Free Republic

China deserves all the congratulations in the world for landing its first spacecraft on the Moon. It’s a big deal – both for China and humanity at large. But can somebody please explain why the background image at this exhibit for China’s recently deployed Yutu Rover depicts a massive mushroom cloud over Europe? […] The most likely explanation—the one we’re hoping for, anyway—is that this was just an unfortunate diplomatic oversight. As a redditor by the name of wigg1es points out, the backdrop is actually a stock image […] Still, there are undoubtedly those who will interpret the choice of...

China’s first lunar rover has successfully separated from the probe that carried it into space has and made its first track upon the surface of the moon, Chinese state media reported Sunday. The so-called “Jade Rabbit” rover detached itself from the much larger landing vehicle early Sunday morning, approximately seven hours after the unmanned Chang’e 3 space probe touched down on a fairly flat, Earth-facing part of the moon. The soft landing—the term for a landing in which neither the spacecraft nor its equipment is damaged—was the first on the moon by any nation in 37 years. …

At a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing on Global Human Rights on Thursday, five young women testified about their fathers, all of whom have been jailed in Communist China for their activism, religious beliefs or political activities. The women asked for the Obama administration and Congress to intervene on their behalf. … Peng Ming, who was living in the United States on transitional refugee status, traveled to Thailand in 2004 and was kidnapped by Chinese agents and taken to China where he was sentenced to life in prison for “organizing and leading a terrorist organization,” according to information provided by...

Chinese youths should challenge authority and reject conformity, US Vice President Joe Biden said today. Mr. Biden took a stand for the American mindset shortly after arriving in China for a two-day visit, as he addressed a group of visa applicants at the US Embassy in Beijing. The Vice President urged Chinese exchange students to challenge their government, teachers and religious leaders, and take inspiration from the attitude of young Americans. …

December 02, 2013, 06:58 pm Biden goes on mission to China By Julian Pecquet Vice President Biden has been thrust into the center of an escalating standoff with China that is testing him on the global stage ahead of a possible presidential run in 2016. President Obama dispatched Biden to Asia, where he will deliver a strong warning to China for declaring an air defense zone over islands that are also claimed by U.S. ally Japan. “This is an opportunity for Vice President Biden to raise our concerns directly with policymakers in Beijing and to seek clarity regarding the Chinese...

Li Zhongying was freed from a Chinese labor camp ahead of schedule in September because, guards told her, the government was scrapping “re-education through labor”, a heavily criticized penal system created in the 1950s. Several hundred other inmates were not so lucky, she said. Like Li, they were held without trial and forced to do factory work under what she called “cruel” conditions. They remained because they were drug offenders, she told Reuters. Many of China’s re-education through labor camps, instead of being abolished in line with a ruling Communist Party announcement this month, are being turned into compulsory drug...

<p>WASHINGTON—A pair of American B-52 bombers flew over a disputed island chain in the East China Sea without informing Beijing, U.S. officials said Tuesday, in a direct challenge to China and its establishment of an expanded air-defense zone.</p> <p>The planes flew out of Guam and entered the new Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone at about 7 p.m. Washington time Monday, according to a U.S. official.</p>

'After faulty stock made in China almost sank luxury goods firm Patrona, it decided to make its products in the UK and couldn't be happier'.

China is to relax its policy of restricting most couples to having only a single child, state media say. In future, families will be allowed two children if one parent is an only child, the Xinhua news agency said. The proposal follows this week's meeting of a key decision-making body of the governing Communist Party. Other reforms include the abolition of "re-education through labour" camps and moves to boost the role of the private sector in the economy. The BBC's Celia Hatton, in Beijing, says most of the changes have already been tested in parts of the country. Officials announce...

The West African nation of Gambia has cut off relations with Taiwan, the latest country to spurn the island for its mainland rival China. Foreign Ministry spokesman Michael Chen confirmed the move but declined to give a reason behind the move by Banjul, which seems almost certain to lead to the establishment of formal ties between Gambia and China. … With the loss of Gambia, Taiwan is now recognized by 22 countries, mostly small and impoverished nations in Latin America, the Caribbean and the south Pacific. Swaziland, Sao Tome and Principe and Burkina Faso are its only remaining diplomatic allies...

A new audit-report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) shows that the IRS sent at least 343 potentially fraudulent tax returns in 2011 to the same, single address in Shanghai, China, for a total of $156,533 in tax refunds. The same report also shows that 655 potentially fraudulent tax refunds totaling $220,489 were sent to the same address in Kaunas, Lithuania. Other potentially fraudulent refunds, 580 of them, were sent to the same address in Orlando, Fla.; 355 to the same address in Lakewood, Colo; and another 291 to another single address in Orlando, Fla. In total,...

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has told Chinese Premier Li Keqiang that he hoped Vietnam and China would resolve all existing issues via peaceful dialogues on the basis of agreements reached by both nations’ leaders, Vietnam News Agency reported. Li visited Vietnam from October 13 to 15 as part of a week-long Southeast Asian tour. He was in Hanoi meeting with Trong on Monday. The Vietnamese Party chief urged both nations to continue taking on the responsibility of further developing the countries' bilateral friendship. He called the relationship a "common treasure shared by the two peoples." Trong said the...

Europe and China have agreed a currency swap deal to boost trade and investment between the regions. Under the terms of the deal between the European Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China, the swap facility could total as much as 350 billion yuan and €45 billion. … For years Beijing has kept tight control of the yuan, pegging the currency to the U.S. dollar as a way of promoting manufacturing in its export-driven economy, though it has slowly been loosening its hold recently. The swap deal will allow more trade and investment between the regions to be conducted...

The traditional American posture as the guarantor of freedom and protector of allies, and the scourge of Nazis, Communists and al Qaeda is headed toward a less manageable, every-man-for-himself series of ad hoc arrangements that portend greater international instability in which terrorism and warfare thrive. Here is what happens when the United States is weakened in the eyes of the world: China derides U.S. economic leadership, posits itself a "source of financial stability," and suggests the yuan as a replacement for the dollar. China also announces plans to sell Pakistan two more nuclear reactors. Russia doubles down by offering Iran...

U.S. Marine tilt-rotor aircraft swooped in during a joint training exercise at this military training range in southwestern Japan last week, dropping off Japanese ground troops and peeling away. The soldiers raced to nearby positions, cutting off an opposing force threatening Marines nearby. As military maneuvers go, it was fairly basic. But had it been a real-world mission, it might also have been illegal. Under the current interpretation of Japan’s pacifist constitution, Japan’s armed forces are not permitted to fight on behalf of friends or allies unless the Japanese themselves come under direct attack. It is a policy that conservative...

The whole world looked on as the United States embarrassed itself for three weeks with its government shutdown. China, the only other superpower, profited from the domestic dispute—but as Washington’s largest creditor, it also has cause for concern. … In a commentary published last week by Xinhua, Beijing’s state-owned news agency, commentator Liu Chang wrote: “As US politicians of both political parties are still shuffling back and forth between the White House and the Capitol Hill without striking a viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled...

More than $2.5 billionn (£1.6 billion) is being spent on events to mark the 120th anniversary of the birth of Mao Zedong, to the fury of many Chinese citizens. The money is being directed towards Mao’s birthplace of Shaoshan, where a tourist information center will be renovated and his former residence restored, according to the Changsha Evening News. High-speed rail stations and new highways will also be built to impress the expected influx of visitors. … However, Chinese internet users have criticized the sum of money the city plans to spend—far greater than originally planned—more than 37 years after Mao’s...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that he has canceled a scheduled trip to the Philippines due to the threat posed by tropical storm Nari. Forecasters say the storm could strike the northern Philippines as a typhoon as early as Friday, bringing strong winds and heavy rains. …

If China’s two-decade-long arms buildup continues at current rates, the mainland will be able “to take Taiwan by force before the end of 2020” despite any moves by Taiwanese allies such as the US to repel an invasion, Taiwan’s military said Tuesday. … China’s annual military spending has grown by double-digit rates on average for the past 20 years or so, according to the 2013 National Defense Report. The study added that China’s capacity for weapons research and manufacturing had also greatly increased and had come to pose “a grave threat to Taiwan”. China produces much of its military hardware...

Megachurch pastor Rick Warren received criticism this week after posting a photo of a Chinese Red Guard on his Facebook page Monday. The photo....showed a smiling worker in uniform for the Cultural Revolution, which was a social-political movement in China from 1966 to 1976. Millions of people died due to the impact of the revolution. Along with the photo, Warren posted the caption, "The typical attitude of Saddleback Staff as they start work each day.” “People often miss irony on the Internet. It’s a joke people! If you take this seriously, you really shouldn’t be following me!” Warren posted as...

President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap his Asia trip is a setback for his much-advertised pledge to shift the focus of foreign policy to the Pacific and a boost for China’s attempt to gain influence in the region. By staying home because of the partial government shutdown, Obama hands new Chinese leader Xi Jinping a chance to fill the void at two Asian summits Obama had planned to attend. It’s the third time since 2010 that Obama has canceled an Asia trip, all because of domestic political crises. … The situation works for China, which is rapidly modernizing its armed...

EU and Chinese firms should have equal access to each other’s markets, the bloc’s leading trade official said Tuesday, warning that Beijing would not be able to subsidize its industries and maintain economic growth. “The growth model that has brought the country to the gates of prosperity will not be the one that takes them through,” EU trade commissioner Karel de Gucht said, at an event organized by the EU Chamber of Commerce in China. But de Gucht played down recent trade “frictions” between Brussels and Beijing. …

“With a subtle motion of the hand”, China took away the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) pipeline project from the USA and became yesterday the chief controller of gas resources in Central and South Asia. Somebody else’s ideas and plans have been expropriated by means of contract for sale of 25 billion cubic meters of gas per year concluded between State Concern Turkmengas and Chinese Company CNPC. The deal will increase the total volume of Turkmen gas supplied to China up to 65 billion cubic meters. At the same time, the agreement is achieved on the planned new direction of Turkmenistan–China pipeline (D...

Japan said Tuesday it is considering stationing government officials on disputed East China Sea islands to back its territorial claim. … In Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry warned that such a move would not be tolerated. … Japan also summoned China’s ambassador in Tokyo on Tuesday to lodge a protest after eight Chinese coast guard vessels entered waters near the islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. …

A U.S. committee that reviews mergers between American companies and those overseas has given clearance to the proposed sale of Smithfield Foods Inc. to a Chinese company. Smithfield said Friday that the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States gave clearance for the pork producer to be acquired by Shuanghui International Holdings Limited. The committee reviews overseas transactions for national security implications. …

China plans to occupy a disputed chain of reefs and rocks in the South China Sea to expand its territory before regional rules on maritime behavior come into effect, the Philippines’ top diplomat said on Wednesday. The Philippines believes China’s incursion into the Scarborough Shoal is a threat to peace in Southeast Asia, said Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario. In Beijing, a foreign ministry spokesman described the shoal—which lies about 125 nautical miles off the Philippines’ main island of Luzon—as China’s “inherent territory”. …

John McCain was in Tokyo speaking on he Senkaku Island (Japanese name) dispute with China, Wednesday, August 21, 2013. He said: “The Congress in the United States resolution last year said the Senkaku is a Japanese territory. That is our position as a congress and as a government. I will continue to repeat that when I go to China.“ John McCain, Wednesday, August 23, 2013 in Tokyo Two days later, John McCain was in Beijing speaking to the Chinese on the Diaoyu Island (Chinese name) dispute with Japan, Friday, August 23, 2013, two days later. He said: "The U.S. has...

Police have detained a Chinese journalist on suspicion of causing trouble after he openly alleged that a senior government official was negligent with his public duties, lawyers said Saturday. Si Weijiang, a lawyer for Liu Hu, said the journalist was detained by Beijing police Friday at his home in the southern city of Chongqing and taken to Beijing. … In postings on his personal microblogs, Liu had urged authorities to investigate Ma Zhengqi, deputy director of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, saying Ma was derelict while working in Chongqing. He also shared information that raised questions over possible...

"Hold high the great red banner of Mao Zedong Thought--thoroughly smash the rotting counterrevolutionary revisionist line in literature and art" - 1967 During the Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976 – the time when the greatest damage was being done in the name of the Spirit of Vatican II) people were bullied into rejection of the sì jiù, the Four “Olds”: Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas.  The Four Olds were equated with monsters and demons, “cow ghosts and snake spirits”, that had to be purged.The conforming hoards, taken up in a frenzy of fear and zeal, marched in...

Chinese authorities have launched an investigation against French drugmaker Sanofi following a news report that accused the company of bribing hundreds of Chinese doctors in 2007. An unnamed whistleblower told the Guangzhou-based, state-owned 21st Century Business Herald that the French company had paid 503 doctors a total of $274,000 to prescribe Sanofi products, disguising the payments as grants for research programs. China’s official Xinhua News Agency said Saturday that the Beijing municipal health bureau was teaming up with disciplinary authorities to look into the research programs and determine whether the payments were actually bribes. …

Beijing says the human rights situation in China is at a historic best, rejecting comments from a senior U.S. diplomat that the rights situation is deteriorating in China, with relatives of activists increasingly being harassed and policies in ethnic areas becoming more repressive. In a statement issued late Friday, China’s Foreign Ministry said that the Chinese are enjoying unprecedented rights, but added those rights must be exercised within China’s law. … Rights watchers have been alarmed by the targeting of relatives of high-profile dissidents, including blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, who exposed abuses in the enforcement of China’s one-child policies, and...

Single people in Guangdong province reported going 30 months on average without kisses, a survey said on Wednesday. The survey was conducted by baihe.com, a leading matchmaking service provider in China. It also found that young single people in Jiangsu province went an average of 36 months for without being kissed. Meanwhile, 92 percent of single people between the ages of 22 and 35 in Shanghai said they have been kissed within the last week. Some netizens and experts have called for the establishment of Kiss Day in China to build a closer relationship between young people.

More Chinese cities may restrict vehicle purchases in a bid to fight air pollution and traffic congestion, state media reported. With more than 13 million cars sold in China last year, motor vehicles and their emissions have emerged as the chief culprit for the air pollution in large cities. Beijing, Shanghai and two other cities already curb the purchase of vehicles for private use, through lotteries and auctions of a limited number of license plates. …

Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that China’s rise is good for the U.S. and the world, but its theft of U.S intellectual property must stop, as the two global powers began annual talks to build cooperation and hash out their deep-seated differences. The Strategic and Economic Dialogue is taking place a month after the U.S. and Chinese presidents held an unconventional summit at a California resort that aimed to set a positive tone in relations, but also made plain Washington’s growing anxiety about Chinese cyber-theft. “We both will benefit from an open, secure, reliable Internet. Outright cyber-enabling theft that...

China took aim this week at prices of two high-profile necessities—first baby formula, then medicines—as the country’s communist leaders try to contain surging living costs that threaten to inflame political tensions. A probe into possible price-fixing by foreign milk suppliers prompted at least two companies—Nestlé SA and FrieslandCampina—to announce a price cut. On Friday, news reports said a Cabinet agency is looking into the cost of drugs made by 60 foreign and domestic suppliers. There was no indication of wrongdoing, but the probe could be a prelude to a cut in government-set caps on prices. The action could help the...

MANILA, Philippines - Writing a commentary in China's state press agency, Xinhua news analyst Lu Yu saw the Philippines under President Benigno Aquino III a bad hat in the territorial dispute in the South China Sea. "The Philippines, under its current administration, has been a true troublemaker in the region," Lu said, complaining that the country has "assaulted and detained" Chinese fishermen and had an old warship "stranded on purpose" at Ren'ai Reef or the Second Thomas Shoal. Related story: Chinese ship runs aground in Tubbataha The remark was published Monday following Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario's pronouncements on...

President Barack Obama says he doesn’t feel threatened by the fact that other countries, led by China, are investing in Africa. In fact, Obama says the more countries that come to Africa, the merrier. … But he cautions that Africa must be wary of outside investment and always ask how it will benefit when other countries come seeking its natural resources or to make other investments. …

BEIJING (AP) -- A tense minority region in China's far west erupted in violence Friday for the second time in three days, barely hours after the government called the earlier unrest a "terrorist attack" and raised the death toll to 35. State media gave few details in a brief dispatch about Friday's unrest, saying it was "a violent attack" that took place on a pedestrian street in Hotan, a city in Xinjiang, a region that has seen China's minority Uighurs clash with the ethnic Han majority. No details on casualties were released.

China's Global Times - that reliable purveyor of the sublimely ridiculous, the terrifyingly nationalistic, and the just generally offensive -- struck again on Wednesday, with a quick nine-paragrapher that may just manage to combine all three offerings in one: "American Indians descend from Hunan, says expert." The tabloid reports on the findings of Du Gangjian, dean of Hunan University Law School, who, on a recent trip to study Native American tribes in the United States (the article doesn't specify which ones), made the discovery that "American Indians have many rituals, habits and working tools that are very similar to the...

On Wednesday, the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress will convene. What’s on the agenda? A proposal to fast-track a massive urbanization plan. Beijing is now placing a big bet on cities. The gamble, however, is unlikely to pay off. It could even sink the Chinese economy and create social unrest. Today, the Tokyo metropolitan area, home to 37.1 million, can claim to be the world’s most populous urban region. Beijing wants to top that and build metropolises dwarfing anything seen in Japan—or anywhere else. How about a Chinese city of 260 million people? That’s the size of the...

Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, who was allowed to travel to the U.S. after escaping from house arrest, said Monday that New York University is forcing him and his family to leave at the end of this month because of pressure from the Chinese government. The university denied Chen’s allegations. Chen said in a statement that China’s Communist Party had been applying “great, unrelenting pressure” on NYU to ask him to leave, though he did not provide details or evidence to back his claim. Chen said Beijing’s authoritarian government has more influence on the American academic community than is perceived. “The...

The untold story of the Communist destruction of the Our Lady of Consolation Trappist Abbey at Yangjiaping in 1947Part 1, Accusations“He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.” John 1:10I have just returned from another year in China where I have witnessed the Church grow. I have seen churches struggle to accommodate the crowds who come for Holy Mass, and I have listened to countless stories of Christian suffering under China’s Communist rule. Over the years I have traveled with, worshipped with, and prayed with Chinese Catholics. Priests have...

China’s latest manned spacecraft successfully blasted off Tuesday on a 15-day mission to dock with a space lab and educate young people about science. The Shenzhou 10 capsule carrying three astronauts lifted off as scheduled at 5:38 p.m. (0938 GMT) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert. It is China’s fifth manned space mission and its longest. …

Bradley Manning proved that massive amounts of the government's most secret data was vulnerable to being dumped on the open Internet. A single individual achieved that unprecedented leak. According to the Washington Post, "An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances." And this week, we learned that the FBI, CIA and NSA were unable to protect some of their most closely held secrets from Glenn Greenwald, Richard Engel, Robert Windrem, Barton Gellman, and Laura Poitras. Those journalists, talented as they are, possess somewhat fewer resources than foreign governments! So...

The United States is at a crossroads, and the American people must consider carefully an issue that has been creeping up on us for two decades. For most of the past 70 years, America enjoyed unquestioned naval global superiority, and we could be confident that the U.S. Navy could establish and sustain maritime dominance wherever and whenever needed. However, since the early 1990s, America’s Navy has been in decline with our fleet shrinking from almost 600 ships to just 283 ships by the end of 2012. Now in 2013, President Obama has announced a new defense strategy for America that...

Chinese meat company Shuanghui International’s plans to buy U.S.-based pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc. has some lawmakers worried the deal could create food safety issues for U.S. consumers. Mostly silent after the deal was announced a week ago during a Congressional recess, lawmakers are taking a closer look. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, said on Wednesday that federal agencies considering the merger “must take China’s and Shuanghui’s troubling track record on food safety into account.” … That concern stems from recent food safety issues at Shuanghui and in China. The company was forced to recall its...

Choices: 1. China poses an existential threat to the United States 2. China is a strategic adversary seeking regional or global hegemony 3. China is an economic competitor to the U.S. but poses no military threat 4. China poses no threat to the U.S. of any kind

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article titled "Reading Hayek in Beijing", in relation to the award of Manhattan Institute's Hayek Prize to Yang Jisheng, a Chinese journalist and author of Tombstone, a painstakingly researched history of famine in China during the period of Mao Zedong. Prior to the communist revolution, China was a highly advanced economy. With the implementation of Mao's Red Book teachings, China suffered many episodes of starvation, poverty, and economic collapse. Yang lost his father during the famine that took 36 million Chinese lives during 1958-1962. The article noted that the source of all the...

(article photo) As America grew in the 1800s from a republic of a few millions, whose frontier stopped at the Mississippi, into a world power, there were constant collisions with the world’s greatest empire. In 1812, we declared war on Britain, tried to invade Canada and got our Capitol burned. In 1818, Andrew Jackson, on an expedition into Spanish Florida to put down renegade Indians harassing Georgia, hanged two British subjects he had captured, creating a firestorm in Britain. In 1838, we came close to war over Canada’s border with Maine; in 1846, over Canada’s border with the Oregon Territory....

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has said he won't step down because of pressure from Britain and other countries for a change in government. “You want me to retire? You do not talk of retirement when elections are coming, do you?” the 89-year-old president told Kyodo News in an interview in the Japanese city of Yokohama where he was attending and a thre- day summit on African development. Mugabe will lead his Zanu PF party in elections to choose a substantive government this year, replacing the coalition administration he formed with rival Morgan Tsvangirai after disputed polls in 2008. The Constitutional Court...