A 41-year-old Chinese national who is in the U.S. illegally was arrested on Tuesday after he allegedly shipped weapons from California to North Korea, the Justice Department said. According to an affidavit filed last week, Shenghua Wen of Ontario, California, obtained firearms, ammunition, and military equipment to ship to America’s enemy which is currently under sanctions. Wen allegedly hid the weapons and military equipment in shipping containers that shipped out from Long Beach to Hong Kong and then to North Korea. A federal complaint filed in the Central District of California said that Wen, along with other co-conspirators, “successfully exported at least two shipments of firearms and ammunition to North Korea,” Fox News reported. Wen allegedly admitted to investigators that he met with North Korean government officials at two North Korean consulates in China before he came to the U.S. on a student visa in 2012. Wen remained in the U.S. illegally after his student visa expired. He reportedly said he was directed to procure goods on behalf of the North Korean government because he was “good at smuggling.” The Chinese national also allegedly told investigators that North Korean government officials wired him around $2 million to purchase the weapons and military equipment. During two separate searches of Wen’s home earlier this year, federal agents seized a chemical threat identification device, a receiver that detects eavesdropping devices, and 50,000 rounds of 9mm ammunition, according to the DOJ. Wen allegedly told investigators that he believed the North Korean government would potentially use the weapons for a surprise attack on South Korea. The two shipments that made it to North Korea took place in October and December of 2023, according to the complaint. Wen allegedly had others purchase firearms for him to avoid being detected by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The federal complaint alleges that Wen told investigators “that he purchased many of the firearms that he sent to North Korea in Texas and that he drove the firearms from Texas to California on three separate trips.” Wen is charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and faces up to 20 years in federal prison. The North Korean dictatorship has been a major U.S. enemy since the Korean War split Korea into the Chinese Communist-backed North and Western-backed South. Wen’s arrest comes on the same day that South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law to guard against what he is calling “threats of North Korean communist forces” operating within the South Korean government. CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE In 2023 and into 2024, a record number of Chinese nationals illegally crossed the U.S. southern border under the Biden administration’s lax border policies. Since 2023, Border Patrol agents recorded more than 55,000 illegal entries into the U.S. by Chinese migrants, The Washington Post reported.

Defense expert Mackenzie Eaglen, the author of “Keeping Up with the Pacing Threat: Unveiling the True Size of Beijing’s Military Spending,” explained how the U.S. defense budget is inadequate, leaving the U.S. vulnerable to communist China. Eaglen made her comments on the podcast “School of War” with host Aaron MacLean, published on Tuesday. Most discussions of the defense budget don’t make you fear for your life—but here on @schoolofwarpod @MEaglen and I posit, maybe they should…https://t.co/UFMcbvZ6uV — Aaron MacLean (@AaronBMacLean) December 3, 2024 Eaglen dismissed the emphasis some critics of the Pentagon have put on the exorbitant costs of defense, saying, “If we’re just looking at our own investment in isolation and not accounting for the enemy  … or the competitor in this case, deterrence is expensive. … Just talking about what we’re spending and the fact of that doesn’t mean anything all by itself because is that enough relative to what?” “I like to look at our spending relative to what we need to do with this tool of statecraft, which is as busy as it ever was,” she stated. “It matters what Beijing is spending…not only are they outpacing in output in defense investments, which is manifest all over the world; they have a blue water navy, full-stop; they are present in every single major waterway where we are, but of course, how is that changing the risk calculus for what they might do that we might disagree with to change the status quo, whether that’s the Philippines, Taiwan or somewhere else.” CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE “And so I’m done with tired tropes like you are … what my research shows is that we don’t spend more than anyone else, actually, if you put us next to China’s budget on a relative basis,” she said. MacLean quoted China stating that in 2022, the country spent $229 billion on defense. He recalled the U.S. spending “somewhere in the 700s.” “You’re saying that the PLA and the Chinese Communist Party are lying?” he asked. “Shocking, I know,” Eaglen responded. “So, once a year, through state media, Beijing puts out its annual defense budget expenditure, total figure, top-line number, and we’re supposed to just nod and take them at their word and move on. … Their missile production and capacity rate is absolutely astounding, and I’m mostly focused on conventional forces. If we were to talk nuclear … it gets even worse. The math and firepower, the size and strength of the Chinese military is overwhelming. … The Pentagon says Beijing omits several major categories of expenditures in actual military-related spending. … It would have been closer to a trillion that they’re really spending.” Referring to China’s theft of intellectual; property, she stated, “That’s why so much of their aircraft, many of their ships, a lot of missiles, look like ours; it’s literally by stolen design. When you do it that way, it’s not going to be the perfect product,  it’s not as good as ours, at first, but you can rapidly iterate once you’ve stolen the IP and come up with a better product.” “If they know if this ever got beyond competition to something with the use of violence, we don’t have that capacity to rapidly repair and resupply forward in Asia, and it’s a really long way home to sail and fly things. You see how Beijing’s starting to win without fighting,” she concluded.

'Donald Trump is about to be president'

'The significance of this arrest'

'We've actually seen 100,000 followers grow with her tik-tok'

'Martial law has lost its effect'

'I'm just really sorry that we couldn't do this. I apologize that this happened'

'Boy, it's shocking'

He's crashing out

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