestic demand and cheaper alternatives from Brazil. Instead, markets are watching for potential agreements involving corn, sorghum, wheat, beef and poultry, sectors viewed as less politically contentious in the broader U.S.–China relationship. 

More than a dozen U.S. business executives, including leaders from agricultural giant Cargill, are accompanying Trump during the visit.

PRESIDENT TRUMP MUST PUT AMERICAN HOSTAGES FIRST IN HIGH-STAKES BEIJING SUMMIT

Despite the focus on trade and geopolitical tensions, survivors of China’s religious persecution are urging the administration not to sideline Beijing’s crackdown on religious groups and dissidents.

Ahead of the summit, Trump publicly pledged to raise the case of imprisoned Chinese pastor Ezra Jin following advocacy efforts by his daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, who has accused Beijing of persecuting Christians.

Former U.S. officials told Fox News Digital they are skeptical human rights concerns will play a central role during a summit primarily focused on lowering tensions and stabilizing economic ties between the two powers.

Taiwan and technology restrictions are also expected to loom over the talks. Beijing continues to oppose U.S. arms sales and support for Taiwan, while Washington has tightened export controls targeting China’s advanced semiconductor and AI sectors.

Still, despite the escalating rivalry, neither Washington nor Beijing appears eager for a direct confrontation.

For Trump, the summit offers an opportunity to showcase economic wins and diplomatic engagement ahead of the 2026 midterms. 

For Xi, analysts say, the goal is far more measured: preserve stability, avoid confrontation and continue positioning China for a prolonged strategic competition with the United States.

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan: President Donald Trump’s meetings with communist China’s supreme leader Xi Jinping in Beijing will be keenly watched here in Taiwan, from the presidential office to military command centers and semiconductor company boardrooms. The key question many are asking is whether Trump negotiates with China from a position of strength, or leaves Taiwan exposed?

The de facto independent nation of 23 million people has spent decades living under threat from the Chinese Communist Party, which claims Taiwan as its territory despite never having ruled it for even a day.

Observers here warn that Xi may try to offer Trump a deal: cooperation on tariffs, fentanyl, U.S. business access, or global flashpoints like Iran and Ukraine in exchange for Trump accepting a larger Chinese role in Taiwan’s future.

CHINA ORDERS FIRMS TO IGNORE US IRAN SANCTIONS, DARING US TO ENFORCE CRACKDOWN

Taiwan’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu recently told Bloomberg News, "What we are the most afraid is to put Taiwan on the menu of the talk between Xi Jinping and President Trump."

Huang Kwei-bo, a professor in National Chengchi University’s Department of Diplomacy, told Fox News Digital that Taiwan shouldn't assume nothing will change. "Taiwan shouldn't rule out the possibility that the United States and mainland China could reach an understanding behind the scenes, agreeing to reduce arms sales to Taiwan, or become less active in helping us meaningfully participate in international space," he said.

In comments on Monday, President Trump acknowledged China’s dislike of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, and said the topic would be "one of the many things I'll be talking about." 

CHINA LAUNCHES LARGEST MILITARY DRILLS OFF TAIWAN IN 8 MONTHS WITH LIVE-FIRE EXERCISES CAUGHT ON CAMERA

Over the past week, more than 50 communist Chinese aircraft crossed the Taiwan Strait median line or entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. 

Those numbers are not a dramatic new escalation. In Taiwan, they are increasingly seen as part of a new normal: a sustained pressure campaign that falls short of war but keeps Taiwan’s military on alert. China also intentionally damages the undersea cables that connect Taiwan to the internet, hacks into Taiwan’s computer systems daily, and floods social media with content that praises the communist party.

Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is a major concern for Washington. The island is home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, the dominant producer of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. Those chips are used in smartphones, cars, artificial intelligence systems and U.S. defense technology. Any conflict or blockade that cuts Taiwan off from global markets would ripple through American factories, consumers, technology companies and military planning.

However, as the leaders of the two nations most closely intertwined with Taiwan's future meet, there is no outward sense of panic here.

"Most people here are not obsessed with China every day," Audrey Chiang, who runs a tourist souvenir shop in Kaohsiung, told Fox News Digital. Chiang has a son who is just a few years away from serving one year as a military conscript, a 2024 response to China’s invasion threats. "We go to work. We worry about the next big test at our kids’ school. We complain about traffic. But everyone knows things can change very quickly."

Taiwan’s legislature on May 8 passed a near US$25 billion supplemental defense spending bill, meant in part to signal to Washington that Taipei isn’t simply depending on America to protect itself. But the package was smaller than the almost US$40 billion requested by Taiwan President Lai Ching-te’s administration. 

Taipei-based American political analyst, Ross Darrell Feingold, told Fox News Digital that many in Taiwan assume that the U.S., and possibly Japan, will come to the island’s defense in the event of a war. "Going back to the Cold War when the U.S. had a treaty obligation to defend Taiwan, and even after the treaty was abrogated, the consistent assumption is that the U.S. president will send in the military to save Taiwan. More recently, there is a growing assumption Japan will do so as well. But Taiwan still must do what is necessary to prove to its partners that Taiwan’s own people will be on the front line," he said.

CHINA PROMISES 'COUNTERMEASURES' TO US ARMS SALE TO TAIWAN

Taiwan’s main political parties have major differences in their approaches to China, but broadly support U.S. arms purchases and agree that Beijing is a threat to democratic Taiwan.

Chinese officials insist Taiwan’s status is an "internal affair." Taiwan’s elected government rejects that, and so do most Taiwanese, who see Taiwan’s future as something only they should decide.

National Pingtung University Associate Professor Paul Lee is among those who think Xi Jinping is going to push the U.S. president hard on Taiwan. Speaking by phone, he told Fox News Digital that "Xi Jinping almost certainly wants one clear change from the U.S., he’ll want Trump to say the United States ‘opposes Taiwan independence’ rather than the language it uses now that is closer to ‘does not support Taiwan independence.’ To be frank, I don’t think President Trump sees Taiwan as that important – except as the producer of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, and as a source of some revenue from weapons sales." Lee notes that the difference between "doesn’t support" and "opposes" may not seem like much for Trump, but for Xi, it would be viewed as a major victory."

For Taiwan’s ruling party, and anyone in Taiwan who supports moves by Lai and his predecessor to establish at home and abroad that Taiwan is not part of China, such a change in language would come as a blow as it implies that the U.S. does not agree with the people of Taiwan having the right to self-determination on their future, Lee explained, and he said Xi Jinping wouldn’t be satisfied with Trump simply saying a few sentences. 

"Trump has roughly three years left on his second term, and Xi will want to ensure the ‘oppose independence’ language translates into a new framework with new rules such as not letting Taiwan President Lai transit through the U.S., as one example. Xi knows U.S. presidents come and go, so the goal is to create a tacit agreement that Taiwan is in the Chinese sphere of influence, he said.

Lee said China has been patiently waiting for an opportune moment, and the war in Iran, tariffs and other issues facing President Trump is presenting exactly that.

Lee said Taiwan’s government and academic community will closely scrutinize the official translations of what the two sides "agree" on. "Put simply," Lee said, "if Xi Jinping agrees to help make things easier for Trump, Xi will not be satisfied with cryptically worded official press releases. He will want to see the beginning of a new U.S.-China framework for dealing with Taiwan."

Two former Chinese defense ministers have been sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for corruption, in one of the most severe punishments handed down to senior military officials in recent years.

Reuters reported that Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu received the suspended death sentences on May 7 following graft convictions by China’s military court, according to state media.

The ruling underscores the depth of President Xi Jinping’s long-running anti-corruption campaign within the armed forces, the outlet said.

According to the official Xinhua News Agency, Wei was convicted of accepting bribes, while Li was found guilty of both accepting and offering bribes, based on court documents.

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Both men were also stripped of their political rights for life and ordered to forfeit all personal property.

Under Chinese law, a death sentence with a two-year reprieve is typically commuted to life imprisonment if the individual does not commit further crimes during the suspension period.

In this case, the penalties will be reduced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or further commutation after the reprieve period ends.

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Wei Fenghe, 72, served as China’s defense minister from 2018 to 2023, while Li Shangfu, 68, held the post for only a few months as his successor.

Both men were former state councillors and members of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), the top military leadership body chaired by Xi.

They also previously led the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force, a key branch established in 2015 as part of Xi’s sweeping military reforms.

The Rocket Force oversees China’s nuclear arsenal as well as its conventional missile systems, making it one of the most strategically significant arms of the military.

The sentences signal an escalation in Xi’s campaign to root out corruption in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), a drive that has targeted senior officials since he took power in 2012.

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The crackdown intensified in 2023, when investigations reached the Rocket Force and other elite units.

Both Wei and Li were expelled from the ruling Communist Party in June 2024.

Singapore-based security scholar James Char told Reuters the sentences were the harshest imposed on members of the Central Military Commission in recent history.

"That Wei and Li have been commuted to life imprisonment without parole or commutation underlines the severity of their offences," he said.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think tank, had previously warned that the ongoing purges could be weakening China’s military command structure.

The organization said the campaign may have created disruptions that could affect the readiness of the country’s rapidly modernizing armed forces.

EXCLUSIVE: Wang Chunyan held a photograph toward the camera, her hands trembling slightly as she pointed to each of the 21 smiling faces: a husband and wife, a university lecturer, a young engineer, friends she met in prison.

Some died in detention, she said. Others after years of abuse. Others disappeared into China’s vast security system and never returned the same. "More than 25 of my friends have died in this persecution. I only have photos of 21 of them," Chunyan said, her voice breaking.

For more than two decades, the 70-year-old Falun Gong practitioner said, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) systematically dismantled her life, stripping away the business she had built, the home she once shared with her family and, eventually, seven years of her life in prison.

But the hardest thing for her, is that she believes it took her husband too. "My beloved husband died due to the persecution," Chunyan claimed during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.

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Her account comes as President Donald Trump prepares to travel to China next week for meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with trade, security and regional tensions expected to dominate the agenda. Yet behind the geopolitical rivalry lies another conflict: Beijing’s decades-long campaign against religious and spiritual groups the Communist Party views as threats to its authority.

Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback believes Wang’s story reflects a much broader struggle unfolding inside China. "Either the world changes China or China will change the world," Brownback told Fox News Digital.

Brownback recently chronicled Chunyan’s story and the experiences of other survivors in his book China’s War on Faith, arguing that personal testimony can often reveal the reality of persecution more powerfully than statistics alone. "Stories are more powerful than data," he said.

The book examines what Brownback describes as an increasingly sophisticated system of surveillance and repression targeting Christians, Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists and Falun Gong practitioners. He argues the Chinese Communist Party views independent faith communities as a direct threat to its authority.

"They fear religious freedom more than anything else. More than our aircraft carriers, more than our nuclear weapons, more than anything else because they think it is the biggest threat to the regime."

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Chunyan story started in the late 1990s, when she suffered from severe insomnia, sometimes sleeping only two or three hours a night. Then her older sister introduced her to Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, a spiritual practice ,she says, is centered on meditation exercises and teachings rooted in "truthfulness, compassion and tolerance."

The movement spread rapidly across China during the 1990s, attracting tens of millions of followers before Beijing banned it in 1999, portraying it as a threat to Communist Party control.

Chunyan says Falun Gong helped improve her "physical condition." She said, "My business was booming. My family was happy. My life was perfect."

Chunyan became convinced the practice had saved her life. She owned a successful company selling chemical production equipment and had become wealthy by Chinese standards, but after the crackdown began she felt compelled to publicly defend Falun Gong against what she believed were government lies.

She bought a printing press and began distributing leaflets. Soon afterward, she said, surveillance followed everywhere.

"The buildings where I worked were under constant surveillance," Chunyan recalled. "I left to escape and was afraid to come home."

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For years, she lived in hiding, using prepaid calling cards and public telephones to secretly arrange meetings with her husband, Yu Yefu, in restaurants, coffee shops and hotels across the city. The two tried, briefly, to maintain some sense of normalcy.

Yu himself never practiced Falun Gong, but police repeatedly pressured him to reveal where his wife was hiding. He never did. Then, in 2002, Wang stopped hearing from him.

When she finally returned home, she found him unconscious. Doctors could not save him. "He protected me," she said in tears.

He was 49 years old when he died. Their daughter was still in college.

The devastation spread through the family afterward, Chunyan said. Her mother-in-law stopped eating and later became paralyzed. Her father-in-law died from grief. Her sisters were also imprisoned and tortured.

Then came Chunyan’s own imprisonment.

WATCHDOG HIGHLIGHTS NATIONS WHERE CHRISTIANS FACE PERSECUTION AROUND THE GLOBE

She described years of forced labor, sleep deprivation and physical abuse. At one point, she said, the torture became so severe that she fainted three times in a single day.

One memory still haunts her most. Shortly before her release from prison, Wang said authorities conducted unexplained blood tests and medical examinations. At the time, fellow inmates told her the government was simply checking on Falun Gong prisoners before release. Only later, after learning about allegations of forced organ harvesting involving detained Falun Gong practitioners, did she begin to fear why the testing may have happened. "I was horrified," Chunyan said.

Today, Chunyan lives in the United States, having left China in 2013 and eventually making her way through Thailand before arriving in America in 2015.

Yet decades later, the losses remain immediate to her.

"There are millions of families in China like ours," Chunyan wants the world to know, "Persecuted by the CCP."

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu rejected the allegations and defended Beijing’s actions against Falun Gong. "The aforementioned remarks are nothing but malicious fabrications and sensational lies," Liu said. "Falun Gong is a cult organization that is anti-humanity, anti-science and anti-society. It is hostile toward religion, endangers the public, and serves as a malignant tumor within society." Liu argued that "the Chinese government outlawed the Falun Gong cult in accordance with the law, thereby safeguarding the fundamental human rights and freedoms of the vast majority of the Chinese people." 

An explosion at a fireworks factory in a central Chinese province killed at least 26 people and injured 61 others, according to state media.

The blast happened at a fireworks plant in Liuyang, a city administered by Changsha in Hunan Province, on Monday afternoon, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported.

One video taken near the scene showed a plume of smoke rising into the air following the explosion. Other footage showed multiple buildings reduced to rubble, with firefighters spraying hoses on the smoldering debris. 

The plant was operated by Liuyang Huasheng Fireworks Manufacturing and Display Co. in Liuyang, which is under the jurisdiction of Hunan’s capital, Changsha. Liuyang is home to a hub for fireworks manufacturing, state media China Daily reported.

MASSIVE FIRE DESTROYS UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA LABORATORY BUILDING: 'TOTAL LOSS'

Aerial footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed white smoke still billowing on Tuesday in parts of the area, with facilities collapsed or damaged and debris scattered around.

Nearly 500 firefighters, rescuers and medical personnel responded to the scene, according to the South China Morning Post. People in danger zones were evacuated because of what authorities described as high risks posed by two black powder warehouses at the site.

Changsha Mayor Chen Bozhang said at a media briefing that a search and rescue operation at the scene largely has been completed, but verification of the casualties and identification of the victims was still underway.

Chen said that the local government expressed condolences for the victims.

"We feel extremely pained and deeply remorseful," he said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for "all-out efforts" to save injured victims and to search for people who remain unaccounted for, Xinhua reported. He called on authorities to probe the cause and pursue serious accountability. Xi also ordered effective risk screening and hazard control in key industries and the strengthening of public safety management.

Xi often issues "important instructions" to local officials after deadly accidents and disasters, according to reports.

CREWS RESPOND TO MASSIVE EXPLOSIONS AT FIREWORKS FACILITY IN CALIFORNIA

Authorities launched an investigation into the cause of the blast, and unspecified "control measures" were taken against those in charge of the company.

In an effort to avoid additional accidents during the search for survivors, rescuers adopted measures such as spraying and humidification to eliminate potential hazards. Robots were also used to assist with the search and rescue operation.

Ding Weiming, the Changsha Emergency Management Bureau's party secretary, said that the site had a large amount of products or semifinished products catching fire, causing continuous, sporadic blasts.

Fox News Digital's Greg Norman-Diamond and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Chinese government is increasing pressure on underground Catholic communities to join the state-controlled church while tightening surveillance and restrictions on an estimated 12 million Catholics, according to a Human Rights Watch report.

The group said in its report that the increased pressure is part of a decade-old campaign to ensure religious groups align with Communist Party ideology.

The Associated Press reported that the Chinese government has rejected the claim, saying Human Rights Watch is "consistently biased against China."

China’s Catholics have long been split between a state-run church and an underground church loyal to the Vatican. In 2018, Pope Francis reached a deal allowing the Chinese government a role in appointing bishops to ease tensions.

WATCHDOG HIGHLIGHTS NATIONS WHERE CHRISTIANS FACE PERSECUTION AROUND THE GLOBE

"A decade into Xi Jinping’s Sinicization campaign and nearly eight years since the 2018 Holy See-China agreement, Catholics in China face escalating repression that violates their religious freedoms," Human Rights Watch researcher Yalkun Uluyol said in the report. 

"Pope Leo XIV should urgently review the agreement and press Beijing to end the persecution and intimidation of underground churches, clergy, and worshipers."

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s office told The Associated Press that Human Rights Watch "fabricates all manner of lies and rumors and lacks any credibility whatsoever."

The office added that the government "oversees religious affairs in accordance with the law and protects citizens’ freedom of religious belief and normal religious activities."

BISHOP ROBERT BARRON: THE WAR ON CHRISTIANS IS REAL, AND THE WORLD CAN NO LONGER STAY SILENT

Human Rights Watch said its researchers are not allowed into China and that the report is based on interviews with people outside the country who had firsthand knowledge of Catholic life in China, along with experts on Catholicism and religious freedom.

The 2018 agreement stipulates that Beijing proposes candidates for bishop, which the pope can veto, though the full text has never been made public.

In June 2025, Pope Leo XIV, who had just become the pope, appointed a Chinese bishop under the 2018 agreement and said he would continue to honor the deal "in the short term."

POPE LEO XIV TO VISIT FASTEST-GROWING CATHOLIC CONTINENT DURING 4-NATION AFRICA TRIP

"I’m also in ongoing dialogue with a number of people, Chinese, on both sides of some of the issues that are there," Leo said. "It’s a very difficult situation. In the long term, I don’t pretend to say this is what I will and will not do, but after two months, I’ve already begun having discussions at several levels on that topic."

Since 2018, Human Rights Watch says Chinese authorities have pressured underground Catholics to join the state-run church through detentions, disappearances and house arrests, citing accounts from unnamed individuals who have left China.

The report also said China has tightened ideological control, surveillance and restrictions on religious activity and foreign ties, including requiring state approval for clergy travel, while officially recognizing and closely overseeing five religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Islam.

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Xi Jinping said in 2016 he would "Sinicize" the country’s religions, a policy aimed at aligning religious practices with Communist Party ideology.

Human Rights Watch said authorities have taken sweeping steps to curb religious practice, including tearing down churches and crosses, blocking gatherings at unregistered churches and seizing religious materials not approved by the state.

The group said the broader "Sinicization" campaign has also led to intensified crackdowns on Tibetan Buddhists and Muslims.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Iran has an "inalienable" right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes during a state visit to China on Wednesday, according to the Times of Israel.

"The right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes is an inalienable right of the Islamic Republic of Iran," Lavrov said during a Tuesday press conference following a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to the Times of Israel.

Access to said uranium has been a hard line for U.S. President Donald Trump in ongoing peace negotiations with Iran.

"There will be no enrichment of Uranium," Trump wrote in an April 8 post on Truth Social, adding that the U.S. would be working with Iran to dig up all remaining nuclear materials in the country to ensure the Islamic Republic would not have access to any uranium.

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Vice President JD Vance, who led the U.S. delegation during Saturday negotiations with Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan, doubled down on that red line.

"The enriched uranium that the Iranians currently possess, we have said that we want that to come our of their country, and we would like to take possession of it," Vance told Fox News' Brett Baier on Monday.

"The president doesn't want to leave the next president or the president after that to be worrying about this program so we would like to get that material out of the country completely so that the United States has control over it."

PAKISTANI GENERAL SAYS IRAN DIPLOMACY STILL ALIVE, DESPITE US BLOCKADE, FAILED TALKS

Despite the U.S. hard line, Russia's top diplomat appeared to openly defy the U.S.' demands, speaking in strong terms against what he viewed as American global control.

"Neither China nor Russia, nor the majority of countries throughout the world, can accept this approach," Lavrov said in remarks posted to a Russian state website.

The peace talks in Iran stalled, according to Vance, because of their refusal to completely give up their nuclear program. Nuclear experts praised the decision.

"The U.S. team was wise to walk away once it became clear the Iranians would not agree to Washington’s core nuclear demands. Tehran maintaining enriched uranium stocks and uranium enrichment capabilities provides it with a pathway to nuclear weapons, plain and simple," Andrea Stricker, deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ nonproliferation program, told Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital contacted the U.S. State Department and the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment but did not hear back immediately.

Fox News Digital's Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.