Mingri “Ezra” Jin, head pastor of Zion Church, is seen on September 12, 2018, in Beijing, days after authorities shut down one of China’s largest “underground” Protestant churches. (Getty Images)
A microchip and Taiwanese flag displayed on a phone screen are seen in this multiple exposure illustration photo on April 10, 2023. (Jakub Porzycki via Getty Images)
A worker inspects the form of the shaped steel billets following the press stage in the manufacturing process of 155mm caliber shells at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania on April 16, 2024. (Getty Images)
The US Navy aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain transit the South China Sea on November 4, 2021. (US Navy photo by Tyler R. Fraser)
Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China Li Zhanshu at the Eastern Economic Forum in Primorye, Russia, on September 7, 2022, on the heels of the Vostok 2022 joint military exercises between Russia and China. (TASS)
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to China's President Xi Jinping during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation leaders' summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on September 16, 2022. (Photo by Sergei Bobylov/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
Honor guards take part in a welcome ceremony for Paraguay's President Mario Abdo Benitez and Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei, Taiwan, on February 16, 2023. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)