The U.S. Cyber Command‘s top official insists efforts to deter Chinese and Russian cyberattacks are working despite mounting hacks from those adversaries who have hammered American businesses and targeted critical infrastructure in recent years.

Lawmakers at a Senate Armed Services Committee budget oversight hearing expressed concern that U.S. cyber defenses are failing to counter sophisticated cyber adversaries. But Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh testified Wednesday that what people do not see, and he cannot publicly disclose, are the several ways in which the U.S. Cyber Command he leads has deterred China’s and Russia’s digital operations.

U.S. officials told Congress this year that China was hacking into key infrastructure computer networks and “lurking” to wreak havoc at a later date. Software giant Microsoft, meanwhile, has said it discovered Russian hackers peering through its executives’ emails to learn what cybersecurity defenders knew about their tactics.

Amid growing North Korea-Russia ties, China’s government this week dispatched a high-level delegation to Pyongyang in an apparent effort to woo the regime of Kim Jong-un back into its orbit, according to published reports in Beijing.

Zhao Leji, the No. 3 official in China, is leading a “goodwill visit” to North Korea, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency and China’s Foreign Ministry disclosed. Mr. Zhao is the highest-ranking official to visit North Korea since President Xi Jinping traveled there in June 2019. North Korea is China’s only formal military ally. The two nations have a mutual defense pact dating to 1961.

U.S. intelligence agencies are working on a report expected to reveal extensive corruption and hidden wealth held by Chinese Communist Party leaders, including Mr. Xi, who also holds the post of party general secretary.

Senior officials of the 98 million-member party will be targeted, including those in the 205-member Central Committee, the 25 most senior officials of the Chinese Communist Party in the Politburo and the highest-ranking party organ, the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee headed by Mr. Xi.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz has a deep dive, writing that while the report is required by law through a section of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Biden in December, it is likely to upset the Biden administration’s effort to stabilize relations with Beijing.

The development comes amid rising U.S.-China tensions over Beijing’s stated goal of taking control of the island democracy of Taiwan. China on Thursday announced sanctions against two U.S. defense companies over what it says is their support for arms sales to Taiwan. The Taiwanese military, meanwhile, announced this week that it plans to hold war games from April 19 through April 26 that simulate a Chinese military exercise-turned-attack on the island.

Mr. Biden says his administration is “considering” whether to end the prosecution of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who is facing criminal charges for publishing thousands of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables.

Mr. Assange is an Australian citizen imprisoned in the United Kingdom. Australia has recently ramped up the pressure on Washington and London to return him to his home country. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the Justice Department is looking to wrap up what has been an extraordinarily long court battle against Mr. Assange that began in 2010, after he published thousands of classified documents related to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Mr. Biden initially stood firm in the face of Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel last year, but is now wavering in a fashion that sends an “unambiguous message” to America’s enemies that they have no reason to fear him, according to regular columnist Clifford D. May, who heads the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“When did the rock start to crumble, and the wavering begin? I’d say last month when Mr. Biden allowed a U.N. Security Council resolution backed by Russia, China and 22 Arab states to pass,” writes Mr. May. “The resolution didn’t demand that Hamas release its hostages — including six Americans — as a precondition for ‘a lasting sustainable ceasefire.’ The message didn’t condemn Hamas. It didn’t even mention Hamas.”

Retired Army Col. L. Scott Lingamfelter digs into the internal Republican disagreement over whether or not the U.S. should continue providing military aid to Ukraine, arguing that “Congress should not hesitate to fund Ukraine with the $60 billion to sustain that nation’s fight.”

“Republicans would do well to recall the words of President Franklin Roosevelt in his fireside chat on Dec. 29, 1940: ‘The people of Europe who are defending themselves do not ask us to do their fighting. They ask us for the implements of war, the planes, the guns, the tanks,’” Mr. Lingamfelter writes. “We must not allow our weariness from ‘forever wars’ to set the stage for something far worse.”