The Chinese Communist Party has formally expelled two former defense ministers who had earlier been dismissed from their posts and revealed that financial corruption was the reason they were fired. 

China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday that Gen. Li Shangfu and Gen. Wei Fenghe lost their party memberships because of serious violations of party discipline and law. Gen. Li was charged with seeking “improper benefits” and accepting “a huge amount of money and valuables in return,” the state media outlet reported. Gen. Wei was expelled for violations of party discipline for accepting money and gifts.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has embarked on a widespread purge of rivals and officials in recent years as he has concentrated power. Party expulsion in China is normally the first step in further punishment that in the past has involved imprisonment or execution based on the extent of financial crimes.

A high-level delegation of left-leaning South Korean lawmakers is calling on their country’s conservative president to resist Western pressure to directly arm Ukraine against Russia, even as North Korea is widely accused of aiding the Kremlin in the fight.

“We need to slow this escalation down,” said Chung Dong-young, a South Korean National Assembly member who was in Washington this week with other liberal lawmakers, pushing for more engagement and less confrontation on the divided, heavily armed Korean peninsula.

Their message underscored heated political debate in Seoul over South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s decision last week to consider providing arms directly to Ukraine to help fight off Russia’s ongoing invasion.

South Korea has thus far provided humanitarian aid and other support to Ukraine, but not weapons. The Yoon government said it was considering a policy change after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s summit with North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang last week.

U.S. and South Korean officials have accused North Korea of supplying Russia with artillery shells, missiles and other equipment in recent months to help fuel its war on Ukraine, and Mr. Putin and Mr. Kim made global headlines by inking a new “strategic partnership” that includes a pact to come to each other’s defense in the event of war.

The three-day “Freedom Edge” military drills that began Thursday may be as important politically as operationally, according to Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon.

Mr. Salmon writes in a dispatch from Seoul that the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, the Japanese helicopter carrier Ise and destroyers and aircraft from all three nations will participate in drills taking place in waters south of South Korea’s Jeju Island, the site of a South Korean naval base. The island is strategically located inside the “First Island Chain” at the southeastern exit to the Yellow Sea, home to major Chinese naval bases and shipyards.

With the Biden administration pushing for better coordination with its key regional allies, the subtext to the drills is entrenching the emerging but still fragile security relationship between Seoul and Tokyo, in a region where Chinese, North Korean and Russian forces all maintain a major presence.

Iranians voted Friday in a snap election to replace hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May. Threat Status will track the results through the weekend. We’ll also be keeping an eye on the activities of Iranian opposition dissidents, who are slated to hold a major rally in Europe on Saturday calling for the downfall of the regime in Tehran.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to gather in the streets of Berlin on Saturday against the Iranian government. Organizers say the German event will offer further proof that the tide is turning against the clerical regime of Iran’s supreme leader and its “sham” election process that cares little for what the Iranian people truly want.

The “Great Gathering for a Free Iran” rally is being organized by the exiled Iranian dissident movement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and its associate group, the exiled People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK). 

U.S. humanitarian relief support for Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip will be the focus of coordinated reviews from the inspectors general of the Defense Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The Pentagon’s independent IG will assess the effectiveness of the Army-built temporary floating pier intended to deliver large quantities of humanitarian aid from ship to shore by truck. The pier, known as Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS), has faced several setbacks since it became operational on May 17, including shutdowns and damage caused by the weather and rough seas.

The troubles have come as the humanitarian crisis in the dense Palestinian enclave has deepened as Israel presses its offensive against Hamas militants and international aid officials warn of emerging famine conditions in part of the territory. Despite the challenges, Pentagon officials said JLOTS has helped deliver more than 9.1 million pounds of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Retired CIA officer and Threat Status contributor Daniel N. Hoffman reflects that the “best leaders” under whom he served during his time at the agency were people who “moderated, asked hard questions, prompted debate, and challenged their own assumptions.” 

“They purposely considered all viewpoints in the room without making any distinctions based on someone’s rank or job title. We planned our clandestine operations in a diverse and inclusive environment, with as close as possible to a 360-degree optic of the challenge before us,” writes Mr. Hoffman.

He goes on to argue that as the presidential election campaign heats up, the two major party candidates “should spend more time and energy describing how they would unite our country to deal with all the wickedly challenging threats to our national security because one party seeking to go it alone, especially to score political points against the other, would doom us to failure.”

“It’s worth remembering,” Mr. Hoffman writes, “that Republican Sen. Arthur Vandenberg ushered in an era of bipartisan collaboration on foreign policy after World War II, which enabled us to win the Cold War.”

• June 28 — Germany and the World: A Foreign Policy Conversation with State Secretary Thomas Bagger, Hudson Institute

• July 1 — America’s foreign policy: A conversation with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, The Brookings Institution.

• July 1 — Cyber Scams and Human Trafficking in Cambodia and Vietnam, U.S. Institute of Peace

• July 2 — Force Design: A conversation with Gen. Eric Smith, 39th commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, Brookings Institution

• July 8 — Revisiting the Legacy of Shinzo Abe, Stimson Center

• July 8 — The U.S. Vision for AI Safety: A Conversation with Elizabeth Kelly, Director of the U.S. AI Safety Institute, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

• July 11 — Supercharging the Development Finance Corporation: Opportunities and Pathways for Development, Infrastructure, and Investment, Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)