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Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

China’s rulers are accusing "hostile forces," including foreigners, of inciting street demonstrations in more than three dozen Chinese cities and many more universities in the biggest domestic political challenge for Beijing since 1989's Tiananmen Square protests. At stake is the legitimacy of the ruling Chinese Communist Party as protesters question its management of the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has used repressive methods such as repetitive mass testing, quarantines, and lockdowns resulting in large-scale unemployment and economic loss. Jolted, the government is handling the new situation cautiously. Though several instances of police violence have taken place, state repression has not reached the magnitude initially feared. The government is depending more on propaganda to evoke nationalistic sentiments and using politically divisive methods to address some of the problems highlighted by protesters, according to analysts. “We must resolutely crack down on infiltration and sabotage activities by hostile forces in accordance with the law, resolutely crack down on illegal and criminal acts that disrupt social order and effectively maintain overall social stability," the CCP's Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (CPLAC) said in a statement released Tuesday. Bucknell University political scientist Zhiqun Zhu said the statement is a direct reference to foreign forces attempting to fan the flames of political unrest. “The definitions of 'infiltration' and 'sabotage activities' are very broad. Even a foreign journalist reporting on site is viewed with suspicion," Zhu told VOA. "Social media postings and commentaries on the protests are also considered adding fuel to the fire. “In this context, foreigners offering critical comments about the protests or making contacts with protesters are easily blamed for instigating, shaping and guiding the demonstrations,” he said. By blaming unrest on foreigners and foreign governments, analysts said, Beijing can whip up nationalist sentiments that weaken the protest movement. An estimated 43 protests across 22 Chinese cities unfolded between Saturday and Monday, according to the Canberra-based Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and some analysts say the protests have since spread to more cities and towns. China's leadership is trying to meet some protest demands to lift COVID-19 requirements such as lockdowns, mass testing and quarantines, and several locked-down areas and restaurants in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou — a manufacturing hub hit hard by the latest COVID-19 outbreaks — reopened Wednesday. “I believe that in the next few days most of the locked-down areas across China will be reopened,” Hu Xijin, former editor in chief of the Global Times and a strong Communist Party voice, said in a video statement on the paper’s website. Hu indicated this would likely be done to maintain social stability. “As lockdowns are coming to an end, the biggest factor for public discontent will be eliminated. It will have a very positive effect on maintaining social stability,” he said. Instead of using batons to keep protesters in line — a normal strategy for Chinese riot officers — police are busy identifying possible rebels and troublemakers and checking phones to find out whether they have been circulating protest images on virtual private networks and accessing banned sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Tuesday's statement by CPLAC said agency officials had emphasized that "political and legal organs must take effective measures to … resolutely safeguard national security and social stability." Will protests persist? Analysts differ on whether the protests — which are demanding democratic freedoms and an end to censorship — are likely to continue. “It is unlikely that there will be more large-scale protests in the near future,” Zhu said. “New policies are being rolled out to loosen COVID-19 controls. It is also expected that the ‘zero-COVID' policy will be replaced by more scientific and pragmatic measures,” he said. Others disagree. “More protests will emerge in different parts of China in the coming days, although the authorities may try to suppress them," said Jagannath Panda, head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific affairs at the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Sweden. "The Communist Party’s image has taken a severe beating because of widespread unemployment and the government’s repression.” Salih Hudayar, an activist leader of the Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang, said China might even use the military to suppress the protest movement. The suppression of Uyghurs has drawn the attention of human rights activists and several foreign governments. “The Chinese government has already started to crack down on the protests by intimidating protesters and arresting many of them,” said Hudayar, prime minister of the self-styled East Turkistan Government in Exile. “Because there is not any meaningful political support from the international community, it's highly likely that the Chinese government will use military force to suppress the protests in the coming weeks, if not days,” he said.

Mohammad Mehmet Ali lost his mother and four siblings in an apartment fire on Nov. 24 in China. Since then, he has been protesting China’s response to the incident. In an interview with VOA, he accused authorities of not putting out the fire, which spread in a building occupied mostly by Uyghurs, a Turkic minority ethnic group. VOA’s Umut Colak has filed this story from Istanbul, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard. Camera: Umut Colak

For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine. The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EST. 2:07 a.m.: Japan will use its turn next year in leadership roles at the Group of Seven and the United Nations to pressure Russia to halt its war in Ukraine, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoshimasa Hayashi said at the Reuters NEXT conference. "Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine is a clear violation of international law. It is an unacceptable and outrageous act threatening the very foundation of the international order," Hayashi said. Japanese leaders have said Russia's attack on Ukraine poses a challenge to their own national security and fear it may encourage North Korea to further threaten its neighbors and embolden China to use military force to push its territorial ambitions in the South China Sea and East Asia, including against nearby Taiwan. Japan's presidency of the G-7 industrial democracies in 2023 and its return for a two-year stint as a non-permanent Security Council member will give it a more conspicuous international platform to voice its concerns. 1:08 a.m.: France may face "some days" of power cuts this winter, the head of French power grid operator RTE said Thursday, as the government briefed local authorities on how to manage any possible outages. "The situation entails risks, but one must not think power cuts are inevitable," Xavier Piechaczyk told France Info radio, according to Reuters. Utility giant EDF has faced an unprecedented number of outages at its fleet of nuclear reactors, reducing nuclear output to a 30-year low just as Europe scrambles to replace Russian gas supplies, which Moscow cut off in retaliation for EU sanctions imposed over its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Piechaczyk stuck with the grid operator's last supply forecast, which had highlighted risks of shortages in January. "Today we have 35 gigawatt of available nuclear power as of December 1, the aim is to reach between 40 and 41 on January 1 and to end the month at around 43, compared to a total capacity of 61." Piechaczyk said the forecast was modeled on EDF's nuclear maintenance schedule, with some additional delays already anticipated. 12:02 a.m.: The U.S. government on Thursday announced the approval of a $380 million sale of Stinger portable anti-air missiles and other equipment to Finland, Agence France-Presse reported. "The proposed sale will improve Finland’s defense and deterrence capabilities," the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said in a statement. "This critical platform will bolster the land and air defense capabilities in Europe's northern flank, supporting the U.S. European Command's top priorities." The announcement comes more than nine months into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which pushed Finland and Sweden to seek NATO membership, and follows a $323 million proposed missile sale to Helsinki announced on Monday. The State Department approved the possible sale, and the DSCA on Thursday provided the required notification to Congress, which still needs to sign off on the transaction. Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Chinese students in the U.S. have been attending rallies across the nation this week in support of protests throughout China against Beijing’s “zero-COVID” policy. The mass demonstrations in China are the first since Tiananmen Square in 1989. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports. VOA Mandarin Service video journalists Fang Bing and Jiu Dao in New York and Wang Ping in Washington contributed to this report. Camera: Genia Dulot Video editor: Elizabeth Lee

US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed that they would never pressure Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war with Russia, saying the US and France stand as united as ever with their NATO allies against Moscow's invasion. VOA's senior diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports.

International Edition delivers insight into world news through eye-witnesses, correspondent reports and analysis from experts and news makers. We also keep you in touch with social media, science and entertainment trends.

In the highly conservative country of Pakistan, AIDS patients often face discrimination that keeps them from disclosing their diagnosis. Hundreds of HIV cases reported in Sindh Province in 2019 included children. That region was recently devastated by floods, making access to health care for HIV patients even more difficult. VOA’s Sidra Dar reports from Sindh Province, in this report narrated by Asadullah Khalid. Camera: Muhammad Khalil

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed increasing the amount of ethanol and other biofuels that must be blended into the nation's fuel supplies over the next three years, a move welcomed by renewable fuel and farm groups but condemned by environmentalists and oil industry groups. "This proposal supports low-carbon renewable fuels and seeks public input on ways to strengthen the program," EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said in a statement. "With this proposal, EPA seeks to provide consumers with more options while diversifying our nation's energy mix." The proposal also includes new incentives to encourage the use of biogas from farms and landfills, and renewable biomass such as wood to generate electricity to charge electric vehicles. It's the first time the EPA has set biofuel targets on its own instead of using numbers from Congress. The agency opened a public comment period and will hold a hearing in January. Goal includes reducing fuel prices The goal of the existing Renewable Fuel Standard is to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to climate change, expand the country's fuel supply, strengthen energy security and reduce fuel prices for consumers. Ethanol is a key part of the economy in many Midwestern states, consuming about 40% of the nation's corn supply. But environmentalists argue it's a net ecological and climate detriment because growing all that corn fosters unsustainable farming practices, while the oil industry says ethanol mandates constrain free market forces and limit consumer choice, and that higher blends can damage older vehicles. Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, told reporters on a conference call that the EPA's plan creates a "clear pathway for sustainable growth for our industry when it comes to the production and use of low-carbon fuels like ethanol." He said it also bolsters the industry's push for year-round sales of gasoline with a 15% ethanol blend, as well as sales of the 85% ethanol blend E85. "As the administration is working to address climate change, we've long known that biofuels will play an important role in reducing greenhouse gases while having the added benefit of providing expanded opportunities for farmers," National Farmers Union President Rob Larew said in a statement. Climate campaigner calls plan 'toxic' Environmental groups said the plan offers false solutions to climate change. "This is a toxic plan directly at odds with the Biden Administration's commitment to Environmental Justice," Sarah Lutz, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said in a statement. "Charging electric vehicles with forests and factory farms should be a non-starter." Geoff Moody, senior vice president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, said the Renewable Fuel Standard was meant to be a liquid fuels program, not an electric vehicle program. He urged the EPA to go back as it develops the final rule and reject "yet another massive regulatory subsidy for electric vehicle manufacturers." The EPA proposes to set the total target for all kinds of renewable fuels at 20.82 billion gallons for 2023, including 15 billion gallons from corn ethanol. The target would grow to 22.68 billion gallons for 2025, including 15.25 billion gallons of corn ethanol. The plan also calls for growth in cellulosic biofuels — which are made from fibrous plant materials — biomass-based diesel and other advanced biofuels. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, which is the top corn and ethanol producing state in the United States, said in a statement that the EPA should have gone further to require even more use of advanced biofuels to move freight, which he said would help lower prices for consumer goods. Cooper said there's probably no way to meet the proposed higher targets without more use of E15 and E85 instead of the conventional 10% ethanol mix. That makes it important to eliminate regulations that block summertime sales of E15, he said. So, he predicted, the EPA's proposal should bolster prospects for legislation introduced this week by Democratic U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and GOP Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska to allow year-round sales of E15 nationwide. E15 sales are usually prohibited between June 1 and September 15 because of concerns that it adds to smog in high temperatures. Eight Midwestern governors asked the EPA in April to allow year-round sales of E15 in their states. But Cooper said the new bill would provide a "nationwide fix" that even the American Petroleum Institute considers preferable to the current patchwork of temporary waivers and ad hoc solutions.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Democrats control the U.S. Senate by a slim margin. But the final balance of power will be decided in the state of Georgia on December 6, when voters choose between Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said on Thursday it approved SpaceX's bid to deploy up to 7,500 satellites but put on hold other decisions. SpaceX's Starlink, a fast-growing network of more than 3,500 satellites in low-Earth orbit, has tens of thousands of users in the United States so far, with consumers paying at least $599 for a user terminal and $110 a month for service. The FCC in 2018 approved SpaceX plans to deploy up to 4,425 first-generation satellites. SpaceX has sought approval to operate a network of 29,988 satellites, to be known as its “second-generation” or Gen2 Starlink constellation to beam the internet to areas with little or no internet access. "Our action will allow SpaceX to begin deployment of Gen2 Starlink, which will bring next generation satellite broadband to Americans nationwide," the FCC said in its approval order, adding it "will enable worldwide satellite broadband service, helping to close the digital divide on a global scale." The FCC said its decision "will protect other satellite and terrestrial operators from harmful interference and maintain a safe space environment" and protect "spectrum and orbital resources for future use." In August, a U.S. appeals court upheld the 2021 decision of the FCC to approve a SpaceX plan to deploy some Starlink satellites at a lower Earth orbit than planned as part of its push to offer space-based broadband internet. In September, SpaceX challenged the FCC decision to deny it $885.5 million in rural broadband subsidies. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in August that Starlink’s technology “has real promise” but it could not meet the program’s requirements, citing data that showed a steady decline in speeds over the past year and casting the service’s price as too steep for consumers.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk said his Neuralink company is seeking permission to test its brain implant in people soon. In a "show and tell" presentation livestreamed Wednesday night, Musk said his team is in the process of asking U.S. regulators to allow them to test the device. He said he thinks the company should be able to put the implant in a human brain as part of a clinical trial in about six months, though that timeline is far from certain. Musk's Neuralink is one of many groups working on linking brains to computers, efforts aimed at helping treat brain disorders, overcoming brain injuries and other applications. The field dates to the 1960s, said Rajesh Rao, co-director of the Center for Neurotechnology at the University of Washington. "But it really took off in the ’90s. And more recently we've seen lots of advances, especially in the area of communication brain computer interfaces." Rao, who watched Musk's presentation online, said he doesn't think Neuralink is ahead of the pack in terms of brain-computer interface achievements. "But ... they are quite ahead in terms of the actual hardware in the devices," he said. The Neuralink device is about the size of a large coin and is designed to be implanted in the skull, with ultra-thin wires going directly into the brain. Musk said the first two applications in people would be restoring vision and helping people with little or no ability to operate their muscles rapidly use digital devices. He said he also envisions that in someone with a broken neck, signals from the brain could be bridged to Neuralink devices in the spinal cord. "We're confident there are no physical limitations to enabling full body functionality," said Musk, who recently took over Twitter and is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. In experiments by other teams, implanted sensors have let paralyzed people use brain signals to operate computers and move robotic arms. In a 2018 study in the journal PLOS ONE, three participants with paralysis below the neck affecting all of their limbs used an experimental brain-computer interface being tested by the consortium BrainGate. The interface records neural activity from a small sensor in the brain to navigate things like email and apps. A recent study in the journal Nature, by scientists at the Swiss research center NeuroRestore, identified a type of neuron activated by electrical stimulation of the spinal cord, allowing nine patients with chronic spinal cord injury to walk again. Researchers have also been working on brain and machine interfaces for restoring vision. Rao said some companies have developed retinal implants, but Musk's announcement suggested his team would use signals directly targeting the brain's visual cortex, an approach that some academic groups are also pursuing, "with limited success." Neuralink did not immediately respond to an email to the press office. Dr. Jaimie Henderson, a neurosurgery professor at Stanford University who is an adviser for Neuralink, said one way Neuralink is different from some other devices is that it has the ability to reach into deeper layers of the brain. But he added: "There are lots of different systems that have lots of different advantages."

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

On Thursday, a day after Jiang Zemin’s death, Chinese newspapers turned their front pages black and Chinese flags were lowered to half-staff on government buildings and Chinese embassies to mark the death of China’s former leader, whose funeral is scheduled for Tuesday. On China’s heavily censored social media, users posted mostly positive comments focused on Jiang’s legacy since his death Wednesday. These remarks contrasted with posts from experts and Twitter users located outside China who compared the relatively more liberal times he oversaw with the increasingly authoritarian environment under the current leader Xi Jinping. VOA Mandarin’s tweet asking for comments on Jiang’s legacy received more than 19,300 total comments, likes and shares. Some Chinese netizens who responded mentioned the relatively prosperous culture in mainland China during Jiang’s era. One comment said, “Many classic and meaningful movies and TV series appeared during his administration. It was also during his era that China introduced Hollywood blockbusters. I still remember that when Titanic was released in China, he publicly expressed his love for this movie. At that time, I said to my friend, Jiang is advertising for the movie.” Compared to Xi, who once wanted to eliminate term limits, netizens mentioned that Jiang served two terms as the Communist Party’s general secretary and the country’s president. Others posted outside the Mandarin Service. James Zimmerman, a Beijing-based lawyer and former chairman of the business group, AmCham China, said in a tweet that “Jiang Zemin was a complicated guy with a mixed legacy. But he encouraged many Mainland Chinese people to embrace the world — travel it, learn from it, respect it. Xi Jinping is no Jiang Zemin.” NPR's London correspondent Frank Langfitt recalled his brief interaction with Jiang, who had summoned reporters to in the Great Hall of the People in 1997. Reporters’ questions were not reviewed in advance during what Langfitt described as an “unprecedented” press conference, and Jiang did not use an interpreter when answering Langfett's questions. “Such a press conference and exchange are unthinkable under the current leader, Xi Jinping. And a reminder that China wasn't always the way it is now,” Langfitt said in a tweet. Sarah Cook, research director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at Freedom House, said on Twitter, "It was another era but let’s not forget that Jiang laid the foundation for much censorship and brutality we see under Xi, building the GFW (Great Fire Wall) and of course, launching the violent suppression of people who practice Falun Gong.” The Great Fire Wall is what Chinese people call China’s online censorship. Falun Gong is a spiritual movement that has been banned in China. Yaqiu Wang, senior researcher on China at Human Rights Watch, tweeted, “Jiang was better, but he was still an authoritarian ruler who got the top position because he successfully suppressed the Tiananmen Protests. I hope people will allow themselves to imagine a better China without resorting to the less bad dictators in the past.” The government used deadly force in 1989 to suppress protestors in Tiananmen Square who were demanding greater political freedom. In an interview with VOA Mandarin, David Lampton, a China expert at the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who had met Jiang many times, thinks Jiang had a sense of both history and the future that the current leadership does not. “Therefore, you saw Jiang Zemin, basically, mistakes aside, pushing in a direction with history,” he said. “And it’d be my judgment, on the big strategic issues, that the current leadership in China is not pushing in the direction of history.”

A unanimous federal appeals court on Thursday ended an independent review of documents seized from former President Donald Trump's Florida estate, removing a hurdle the Justice Department said had delayed its criminal investigation into the retention of top-secret government information. The decision by the three-judge panel represents a significant win for federal prosecutors, clearing the way for them to use as part of their investigation the entire tranche of documents seized during an August 8 FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. It also amounts to a sharp repudiation of arguments by Trump's lawyers, who for months had said that the former president was entitled to have a so-called "special master" conduct a neutral review of the thousands of documents taken from the property. The ruling from the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit had been expected given the skeptical questions the judges directed at a Trump lawyer during arguments last week, and because two of the three judges on the panel had already ruled in favor of the Justice Department in an earlier dispute over the special master. The decision was unanimous from the three-judge panel of Republican appointees, including two selected by Trump. In it, the court rejected each argument by Trump and his attorneys for why a special master was necessary, including his claims that the seized records were protected by attorney-client privilege or executive privilege. "It is indeed extraordinary for a warrant to be executed at the home of a former president — but not in a way that affects our legal analysis or otherwise gives the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation," the judges wrote. Litigation alongside investigation The special master litigation has played out alongside an ongoing investigation examining the potential criminal mishandling of national defense information as well as efforts to possibly obstruct that probe. Attorney General Merrick Garland last month appointed Jack Smith, a veteran public corruption prosecutor, to serve as special counsel overseeing that investigation. It remains unclear how much longer the investigation will last, or who, if anyone, might be charged. But the probe has shown signs of intensifying, with investigators questioning multiple Trump associates about the documents and granting one key ally immunity to ensure his testimony before a federal grand jury. And the appeals court decision is likely to speed the investigation along by cutting short the outside review of the records. The conflict over the special master began just weeks after the FBI's search, when Trump sued in federal court in Florida seeking the appointment of an independent arbiter to review the roughly 13,000 documents the Justice Department says were taken from the home. A federal judge, Aileen Cannon, granted the Trump team's request, naming veteran Brooklyn judge Raymond Dearie to serve as special master and tasking him with reviewing the seized records and filtering out from the criminal investigation any documents that might be covered by claims of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege. She also barred the Justice Department from using in its criminal investigation any of the seized records, including the roughly 100 with classification markings, until Dearie completed his work. The Justice Department objected to the appointment, saying that it was an unnecessary hindrance to its criminal investigation and that Trump had no credible basis to invoke either attorney-client privilege or executive privilege to shield the records from investigators. It sought, as a first step, to regain access to the classified documents. A federal appeals panel sided with prosecutors in September, permitting the Justice Department to resume its review of the documents with classification markings. Two of the judges on that panel — Andrew Brasher and Britt Grant, both Trump appointees — were part of Thursday's ruling as well. The department also pressed for unfettered access to the much larger trove of unclassified documents, saying such records could contain important evidence for their investigation. Thursday's ruling In its ruling Thursday, the court directed Cannon to dismiss the lawsuit that gave rise to Dearie's appointment and suggested Trump had no legal basis to challenge the search in the first place. "The law is clear. We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so," the judges wrote. "Either approach," they added, "would be a radical reordering of our case law limiting the federal courts' involvement in criminal investigations. And both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations."

A bipartisan group of more than 40 U.S. senators warned China on Thursday against any violent crackdown on protests there, saying it would do "extraordinary damage" to the U.S.-China relationship. \The 42 senators, led by Democrat Jeff Merkley and Republicans Mitch McConnell, Dan Sullivan and Todd Young, said in a letter to China's Washington Ambassador Qin Gang that they were following the protests in China very carefully. "We are also closely watching the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) reaction to them," the senators' letter said, noting Beijing's violent crackdown on student protesters in 1989 that they said killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people. "We caution the CCP in the strongest possible terms not to once again undertake a violent crackdown on peaceful Chinese protesters who simply want more freedom. If that happens, we believe there will be grave consequences for the U.S.-China relationship, causing extraordinary damage to it," the letter said. China has been rocked in recent days by widespread protests against the world's toughest COVID-19 quarantine protocols, a show of public defiance unprecedented in since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012. Three decades ago, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the United States and many Western governments imposed sanctions against China over the killings. Last year, the United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada imposed sanctions on Chinese officials over alleged human rights abuses in China's Xinjiang region, which Washington has labeled a "genocide" against minority Muslims. On Monday, the White House said it backed the right of people to peacefully protest in China but stopped short of criticizing Beijing. The Democratic administration's cautious response drew Republican fire, but some analysts said it was right approach given the volatile U.S.-China relationship and the risk of playing into a Chinese narrative that accuses "foreign forces" of being behind dissent.